Sacrifice Mage-Chapter 22: Bitter Battle

The Thrall cackled. Aurier tried to struggle free, but the knife pressed hard enough to draw blood and he stilled, his face switching constantly between fear and rage.
Forget punching, my fists itched to be stuffed down the bastard’s throat so I could rip out his spine. These Thralls weren’t just brazen and bold. They were pure evil.
“Don’t you dare sully our prayer,” someone yelled.
I wasn’t even sure what that was about. The Woven Way thing? How was that even important when there was literally someone caught in the monster’s grip?
“Prayer?” The Scarthrall laughed. “That’s right! Get your final prayers in now because I won’t be giving you any time once I get my hands on
all
of you.”
Anger was starting to cloud my mind. Revayne had finally let go of the woman and had even lowered her book for once, stepping forward to deal with the Scarthrall. The Elder had taken over caring for the traumatized victim. Around the Thrall, the guards were trying to inch closer, while everyone else was either too shocked to move or on the verge of fleeing.
The only thing that stopped them were the growing looks of ravenous delight among
several
in the crowd. My rapid count found four—no,
six
other Scarthralls. How were there that many here? They were effectively holding everyone hostage.
I was starting to think we would need to take some sort of drastic action to stop them, regardless of the fallout, but then, Hamsik reappeared and turned my thoughts into reality.
“Die,
scum!
” he yelled.
His magical gun, already formed over his hand with burnished brown threads of mana, glowed gold at the barrel tip. The subsequent bang made the very air vibrate, my ears ringing.
It also set off pure chaos.
With a scream, the Scarthrall fell back, the stump where his missing hand should have been crackling and smoking. Hamsik’s shot had been extremely precise. Dangerous, but
targeted
. Aurier had fallen too, but he was getting back up, turning around with growing fury to attack the fallen Thrall.
But there were all those other Scarthralls, all of whom roared and got moving. A couple launched themselves at the nearest targets, but most began dashing out of the area.
The worst were the ones who
took
someone with them.
With heart-clenching horror, I saw one grab up a screaming orphanage kid before rushing away. The way the rest of the children and their caretaker all screamed was going to brand themselves in my nightmares.
I was already moving after that one, but Revayne was faster. The other guards too. She rushed after the Thrall that had taken the child, yelling out quick orders at her two subordinates.
“
Take the kidnappers!
” she shouted, before quickly disappearing after her target.
Like her, the other two guards quickly pursued a couple of other Thralls. For all that I had poor opinions of them after our last two encounters, I couldn’t deny that they were responsive.
It was almost smart for them to leave after the runaway Thralls. The cultists could stay behind to take care of everyone else at the temple.
Which wasn’t something I intended to do.
“Aurier,” I said, getting up to my younger companion. The Scarthrall he had tried to fight was escaping. Hamsik had already disappeared and Escinca was way too busy dealing with everyone else. “Can you help the Elder?”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m not going to let them get away,” I growled.
In the chaos, I had noted that not all of the Thralls had someone following them. Hamsik had rushed off after one of the Scarthralls that didn’t have a guard on hot pursuit, and the earth cultists had run off after yet another.
I looked up, just barely catching the one with the missing hand hurtling away into the night. Maybe I should have been thankful that he had just run off, but all I could think of was the sheer temerity they had shown in invading the temple directly like that. If we let them get away, it would—
No.
No
letting them get away. The Cult of the Sun wasn’t going to take this lying down. I was finally starting to feel at home here to some extent. To have it threatened like this
wasn’t
something I’d let stand.
Before Aurier could protest, I was already rushing off.
I had picked up a jagged piece of wood as I had dashed off. Thralls or whatever they might have been, they were still vampires. They were still weak to the things I was familiar with. Sunlight—the way the bright lights summoned by Hamsik had burned them alive was proof of that. The way they had desperately started the chaos rather than be blessed by Escinca was yet more evidence.
There was probably no such thing as garlic in this sunless world, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t drive a stake through their hearts. It wasn’t hard to pull off a chalky black board from one of the many abandoned houses along the way.
I still hadn’t found my target. The more I ran in the direction of the runaway, handless Thrall, the more fears and doubts kept assailing me.
It was natural. I wasn’t as strong as Hamsik. I probably wasn’t even close to as strong as Revayne was. She had moved so fast every single time she had needed. Her Agility had to be through the roof compared to what I had, not to mention any other Attributes she had thanks to whatever Path she possessed.
But so what? I had beaten the Thralls the last time I had fought them. I would do it again.
It wasn’t that I remembered how I had doubted my previous victory just days ago when talking with Aurier about training more. But rage flowed through me like an endless waterfall, making my blood burn in every single one of my vessels, making my muscles
need
to act.
I didn’t have time to investigate the feeling. A different sort of fear was starting to claim me. I had rushed into another deserted part of Ring Four on the Thrall’s tail, but I saw no sign of the asshole.
Deep breaths. One, two. I had to centre myself. Even in the midst of the roiling anger, I tried to think straight.
If I couldn’t find my target, then I’d just make him come to me instead.
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“Got you now, you
maggot!
”
The scream came an instant before the Thrall himself. I did my best to time the dodge just right. This was what Gutran had trained me for.
As I dived away, my timing worked. I channelled Gravity, deep purple threads flowing through my chest and down my arm as I swung my makeshift wooden stake at the vampire. The wood connected. We both fell away from each other, but I was the one to rise faster.
Because the vampire’s boot was wrapped with void-purple threads, weighed down like he had concrete blocks attached to them.
“You’re
that
bastard,” he said, scowling up at me as he slowly got to his feet. “The one messing around with everybody’s weight. The stupid little upstart human who thinks he’s a bigshot after running away from his little fight.”
I scoffed. “You’re the one who got lured into attacking me and
I’m
the stupid one?”
“Lured? Ha, I was just waiting for the right opportunity to kill you.”
“And yet…” I looked down at where his boot was trapped by Gravity. It had been easy to pretend I was lost and vulnerable, to wander around the deserted area like I didn’t know where I was going, rushing around blind with rage. Seeing that, the Thrall—who no doubt had to have been keeping an eye on me—had been unable to resist attacking. “Look who’s trapped.”
“Screw you to the Pits, stupid human, if you think this is going to stop me.”
He bent down to immediately free himself from the boot weighed down with threads of Gravity.
“Like I’m going to let you,” I shouted as I rushed at him.
Power flowed through me. I was faster than before, and stronger too. With two quick bounding steps, my body’s weight lessened thanks to Siphon, I was on my target. The stake stabbed forward with all the force I could muster.
He blocked it. With his stump. The jagged ends of the wood dug into the burned flesh but my opponent showed no reaction. His other hand was still pulling his foot free.
High as my Power had grown, I still couldn’t force my attack past the Thrall’s block.
And then he countered.
I wasn’t prepared for his body to contort the way it did. With horrific rending sounds of flesh and bones ripping, the Thrall twisted the leg that
wasn’t
weighed down into a vicious roundhouse kick.
The angle should have made something like that impossible. That was why I wasn’t prepared. All I managed was using Siphon to lower my own weight even further an instant before contact. Then the kick sent me thumping backwards, my feet trailing on the ground.
Gritting my teeth through the burst of pain on my entire right side, I used Infusion next to increase my weight and slow myself down. My feet dragged against the dirt, slowing my momentum and preventing me from crashing into the house across the excuse for a street. I still hit the wall hard enough to lose my breath for a second.
The Thrall’s sharp laughter made sure my brain was still on the fight despite the agony on my arm. He was free.
He was going to
attack
.
Despite the glowing hot throb, I could still move my arm. It hurt like I had replaced the blood in my veins with lava even when I just curled my fingers tighter around my stake. But I
could
still move it.
“Die, human
scum!
” the Scarthrall yelled as he threw himself in my direction.
Fast.
Incredibly
fast. But I could see. I had trained and grown and I noted his bounding steps, counted the footfalls—one bare, one booted—as he rushed me down. And I moved too. My heart shot up my throat and into my mouth. His arm lunged at me and I ducked under it, rolling past. I swiped my stake but it missed his other leg. Bastard was too fast.
I didn’t slow the momentum carrying onwards as I got back to my feet and jumped. Siphon reduced my weight enough to help me reach the roof of the house in front of me.
“Where the Pits do you think you’re going,
coward!
” The Thrall had whirled around, legs springing, ready to leap. “You can’t run from me.”
As he jumped, I used Infusion next, weighing both myself and everything around me in a small circle. Purple threads flooded out. The old, ricket roof creaked, bent, then broke as I fell through with a crash of shattered planks and a rain of dust. I didn’t waste any time, already retreating a little deeper into the room.
Just in time as the Scarthrall crashed in the next second, destroying more of the roof. He growled, only annoyed by the few wooden chunks falling around him. Even the dust wasn’t affecting him.
“Why you—”
I continued using Infusion, this time attempting to spread its influence as far as it would go. A flood of strands as dark as the night blanketed everything around me, sinking into the walls and the roof, testing my level of control over Gravity and travelling up the direct connections. The emptiness of mana exhaustion began gnawing at me, but I didn’t let go.
Just as the Thrall attacked me yet again, half the rest of the house collapsed on top of him. He went down with a surprised squawk.
I did my best not to cough in the storm of debris that arose. My eyes turned to slits to keep out the dust.
The Thrall was already rising, refusing to stay down. Not a problem. I was moving too. My body might be struggling to channel more mana, but I had all the inherent Attributes I had raised to rely on. The Agility I had raised by a rank, the Power I had raised by several more. They fuelled me. I had the strength and speed I needed to rush at my enemy and
take him down
.
As the Thrall got to his feet out of the pile of broken wood, I slammed in. He had once again raised his arm to block, but I wasn’t stabbing in this time. I just smacked him with all the force I could draw on, swinging the stake like a bat after Infusing it with heavy Gravity strands.
The sound of my weapon striking my enemy was music to my ears. A delightful, heavy thud. With a cry, the Scarthrall went hurtling backwards.
But not before he slashed his good hand at me, shredding through my robes and skin, blood splattering on the floor of the destroyed house. The momentum of my own strike combined with the burst of pain made me stumble. I really needed to get better at weighing my own hits.
With a roaring cry, the Scarthrall got back to his feet. At least my smack had been strong enough to send him all the way back to street. “You little human
mongrel
.
I’m going to rip you to shreds!
”
He was about to rush at me again. His teeth were bared, his good hand dripping with my blood. I took a deep breath, looking down at the way both my body and clothes were shredded.
Then I ripped off and Sacrificed the rest of my robes. “Just try.”
[ Sacrifice
You have Sacrificed 1 [Partially Torn] [Minor] Outfit of Divine Inclination. Windfall bonus activated.
Reward
: Vitality boosted by 5 Ranks for 1 hour
]
I didn’t even get to finish reading the notification. With speed and power that made the dirt split, the Thrall was once again rushing at me. But as he rammed into me, I felt a different sort of weight infuse throughout my body, one that was entirely separate from Gravity. A mantle of sudden
solidity
that settled into every single cell and hair and nail I had.
A newfound Vitality.
I dodged again at the last moment, swinging my stake around for a counter. He was getting better at reading me, however. Not only did I miss, but the Thrall was twisting his whole body around, ignoring the limits of his spine entirely. Just as he had done with that kick earlier.
But this time, I was ready for it. His clawed hands slashed in. “Fresh
blood!
”
The blow struck hard, and it
hurt
. But I stood my ground. The Thrall’s nails didn’t pierce my skin. I hadn’t even stumbled a single step back. His eyes went wide, then turned round as coins as I stabbed the stake through his chest and out his back. Dark blood spilled around us in a growing pool.
“How—”
His words came out as a garbled choke. I didn’t need to explain Sacrifice to him, nor the fact that I had used some of the last of my mana to Infuse a crap ton of weight in my body. With my increased defence, I knew I’d be able to tank a direct blow. Which I had.
“You’re mine,” I said. “And you’re
dead
.”
Before he could start pulling the stake out of his chest, I shoved with all my might. We burst out of the house, then fell, but I was aiming for it. Aiming for the ground, to be exact. With a shout of exertion, I drove the stake into the dirt, stabbing in and locking it deep.
I threw myself backwards to get away before the Scarthrall could start choking me or something. “Try to get out now, you—”
The world twisted. I fell hard.
Pushing past the stunned sensation, I shoved myself up just enough to see that the Thrall had grabbed my foot. Shit. I hadn’t been fast enough.
“You’re going nowhere, human scum!” the Thrall said, even as the wound around the stake had begun to sizzle.
I tried to pull myself free, but his grip was iron. Kicking at his hand had no effect whatsoever. I was caught. The crushing pressure was growing stronger every second, and despite my raised Vitality, pain came with it. As well as the panicky feeling that my leg was in serious trouble.
“Think you got me, huh?” The Thrall laughed. “Well, if I die, I’m taking you and your Pits-cursed leg with me!”