Path of the Slayer B3 52. Reinforcements & Murderous Doom

“Where are your Young Pathwalkers?” I demanded. “Tell me, and I might consider letting you die a painless death.”

He had no idea how much of a mercy that was.

Slaughter’s laughter hit a higher metallic pitch from behind me, her ghoulish body of chains and hooks rattling. She remained a constant presence that further empowered my hellish and destructive tendencies.

Other than Slaughter, the enigmatic doom avatar snapped her gaze from me to Slaughter and then back to our enemy. Doomie’s curiosity was silent but welcomed.

After observing me warily in return, the defiled nomad scoffed and reset his stance with his right foot forward, placing his sword hand upfront. A pulse of magic registered on my senses coming from him before large prayer beads strung on a thick leathery string appeared on his off-hand.

A sharp rise in his Legendary power became notable as the world roared, cried, shook, and revolted with violence and mayhem around us.

Parts of the plateau collapsed in great and heavy cascades where V and Zez held back a few more Veterans of the Defiled Covenant. Somewhere behind me, Merlin was surveying the situation still, or I would’ve felt the power of his wizardry having a devastating effect. Miles off the plateau, Sharia was still catching her breath, but her presence was like a guillotine for our enemies.

By all means, my side was winning.

I didn’t like that there were still unknowns.

The defiled nomad’s confidence returned in the face of genocide.

“I am Xavier,” growled the defiled nomad. “Pathwalker Veteran of the Defiled Covenant. Let The Ancestors Rot.”

His Epiphany struck me like the physical incarnation of a devastating illness.

Every part of my existence hated him even further, from the center of my gut to the core of my soul. I’d never hated someone more than him in my life.

“Why?!” I snarled.

“Because our people are weak.”

“Our people aren’t weak!”

“Yes, they are! We are nothing but tools to bypass the parameters of the Realm Verse!” Xavier flashed an impossibly wide smile that was all fangs, his face losing its defining human definition. “Why do you think there is no Realm for nomads? Why do you think we can’t gather and govern for ourselves? Tools are meant to be tools and nothing more, and that is because of the failure of our ancestors. So … Let The Ancestors Rot!”

Warrior Nomad Mentality reigned in my anger. Just in time, too. The battle shifted suddenly, and Merlin’s wizardry roared to life behind me.

A fiery thump like a balled up inferno being unleashed struck the far side of the plateau. A roar of new voices – hundreds of them, all corrupted – sounded out against the wizard’s attack.

Beyond that, waves of intense power that could only come from Veterans appeared closely, especially in the fallen collapse where V and Zez continued to fight. An explosion of violence roared from Sharia’s position miles away from the plateau, the Veteran Raider back on the offensive, but not in a way that crushed the weaker opposition.

I let out a slow breath as Xavier let out a twisted laugh.

“You wanted our Young Pathwalkers?!” he asked mockingly. “There you have them! All three hundred of them with more Veterans to reinforce us!”

Slaughter’s laughter dimmed.

Doomie’s gaze focused on me.

Two more Veterans, Epic, low Level 100s, appeared on either side of Xavier. One was a willowy half-giant woman with a sludge-filled serpent coiling around her body. The other was a dwarf man holding a blackened skull maul in his thick, knobby fists.

Both of them wore the dark ragged robes of their covenant and smiled at me with stained teeth and demented eyes.

“Brigga, Durn, I want this one taken alive,” Xavier ordered as the chaos worsened on and in front of the plateau. “Break him. Rip his weapons away. And do away with those hellish phantoms of his.”

“Gladly.” Brigga sauntered forward with strange fluid movement as if some of her bones were missing.

“I’ll try not to break his skull.” Durn strode forward with his head tucked and his maul clenched fiercely.

Xavier held his sword-forward position, knees bent, ready to jump in at any moment. They hadn’t cast their Domains around me yet. Their eyes observed every part of me as my Path Energy dwindled while maintaining the Genocide Greatsword.

Then, I finally finished my work underneath us.

The surface collapsed suddenly. Brigga and Durn lost their focus on me as hellish red light beamed upward from the gaping maw of a rift.

This whole time, I’d been using Master Warlock Sufficiency to tear a temporary wound into the Realm. It was nowhere near as stable as true Hell Portal, but the rift released its madness and infernal energy all the same. Monstrous things reached through with six fingers and black claws, grabbing and slashing both Brigga and Durn before they could escape the pit they’d fallen into.

“Doomie, deal with those two!” I roared, launching at Xavier like a rocket. 

Behind me, the sound of my Lever-Action Arm Cannons went off as rapidly as I would fire them. I stopped paying much attention after that as I slashed down the Genocide Greatsword and met Xavier’s ivory bone sword.

Multi-colored sparks hissed from the clash, Xavier’s weapon holding for a moment, until the defiled nomad pivoted away. I crashed down with a crack-thump-boom before twisting around quickly with a horizontal cut that warded him away from my flank.

Another plasma-rocket launch sent me far beyond the speed of sound. My Genocide Greatsword carved a colorful and deadly trail of green, red, purple, and gray behind me.

Xavier’s face morphed with anger as he barely ducked out of the way, losing a portion of his dreadlocks. The edge of his Legendary Path Energy ended up clipped by my Genocide Greatsword and sucked into Hellion’s hungry engine.

I stopped my momentum with another magnetic lightning plasma blast and reversed course again, blast-stepping so fast that the whiplash would’ve pulped a lesser man. But with so many powers from my Path Magic and Great Skills engaged, I was too strong, too tough, too powerful to suffer from the strain of my rapid movements.

I put Xavier on the back foot again until he struck a hell trap I’d carved into the floor. The trap triggered with a small but potent infernal burst, tripping him, as I brought my Genocide Greatsword down with a roar.

Before impact, his body ossified and hardened suddenly, and the multi-edged weapon struck the armor with an explosive impact and the weight of my power, forming a crater that broke the surface for a hundred feet in all directions. Then my Genocide Sword carved an inch deeper and kept going down, touching blood and energy, and stealing all it could.

Hellion guzzled up energy with a fiendish and undeniable hunger, and the power I tasted on the receiving end was like ambrosia. The rage I buried inside flipped into ecstasy, and I laughed in Xavier’s face as the defiled nomad roared in anger back at mine. He stopped running and returned a swing coated in his defiled magic.

I pulled back too late and took the blow to my torso armor. The impact transferred through like a hammer blow.

My internals became pulped, my laughter choking on blood, as my boots left the broken plateau floor, my body flying back at incredible speeds. I lashed out with an electromagnetic plasma explosion, halting my backward course, placing me down with a slam near Doomie.

The doom avatar remained perfectly fine while both Brigga and Durn looked chewed apart and angry. Doomie quickly reloaded the Lever-Action Arm Cannons in her hands (going as far as ensuring 6+1 for both) before firing from the hips and doing the Judgement Day Reloads like I would. Both Brigga and Durn cried out from under Doomie’s persistent attention, especially with them pressed by the weight of her true power, concentrated doom.

Xavier rushed back at me to continue the offensive while showing off a new power. He split in two, with his copy being an obviously twisted and monstrous version of him, its entire energy giving off a corrosive effect.

Brigga shook off the arm cannon assault. She took her sludge-like serpent pet into her mouth and devoured the whole thing before her flesh liquefied, elongated, and made her akin to a half-naga made of sludge. Her mouth stretched into a hollow and hungry hole aimed toward me and Doomie.

Durn summoned an obelisk made of skulls that radiated energy that reminded me of Brug’s Path Magic, Grudge Cleave. That gave me a clue that all the damage Durn had suffered was going to embolden him further. The Veteran braced himself, preparing to charge no matter what once he had an opening.

All of this happened at speeds most Pathwalkers below Level 101 wouldn’t have been able to track. But I wasn’t most Pathwalkers, I was the Slayer. Even if in hiding, I pushed that truth to the forefront, throwing myself against the impossible onslaught.

Maybe that wouldn’t have been enough.

Then Doomie revealed something that shocked us all. She fired her next round of shots more selectively, hitting all three Veterans in the faces to distract them.

Xavier missed his swing by a hairbreadth over my head as I ducked under him and came up with an angled slash that struck his corrosive copy in the hip. The multi-colored ribbons spiraling around the Genocider Greatsword moved even faster at my behest, hacking straight through the ribcage and out of the shoulder of the construct.

It exploded in a spray of caustic acids that I blocked with an explosion of electromagnetism.

Another explosion of magnetic lightning and plasma rocketed me past Xavier and straight toward Brigga. The monstrous half-giant snake woman opened her mouth even further to take me in.

Another timely arm cannon blast from Doomie caught the left side of Brigga’s upper face. That slight distraction helped me twist and rocket out of the way in the other direction, dodging Brigga’s dark hole of a mouth. With a crack-thump-boom and pivot, I spun like a top and slashed the Genocider Greatsword through Brigga’s neck, beheading her.

Xavier and Durn were already converging on me, ignoring Doomie, but I didn’t flee from their wrath. I stuck around for the kill, thrusting the greatsword through Brigga’s back and ravaging her until she died for sure.

[Congratulations, Slayer! You’ve slain Pathwalker Veteran Brigga, “With My Faith I Feast,” Epic Level 105 Path of the Defiled Covenant!]

[Bravo! You’ve slain a Veteran while still a Pathwalker! Increased Leveling!]

All of that energy absorbed through the greatsword, Hellion, and into me replenished more than enough for me to stand my ground. I met Xavier’s sword strikes with my own. Then Durn came around with a full-strength maul swing to my chest, and the Stormcannon Dominator Armor proved itself as it became more emboldened by the blood and mayhem.

My ribcage burst apart into splinters. My organs, chest muscles, and flesh became paste. My spine snapped apart in several places. My body flew back two dozen feet.

And no more.

Crack! Thump! Boom!

I didn’t know if I stopped myself or if Dominator did. But the magnetic lightning and cursed nature of my armor lashed out against reality with a thunderous roar as I rapidly healed myself with Path Energy.

Tumultuous clouds appeared over our heads. Thick stalks of angry lightning came down like the wrath of the God-Queen herself. I stood in the center of the chaos, my armor soaked with my own gore, my body re-knitting itself underneath all of that.

The Genocide Greatsword continued spiraling with its four intense colors. The spinning capacitor at the center of the blade accelerated further, turning the metal incandescent.

How long did I have until it broke? I didn’t know. I didn’t care.

Slaughter laughed her loudest, and Dominator hummed with violent lust. The damning lightning kept clamoring, and the attention across the battlefield drew further toward me as Xavier and Durn hesitated.

Doomie took advantage by walking up to Durn and grabbing both sides of his head. The dwarf Veteran roared with anger that turned into a high-pitched scream of pain as Doomie crushed his head like a fruit between her palms.

Xavier turned to slash her, but her flesh didn’t yield easily, and her attention remained on Durn’s headless body.

Fist clenched, Doomie drove her arm down like a hammer and crumpled the dwarf man’s body into the floor, turning him into a pancake of gristle and blackened jelly. She struck down again and again, like tenderizing meat, ensuring his death stuck long past the notifications hitting my System Logs.

[Congratulations, Slayer! You’ve slain Pathwalker Veteran Durn, “Rot Is Love,” Epic Level 110 Path of the Defiled Covenant!]

[Bravo! You’ve slain a Veteran while still a Pathwalker! Increased Leveling!]