Free Web NovelChapter 309: Hunting the Heralds (5)
The pink light fading from his armor left Marcus gasping for breath. He stumbled backward across the slick cobblestones. His golden boots scraped against the wet brickwork as his stamina completely bottomed out.
He raised his broadsword with trembling hands to fend off the incoming strikes.
’My limbs refuse to move,’ Marcus thought, his chest heaving violently against his breastplate. ’Elena needs to fix this right now.’
Krax watched the golden glow sputter and die across Marcus’s armor. Krax grinned to expose his prominent fangs. He tightened both hands around the leather-wrapped haft of his greataxe.
"Your battery ran out." Krax laughed and stepped forward.
Krax channeled a massive surge of mana directly into the violet Ley-Crystal embedded in his weapon. The gemstone flared with blinding brilliance. He raised the axe high above his head and brought the flat of the blade crashing down onto the tunnel floor.
The stone buckled under the impact. A localized gravitational singularity erupted directly beneath Marcus. The absolute force of the elemental magic dragged the surrounding sludge and debris inward.
Marcus collapsed to his knees. The sudden weight pinned him against the wet bricks. Golden steel groaned and buckled across his shoulders as the plate armor cracked under the intense gravitational pull. He gritted his teeth, struggling vainly to push himself back up.
The brilliant broadsword slipped from Marcus’s fingers. The weapon clattered uselessly against the stone, its radiant light dimming in the filthy water pooling around his knees. He braced both hands against the ground to keep his face out of the muck.
"Pick it up." Krax stepped right to the edge of the crater. "You talked a lot of garbage about crushing the sun."
Iron-Scale stepped out of the swirling emerald cyclone. He wiped a streak of Elena’s blood from his star-iron dagger and sheathed the blade at his hip. He walked directly toward Marcus, his boots splashing lightly in the shallow water.
’He looks so pathetic without his stolen magic,’ Iron-Scale thought, coming to a halt beside Marcus.
Iron-Scale drew his foot back and kicked the dropped broadsword. The golden blade spun across the cobblestones and splashed directly into the deep, flowing sewage trench.
Iron-Scale gripped the rusted iron chains binding Marcus and Elena. He hauled them up the final flight of stone steps leading out of the aqueduct. Krax followed closely behind, dragging the other four captured fighters by their bound wrists.
They stepped out of the subterranean gloom and onto the ruined cobblestone plaza of Tarnstead. The midday sun cast glaring light over the conquered city courtyard. freewēbnoveℓ.com
Marcus stumbled over the uneven pavement and fell onto his side. He blinked against the harsh sunlight. Eight other figures sat chained to the plaza stones a few yards away.
Ethan, Olivia, Lucas, Isabella, Liam, Maya, Cole, and Jenna huddled together in the dirt. Their golden armor had faded to a flat gray.
"Marcus." Ethan stared at the newly arrived captives with wide eyes. "They got you too."
Marcus pushed himself up onto his knees. He looked around the perimeter of the courtyard. Syra stood near a shattered marble pillar, tracing the edge of her dark dagger.
Hawl and Gulag watched the prisoners from the center of the plaza. The entire city belonged to the invaders.
"What do you want from us?" Elena clutched her bleeding shoulder and looked up at Iron-Scale. "We surrendered."
Iron-Scale drove his boot into the back of Marcus’s knee, forcing him flat against the cobblestones. "You are returning what you stole."
A fractured portal of absolute blackness ripped open near the peak of the courtyard. Glitch dropped from the void and landed gracefully on all six legs. Glitch padded over to the new prisoners and opened its small jaws.
A stream of blinding golden light tore away from Marcus’s chest and vanished into the creature’s mouth. Marcus convulsed violently against the cobblestones as the radiant energy was ripped from his core.
Elena lost her pink restorative aura next. The bright light funneled directly into Glitch. The remaining four captives thrashed against their star-iron chains. The anomaly bit down on the arcane energy tethered to their bodies and swallowed the concentrated magic whole.
The six captives gasped awake simultaneously. Marcus stared at his bare hands and scratched at his knuckles. The divine power was completely gone. He was an ordinary human again.
Hawl walked over and secured the new prisoners to the same rusted iron chain binding Ethan and his squad. The fourteen powerless humans sat together in the dirt of the conquered capital.
Up in the sanctuary, Rubedo watched the extraction process on his primary monitor. Glitch tilted its head and purred down in the plaza to signal the end of the harvest. The stolen magic digested inside the anomaly to isolate the hijacked human essence from the arcane power. freēwebnovel.com
Three brilliant streaks of pure white light launched from the courtyard below. The energy shot upward through the atmosphere to pierce the sanctuary hull. The blinding beams slammed directly into Rubedo’s chest.
[ SOUL INTEGRATION COMPLETE. FRAGMENTS RECLAIMED: 13 / 14 ]
[ HOST SYSTEM AUTHORITY ELEVATED. ]
[ ASSIMILATING RETAINED ELEMENTAL DATA FROM DEVOURED HERALDS... ]
[ NEW SYSTEM PATH UNLOCKED: ABSOLUTE RADIANCE DOMINION (PASSIVE/ACTIVE). ]
[ DESCRIPTION: HOST CAN FREELY MANIPULATE RADIANT LIGHT CONSTRUCTS AND BINDING AURAS WITHIN THE SOVEREIGN TERRITORY. ]
[ NEW SYSTEM PATH UNLOCKED: RESTORATIVE NEXUS PROTOCOL (ACTIVE). ]
[ DESCRIPTION: HOST CAN INSTANTLY CONJURE MASS REGENERATION WAVES TO MEND ALLIED BIOLOGY. ]
[ NEW SYSTEM PATH UNLOCKED: KINETIC-FORCE AVALANCHE (ACTIVE). ]
[ DESCRIPTION: HOST CAN GENERATE OMNIDIRECTIONAL KINETIC SHOCKWAVES AND TRANSLUCENT ENERGY BARRIERS TO CRUSH INCOMING PROJECTILES. ]
Rubedo flexed his fingers over the console. A spark of bright golden light arched across his knuckles before fading into a tiny restorative halo.
The fractured edges of his spirit stitched themselves together into a nearly perfect configuration. Only a single fragment remained missing from his cosmic core.
He had already extracted the fragment from Julian. The only one left was Julia, and he couldn’t extract it until she gave birth.
"I am curious what will happen once I have gathered all my fragments," Rubedo muttered.
