A Forgesmith’s Flame
[Half-Elf Lv 98]
[Human Lv ???]
His eyes flicked over the notifications before he yanked out a steel dagger—a level 80 weapon he’d originally meant to give James when he'd dropped by later that day. But after everything that had happened, that commission wasn’t getting finished anytime soon.
Without hesitation, he hurled the dagger toward the cord attached to the lance’s ring-like grip. The blade spun, its Low Enhanced Sharpness rune was primed and activated as it struck the cord—only to bounce off harmlessly.
"Slave! Kill him!" the half-elf barked, voice laced with fury. Two Cold Iron Bolts were still lodged in his back, and his right leg was badly burned, yet he stood firm. His cybernetic neck and lower jaw flickered with a deep navy glow; the same glow being emitted from the lines that traced down his left arm before it grew out a sleek staff that he held out in front of him.
Not even a second after the command had been ordered, did the figure in front of the half-elf surged forward. The woman’s black band tattoo across her neck glowed red after the command the half-elf barked out.
Archie thought in shock as he saw her tattoo activate from his command.
Mid-charge, she ripped off the torn and tattered remains of her sleeves, revealing her cybernetic arms that hummed with power. As she’d done so, she revealed the jagged scars that stretched from her mid-bicep, where flesh met metal, traveled up to her shoulders before disappearing behind the remains of the cloth that covered her form.
Her right arm twisted and morphed into a scutum shield that glistened with mana, while her left hand was reeling back the lance she had just thrown as she charged toward Archie.
Archie deactivated Forgesmith’s FlameAdrenaline RushSavage Charge
Archie’s thorn-covered fist slammed into the mana-covered scutum shield, the impact blowing back her messily cut bangs and the tail of his headdress. Her charge came to an abrupt halt as her heels dug into the sandstone floor.
Without hesitation, Archie followed up with a rapid flurry of blows against the glowing shield. She retaliated with a sudden stab from her now-retracted lance, forcing him to dodge left just in time.
As he evaded the strike, a barrage of floating bubbles drifted toward him. One grazed the left side of his face, releasing a soft pop, then an explosion erupted.
The blast sent Archie hurtling out of the hallway, tumbling across the sandstone bricks. Mid-roll, he caught himself, digging his hand into the ground to slow his momentum, skidding for several meters before coming to a stop.
A surge of vital energy flooded toward the molten, scorched side of his face. He felt his flesh bubble, stretch, and rapidly knit itself back together.
was still on cooldown, Archie noted as he narrowly dodged another lance strike. He rolled to the side, then charged forward.
He crashed into her shield once more, but unlike before, she didn’t budge. She'd braced herself earlier, slamming the butt of her shield into the ground before ramming it forward just as Archie crashed into it, smashing her shoulder against the metal. The impact sent Archie skidding backward.
A sudden fist-sized jet of pressurized water streaked toward him. He barely ducked behind the shield-wielding woman, using her as cover.
His eyes widened. The water jet didn’t stop. It zigzagged mid-air, piercing straight through her shoulder before spearing into the middle of his left thigh.
Archie released both a grunt of pain and surprise as the jet of pressurized water ripped through his thigh. This was dangerous.
Archie barely had time to jerk his thigh away from the water jet before the lance-wielding woman closed the distance, thrusting her glowing neon-gray lance straight at him.
The lance struck true, slamming into his lower abdomen and sinking an inch into his Steel Chestpiece of Protection before bouncing back, his armor having barely protected him from the lance.
But before he could recover or even send a surge of mana to repair his chestpiece, the lance glowed neon gray once more, before mid-rebound, it shot back toward where she struck. This time, it ripped through his armor and punched clean through his stomach, leaving a fist-sized conical puncture in his lower abdomen.
At the same time, Archie saw her lance bounce off his chestpiece, he knew he could get a clear shot on her, so he shot forward. As he did, his eyes widened once more as the lance surged forward just as it rebounded off and sank into his side, gritting his teeth against the pain, Archie snarled and twisted his body.
His fist snaked past her shield and smashed against her unprotected chin with all his strength, unloading 80% of Impact Dynamo. The impact sent her flying across the room, smashing through the stone wall and into the chamber beyond.
“Useless,” the half-elf grumbled, gripping his glowing staff. With a swift motion, he dragged it from his bicep to the tip of his middle finger. Along the path it traced, shimmering water tendrils surged forward, wrapping tightly around his arm.
Archie clutched his wounded side before lunging left, rolling away just as a whip of water lashed out, striking the ground where he had stood moments before.
Clicking his teeth in frustration, Archie sent a surge of nature mana through the vines coiled around his left arm. The vines exploded forward, twisting through the spiraling orbs the half-elf had fired, weaving between them before wrapping around the half-elf’s left leg and growing sharp thorns that ripped through his leg, piercing through his cybernetic legs and reinforced legs with ease.
“Augh!” The half-elf cried out in pain.
Archie tanked an orb to the outer side of his arm and another to his face that he tanked with his Sentinel Platiniteshell Bracers, to yank back the vine and the half-elf attached to it off the ground.
However, just as Archie was about to smash his fist into the half-elf’s face, a loud bang reverberated throughout the temple, sending out a shockwave that made Archie stumble back slightly. For reasons unknown to him, it grabbed his immediate attention to the point that the mana and stamina he surged into his fist disappeared, and the vines he'd wrapped around the half-elf's leg vanished. making the half-elf collapse onto the floor and flail around in pain.
The lance and shield-wielding woman stood in front of the hole she had been punched through, her lance raised in front of her large shield. She slammed her shield with all her might once more with her lance, sending out a wide shockwave that pushed Archie further away from her master which also filled his head with loud banging.
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She kicked off the ground, glowing neon gray, before she crashed into his dazed form with speed far faster than he could react to, slamming her shield into his chest and face with all the strength she could muster. The impact sent him flying out of the temple, tumbling through the sand, blood and cracked teeth spilling from his mouth and his chest caved in.
Seeing Archie tumble into the desert, the woman lunged forward, but she couldn’t move from her position. Looking down, she saw dozens of gnarled and dried tree roots wrapped tightly around her legs.
Flooding her feet with mana and stamina did nothing as she struggled to rip her legs free. Turning her head slightly, she saw her master in a similar situation, roots crushing his feet as he screamed in agony, yelling for a potion.
The Branding Seal on her neck flared bright red, and searing pain arced through her nervous system. She needed to help her master break free.
But she had no potions. She was a slave. All the potions and valuables were kept in her master’s spatial ring, which he wore on his forefinger.
Gritting her teeth against the pain, she retracted her scutum shield back into her arm, then bent down, using her enhanced cybernetic strength to rip the roots off.
But just inches from reaching the roots that bound her, a guttural roar that flooded her with the feeling of terror erupted from outside the temple—the same spot where she had launched her master’s latest outburst.
The roar snapped her upright, but the roots kept her firmly in place. An oppressive weight pressed down on her shoulder, flooding her with an immense sense of dread. The feeling silenced the waves of pain from her master’s command seal inflected on her and even silenced his shrill screams.
Archie pushed himself up using nothing but his core strength, his body trembling as he gasped for air- yet none came. Stars exploded across his vision, blotting out the desert around him.
His hands shot to his caved-in chest, clawing at the armor that should have protected him but was now actively preventing his Vital Metabolism
The moment he found it, he flooded his arms with every ounce of mana and stamina he could muster.
His muscles burned. His veins bulged. His arms, blotched with blood, began to bleed as he forced Adrenaline Rush
He ripped the front of his chestpiece down to below his ribcage, stars threatening to consume his vision as adrenaline waged war against the encroaching darkness.
His Vital Metabolism
Archie slammed his head into the bloodied sand, his cracked teeth grinding together. Then he raised his head.
His bones ground against his organs, some pushing back into the wounds they had torn through. He slammed his head into the ground again.
Again, his head met the blood-soaked sand. His lungs were collapsed and pierced through.
His chest contorted as shattered ribs reset themselves, as punctured organs stitched themselves back together. Agony pulsed through him with every frantic slam of his head against the ground, his mind caught between sheer survival and maddening pain.
A final, overwhelming surge of adrenaline flooded his system, and—
A sharp gasp tore from his throat.
Archie’s bloodied head shot up from the mound of crimson-stained sand, his hands spasming as they clawed at his now bare chest. His bloodshot eyes locked onto the twin suns hanging overhead. A wave of euphoria crashed over him as his vision swam between reality and something far beyond.
He chuckled between gasps, his throat raw, his breath shaky.
“Beau…tiful,” he rasped, his lips curling into a faint smile as he took in the vast desert around him. The sand dunes, the endless sky- everything seemed so… beautiful.
Archie coughed.
Shakily, he pushed himself up from the bloodied sand, his bloodshot gaze settling on the giga temple in front of him. The exterior was covered in graffiti, not an inch undefaced, but the name carved into its stone walls still remained visible beneath the defacement: Temple of the Handlers.
His eyes dropped down to the hole he was launched out from, staring at the woman who launched him out moments before he sent a surge of nature mana from the tip of his right foot into the ground, activating Earthen Grasp
She was just now reaching for the binds.
Archie took in a sharp inhale of breath, welcoming the hot dry air that entered his lungs as though it were nectar.
Archie relished the euphoric flood of adrenaline that coursed through him, overwhelming the pain that should have coursed through his body. He was uncaring of the blood that escaped from his skin, the dark red steam that surrounded his body, nor the blood-soaked sand that clung to his skin in a way he would normally find uncomfortable. Instead, he simply basked in the euphoric feeling of his bloodline coursing throughout him.
After a few seconds of relishing the adrenaline rush, he released a guttural roar from his throat that reverberated throughout the silent desert. It was at that moment when time itself stopped for Archie, the half-elf water mage, and the lance-shield-wielding woman before everything exploded in pain for the latter two.
Especially so for the water mage as he released a shrill screech as his eyes exploded and ears sputtered blood, while the lance-shield-wielding woman only had trails of blood drip from her ears.
Archie activated Savage ChargeEarthen Grasp
She barely had time to raise her shield before he crashed into her hastily taken-out shield, fist first.
Upon impact, a thunderclap-like shockwave erupted. The hastily deployed shield groaned under the force, its gears grinding and plates dented from the sudden, unprepared strain from Archie’s strike.
Archie’s left hand shot towards the bottom right of her shield before wrenching it to the side, cracking the glasslike metal on her elbow from the movement before he grabbed her face with his other hand and smashed her head into the cracked sandstone flooring before looking up to face a deformed marble statue above them.
“You bastard!” the half-elf shouted, his eyes and eardrums having regenerated along with his battered legs. Before he sent out two jets of pressurized water shot toward Archie with his right hand, which a cracked green ring fell from it. “Die!”
Getting an idea, Archie jumped just in front of the cracked sandstone platform that held the deformed marble statue upright.
Just as the twin jets were about to hit him, he rushed leftwards, smirking as the twin streams dug into the platforms and arced toward him, ripping through the sandstone platform with ease.
Stealthily taking out his Mana Revolver, Archie activated Runic Amplification
The first manabolt ripped through his right shin while the second and third sank halfway through the ice wall before they were stopped.
Just like he’d wanted.
His eyes flickered to the lance and shield wielder who was trying to push herself out of the sandstone flooring before he sprinted back toward the front of the deformed statue. Cocking his fist back Archie smashed his fist into the cracked sandstone platform, activating Impact Dynamo as his fist smashed into the already unstable platform.
The blow created spiderweb-like cracks all across the platform that held up the giant, six-meter-tall deformed statue of an old man holding a cane with both hands.
With a quick jump to the side, Archie smiled as the statue toppled over the collapsing platform and onto the surprised-looking lance and shield wielder who managed to raise her right arm just above her body and deploy her scutum shield just as it slammed onto her.
Rolling out of the way of a water spear to the head, Archie charged forward, crashing through the ice wall the half-elf erected with ease before quickly lunging forward and socking him in the jaw, sending him tumbling backwards.
“No more words?” Archie mocked as he walked towards the now whimpering half-elf. “You kept on shouting every two seconds. Why are you now stopping?”
“I- I am Laer, son of Tiff Sirpez, the Duke of Dreadmire! If you kill me, my father will hunt you down and slaughter your family!” the half-elf cried out, as blood poured out from his mouth as he scrambled backward using his hands.
Archie’s joy-filled smile slowly shifted into that of a frown. “Listen, man, if you don’t shut up,” he said, voice low, “you ain’t gonna like what happens next.” The fur of the headdress shifted themselves, rising as Archie’s annoyance and anger grew.
“Slave! Protect me!” Laer cried out looking at the collapsed statue. The pungent scent of fear filled Archie’s nose as he got nearer. “Slave!”
The half-elf’s cybernetic jaw and throat flared navy blue as he shrieked, “He’ll rape your women and feed them to you before putting you down like the dog you are!” messily forming a barrage of rapidly spinning water orbs around his head and another ice wall in Archie’s direction as he kept shuffling away from him.
Archie weaved between the orbs that tore through the sandstone brick walls with ease before lunging forward, smashing through the ice wall with ease with his overcharged Adrenaline Rush,
“Sure, buddy.” Archie rolled his eyes before raising his boot and bringing it down with full force, crushing the half-elf’s skull. The sandstone beneath darkened with a deep red stain. “Why do these young master-types always bring up family? It just sours the fight.”
A groan of exertion pulled Archie’s attention. He looked up to see the heavily scarred woman pushing the deformed marble statue off herself using her scutum shield. She shakily rose to her feet, both the scutum and lance drawn, though both were heavily damaged, with small components either sparking, twitching erratically, or both.
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