'And if they're a higher level than I am, then… they're definitely at a higher level than my team.' Shiv would think that this spelled certain doom for him and his team, if not for one simple fact: there was no increase in any of your physical aspects when you leveled up, aside from how fast you got hungry. And even that was directly related to the elemental abilities that you had. You still got hungry at the same rate if you went about your day doing what you normally did.
Shiv thought all of this in the split second he made eye contact with the closest of the guards who were now looking at him.
His instincts screamed for him to duck, and his brain was agreeing with his instincts- which wasn't unusual at all- so he did so. He didn't throw himself forward, he just dropped to the ground with as much speed as he could possibly muster, and ordered the ground below to form a cocoon above.
There was a cacophony of noises above him for an entire two seconds in which he closed his eyes and prayed.
The sounds quickly passed, so he gathered up his courage and retracted the cocoon back into the ground. He rolled immediately to the side, narrowly avoiding the lighting spear that struck his previous spot. Rolling to his feet, he found himself face-to-face with one of the enemies, so he punched his opponent in the throat with a flaming head. It was almost a knee-jerk reaction. No time to think. Just react.
The man crumpled with a pained expression, and Shiv stepped over his body to kick the ground in the direction of another guard. The floor exploded into a line of spikes that reached his opponent and impaled him. Shiv searched for his next opponent, but only found more dead bodies.
In the end, the element of surprise and the training of Briggs' men had won out over the high-level guards.
Shiv turned to look at the casualties on his side, and grimaced. Out of the eleven men who'd come out of the tunnel, five were dead. They'd killed a total of eighteen guards, but he still didn't like those numbers. 'It's fine. They're all going to die in the end, anyway. And if they don't, you'll have to kill them. It's better this way.' Despite what he was thinking, Shiv didn't feel any better.
He was broken out of his dark thoughts by the metal wall opening to reveal a flurry of attack spells headed into the room. He threw himself to the ground and summoned his own wall from the ground to protect himself and those behind him.
He was very glad he'd hit the deck when an ice javelin easily pierced his wall and came to a stop with the tip resting right where his face had been.
The spells came to an abrupt stop, and Briggs' voice was heard, "Shiv?"
After a moment's delay, the shaky reply came, "yo."
"Sorry." And just like that, Briggs and thirty more men had joined the group.
"No worries. Let's just kill that princess." Shiv got up and brushed himself off, only succeeding in wiping blood all over his clothes.
Briggs patted him on the back and nodded, his grim expression failing to hide the excited sparkle in his eyes. He had an ugly burn on his arm and a jagged gash on the side of his face, but declined healing when Shiv offered it. Shiv shrugged and healed the bruises that were beginning to compile all over his body from throwing himself to the ground so much.
There were healers among Briggs' men, so he didn't bother healing any of the soldiers.
They continued through the castle, only coming into contact with a few more of the elite guards, all of which were set up in ambush. Shiv and Briggs were able to take care of them without too much trouble once they were located, but the ambushes were able to take several men with them to the grave.
After the most recent ambush, they had to come to a stop because of another barrier. This one was made of fire. There was a group of men on the opposite side feeding logs to the flames, while several powerful fire mages continuously controlled the flames as best they were able, keeping them high and mighty. And hot. Very, very hot.
Luckily for Shiv, these guys didn't know about his moleish tendencies.
While Briggs had several fire mages of his own step forward and make the flames go wild, and in the process, blinding the other side to their actions, Shiv got to work. Soon, a tunnel was made, and Shiv, Briggs, and his top men popped out of the tunnel behind the guards.
More death ensued.
Briggs' ice affinity was normally not too effective against flame mages, but since he'd gained massive amounts of levels from his part in the destruction of the city just outside the castle, his ice had become much, much more resistant to heat. That, and stronger, faster, more easy for him to manipulate… it had basically made him a human war machine.
So Briggs threw ice javelins at the fire mages who all had their backs to him and Shiv stomped and activated the combination of Abilities necessary to create Lava Lover. Only this Lava Lover had a much wider radius, a much hotter lava, and a much deeper pit.
The result was an intense feeling of hunger in both Briggs and Shiv, as well as twelve more dead guards.
Shiv waited for the usual feeling of power to rush into him, only to realize he hadn't felt that rush for a while now, even though he'd killed quite a bit during the past twenty minutes. "Why am I not feeling any more rushes of power?"
"They're all at lower levels than you." Briggs replied, amused by the question.
"But this group of elite guards I killed earlier was a higher level than me, and I only got that rush of power from killing one of them." Shiv figured out the answer to his question as he said it.
"That one guy you killed was a higher level than you, and the rest weren't." Briggs shrugged, confirming Shiv's unspoken answer.
***
Just when it felt like they'd been walking and fighting forever, they reached the throne room.
In the throne room was a large number of people. Most of them were elite guards, but some were nobles. Even fewer in number were the strange gladiators in Lucille's employ. Well, her former employ.
Least of all was a group of five men in full metal armor. They were intimidating. They all looked exactly the same, and were definitely at higher levels than Shiv and Briggs.
What stood out most about the men wasn't their impressive stature or the tower shields they were holding. It was that their armor was bright green.
It was actually kind of comical.
But Briggs wasn't focused on any of these people. He had eyes for one person, and one person only: the princess.
She was sitting on her throne with a pale and horrified expression. Shiv thought she was looking at himself at first, but after following her line of sight, he smiled when he found that she was looking at Briggs.
Briggs' expression was different than Shiv had been expecting. He'd been expecting some gloating or maybe a look of hatred, but all he found was a look of confidence on the short man's face.
"Kill them. Kill them all!" The princess' shaky voice echoed through the massive throne room, making the guards surge forward and yell their battlecries.
Briggs' looked back at his men and didn't say anything. Only nodded toward the princess.
One of his men yelled his own battlecry, but the rest remained silent and readied themselves to meet the charge.
Several tense seconds passed as they spread themselves out and erected different elemental barriers, and then the temperature of the room dropped.
Briggs, still standing right next to Shiv, summoned a massive greatsword made of ice. The sword was huge, and looked to be sharp enough to cut steel. It had a cloud of pure coldness emanating off of it, slightly obscuring Briggs.
Shiv stared in awe at the sword, then just knelt and created his razor-thin flaming whip. It wasn't nearly as photogenic as Briggs' weapon, but Shiv was still proud of it.
And then they were fighting.
The line of elite guards reached them, swinging their weapons with precision and confidence in their upcoming victory.
Briggs' men met them with a flurry of elemental attacks followed by physical attacks from their own summoned weapons. Blood splattered on the ground and many men lost their lives.
The men who attacked Shiv and his short companion died much sooner, and much more brutally than all the rest of them, however.
They were like beasts of war, trapping men in the burning whip and cutting them in half with the greatsword. None of the guards, no matter how elite, were able to stand against them for long. They all died.
Just when he was starting to feel confident in their victory, Shiv noticed something: the Green Guards were missing.