Chương 126: Chapter 110 (B2-ch4) – The Man in White

Nadean followed Sasesh through the narrow tunnel as quickly as the cramped space allowed. The reinforced passage sloped upward toward one of the air vents near the edge of the forest. Packed earth pressed close on every side, the tunnel held together entirely by Sasesh's magic.

"I should go first," Nadean whispered. Sasesh glanced back at her.

"No."

"I'm the least likely to be spotted." Professor Sanders was close behind them.

"It might not be safe."

"Nothing about this is safe." Nadean kept her voice low but firm.

"But if someone is really fighting Kharvaxis up there, then one of us should see what's happening. I'm the stealthiest, and you both know it. If anyone can get a look without being spotted, it's me." Sasesh continued moving forward, widening the air vent into a passage as he moved.

"Fine. Take a quick look but if whatever is up there turns toward you, get down and I'll cover the hole." Nadean nodded and a few moments later they reached the end of the tunnel. The only way left was up. Sasesh quickly worked his magic to widen the passage and create an earthen ladder that led up to the vent. Each handhold was rough but sturdy, and within moments she reached a small viewing hole near the surface. She carefully leaned forward and peered out. Her breath caught at the sight before her.

A man in a long flowing white cloak charged across the clearing outside of the destroyed camp. For several heartbeats, Nadean couldn't help but stare. The stranger's pearlescent cloak streamed behind him like a banner of white. A hood shadowed most of his face, leaving only glimpses of sun-kissed skin and a hard jaw beneath the fabric. But what astonished her most was that underneath the cloak, he wore nothing but light gray sweatpants. He had no other armor, no shirt, no protective gear whatsoever.

And yet he moved like he had no need for armor. His body looked like it was carved out of marble. Every muscle in his torso stood out with startling definition, sharp enough that even from this distance she could make out the hard lines of his abdomen, the chiseled muscles of his chest, and the powerful curve of his shoulders. He had no softness to him. Not a trace of fat anywhere along his sculpted frame. Her gaze dipped lower, following the hard lines of his obliques down as heat rushed to her face. Focus.

Red, orange, and yellow electricity crackled along his exposed skin, racing over his muscular frame in jagged arcs. But the sparking currents didn't seem to hurt him. It was as if he were moving so fast the air itself ignited around him.

"What kind of skill is that?" she whispered. Cannon blasts boomed through the clearing, drawing her attention away from the man and over towards Kharvaxis as the Lord of the Swamp fired those horrific claw cannons. Watermelon-sized stones screamed across the clearing toward the man in white. Nadean tensed. Surely she was about to see the man splattered into a pink mist like Kyle's leg. To her surprise, the man simply stepped aside as the projectile tore past him and obliterated a section of the treeline behind him.

Another shot followed, then another, but the man never stopped advancing. Each time he shifted just enough to avoid the projectiles, cloak snapping in the wind as he closed the distance one impossible step at a time. Nadean activated [Identify]. Human —??? What the? Her [Identify] had always given at least a name before. That was one of the basic functions of the skill. It had always told her the name of a person as well as their place on the leaderboard of their quadrant.

Before she could think through what that meant, the man reached Kharvaxis. The Lord of the Swamp reared back and brought one massive claw down with enough force to crush him into the mud. Nadean's fingers tightened around the edge of the viewing hole. There was no way he could survive that. Surely this time he would be crushed into oblivion for daring to attack a Lord of the Swamp. A creature that had haunted her nightmares ever since her party attempted and failed to take it down weeks ago.

Yet she couldn't look away. Instead of retreating, the man drove forward into the strike, swinging his axe upward to meet the descending claw. A black shard embedded in the head of his weapon caught the midday light as it struck Kharvaxis' armored shell. For one impossible instant, man and monster collided. The axe bit deep and Nadean's eyes widened as the blade carved through part of the Lord's thick claw.

The impact still warped the metal haft, bending it grotesquely under the force of the blow, but the man had actually cut into the Lord's shell. Then the other claw slammed down on top of the first. Blood-soaked mud exploded in every direction as the ground thundered beneath the impact. Nadean's stomach dropped. Whoever that fool was had to be dead. No one could survive the force of the Lord's blow. For half a second, she mourned the strange, beautiful idiot who had just charged a Lord of the Swamp alone.

What was going through his mind? Why would he attack that monster by himself? Then movement flickered behind Kharvaxis and Nadean froze. The man in white stood behind the Lord, cloak billowing around him, still very much alive. Nadean stared, mouth agape. When did he move? One moment he'd been beneath the descending claw, and the next he simply wasn't. Her heart began to race even harder as the stranger shifted just enough for the hood to no longer completely hide his face.

Nadean caught only a fleeting glimpse of his strong jaw and high cheekbones before he moved again, dodging a spiked leg as it stomped down. Something about him tugged insistently at the back of her mind. Had she seen him before? He looked vaguely familiar, but the glimpse had been too brief for her to be certain. Maybe he was another survivor from Camp Persistence. Was that why he was here? Looking for anyone lucky enough to survive Richard's slaughter?

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Before she could think any further, the man moved again. He planted one foot against a segment of Kharvaxis' armored leg and launched himself upwards.

"What?" Nadean pressed her face closer to the earthen hole. He vaulted onto the creature's giant shell as if it were nothing. What is he doing? The shell had to be the thickest, most armored part of the Lord. Even if he could cut through the thick plating on its claws, there was no way he could carve through that mountain of spiral shell.

"Sasesh!" she whisper-shouted without taking her eyes off the battle.

"What?"

"You need to see this!"

"We can't all fit."

"Then make the tunnel bigger! Trust me, you NEED to see what is happening up here."

"Nadean—""No, listen to me!" she hissed.

"The guy up here isn't Richard. I don't know who he is, but I've never seen anyone move like this." Her eyes followed the man as he casually dodged a swipe from Kharvaxis' remaining claw before climbing higher onto the shell.

"He makes Kharvaxis look slow." As soon as the words left her mouth she realized how ridiculous she sounded. Nothing could make that horrific creature look slow yet the man made the fight look almost effortless.

"Hurry!" she called.

"Kharvaxis is completely focused on him. Don't worry about being quiet. Just make the tunnel bigger as fast as you can." A moment later the earth beneath her boots trembled. The narrow shaft widened as Sasesh's magic reshaped the packed soil around her.

"Make it big enough for Professor Sanders too!" Nadean added quickly.

"His [Advanced Analysis] might actually tell us who this guy is. My [Identify] won't." The tunnel expanded surprisingly quickly. Chunks of compacted earth folded away while stone supports thickened to reinforce the new opening. Within moments, Sasesh climbed onto the newly formed ledge, breathing noticeably harder from the effort. Professor Sanders followed close behind, immediately pressing himself against the edge of the opening.

"What in the—" All three of them looked toward Kharvaxis. The stranger had reached the very top of the spiral shell. The Lord twisted violently, throwing its massive body from side to side. Its armored legs gouged deep trenches through the ruined camp while it spun with astonishing speed, desperately trying to throw the man off of its back. But every movement the Lord of the Swamp made was useless. The cloaked stranger moved with effortless precision as if he were made to ride the bucking behemoth.

He looked less like someone fighting to stay upright and more like someone casually walking across an uneven path.

"That's impossible," Sasesh whispered, disbelief clear in his voice.

"How is he doing that?"

"Professor Sanders," Nadean said without looking away from the battle.

"Use [Advanced Analysis] on him. My [Identify] couldn't get a read for some reason." Professor Sanders swallowed hard.

"I... yes. But even with it overclocked it'll take some time from this far away." Before anyone spoke again, Kharvaxis suddenly froze. Less than a heartbeat later every etched groove carved into its spiral shell began glowing with an intense blue light. They could hear the stranger say something but the words were swallowed by the distance. He simply stood atop the Lord's shell as if he were waiting for something. Sasesh suddenly inhaled sharply and when Nadean looked over she saw his face had gone pale.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Can't you feel the mana?" His voice came out as a frightened whisper.

"I can feel it from here. It's pouring mana into the shell." His fingers tightened against the edge of the earthen ledge.

"A colossal amount of mana." The blue lines brightened further.

"It... it's charging a spell. A big one. Since when could Kharvaxis use magic?" No one answered.

"That thing is about to unleash something enormous." Nadean looked back toward the man in white to find him still casually standing atop the shell. His posture relaxed as if he didn't have a care in the world. Doesn't he realize what's happening? Should she yell out to warn him? Would he even hear her from this far away? Before a single word escaped her lips, the shell erupted with light.

Blue-white electricity crawled along the grooves at the base of Kharvaxis' spiral shell before racing upward in a tightening coil. The light grew brighter with every rotation, each etched line flaring as the Lord's electricity climbed higher and higher. Even from this distance static prickled across Nadean's skin, raising the hairs along the nape of her neck. Then the lightning struck.

A blinding flash consumed the top of the shell, forcing Nadean to squeeze her eyes shut as the entire clearing vanished beneath brilliant blue-white light. An instant later, thunder boomed through the swamp, shaking the reinforced tunnel and sending loose dirt raining down around them. No one spoke. There was no need. They all knew that no human could have survived that blast. When Nadean's vision finally returned, she forced herself to look back through the opening. Her breath caught in her throat.

The man in white still stood atop Kharvaxis' shell, completely unscathed. His pearlescent cloak, which had been billowing around him moments before, was now wrapped tightly around his waist and thighs. The light gray sweatpants he had worn earlier were gone, likely burned away by the blast, but the man himself looked untouched. Red, orange, and yellow still crackled along his exposed skin as though Kharvaxis' attack had merely added to the storm already living inside him.

Only then did Nadean notice the spear in his hand. Where did that come from? Sasesh sucked in a sharp breath beside her.

"How in the fuck did he survive that?" he whispered, voice shaking. The man on the shell suddenly laughed. A wild, carefree laugh that echoed across the ruined camp and into the tunnel where they watched. It was pure exhilaration—the sound of someone who found genuine joy in standing atop a Lord of the Swamp and challenging it head-on. The man lifted the spear and she saw rainbow light bloom along its length, bright enough to rival the fading glow of Kharvaxis' shell.

Then, with both hands, he drove the weapon straight down. A bolt of prismatic lightning erupted from the spear and punched into the shell beneath his feet. As soon as it made contact Kharvaxis' shell exploded. Chunks of thick armored shell blasted outward in every direction, thousands of razor-sharp fragments ripping through the air like shrapnel. Sasesh reacted instantly, throwing up a stone barricade over the viewing hole just before several fragments slammed into it with a series of heavy impacts.

As soon as the impacts ceased, he lowered the barricade. What greeted them stole the words from their mouths. Kharvaxis no longer had a shell. The man stood atop the exposed Lord, his axe once again in his hand. Only now the weapon had changed. The bent metal was gone, replaced by a dark wooden haft, and the axe head seemed to be nothing but the black shard that had once been embedded in the old blade.

"Did either of you see when he switched weapons?" Nadean whispered.

"No," Sasesh replied, still staring at the shellless Kharvaxis.

"That can't be right," Professor Sanders breathed. Sasesh glanced over.

"What?"

"That's impossible." Nadean turned toward Professor Sanders. His entire body trembled, and his eyes had gone wide as though he were staring at a ghost.

"Professor?" she asked. He swallowed hard before answering.

"My [Advanced Analysis] failed." Nadean's stomach tightened.

"What do you mean it failed?"

"It gave me one line," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Just. One. Line. And then the skill stopped. It's never done that before." Sasesh frowned.

"What did it say?" Professor Sanders slowly looked back toward the man in white.

"It says..." He paused, as though he couldn't believe the words himself.

"That man is Cade Whitehollow."