Tyrants of Earth - The Legend of Artigan-Chapter 48 - Dragonslayers vs Tyrants part 1
The most feared Tyrant amongst the dragonslayers was not the mightiest, not the quickest, nor the most magically destructive. The most feared Tyrant was a [Witch]. She was widely considered the second weakest of all the Tyrants yet she was still the most feared, the most hated. The reason?
She was spiteful as all hell.
There had been a Healers’ Union once. It no longer existed. It didn’t matter if you were behind civilians, it didn’t matter if you hid in a bunker. Far too many deaths had been attributed to her. The term fallenangel was no mere joke, make a public insult to the Witch and you’d find yourself under a mysterious illness, a broken leg or an exploded server.
That was just to the mortals.
Many of the dragonslayers assembled today had never forgotten her true sins.
Twenty Eight dragonslayers had surrounded the cave the Witch Tyrant had taken as her home. no great city, no great fortress. A simple hole in the base of a hill in the eleventh sector. It was no great secret.
Enchanted signs littered the ground that told them they were trespassing.
In every known language, and some unknown ones.
[Spatial Lock] + [Grand Rising]
[Boost of the Seven Winds]
“Fire.”
[Enhanced Spellweave] + [Multiplicative casting: Cometstorm]
[Gigant’s Cleave] + [Volatility Strike of Cerberon]
[Dragonslaying Imbue] + [Torrent of Arrows] + [Antimagic Link]
[Elemental Binding] + [Triplicate Casting] + [Field Of Balance]
[Death’s Embrace] + [Risky Finish] + [Gambler’s Fallacy]
[I Killed A Fucking Dragon] + [Peak Efficiency]
[Spears of Goliath] + [Impossible Throw]
[A Hundred Thousand Flying Swords]
They opened with a salvo. Giant arrows, javelins, swords and comets bombarded the hill as the land was obliterated. Not a single dragonslayer dared to blink as they all began readying their defensive skills. Many had already started putting their shields up between their squad and the Tyrant.
The hill was gone, a wrecked crater of broken skills and magic. A single tall elf in white robes was sitting on a chair in the middle of a floating piece of flat marble. She had a cup of tea in her hand and looked at her guests with a raised eyebrow.
The glare blew up every single alert skill in the field.
“A pity.”
Everyone heard the voice of the Witch Tyrant, even those observing with skills from far, far away.
“She’s casting!” Indigo yelled.
Another volley of cataclysmic attacks fell down as the marble beneath the Witch Tyrant glowed. It automatically casted magic and intercepted every attack. Multicolored lights flew out and seemed to be capable of distinguishing the mass of assault. Sometimes swallowing them whole and sometimes parrying attacks to the side.
The few attacks that snuck through simply smashed into an invisible barrier.
“[Prepared Casting], [Twinned Spell], [Meteor].”
Despite the bombardment, everyone once again heard her voice. They stopped firing as they beheld the Witch Tyrant’s return fire.
Two enormous magical circles opened up in the sky, miles from the ground.
“You can’t twin a [Meteor].” Someone just commented dumbly.
“BRACE!”
A true [Blademaster] flew up high into the sky, his blade cutting through both air and space as he rose, targeting one of the circles.
[Anti-magic blow, Epic of Scalesplitter Archei-
[Archwitch’s Domain: Spatial Authority, shatter]
The Witch Tyrant balancing on a marble teleported right above the dragonslayer [Blademaster]. The marble slammed into him, face first, mid skill. The platform marble began a return bombardment against every attack that attempted to interrupt the rapidly forming spell circles in the sky.
Everyone else?
They were readying their defensive skills and barriers or trying to run away from the impact zone. The quickest ones slammed against an invisible barrier, one that had been laid years ago for this very encounter.
The Witch Tyrant had caged them in. She looked down at them all, archly.
“Did all of you truly think that you could handle a [Witch] in her domain?”
The circles of magic emanated so much mana that it began to ripple in reality itself. Like the twinned [Meteors] were a step away from a Legend manifestation. The fabric of space warped and in the center of the circles turned into a starry void, nobody was bothering to fire at the spell circles anymore.
Everyone was bracing for impact.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, the violation.
The first asteroid peeked itself through the entrance… ever so slowly through the spell circle.
Then gravity asserted itself as it became a flaming meteor, bringing armageddon to the land.
As the first set of magical circles dissipated, the second circle’s angle changed slightly, a smaller meteor fell from the void.
Just to cover the entire field.
–
The eleventh sector was in itself as large as Earth was. It bordered both the eighth, tenth and ninth sectors. For the adventurers close enough, they would have felt the impact of two [Meteors] falling upon the land. The ones that hadn’t been in the know of the eleventh sector?
They all started using their emergency escapes.
–
Despite what should have been a continental ending attack, only three dragonslayers had actually been killed. Four if you included the one that had his face pulverized by a slab of magical marble. All three of the dragonslayers that had fallen were the ones that had initially run. Those without some form of Epic tier dodge skills or allies to block for them.
The Witch Tyrant stood, unbothered in the epicenter of the [Meteors]. The entire landscape had been rearranged, a theater where she stood in the center stage. The signs of bombardment from the dragonslayers completely wiped clean.
“[Archwitch’s Doman: No Healing]”
The arrogance to declare your skill to everyone around. The arrogance to break your spatial control just to spite the other dragonslayers. The confidence to stare down over twenty dragonslayers that stood at the summit of power.
Indigo the orc [Shaman] started her rally.
“She’s used over half her mana! Her marble catalyst is broken. This is a Tyrant, Here we fight!”
A man blurred close to the Tyrant, his katana already drawn. He wore simple gear with simple enchantments.
An Epic [Master of the Blade] sliced forward to find his katana blocked by a magical staff. He did not use his greater strength to throw off the block but used light slices to try to make an opening.
It only took two exchanges for him to confirm something. Something he’d been told before but only realizing how serious it was now.
The Witch Tyrant was excellent in close combat.
The [Archwitch] spun her staff and moved even faster than that of the [Blademaster]. It had to have been a precasted [Haste]. Probably something greater.
It didn’t quite make up the difference in skill as the Witch started losing ground. It was still madness, he hadn’t met a [Mage] that could compete this closely since the fourth realm.
An arrow tracked her back as it slammed into a form fitting shield, it knocked her slightly forward as the [Master of the Blade] found his opening.
[Fivefold Antimagic Cut] + [Barrier Cut] + [True Str-
He forcefully interrupted his skill combination. He leapt backwards as three beams of light crashed down from the sky. Hands shaking as they felt the blowback from stopping so many powerful skills at once.
“You should have gone for the exchange!” Indigo roared at him.
He didn’t answer her. That wouldn’t have been an exchange, he’d be dead.
An onslaught of ranged attacks fell down on the Tyrant as his retreat was covered. It ended just as quickly as the Witch Tyrant had launched herself into the air.
A bolt of lightning came down to hit her–as she grabbed it, turned it pink, and then threw it back at the caster. A beam of light followed the thrown lightning as it shattered the [Mage’s] barrier. A shield bearing knight blocking the attack just in time.
The [Witch] looked down at them like no other [Witch] they’d ever met. Three revolving orbs of light surrounded her as she took out a buckler. The Witch Tyrant placed the staff on top of the buckler stance like a spartan of old. Two more orbs of light spun at the staff’s tip.
He took a breath.
“Fucking hell. Here we go.”
–
The Witch Tyrant was in a melee with a [Master of The Blade] and a [Deathknight]. The duo perfectly covered each other in both offense and defense, trying to whittle away at her mana and stamina.
The [Stallmaster Thief] took the moment between time to stab the Witch Tyrant in the back. Her skill, [Stolen Time] accelerated her beyond anything anyone could perceive. The knife reached her back and hit between her shoulder blades. Her merged Epic dealing the final blow.
[The Magepiercer’s Fatal Stab]
It pierced her barrier and hit her… back? She felt something tough underneath her knife like she had just tried to stab a dragon. That wasn’t right, she’d stabbed a dragon before whatever this was–
Something flickered in her vision as the backlash of [Stolen Time] hit her. The [Stallmaster Thief] froze in space as the Tyrant regained hers. The Tyrant swung her buckler and snapped the [Thief’s] wrist.
The [Master of the Blade] grabbed the frozen [Thief] and threw her aside.
A beam of light landed right where she’d just been. He’d just saved her.
Unfortunately the opening was enough for another beam of light to stab the [Master of The Blade] through his thigh.
The Witch Tyrant had moved far faster than anyone the [Stallmaster Thief] had ever encountered before. That was impossible, she was a [Witch] not a [Rogue]. The newly injured [Master of the Blade] was attempting a retreat as the Tyrant started advancing. The [Deathknight], a truly powerful Epic melee class, couldn't keep up with the speed.
Madness.
Her orbs were deflecting and countering everyone else. Nobody else dared to get closer.
The [Stallmaster Thief] slipped through time again, a lesser, localized variant of [Stolen Time]. She retreated back to the [Shaman] and glared at Indigo.
“How much fucking mana does she have left?!”
Indigo was focusing on the battle, casting buffs and protecting the field from the projectile bombardment. “It’s steadily going down. Get that skill off cooldown and go for her head next time.”
“She has some crazy invisible armor, it shouldn’t matter where I hit with a maxed out [Fatal Strike].”
“It’s fine, she’s slower than before, she’s waning.”
Waning? They were dying.
Six more dragonslayers had died. All from those dragonshit orbs. She was supposed to only have three of those. That had been bad information.
Even then, it should have been manageable. If not for one thing–the orbs started blinking.
“C-cover!” She yelled as she dove behind Indigo.
Each of the orbs started rapid firing, as beams of light started bombarding the field. The [Thief] saw a light beam hit the [Knight] defending Indigo as it dissipated in motes of light. A fake. That was the biggest problem. The Witch Tyrant could rapid fire fake beams of light mixed in with real ones.
She looked up to see the [Deathknight] pierced through the head, his armor completely ignored by the beam of light.
The [Stallmaster Thief] had enough.
“What the hell? We’re all going to die at this rate!”
Indigo looked at the faltering dragonslayers and sighed.
“There’s no retreat, the Witch will hunt all of you down to the ends of The Realm.”
“You promised us success! You said you predicted it!”
“Yes, some sacrifice was needed, but we will succeed here.”
–
Indigo stepped forward. The [Shaman of the Blood Oath] raised her own staff, bones chiming in the air. The Witch Tyrant paused in her onslaught to watch, more curious than wary. That arrogance would be her downfall.
[The Blood and Bones of my Fallen Tribe]
The bodies of the dead dragonslayers started evaporating, they misted in the air and started swirling around Indigo.
[Bloodpact: My Oath Consumes Everything]
She could feel her skill taking everything, her first Epic, the bones of her oldest comrades crumbled to dust as it too added to her skill.
[Sacrifice of Blood and Bone]
For once, the overwhelming magic and aura of the Tyrant found a worthy adversary. A rapid fire of light rained down on the [Shaman] as her [Bloodsworn Knight] blocked all the beams the Tyrant could throw. He too had been boosted by being near her sacrifices.
The world tinted red, the fabric of reality bent. Enormous ripples tore across the sky, as if reality itself was fissuring under the weight of this new skill. A larger area than what the twinned [Meteors] had created.
The newest Legend manifested itself in The Realm
New Legend Detected:
Oath of Blood and Bone (Temporary)
It was finally time to slay a Tyrant.
Chapter 48 - Dragonslayers vs Tyrants part 1
Comments