CHAPTER 69: VARNACITE VEIN [4]

The forest snapped alive with sound of violence.

The first beast lunged, a hulking, four legged with jagged fangs and skin like scaled bark.

Its roar cut through the trees like a warning bell. The guards didn’t wait.

Swords scraped from sheaths, boots scraped the forest floor, and a wall of steel met the first wave.

The guards met them with steel and desperation.

"Stay behind me," Sari said sharply, stepping in front of Alaric before he could argue.

One of the beasts surged toward them, claws up, teeth bared.

Sari’s blade flashed.

A clean slice and its head rolled and thudded to the dirt, twitching. But even as it fell, another took its place, there were simply too many of them.

Alaric stepped back and raised his hand, flame flickered to life in his palm.

[Fireball!]

[Fireball!]

Two swirling spheres toward another beast charging from the flank. The burst struck its shoulder and side. Flames licked its fur, but it only shrieked and turned toward him, now even more enraged.

"Shit," he muttered, stepping back a little. His pulse kicked.

They were strong, stronger than him.

The beasts, three, no, five of them barreled through the guards’ lines.

"Argh!"

One latched onto a man’s arm and ripped it clean off.

Another knocked a guard into a tree with a sickening crunch. Blood sprayed across the ferns.

Sari darted forward, slicing through another attacker, but more kept coming. She couldn’t cover all of them.

A woman screamed, one of the younger aides. Two guards broke rank to pull her away, only to be swarmed.

One beast tore into his leg. The other man tried dragging him back, shouting, until claws silenced him too.

"Fall back!" Henrik’s voice boomed across the melee, but his words were lost in the chaos of combat and death cries.

The formation was collapsing.

The Stonevile warrior stumbled backward, his left arm hanging useless where claws had found the gap in his armor.

One of the Blackthorn miners lay motionless against a tree trunk, his neck bent at an impossible angle.

The surviving guards were being pressed back on all sides, their disciplined ranks dissolving into desperate individual struggles.

Alaric stumbled sideways, almost tripping over a fallen body.

Then he turned and hurled another fireball. It clipped a beast’s jaw, but still didn’t stop it.

Panic spread like wildfire through the group.

Someone, broke and ran deeper into the forest. Then another. They were scattering now.

The careful defensive positions Henrik had tried to maintain shattered as self-preservation overrode training and loyalty.

"Move!" Sari grabbed Alaric’s arm, "We can’t hold here!"

A second wave of beasts burst from the thicket.

Sari’s grip tightened on Alaric’s arm for a split second, then she let go and surged forward, blade low, eyes locked on the incoming beasts.

Grrr!

A low growl from their left. Then another from the right.

Three more of the creatures materialized from the forest shadows, their dark forms flowing between the trees.

Alaric didn’t hesitate.

He turned, watching her back.

The moment one beast circled wide and tried to flank her.

[Fireball!]

It singed the creature’s shoulder just enough to stagger it.

Then—

Heavy boots pounded. A guard, wide-eyed and bloodied, came sprinting, sword raised wildly.

"Get out of the way!" the man roared, panicked and desperate.

His eyes wild with terror and adrenaline.

He wasn’t aiming, just charging, blade pointed forward, straight toward Sari and the beasts.

"You bastard," Alaric snarled.

The guard came. He brought his sword down in a wild overhead swing that would have split Alaric’s skull if it had connected.

But Alaric stepped inside the arc, his left hand catching the man’s wrist while his right drove an elbow into the guard’s solar plexus.

The sword flew from nerveless fingers as the guard doubled over, gasping for breath.

Alaric caught the falling blade and drove his shoulder into the man’s chest, sending him tumbling into a patch of thorny brambles where he landed with a crash and a string of creative curses.

The wounded beast had recovered from his fireball and was moving toward Sari’s blind spot.

Alaric moved to intercept it, raising the blade just as claws raked toward his chest.

Clang!

The impact sent shockwaves up his arms, but he kept moving, ducked a second swipe, then drove the blade into the beast’s gut with a growl.

"Argh!"

Grrr!

Blood sprayed across his arm.

Another came from the side, he turned, sidestepped, slashed again.

They both skidded back.

The injured beast dragged itself upright, a snarl bubbling from its bloodied maw.

Alaric backed up two paces, blade gripped tight, chest heaving.

His fire spells had done little. His blade would have to carry him now.

Hey system distribute my free stat points to strength, endurance and intelligence. 25, 20, 10.

[Ding!]

[STATS UPDATED:]

STR: 31 — 56

AGI: 51

END: 29 — 49

WIL: 35

CHA: 41

INT: 29 (??) — 39

Free stats points: 55 — 0

The beasts lunged together.

He shifted his footing, grounded himself.

The first came high, jaws snapping. The second came faster swept in low.

Alaric met them head-on.

He sidestepped the low swipe, the claws grazing his side.

He grunted, turned with it, and brought his blade down in a brutal arc onto the injured beast’s neck.

Steel met bone.

It didn’t slice clean.

But he didn’t stop.

Snarling, he planted his foot on its chest and shoved, wrenching the sword free with a wet crack.

The beast staggered, gurgled and collapsed.

Thud!

Dead.

[Ding!]

[You have slain a Mutated Hound]

[Exp +1125]

[DP + 100]

Notifications flooded in.

But he didn’t have time to check.

As a third one came too.

Then they both lunged again.

One from the front, fangs bared and muscles taut.

The other circling fast to his right.

Alaric exhaled through his nose.

The grip on his sword tightened. His knees bent. His feet slid apart into a stance he’d practiced a thousand times in silence.

Sari was still busy with another.

He had to end this.

But he was tired. His arms ached, his side burned where a claw had grazed him.

He couldn’t win like this.

He slashed again and again, shoulders still stiff like before, blade still wavered.

The beast slashed, he ducked and rolled over.

Then stood up and dashed towards them.

But then—

Something inside him... shifted, like he had found his missing piece.

His crimson eyes began glowing unnaturally.

His free hand moved to the blade’s edge, feeling the steel’s temperature, its potential.

As the essence inside him began to run wild.

Fire and steel. Heat and sharpness. Like forging, but in reverse.

The blade began to glow.

Flick!

Then it ignited.

FLIIIIICK!

Flames licked the length of his sword.

His movement became clean, almost gentle, but fast.

Too fast.

The first beast lunged.

Slash!

His blade came in a diagonal cut that sliced through hide and muscle and bone as if they were parchment.

The creature’s leap became a death spiral as it crashed to the forest floor in two distinct pieces.

He spun with the momentum of the cut, bringing the burning blade around in a horizontal arc that caught the second beast mid-lunge.

Both beasts died before they hit the ground.

Alaric stood still, breathing hard.

His fingers trembled.

Behind him, Sari turned slightly, her eyes wide.

The guards who were still standing stared from a distance.

No one spoke for a moment.

Then, slowly, the fire flickered out from the blade in his hands cooling it from cherry red back to ordinary steel.

Then...

[Ding!]

[Ding!]

[Ding!]

[Ding!]

[You have slain a Mutated Hound!]

[You have slain a Mutated Hound!]

[Exp +1120]

[Exp +1125]

[DP +100]

[DP +100]

[Rank up!]

[Congratulations host, you have learned a new sword art!]

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END!

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[A/N]

+1 Extra Chapter (Every 200 Power stone)

+1 Extra Chapter (Evert 50 GT)

+3 Extra Chapter (super gift)