S-Rank Strength

Running for the wall, I wanted to see if I could perform the same feats of athleticism those rogues had done. Putting all my strength into my legs, I launched myself high into the sky, well and clean over the wall. I’m not sure if anyone saw me, and I couldn’t bring myself to care, as my trajectory was leading me right into the treeline. I went crashing through the forest and into the darkness, where the canopy was so thick that the moonlight could scarcely penetrate.

Though my skin had several cuts and my clothing was heavily torn, I’d survived what was effectively a five story fall going at a few dozen miles per hour. It made for an interesting confirmation for me: My skeletal-musculature could handle the raw exertion of force I could commit, but my skin could not stop a branch. That left me uniquely vulnerable to cuts and scapes, although bruises remained an unknown. This continued to track with my experience back at the castle, when I was tearing away the stone and mortar to escape.

How funny, unlike the historical berserker who was purportedly immune to cuts and fire, but was vulnerable to being bludgeoned to death, I had the opposite problem. I, as a bear girl, probably didn’t mind getting slapped around with a cudgel, but could easily be burned or bled out with a cut. The God of this world continued to be an ironic prick.

I fled deeper into the forest, navigation made easy by my inherent nightvision boosted by the trickle of soft moonlight filtering through gaps in the trees. I saw about as clear as day in these conditions, as opposed to back in the Dungeon, when I could only see clearly about thirty feet, and barely at sixty. I still had to take care to avoid branches, as I was moving at speeds that could easily turn the whip of a branch into a deep cut. It made me wish I had bothered to look harder for some sort of armor, but that chance had long since passed. Not that I had much time to search for such a thing, anyway.

While I ran, I could hear shouting, as what I presumed were guards signalling to each other to maintain contact between each other in the dark of the forest. I imagine it was also done to scare off wild creatures, but what about monsters or demons? In all likelihood, they would probably be emboldened by all this prey making noise in the dead of night.

The shouting came from far ahead of me, as expected of horsemen who had a significant headstart. Every once in a while I’d even catch the voice of Missol among them and the wisp of lanternlight in the distant dark. I did my best to maintain a wide birth to the pursuers, doing my best to remain just behind them. The hope was that Missol wouldn’t notice I was gone until the next morning, which was only a few hours away at this rate.

Eventually, the shouts began to be supplemented by screams, and the clashing of swords. My long bounding pace caught up to a group of armsmen whom I initially thought were locked in battle with the black clad rogues. When I grew closer, I actually found several of the rogues dead on the ground, and the men at arms locked in deadly combat with something large, and not entirely visible.

It was a strange, insectoid thing that seemed to pulse into and out of visibility. If permitted to stand still for a moment, it would suddenly turn invisible, only to lash out with monstrous strength and long scything claws, becoming visible once more. The men at arms were putting up a valiant effort, cutting and hacking away at its chitinous exoskeleton, and occasionally making it bleed. However it was clear that at this rate it would eventually win.

At first I thought about just letting them die and escaping on my own, but I thought better of it. Any I killed now were unlikely to harass me as I wandered out of the valley forests that it was stalking. Now was the perfect time for an ambush.

However, I didn’t want to reveal myself, so I snuck up to one of the fallen rogues. Checking his pulse to confirm that he was certainly dead, as if the entrails spilling out of his abdomen were not enough, and took a few of his throwing daggers. Returning back into the darkness, I lingered, looking for a gap in the melee. When the opportunity finally appeared, I threw the knife.

It flew with the supersonic crack of a gunshot, flying straight, true and unerringly. My eyes couldn’t even track the projectile as it went straight through the demon’s head like a bullet. The dagger continued to fly true into the tree behind it, where it was embedded past the handguard and nearly to the hilt. It had been such a sudden and shocking blow that the demon’s body took a few moments to realize it had died, before crumpling to the ground in a ruined mess. Most of its head was simply gone, as if an anti-materiel rifle had tagged it.

Seeing that my work there was done, I didn’t linger and moved onwards, following the sounds of violence and the flickering of lanternlight. I was searching for Missol and Taresa. The former for a chance to kill, and the latter to ensure that she escaped. My hope was that if she did manage to report to the kingdom of Hyraxia, that would result in a conflict that would keep the cult focused on surviving and leave me alone.

I found them quickly enough by Taresa’s scream of ‘Not again!’

She was on the ground, trying to crawl away while Missol fended off a pair of the demons. Though it was a tough fight, Missol managed to maintain her footing while sneaking in a counter attack here and there. Unlike before when I’d seen Missol fight, she was in her full armored panoply, wielding a spear and a shield. Her movements were fluid and beautiful, ruthless and brutal. It would’ve been too easy for me to get caught up in watching her, but I had a mission to complete. Taking advantage of Missol being tied up, I picked up Taresa and fled into the darkness of the forest.

“No, please, don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me, I don’t taste good at all!” She screamed.

I had to yell into her ear, “I’m saving you, idiot.”

“What?” She asked, but I didn’t bother to continue answering any of her questions. “Aren’t you Missol’s squire?”

I found where two of her black clad rogues still lived, fighting desperately against another of the demons. Using my last dagger, I took off its head and rushed into the clearing. “Here, take this off my hands before I kill her myself.”

Before they could ask more questions, another demon emerged from the darkness and struck at me. I narrowly deflected the attack and yelled “Take her and go!”

The demon paused to study me, sensing that I was not prey to be trifled with. It was unfortunate, because I knew that it was definitely prey to me. I lunged forward, drawing my sword and delivering an overhead slash. The cut was shallow, and I only managed to draw some slight blood across its thorax.

+++

-Fury Activated

-Ruthless Instinct Activated

-Brutal Hand Activated

+++

Words lit up in the corner of my eye, and I felt unimaginable power coursing through my limbs. Again I swung, not giving the creature a chance to recover, and this time my upward cut separated a scything claw from its torso. It lunged forward with biting mandibles, and I caught it with my blade. With my sword trapped in its mouth, it raised its claw to strike, but it was too late. I’d already started swinging with my free hand, and punched it in the shallow cut I’d left earlier.

It was sent sprawling back, as if hit by a truck, its carapace shattering into pieces like a crab meeting a hammer. Blue-Purple ichor sprayed over me, and leaked all over the ground. It kept trying to move, only to find that it had no strength left to resist. Unwilling to finish it cleanly, I stomped its head in with my boot.

“Fine work, bear cub.” Missol said behind me, stopping a few yards away. “Of course you’d be here.”

“Hello Castellan Missol.” I said, turning to face her. “You should go stop Taresa, she went that way.”

“This was your doing, I imagine?”

“I tried to stop them.”

“I don’t have the control wand. You’ll run as soon as part, won’t you?”

“You know me so well. This is farewell, my one-day master, and I hope we never meet again.”

“Why not? I would love to meet again.”

“When we do meet again, I will try to kill you, and everyone else here.”

“You know you could’ve probably killed us all. Started with the weakest ones, like the other Chosen in the proving grounds. If you worked your way through killing everyone, by the time everyone was dead, you would’ve probably been strong enough to stop me. It’s why I did my best to keep you away from them until I was certain you could be trusted. Clearly, we never got to that point.”

“Would I have even lived to get to that point?”

“It was a potential future Javier told us about. Then again, I was fairly certain he was lying when he said that treating you kindly would be the key.”

“I think it was. It never crossed my mind to start hunting you all like an animal. I am leaving Missol. You can either stop Taresa, or you can recapture me.”

“As you are now, I don’t think we can capture you. I can see the violence radiating off of you, and it is truly frightening. No, I don’t think I can make you submit at all by force. The control wand is the only thing we had, and I don’t have it. I presume you do.” Missol said, setting the butt of her spear to rest on the ground, “Javier also said that we’d recapture you any time you tried to escape, but he never mentioned this mess happening, nor did he ever foresee you being so dangerous.”

“I assumed that he’d have a limitation like that. I’m glad it only made an ass out of you, and not me.”

That made Missol laugh, a haunting gesture in the middle of a battlefield where people were dying all around us.

“Are you going to let me leave, or will you have to kill me?” I asked, pointing my sword at her.

“Javier said only half of the futures where you left turned out bad.” She sighed, “But we have no idea what will happen if Taresa escapes, so we must pursue her. Letting you go is the lesser of two evils.”

“You should stop relying so much on him. He’s just a boy.”

“And you’re just a girl. Goodbye, my squire.” Missol said as she turned to chase after Taresa, pausing to add, “May you survive so that I can kill you in the future. Break the wand when you can. It won’t remove the mark, but it should ensure that no one else takes control of you.”

“I hope you eat shit and die.”

“Now that’s the bear cub I know.”