Chapter 27

Sacrifices

The blast destroyed most of the battlefield, leaving a crater with a wedge taken out of it. The wedge corresponded to where the body of the Shadow King soaked up the explosion. I had carefully positioned him so that I wouldn’t take the brunt of it, with the effect extending to Santa’s ice fort where my companions were hiding.

Even in my heightened state, the blast blinded and stunned me. When I could see again the King was in tatters, like a bedsheet someone used as a machine gun target. It seemed half dead. It wasn’t.

Those ‘tatters’ burned white and kicked me. They kicked me very hard. So hard I flew into the side of Santa’s fortress and broke the wall.

….Ow. That chain must have been a damn fine seal. I bet it never broke in the old timeline, probably restricting the Shadow King’s powers until the very end. No way was he this powerful at the start back then. Heh, just goes to show that just when you think you know everything, you’re wrong.

As I scrambled to my feet, I got a good look at the King’s new form; it was a blank silhouette of solid shadows that were white. I’ve seen a lot of weird shit, but even for me, white shadows were a new one.

My timer on Primal Form was running low, so I needed to finish this fast.

I pulled a glaive out of the ground, one of pure obsidian infused with the burning energy of lava. There is a difference between using an element and the energy of that element. If you just use water to hit someone, it largely limits you to what water can accomplish in reality. If you use water mana, you can tap into the things that fall under the idea of water. It’s a lot harder to use pure elemental mana for things than it is to just use a little to strengthen the element itself, although this becomes a necessary skill in higher-level zones.

If you are a fire mage and facing something immune to fire, then you’re fucked. That is unless you can figure out a way to use fire to get around its immunity. Some of the best fire mages I’ve seen have been able to burn the actual resistance to fire or use a creature as fuel for a spell. Coolest trick I can remember was some girl that used the fact that actual fire requires fuel, to throw a torrent of flame into the sky while designating a fire elemental as the fuel source. It just popped like a soap bubble. I still don’t have the foggiest idea what arcane principles she used for that.

I may not be the best at pure energy constructs, but I was certainly good enough to infuse energy I could wield into a physical object. With a couple more tweaks, a temporary enchantment using Lava Mana engulfed the glaive. It wouldn’t last, but it would boost my speed and cutting power by overwhelming the energy of things it hit.

With a pulse of mana to my feet, I was in front of the King, striking with as much speed and strength as I could muster. A thin sword formed out of his white shadows and deflected my first strike, then my second and third. I finally broke his guard and scored a deep wound on his side, but it came at a cost. I lost a hand to the bastard. It wasn’t an enormous loss, but I had to take a moment of my concentration away from the fight to form a shield of stone as a replacement.

That distraction was bad. I couldn’t use my glaive as well with only one hand and took a nasty slice to the torso for a shallow wound to his arm. I was glad to see that damage was finally sticking to him though.

I won the next exchange by sacrificing a stab to the thigh to lop off his arm. Unfortunately, that just meant he got serious.

Two red vines of shadow sprung from his shoulder blades, and his other arm reformed his sword. Now I was on the defensive, parrying and blocking vicious stabs from evil phantom twizzlers and a rapier that tried to freeze me at every cut. Whoever this guy was back in the day, he was damn good.

I suffered cut after cut, the durability and power of my Primal Form wasn’t helping nearly as much as I hoped. I embedded my glaive in the ground and jumped back, taking the brief lull to form a standard longsword. With my preferred weapon, I figured I might have better luck. I was again sadly mistaken.

Vines of shadow tangled my legs, and I had to block both vines with my sword and shield. They were aiming for my head and heart. He was out of position to get me with his rapier, but threw himself into some sort of upward leg sweep balanced on his remaining arm. An arm that was no longer a sword.

I didn’t have time to wonder what he was planning as he cut my shield arm off at the shoulder with his leg. A leg that now had a damn rapier instead of a foot. I tried to back away, but his other foot caught me in the chest and sent me flying again. Into the same fucking wall of the ice fortress.

Right as I was pulling myself from the rubble, my Primal Form ran out. Shit. Now I’m bleeding… a lot.

Fox was on the wall with his bow at the ready, hoping to take potshots, I guess. Too bad we were moving way too fast for him to make an accurate shot. Now that I was clear, he fired an arrow covered in orange runes at the King. I could tell from his face he didn’t believe it would work anymore than I did.

He was right, of course; the fucker deflected it and it blew a harmless crater in the already broken ground behind the King.

Fox looked down at my battered and bleeding form and grimaced. “You know this is just a game, no matter how much we may want to save the NPCs there is a limit to what we can accomplish here. Sadly, we seem to have reached it. It might be time to retreat if you can even move in that state.”

“Never… I don’t retreat… Not in a place like this. But it might be time for you and the others to leave.” I mumble as I finish gathering the mana for my next attack. Half of it went into the ground and a nearly horizontal pillar of stone picked me up, thrusting me at my foe at incredible speeds. Speeds even a level 300 Rogue would at least notice.

The other half of the mana I pumped into my sword, making it shine like a small sun. My bet was the King would think I was gathering momentum and power to break through his guard with enough force to kill him. I was right. He flipped onto his hand and used the shadow vines to anchor himself before turning both feet into swords that he crossed in a guard. With two of those swords, he could probably deflect me and I would be “shit out of luck” as the saying goes. Luckily, my plan was a bit different.

I had been very careful to limit my use of the so-called ‘flying slash technique’. Right before I would have hit his guard, I twisted and used all of my Ki to enable a higher form of the attack. What I had used on the bears was just an elemental version of Focused Cut, powerful but not that different fundamentally. It still had travel time and could be blocked or dodged. What I used now was no mere Focused Cut. I melded the mana that I had stored in my sword with the Ki and the very elemental energy that made up the sword.

As I cut the air, the sword dissolved into energy from the tip down to the hilt in my hand. The elevated form of Focused Cut was Projected Slice. To use it, you had to either have much more Ki than I had available, or use some other equally potent energy. The melding of Ki and Elemental Mana would briefly create an energy of that level. A Projected Slice cut your target. Distance didn’t really mean much to it other than determining if it was a valid target. As I swung my sword the cut happened, and I wanted to split the Shadow King in half vertically.

By some twist of fate or luck, he pulled himself to the side just as I made the cut. Since he used his arm to do so, I only severed his legs and shadow vines. As impressive as Projected Slice was, there were still things that could block it, Ki and magic being the most common. The King had no time to erect a defense, even if he could have. What he did was grip the ground hard enough for a handhold and slam his hips into my chest, which was a wide-open target with my sword missing.

For a creature with only one limb, he packed more than a punch; he hit like a mountain. It sent me back through the stone pillar, shattering it as I flew, and burying me in the now fixed wall of the ice fort.

Frankly, I didn’t expect to survive that. Without the enhancement from Primal Form, that should have killed me. I guess the soul boost was working better than I thought… Oh fuck… no, no, no, no! The resonance buildup was still happening!

The dampener arrays should have activated and stopped it by now. Quickly examining my soul, I found the problem. I unconsciously made the dampeners at the point where it would activate from the pressure of a much stronger soul, a soul strength I was used to having and wouldn’t have for nearly 14 years.

The only reason I hadn’t popped like a balloon was that somehow my soul was stronger than it should be. Maybe the soul also pulled a merger when we came back, like our minds did. That would account for why I used the wrong placement. I could feel a stronger soul and defaulted to using the wrong calculation. Because of the stronger soul, it still triggered the dampening arrays, but not fully and not in time.

At least I took down the King. This would be a bitch to fix, but I should be able to manage it with some work. I could of course use a blood ritual to dissipate the excess and activate the dampeners at the same time, but most of the ones that would have that effect were not useful or actively detrimental in this situation. I really should have studied medical ritual craft more.

As I was trying to nudge my soul into not exploding, a roar swept across the land. What now?

The source was the Shadow King, a being who should really be dying right about now. I beat him fair and square, and he couldn’t heal anymore. He should be done for. Of course, the evil fucker that keeps defying known magic and logic seemed to disagree. A perfect example of the new twist on an old expression that gained popularity in the future referencing the noise accompanying notifications, ‘She’s not dead until the fat lady dings.’

He hovered there, a foot above the ground, and screamed in fury. “You insolent grubs! I will consume your souls to rebuild my army, and I will tear down all that you love and cherish. Defiance must be crushed!” With that, his remaining arm dissipated into dozens of white wisps. As they touched the ground, detailed white shades sprouted and readied their weapons. Alright, this was officially Very Bad.

Shin spoke up from the wall. “Uh, Laz… I think Fox-boy might have had a point. You don’t have to put yourself through this. That guy isn’t going down. Not with those numbers. We can come back later with some sort of army.”

An army… I could do that. With my current condition it would actually fix a lot of problems. I would be out of commission for even longer than expected, but the Burn 3 wouldn’t kill me. I’ve only used that ritual once before, and it sucked, it sucked so badly. Oh, it seems the King was talking again. I only caught the tail end of it.

“I’ll make you watch as I rend the souls of your companions. One by one, you will be the last, but you will never know peace or rest. It will be… delicious.”

I blanked out for a moment. All I heard was Santa saying, “Oh shit, he shouldn’t have said that.”

When my mind rebooted, my body was already partway through the prep for the ritual. Lines and symbols of blood marked my chest. I would show this arrogant, sadistic fuck what power was. True power, not his twisted stolen strength. Not even my brand of profane power from the old days would drive home this lesson. I needed to be better than that, for those I hadn’t saved, for those I couldn’t save, and for those would I chose not to save. Using my bleeding stump of a shoulder as an inkwell, I continued to draw diagrams on my body, with a single horrible rune above my heart. I then played connect-the-dots with the sigils, drawing a continuous line from the rune to all the other markings, and forming a new sigil as I went. With the last one connected, I drew a copy of that horrible rune on my side, opposite my missing limb.

My soul trembled at the markings I made. If it wasn’t in the process of going nova a working on this level would have crushed it like a can in the ocean. This was major magic, a ritual to transcend the possible and breach time. A ritual to turn possible into certain, one that would negate almost all the gains from this battle but would see the monster put down. In the shape we were in, it was now a numbers game, one I could win for a price.

Admittedly, the exact details on that price were a bit iffy at the moment. The perks of performing a System-Soul Ritual with a fluctuating soul. Lucky me, I get to be the first to do something incredibly ill advised, again. We used to call that Tuesday.

I heard Santa say, “Wait a sec, I know that rune…. Lazarus, are you sure? You were so proud of your fresh start, in the state you’re in… you might not get it back.”

“I know, buddy, but as much as you are the White Champion at heart, my role has always been the same. The path may have changed, but the destination was never in doubt.”

Rocky spoke up from somewhere behind me. “I’ll fully admit I don’t know what’s going on. That said, it’s giving me a terrible feeling, and it feels super dangerous. My instincts are going nuts here, its like my hind brain thinks what you’re preparing is real or something. Of course, that’s nuts since this is a game.”

Without looking back, I replied, “It is dangerous, but only for me. It’s my Sacrifice. You have good instincts there, Rocky, listen to them. You just had a bit of information wrong.” With that I activated the first stage of ritual. I felt agony. I could feel my experience and levels draining, my first class sealing itself away as I used it as a conduit. The lines on my body came alive. They twisted and moved but you could never point to them and say what exactly changed. Like a cockroach in the middle of the floor, they were still under direct observation.

With an iron will, I dragged a bloody finger from the first rune to the second. The symbols and lines writhed out of my way. Every millimeter was fresh agony as I turned potential power in the future into power in the present. It brutally crushed the resonance in my soul as my finger finally contacted the rune on my side.

Even though I whispered it, I knew the entire fort heard me. “Sacrifice of Veruna… for Glory and the others.”

The pain was unspeakable, but I had a job to do. I nearly shattered my teeth from the pain as I ground out, “What you didn’t realize, is… that… this… is… no… game!” I ended up shouting as I smothered the pain in my mind. The potential finished flowing from the future and into my second class. Then it blossomed.

Rising to my full height, I said in a steady voice, “My name is Lazarus, Juggernaut of the Black Wall, and I will not let one more friend die. You hear me Shadow?! Never again!” I roared, and the earth responded. Cracks formed, while lava and oil rose from them, forming burning pools and streams. All just from the backlash of power I summoned. The surrounding air got hot enough that it warped the light in a heat haze. I marched to war for the first time in this life. My soldiers of oil and flame responded. I brushed away the notifications I was getting, and focused on one thing and one thing only, obliterating my foe.

Ancient forms of oil and worn stone rose from the lava and joined my warriors of oil and flame. At my command they charged the King and his forces. No mercy, no quarter.

The Sacrifice of Veruna ritual was powerful, powerful on a level I really wasn’t comfortable with. It affected the System and breached the barriers of time. Something already tossed me through time once, and I was distinctly uncomfortable messing with it on purpose. Although the one time I used this ritual before hadn’t resulted in an affinity for Time, so I remained hopeful. I didn’t really matter how I felt about it. I probably could never use it again.

Truly impressive rituals required a sacrifice. This one was going to be a doozy. The normal sacrifice for the Sacrifice of Veruna ritual was a wounded soul and the permanent sealing of your second class, leaving it at whatever level it was after the disgusting experience cost. I could offset the cost with a powerful soul, but even in my heightened state it would erase any gains I made from this battle, probably. The interactions between a Soul Burn technique and the Veruna ritual was unknown, its usage by someone with an actual affinity for Time, even a low one, was unimaginable.

I joined my army in battle with a blade of obsidian. None of the heat or color of my previous weapons marked it. The blade was pure, magic-hardened, obsidian. The most elegant and deadly longsword my class would ever create, light as a feather, with its cutting power unmatched by anything a player would possess for a long time.

The blood of the earth thundered in my veins. Each step brought me closer to my enemy. Each summoned servant slowly fell to the steady march of the Earthborn Legion. I returned to the basics. Parry thrust, slash. Repeat.

The Shades activated skills, but the Legion ignored them. I vaguely heard the others joining the fray, but they, too, were ignored. The unrelenting focus and fury of the earth was mine to wield.

Soon enough I faced the King once more. Both our forces were in tatters, but mine marched on while his became dust and ash.

The King hovered silently as our blades clashed, neither willing to yield an inch.

“Laz look out!”

Once again Kate was there, shining mop in hand as she blasted a spindly four-legged shade away from my crippled side. In this fight, I seem to have lost my left eye as well. Huh didn’t notice that. Guess it was now my blindside too. No wonder I didn’t notice that guy.

With a decisive cut, I split the skull of the Shadow King. A notification popped up, but I waved it away. It was over, finally.

I turned to Kate. “Well done, mopgirl. I’m going to need a long rest after that one.”

She brushed some ash off her face and smiled. “See, I told you I… urk…” The blade of white shadow protruding from her chest brought the conversation to a halt.