They were only kids. Jumping off cliffs in howling laughter as they charged a horde of….. Claude didn't know.
Everyone around him didn't seem to care. There was something freeing— empowering in being joined by likeminded individuals. It felt unreal. It was like he dreamt.
"These are heroes. These are people that want to save the world…." Claude's eyes watered as the winds cut and their velocity maximized.
He formed his construct-blade. A hooked blade— reminiscent of the swords he found in the Astral Realm with Anubis. The design was reminiscent of a khopesh. Probably not the best idea considering he was supposed to stay lowkey, but his mind was frayed by excitement. Pure and untainted. He was excited to be a hero. For the first time in the Island Gauntlet.
"LETS GOOOO!" Claude slammed his hooked blade into the stone side of the cliff. Rubble bloomed and fell around him like rainfall as he slowed, scraping his face and scalp from the speed.
Dozens of students did the same all around him.
Wind element users with enough skill and power flew— riding unrefined gusts that made it look like they were skipping beneath the clouds.
They hit the ground.
They were only kids. Some landed wrong, falling on their faces and rolling their ankles from lacking the physicality to adjust to their speed on the ground.
Claude landed in a roll, busting up his shoulder from all the fallen rubble on the backside of the beach.
The second he was on his feet, he was healed. They all glowed— just like the stories. They were empowered and fearless and about to better the world.
"Alright now guys, not too much reckless behavior. I may be a first-waver but I don't have enough mana for you all!" One of the healers yelled.
"Quit yapping and hold the flanks, Goren!" Marion barked.
"Focus! Here they come!" Naz yelled as she sprinted ahead of everyone.
In the distance, a hazy outline emerged from the ocean waves. At first they looked like tidal waves. Small blips of blue, indescernable from the ocean waters.
Then they stepped on the sand and maintained form, solidifying in their fluidity. Legs made of mini hurricanes. Ice crusted jagged armor encased their shoulders, heads and knuckles. Some touted glacial pikes and shields. The one thing that held them all was a glowing stone emblazoned with the same rune. Like some elemental cyclops brigade.
"Ocean-golem's!"
He'd never seen them in real life. Most likely because they were created by...
You guessed it, hex-blades.
Claude's anxiety bloomed as he sprinted through the sand. He pulled on the hood of his cloak.
"Were these created by the same hexblade from before? Or are there others? Are the dark-eaters hexblades? I need more information but I can't risk it here. Take them out, investigate later…. Somehow." Claude thought as the two groups met in battle.
Naz and Isaac were the first on the scene. With his flaming shield, Isaac ran through two seven foot tall ocean-golem's. The rune-written deep-sea stones functioning as their souls rolled across the floor. Water splashed in the sand.
Naz moved like nothing he'd ever seen. With her scythe, she flipped and spun around the battlefield in a way that was completely against physics. She moved in angles and arcs and attacked from everywhere but the front.
The ocean-golems had moved to swarm her.
Claude took the advantage with Marion and the other students.
The closest ocean-golem was almost entirely comprised of ice. The tank of the group.
Claude tackled it from behind. His shoulder didn't appreciate the attack, but the frozen brute stumbled forward and ripped through another, sending magical stones rolling.
"Watch out!" Isaac flashed past Claude's backside in a blur of flames as he eviscerated another duo of golems at his back.
Claude found himself returning the favor as Isaac rolled to a stop in the sand. Four golems crowded him, attempting to drown the knight and overpower his explosive heat.
He heard the music even before using his element. As if it was asking to be utilized in his time of need. As if the dryads themselves were leading him on.
The life beneath the sands spoke to him. He reached and pulled. Massive wooden spikes exploded all around Isaac, knocking the cores out of all four ocean-golems.
Isaac didn't even look bothered, catching his breath casually from the ground, as if it was a normal Tuesday. Behind him, three golems combined into a giant hurricaning beast with thundering eyes and limbs made of blizzards.
In its advance, tidal waves of wet sand sent the tanks standing between them flying.
"Isaac, get up!" Claude held his blade in a shaking grip.
"You remember I said I like bench press right?" Isaac questioned in between spitting up water….. or ocean-golem guts.
"What are you…. Oh."
"Let's go." Isaac put his shield over his chest.
Claude took off, using Isaac's shield as a white-hot springboard.
The knight was strong. Probably as strong as Ursula. He launched Claude straight into the air in one explosive push.
Claude flew. Feeling increasingly small in stature as he closed in one the sixteen foot tall super-golem.
Either way, he raised his blade, eyes fastened on the trio of rune-written stones floating in its pointed head.
He swung.
So did the golem. They hit at the same time. But he was a teenage boy under two-hundred pounds/ninety kilograms. And the golem was a disasterous water giant with ice armor and tsunami skin.
It's arm, shaped like a frozen lance wacked his midsection, swatting him out of the battle in a blink.
He hit the sand and rolled. More than familiar with crashing and burning, he gained his balance painfully and landed back on his feet.
[60% HP Remaining]
He swatted his System Screen aside.
Just in time to see Isaac, Marion and Naz working to pick up his slack.
Naz flipped and hook slashed her way through three golems to pursue the giant. She even grabbed a sprinting healer, pulling him out of deaths clutches in the form of a glacial vomit barrage from the giant. Isaac and Marion hung close behind, visibly banged up.
And the enemy was evolving. Stray golems swallowed up the discarded rune-written stones of their fallen allies, gaining greater vitality, extra limbs and deadly new powers as the hex-blade magic compounded within.
He watched a student punch through one. His arm immediately flattened as if the golem could suddenly conjure the pressure of a bottomless ocean in its stomach.
There it was.
Reality.
It wasn't like the books, even when it was. And he knew why they came. The time for hiding was over. He pulled down his hood.
"You still looking for dark-gods?!" Claude yelled to them.
All of the ocean-golems straightened and stared him down like a colony of puppets on the same string.
Three golems aimed their arms at him, firing glacial-eels stored there like they were arrows.
Claude went down under the shocking barrage. His mind working the whole time, "Fence formation! Fence formation!"
"You heard him!" Naz yelled to the students.
In a rush, they all formed a massive circle around the ocean-golems. There were so many students that the circle had layers. The tanks occupied the first ring beside swordsmen and knights. Elemental mages and archers stood behind them. Healers held the outside, fortifying the formation as the golems raged.
"Hold the line! The liberator is rising…."
"Naz sure knows how to set a scene." Claude sat up. His deep sea kin slithered off him, unhooking their electrified teeth as he transformed into something similar. Not a mirror reflection, but less human. Less fleshy and soft.
His black oily skin shimmered with bio electrical currents beneath his armor.
"I'm sorry…" He grabbed a drowning eel, absorbing its electricity before tossing it closer to the ocean. Then another. He craved the water. Breathing slowly becoming impossible without it.
Another.
Another.
[You have obtained the Status Effect (Bio-Electrical Supercharge) For every increase in charge you gain from this point forward, your health will decrease and your damage output will increase exponentially. Too much absorption can cause Nerve Damage and lead to Paralysis.]
"Risk and reward…" Claude grabbed another eel.
The shock made his fingers go numb.
[45% HP Remaining]
His bark and vine armoring went up in flames. His green eyes flowed like dyed torches.
The students had pushed the golems all into one bunch. So close that they did exactly what he needed them to.
They merged.
"You speak of dark-gods!….. Come here, bWOOYAHH!" The golem-titan spiraled into existence.
"Clear out!"
The students took one look at Claude and fled.
All except Isaac.
"Let's run it back, firsty. One more time, cmon!"
Claude took off.
Isaac braced himself, armoring up with his red aura as Claude jumped into his shield. The pulse of his electrical skin caused the knights aura to warble and steam, shattering like glass as Claude jumped.
The golem-titan was still morphing. Trying to balance the awesome power of so many compounding runes.
"They're not a professional. Blending the dozens of controlled entities into one body takes adjusting and practice. It has to be a student. A student is hunting me." Claude kept the thought at the back of his mind.
He had more pressing matters. Like the golem's massive head turning into the liquid snout of a jackal.
Anubis.
Maybe he'd get some catharsis from this.
The golem roared.
Claude flipped into its mouth and unleashed his electrical might.
Like a star he glowed. White hot and intense. Sizzling fury met ocean madness in a steaming chaotic meltdown that swallowed the whole battlefield— which wasn't much. Still, it was blinding. It was violent. It was instant.
Claude opened his eyes to a world covered in fuzz and extra layers. It made it seem like he was surrounded by a thousand students.
Then his vision centered and his ears started working again. It still looked like he was surrounded by a thousand students.
"Dude... YOURE INSANE!" Marion laughed so hysterically it made Claude laugh. Which hurt.
"Well done, liberator." Naz helped him to his feet.
The students cheered.
Claude couldn't stop his legs from shaking. Even as Goren placed a hand on his back to heal him. It wasn't just his low health.
It was nerves.
Within the University, a fellow student was already vehemently against him. Like Samuel. Like Tai. Like Burp.
Like Ursula said.
He looked down at his left hand, realizing he was holding six of the hex-blades golem-making stones. Still in perfect condition. Still usable.
"You should keep them. You earned it." Naz winked.
"If only you knew how badly I want to throw these as far as I can…."