RD 4 Ch 12

"And what are the chances that that's going to kill me?" Merlin asked, staring at the amber liquid as I placed it in front of her.

"With Simone here, I'd say pretty low, but not zero," I replied, inching the glass closer to her. We'd obtained a few venom sacs from a type of hive creature called a spitter, aptly named for its ability to spit venom from between its many hiding holes. It had been a considerable challenge to bring down.

Nyx had brought Merlin over, and I'd learned that Merlin had managed to rank up a creeping frost ability to SS. If she could hold a monster down, the ice crystals could slowly work their way between the joints and any other vulnerability points on the Hivnara, killing them after about thirty seconds of sustained exposure. Thirty seconds was an eternity on the battlefield, but in an extermination scenario, it was feasible if we paired her up with Nyx and Circe.

Nyx was getting incredible use out of her petrifying gaze and a newer ability called Entangle that stretched her hair serpents out 20 feet as they tried to wrap and constrict a target.

Between that ability and Circe continuing to work on her control, the two ladies were able to hold Hivnara while Merlin quickly worked through them. I managed to fight one of the warriors one-on-one without even Simone's help.

Overall, for a first day clearing them out, we'd done pretty well. If I had to guess, we'd eliminated about fifty Hivnara. However, we'd only managed to move about four blocks down the street, where we found a diner that was relatively unscathed and decided to use it to rest.

The place was a bit run down, but certainly less breeze than most of the buildings.

"But why do I need poison immunity? It sounds like this monk you talked about just liked to get drunk," Merlin frowned at the liquid.

"Well, yeah," I admitted after a moment. "He was absolutely a complete drunk. And you don't need to get immunity. However, I recommend everyone get some poison resistance, regardless of how they fight. Poison's one of those substances that can be fairly versatile and also catch you completely unaware. Imagine monsters, demons, or humans that we will be fighting eventually, spraying a mist of paralytic poison to cover an area. It could force you to retreat to a worse position, or fight under weakening conditions. Not to mention, people will try to poison each other with weapons or food as a first move in a betrayal far too often."

"You are far too cynical," Merlin said, before she picked up the glass and took a strong sip.

I blinked at her. "Was that a compliment or an insult?" In the strangest way, I was confident it was the latter.

"A fact," she replied, wrinkling her cute nose. "I much prefer scotch to whiskey, if I'm honest. American’s never really learned to make decent liquor after they rebelled." A faint glow radiated from her as Simone use an ability that would heal her over the next minute.

I glanced at one of my spatial rings. "Oh, I think I have something better in here for your next drink," I said, hoping to encourage her to continue to train.

“One is enough for me.” Merlin coughed, visibly struggling with the poison in her system.

Simone chuckled nearby, where she was stirring a pot. "You're going to have to get used to it if you're going to travel with Bran. He doesn't stop training, not even at mealtimes. That's just another excuse to put poison in the food, to make us all stronger."

Gloria grumbled, only to catch my eye and quickly look away. "Not that I'm upset by it. You are kind of full steam forward all the time, though, Bran."

"It's just the way I'm built. Perhaps one day, in the very distant future, there will be enough peace for me to breathe easy. But truthfully, I don't expect that now or ever. Given everything I've learned about the world and the wider universe, it doesn't seem like a very calm place." I answered.

"You've mentioned people from other worlds before," Merlin prodded. "What are they like?"

I shrugged, somewhat unsure how to answer the question. "They're people. They just look a little funny. Talk a little funny. And they think we're all stupid."

Merlin chuckled. "Well, at least that's passingly familiar."

"Yes. They all do things differently. And in the same way, they can be absolutely terrible at something. Like technology. That we used to be so vaunted for. Yet, so strong at something else.”

Nyx looked up from her sewing project. "Like the sword style you learned from Thetis? He sounded like a madman."

"All the Orak’s were like that. They're big glory hounds. They like to run around and find big battlefields. During the Second Demon War, Thetis taught me to fight.” I explained for Merlin. “He came in, fought a ton of demons, looted a lot of shit, and walked away with heaps of system gold and spatial rings full of weapons. But as soon as he had those, he headed off to whatever planet he had come from and hung them up as trophies, stashing the gold away."

"Why didn't they come back for the Third Demon War?" Merlin said slowly, checking with me to make sure she had followed what I’d mentioned in the past.

"Honestly, I don't know. I never had a chance to leave Earth. I don't know what was going on beyond it. I can make a few assumptions," I said, taking a sip of my own poisoned drink and feeling it burn in two very different ways, one of witch caused my regeneration to kick in. "For the most part, it sounded like the demons were ramping up their activity in trying to take Earth. And I believe they may have been distracting those that helped us during the Second Demon War.”

I continued on. “It also sounds like there was a major conflict outside of what ostensibly was everyone else versus demons. I guess you could say their own war for supremacy was happening somewhere else at a wider scale. So, fighting amongst yourself is certainly not unique to humanity. In fact, I'd say from the stories he would tell me, we were fairly tame. Orak’s are few in number because they used to line their territories with their enemies’ heads, mounted on their own weapons."

I glanced over into the corner as a particularly loud bang sounded.

Circe was working a very small version of an air hammer and trying to make something. What exactly she was making, I had no clue. Right now, it just looked like a deformed lump of metal. It possibly was a piece of scrap that she happened to have lying in her spatial ring.

"Something kept the Outworlders busy, or I'm sure my master would have been back for the Third Demon War. Humanity was sort of at its ropes then, but we had enough to put up a solid fight. And this time around, we'll do it even better." I raised a glass in front of all of them. "Let’s toast to a better future and a brighter tomorrow. Here, here!"

There were clinks all around.

Simone even ignored the pot of stew she was cooking for a second to join us. All of them were drinking a poisoned drink of choice, though Simone had apparently come prepared with margarita mix and tequila for hers. She was happily sharing with Nyx, leaving Gloria, Merlin, and I to do the harder stuff.

Amidst our respite, there was a scratching on the roof, and we all froze.

Even Circe stopped her experiment in the corner while we waited with bated breath to see if we were going to have a fight on our hands.

A few pieces of debris fell off the ceiling as the noise passed, one of the little pebbles landing in my whiskey glass and causing a ripple. The plunk of the pebble in the liquid caused us all to hold our breath, as did the Hivnara on the rooftop.

The pause was long enough that Nyx breathed out, "Is it gone?" She asked, only for the ceiling to explode inwards.

Three scouts dropped down, with a spitter staying up. "Nyx, Gloria, all of you on the spitter. I'll stall the scouts." I was on my feet in an instant, drawing out a blood blade and charging towards them, while they were still recovering from their drop.

I bulled through the first two, sending them sprawling, only to push back the third with a flurry of slashes. I aimed for the tips of its pincers, finding that once I chipped them off, the hive scouts were relatively easy.

Meanwhile, the rest of my companions had all jumped up through the ceiling for the spitter that liked to hit and run. The biggest risk was having it scamper away and find another pack while we were dealing with this one.

I’d sent the others up to deal with it first for that reason. Together, they could pin it down and finish it before it brought more into the fight.

The Hivnara whose pincer I had managed to damage came at me like it was angry as hell, chittering up a storm, not giving up after losing it’s mandibles.

While the other two recovered and rounded on me, I backed up into them a touch too close.

One of them managed to get my hip, crushing it between those powerful pincers. The tearing was painful enough to make me gasp. Which impressed me in its own right.

I roared in frustration, spinning and grabbing the Hivnara that had gotten me by its pincers and brought it with me as I spun, using it to slam into its two fellows, only for a small blood blade to appear in my hand as I stabbed it in the eye, getting it to let go. I staggered back, a huge chunk missing from my side and bleeding dangerously.

My blood was its own weapon and I got a fistful of it before splashing it on all three and activating sanguine locking as thorns made of my blood wrapped around the three hives, tangling up their limbs and slowing them considerably.

The ability thankfully worked against the spirit stat, which was particularly weak in these lower ranked Hivnara, yet they were all flexing their strength and trying to break the skill through brute force with their own, something they might be able to pull of. Especially when I was trying to hold all three at once.

I summoned another blood blade, my first one having now gone missing somewhere between stabbing the first one in the eye and me getting a chunk taken out of me. I opted for the shorter blade, rushing the immobile Hivnara and burying the dagger into their compound eyes.

The attack only appeared to enrage them further as one of them managed to break my sanguine locking and twist, snapping its pincers down onto my leg.