Path of the Slayer B3 21. Gravity & Cultists

With my finger pointed, I fired a narrow E.M.P. that acted more like echolocation than a disruptive attack.

I struck the metal enemy, giving me a better insight into the creature – it was more magical than expected, like a golem. It had little to no engineering involved, unlike a proper artificing construct.

Still, it was impressive to see a primitive automaton act with its own supernatural power. The runes on its chassis flashed a brighter purple. A large chunk of rubble about the size of a house ripped away from the wall while covered by more of that purple power.

The automaton was spiraling the rubble around it for obvious momentum. By that point, I took out my Double Arm Cannon and shot two hardy slugs with a push of magnetic lightning.

The metal-on-metal impact resonated hard, the golem jerking backward with its chest crumpled, the glowing purple runes flickering. But it remained operational enough to hurl the house-sized rubble in our way.

Sabretooth and Wolfie sped up and passed through the gates of the actual barracks, dodging the thrown boulder.

It was pure chaos inside. Random stone blocks, giant rusted weapons, massive debris, and more floated about in the vast hallways. I noticed a few splashes of blood and gore that were days old lying on the surfaces or floating about.

Wolfie’s legs flailed through the air. Sabretooth clung to the ceiling – which was the floor beneath us – by using her extended claws.

“Gravity. This place is all about it,” I said. “Damn, if it weren’t for the time crunch, it would’ve been fun to study for a while. Gravity powers are some of the harder stuff.”

I could only imagine Merlin losing his mind in a place like this.

“I’ll come back through and look around for anything,” Thumper said, using Path Shadow through Wolfie, the shade reaching out with grasping tendrils to latch onto a wall and tether them down. “Maybe they got hidden spellbooks and manuals in this place. With my Path, I’ll be the best at finding it.”

“Thank you, System, because it’s nice having a Perfect Rogue around.” I chuckled.

Thumper lowered his head, as if embarrassed, only for Wolfie to bend his neck and give him a long shadowy lick. Sabretooth let out a rumbling purr that had a hint of hunger transmitting through her metal voice.

The timing couldn’t be any more perfect.

A dozen gravity golems came floating out of the holes in the walls. Their purple runes flashed with deadly intent on their bulky armored bodies. Their gravity powers caught hold of floating debris, orbiting them to be eventually thrown.

I squeezed the clutch, twisted the throttle, and shifted the gears as Sabretooth roared with battle lust. Wolfie howled as Thumper directed his shade to follow behind my autocycle.

Sabretooth formed a ramp of ice that thrust through the gravity field and raining debris. The moment I turned Sabretooth’s handle, she redirected the ice path automatically. We twisted, spiraled, and looped around a storm of large debris without gravity being on our side.

Once we drew near a gravity golem, I reached out with a targeted E.M.P. that froze the construct temporarily. Next, I yanked its metal body over to the side of my hungry autocycle.

Sabretooth’s steely radiator mouth flexed toward the tasty meal. With a metal-tearing bite, she took in nearly half of the golem’s torso, its entire head, and one arm.

The fuel gauge spiked upward, and Sabretooth let out a merry cry of food-lust.

We maneuvered around the gravity field and hurtling debris while picking apart the gravity golems one by one. Thumper did me the favor of catching the defeated constructs and storing them in a storage pouch on his belt.

That way, I could study the gravity runes on their chassis even if most of the magic faded off with their demise. Enough study material might bear fruit.

With this being a trap section, the gravity golems didn’t count as creatures for killing. There was no notification for defeating them, but we worked our way through them anyway as we traversed through the massive, nearly labyrinth barracks.

Once Sabretooth was overstuffed from the gravity golem feast, I focused on using my Path Magnetism, Path Lightning, and Striving Electromagnetism Grandmastery to disrupt, dismantle, and even outright destroy the golems.

“Been wondering when you’ll act more like Magneto and Storm’s pupil,” Thumper said, using more of his Modern Earth Realm lingo.

He and Wolfie stuck behind me and Sabretooth as I left a trail of crushed, mangled, and torn golem constructs in our wake. It didn’t much longer before we plowed through the giant barracks and got closer to an exit.

“I have no idea who they are, but if they’re capable of elemental magic like I am, I’ll take the comparison as a compliment,” I said.

Thumper chuckled, leaving me curious of how far the comparisons went.

Then we exited the barracks, and my mind focused on the next interesting challenge we would find. There was also the possibility of artificing with gravity runes and engineering in the back of my imagination.

A gravity cannon sounded cool.

[You’ve escaped the Inverted Battalion Barracks Section: Rank 4 Trap (Epic)!]

Hours later, we finally found something worthy of housing my next wave of crafting and artificing. And the best part, I only needed to evict the owners holding it.

Sabretooth settled into a soft, rumbling pattern while waiting with her kickstands down. I dropped from her seat with no awkward pain or soreness despite the nearly eight hours of hard and adventurous riding.

Thumper slid off Wolfie and walked along my side like a shadow as we stopped on the edge of a cavern exit fused with a castle gate. A wooden signboard hung off the necks of rotten skeletons impaled on rusted spears.

I read the translated words aloud. “Defiled Path Cult.”

Taking a few steps forward, I stopped as an obvious trap waited inches from my leather boots. With a pulse of magnetic lightning, I disabled the runes and made the trap inert.

Thumper walked over to the side, touched a section of the wall, and the sound of breaking rope snapped through the air right after. A spiked log coated in deadly substances fell from the ceiling and swung through the area in front of us.

With a swing of his Super Darkness Nodachi, Thumper cut the spiked log down and let it tumble away.

Route cleared, we stepped further ahead and looked up as the lane transitioned into a titanic spinal bone leading me to my future crafter shack.

There, I saw one of the more interesting vistas in a while. It looked like a massive dragon’s skull with its maw gaping open around a fortress made for humanoids my size.

Along the ramparts, turrets, and towers, I spotted folks moving about quickly. The snap of Aether-powered magic and the taste of Ranker Vitality caught on my senses, but that was all dull compared to the defilement in the air.

The Slayer in me stirred with greed and hunger, but I gently took it aside and gave it a light scolding. There was no need to go solo just yet.

“I’m going hand-to-hand with Sabretooth rolling free,” I said. “Maybe I’ll be able to push one or two of my Uncommon Great Skills this way.”

Thumper held out the Super Darkness Nodachi. “You’re going to make a better version of this, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s see if I can push myself further with direct sword attacks and while Wolfie hangs with Sabretooth. Maybe I’ll get a Great Skill or two out of it.”

“I know who can help with that.”

With a deep breath, I urged Doomie to go inside my body and coil tight around my soul.

She didn’t refuse me. She didn’t even cost me much Path Energy. But her horrid and crushing weight made me buckle. I breathed hard as she squeezed my existence to the brink of destroying me. 

Yeah, she was way more monstrous than before.

Thumper, Wolfie, and Sabretooth regarded me with worry.

Hellion’s voice whispered into my ears alone. “It is painful to be the one who carries the doom avatar, our divine creation made from your intent and the power of the Dragon Princess.”

I nodded along as Hellion went from quiet to booming.

“Yet, it’s your destiny to bear that weight, my liege! No better man other than you can! And the further you strive with the burden of greatness and wretchedness in your core, the more monstrous you will grow!”

Chuckling, I straightened my stance, rolled my shoulders, and jerked my neck for it to crack. Then I looked back as something massive faded into existence behind us.

Crouched in a corner with his claws hanging over the ledge, the big and scarred Veteran Rex made his appearance once more. A heavy growl reverberated from his throat as he glared at the fortress inside the open skull of a dragon.

“V, we’re going to go kick them out and kill some defilers while we’re at it.” I pointed at the fortress. “You got a way to follow us in?”

Looking over the side, I saw the fall off was deep, too deep. “Or are you going to provide meteorite support from the rear?”

“Let’s go.” V slapped his tail against the ledge.

The entire cavern trembled. Orange-hot fissures streaked in spreading, jagged lines along the ledge, over our heads, and across every rocky surface.

Furious hot magma pillars thrust out of the side of the ledge. They rapidly solidified into hardened platforms that even the one-hundred-foot tall and two-hundred-foot long Veteran Rex could walk across.

By that point, the cultists were unleashing their powers and artillery. V roared as he soaked spell blasts and cannon fire directly to the face. The big guy kept charging forward without giving a damn.

Thumper and I shared a look before hopping on our mounts. Sabretooth laid out an icy and cool vortex-coated lane that defused some of the heat of V’s magma constructs. Wolfie and Thumper followed us as we trailed behind V.

Once we got close enough, we hooked around, scaled the wall, and launched into full attack mode as my Veteran Rex crashed through an old and fossilized dragon tooth. Then V delivered a stone-bashing headbutt to the fortress wall.

The entire fortress shook, and many of the defiled cultists fell to their hands and knees, if not falling off the walls and onto the floor.

I let Sabretooth act without me as I launched off to fight on my own two feet. I expected Thumper would summon a rider clone as her partner.

Instead, Wolfie shifted from bestial to something more humanoid and lunged onto Sabretooth. He took the primary rider position all by himself.

Tongue lolling out, a big canine smile on his face, Wolfie looked as happy as could be. He even had half a dozen tendrils extending out of his body. A few held the ivory hilts of the Wolf Commander Fangs Thumper given over to the shade.

Gobsmacked by the sight of Wolfie riding Sabretooth, I nearly took a defiled fireball to the face. Chuckling, Thumper swiped away the attack with his Super Darkness Nodachi and stood next to me.

As Wolfie and Sabretooth drove off, me and Thumper jumped from the wall and down to the courtyard. The cultists came at us in droves, the air thickening with the tangible power of defilement, driving my inner Slayer oh so mad.

The corruption of the Defiled Covenant wasn’t just reserved for monsters, apparently.