They traveled far. Father than he ever had on the Glorian Island's. When he was captured by the goblins, he must've been out for hours. That, or Naz traveled an inhumanely long distance to find him. He still wondered how she found him, his uniform was trashed. She couldn't have seen him from the map. He'd have to ask later, a mission was underway. And he was tired of mysteries.
For that same reason he tried his best to keep the thoughts of his race status and family lineage out of his mind.
He focused on the water. On herding his team of boar-riders from the seas.
With his surfing allies, they circled and drifted around the islands, slowly guiding their team in a— somewhat, straight line straight to Center-Island.
Sometimes a full frontal assault was called for. They had greater numbers, fitter fighters and a higher concentration of first-wavers. Sure it didn't immediately mean more power, but it did mean more experience. He ran with people who'd been surviving on the island for weeks already. They were acclimated to the tumultuous winds splitting their eyelids. The splashing waters. The creatures beneath the blue creeping in the distance.
This was becoming their home, and what better place to fight than where you're most comfortable.
Their plan was simple. A swarm. They'd move like the ocean golems and goblins. Overwhelm. But there had to be structure to the strike. A method to the madness. Claude knew Samuel's MO as Island lord and introductory force. He hoped it was the same as always.
Especially since Center-Island was in his sights.
The University of the Phoenix drifted by as they continued their journey. In the back courtyard professors held one on one sessions with a select few students. House Champion's, he recognized Riley as she fired off a volley of arrows at Professor Brennan. All the while she watched Claude— even from his current distance, he knew she recognized him.
He could see the eyes of upperclassmen through the windows of student wings along the massive gated walls.
So many eyes. So many new faces.
"One of them is the hex-blade." He stashed away the thought as they passed the University.
Center-Island sat alone— smaller than he remembered. Smaller now that he'd experienced the true terror of the island landscape.
The new wave was just arriving. Exhaustion clear in their staggered steps and drained faces. Eyes so wide, he could see the whites in some even from where he rode the waves. Samuel waited for them, rested behind the supply-drop with, Xander and Emma.
Claude put both leashes in one hand and held a finger to the sky, making a circular motion to the rest of his team.
Naz nodded from the head of the group and they dispersed, steering their untamed mounts the best they could through the green. Claude steered his sea-hounds closer to the shores. Darius visibly strained to steer his boar towards Claude. Eventually, they ran side by side with less than a hundred feet of land left. He shimmied to the front end of his board, remembering how Tyrell reminded him to maintain balance by leaning backward. It was awkward. He slipped once even with Riptide attempting to accommodate.
He gained his bearings. Perfect timing since Darius gave up on boar riding and jumped ship in an explosion of wind that left the wild creature rolling in the sandy shores like a dirty musclebound tumbleweed.
Softly, Darius landed on the back end of Claude's surf-board. Hand in hand. Breaths heavy.
Suddenly the team of twenty-five strong roaming the islands became five at the front as they burst from the forestry of the island leading to Center-Island. No more than a few hundred feet away. Isaac held the front with his flaming shield, like a scorching hot beacon.
None of the enemy students had superior senses, but that wasn't saying much. Wild boars were anything but silent as they took in exhausted breaths through sniffing wet giant noses and exhaled out of mouthes split by bladed tusks.
Samuel turned with the rest of his welcoming squad, not noticing Claude, Darius and the surfers riding the waves past them in the distance.
Emma was always action prone. Finger never far from the trigger, both with her weapon and words. At Samuel's command she only seemed to grow worse…. Which was odd since she openly disliked him. He pointed to the oncoming boar riders. She took aim, as if she held a bow that was invisible. When she pulled her arm back, the flames sparked and morphed into a bow and arrow purely comprised of focused fire.
On the other side of Samuel, Xander generated two currents of lightning in his palms.
They carpet bombed the grounds the boar riders road in on with fire arrows and lightning blasts.
Claude watched nervously as Isaac was launched into the air as a fire blast flipped his mount. They expected him to land right in Samuel's hands.
Isaac instead used his (Shoulder Charge) Skill mid-air, defying physics as he blasted forward, past the enemy students and sixth-wavers who watched in partial awe. He hit the ground with a wild roll and never ceased movement.
Like a charging bull, he sprinted for the trees with his shield up, all the while telling the students to prepare for combat as he threw handfuls of construct-blades from his satchel.
It all must've looked so bizzare. With their focus on Isaac and the other tanks, Naz and the rest of her squad curved around the island. Awaiting the swarm.
"You two are becoming quite the power couple." Darius said after catching Claude watching her in the distance.
"We're talking about this now?" Claude tried his best to whisper over the wild ocean surface.
"We are. The better you two do, the more Carmen expects of me. That makes us rivals. The only reason I agreed to your plan is because I knew Carmen would've felt a way if I didn't. You can't have all the glory, you know?" Darius replied.
"What— that's fine. Outdo me here and you win." Claude steered the hounds around the island, closing in as the cover of trees swallowed their approaching sillouettes. Percival brandished his twin construct-blades in silent preparation, morphing them into dark blue-metal elven twin blades.
"Your actions have always spoken louder than your words." Darius replied from behind him. "Shy but violent. A lesson in extremes I guess."
"Xander says the same thing." Claude replied.
"The one that was shooting Isaac with lightning?" Darius inquired.
"Yep."
"I'll have to say hello."
"Sweep the trees and he's all yours." Claude let the hounds pull them on land. They came in from behind the sixth-wavers. At the back entrance of the forest where he once was almost turned into a human porcupine by enslaved archers.
He hit the ground in a roll, activating his, (Beast Trait) Skill the second he made land. Fur sheathed his limbs. His canines extended and his lungs expanded. The other changes came in stride.
"Don't shoot and you can join my team. No enslavement. No beatin—" Claude side stepped behind a tree— moving just from the sound of an archer taking aim. His hounds followed suit along with the surfers.
"They made their choice." Percival said from the tree he hid behind to Claude's left.
"Their loss, man." Tyrell shrugged as an arrow whizzed past his arm.
Claude placed his hand on the first two trees, pouring all of his energies into his element until the forest canopy bloomed, turning into a wooden cage covered in leaves. He could hear the archers get caught in the twisting growth of branches. Their shouts didn't make it past the deafening alarm of boar tusk horns and magic blasts.
At the same time, Darius worked his magic.
As a force-mage, he was probably the most gifted wind-element user right behind Brink. He was so gifted and precise with it, he could use it like a pressurized aura that stole your breath if you got too close... only after you were skinned alive. As long as he had mana, he could function both as a mage and tank with his pressurized aura.
For that same reason, he could let off terrifying unseen blasts. But only once a day at full power. It sapped him from how powerful it was— almost like his body couldn't handle his talent. Either way….. That's what Claude needed.
Darius' aura was in full swing. Nothing more than vibrational fissures surrounding him, distorting the view of the blue world behind. Ruffling his leather longcoat and baggy silk pants. Making it hard to breathe.
The winds howled like the dead. His silver streaked brown hair flowed as if he was under water.
As Claude looked back to him at the entrance into the forest, he could read his lips. Counting down, waiting for Isaac who blazed through the forest to stand at his side.
"Two… one."
Isaac threw a fireball at the trees, looking exhausted already. At the same time, Darius threw his pressurized aura in a wide arcing gust of wind.
The two elemental blasts mixed and hit the forest canopy like a superheated explosion. It was blinding. The fireball bloomed in a howling expansion of light and heat, nearly searing off Claude's eyebrows. For a moment the world was white. The smell of burnt wood clung to the air.
Claude's vision returned just in time to see the entire canopy scalped.
Charred bits of tree tops made up the height of the forest patch.
Students laid smoking with partially burned uniforms in the sand ahead. The sixth-wavers regarded them in confusion.
"That worked way better than it was supposed to…. " Claude mumbled before taking mental note of the scene." But that's less archers than usual. Way less."
"Rivals make each-other better." Percival shrugged.
"You are so talkative today!" Sion commented.
"Not anymore."
"Dammit!"
Claude was already on the move.
Some of the less experienced students jumped at the sight of him.
He didn't take into account how insane he must've looked.
The furbound shark-skin armor wearing hound-wrangler sprinting out of a recently firebombed forest to discuss the act of liberation.
He'd have to make due. Especially since behind the new students, Samuel was making quick work of the four other tanks. Extremely quick work.
"Hi—…." He cursed himself for voice cracking, "The Dark-Knight up there was going to set you all up. This is a trap. He guards the supply drops and overtakes the new entrants with these." Claude reached down and ripped the guild maker band off the steaming student at his feet. "With these you lose a percentage of your system power and have no choice but to follow him. We're here to be heroes. When someone acts like a villain I think it's only necessary we respond like Ronin would."
"But isn't he Ronin's son…?" A student mumbled.
"And who are you?" Someone else questioned.
"Claude Grey. I stay on an island north of here. We won't enslave you and everyone gets a fair shot at experience gain."
"Who are your parents? What guild do they belong to?" One of the more confident sixth-wavers split the crowd and approached him, unbothered by the fighting taking place at his back. "You can't expect us to follow you when the son of pure power and influence stands Al—"
Claude's island-dogs, Riptide and Rivera lunged at the student, biting down on each leg to drag him to the floor. He tried to get up but roots and vines exploded from beneath the sand and held him down.
"Claude?!" Someone yelled from the crowd of now alarmed students.
Claude looked up.
Warren stepped out into the open wearing a university uniform two sizes too large. "What the hell happened to you, man?"
"Everything—" Claude lunged at the crowd of students, kicking and punching the two largest into the others to split the crowd right when a ball of dark-fire slammed into his chest.
He flew backward in a cloud of black smoke, rolling in the sand to stop the deadly spread. His hounds circled him barking in a panic until he got to his feet and shushed them.
Samuel approached like a Lion stalking its prey. Walking. Confident. Focused. Ready— hungry.
The students noticed at the same time as him.
"This isn't how you make heroes. But I'm not Samuel. Make your own decision. Help me remove his seat as island-lord and free the others... or fight against me. It's up to you." Claude brandished his construct-blade, making a green metal khopesh of the malleable metal while flexing his claws on his left hand.
Warren stood beside Claude with two construct blades in hand. Making a pair of yellow daggers. "The choice is be a slave or not— why aren't y'all moving??"
"He is first place….."
"He looks kind of crazy, though. His whole team looks like wyldmen….. and Samuel made quick work of his tanks."
"Where are their uniforms?"
Claude deflated until another student broke ranks. But not to join Claude. He took off in a sprint, making a b-line straight for Samuel. He was even thinner than Warren with long unkempt brown hair and pale skin. But he moved with a very virile and muscular aggression.
"THE HUNT LEADS ME TO YOU, BIG-GAME BLONDIE!!"
His declaration was like a starting whistle for the rest of the students.
"House Ronin on my resume could put my family at low-noble status!"
"Find your spine, pussy!"
"I'm following the strongest and that's the wolf-boy!"
Sides were made, just like before. The crowd of sixth-wavers split into two teams. One looking to follow the well known dark-knight son of legend, the other eager to uncover the mystery of the Island-Gauntlet's semi-aquatic sea-wolf king.
More wished to join Samuel. Like Darius predicted.
In fact, more than Darius predicted.
Four students stood beside Claude. Nine stood across from them, making way for Samuel as he approached, holding the unconscious huntsmen in his left hand.
"Whats the plan?" Warren asked. The students held the same question. He felt it.
Then he deflated further. The plan was crumbling at his feet.
Samuel tossed his previous attacker across the distance so he landed at Claude's feet.
"You don't think you earned that spot did you?" Samuel questioned as war raged around the island. He still had that careless demeanor. Eyes low, voice dead. "Cheap shots can get you first place but they won't help you maintain it. You need strength for that. You need intensity— something people can fall behind and find calm in. Why do you think I challenge everyone in my group? People need to know where they stand. Don't paint me as a tyrant. I'm a product of our enviroment."
"And what enviroment is that?" Claude tried to buy time, "Where is Burp?" He thought.
"The one that got you captured by goblins and drowned by fish-men. It's cutthroat out here….. and even with all that armor, yours is exposed."
All of Claude's newly gained allies fell. Arrows stuck out of their backs like porcupines in human form. The smell of poison grew, intermingling with the blood.
He tried to move only to feel a blade at his neck and strike at his arm, causing him to drop his sword.
His hounds looked ready to rage. He clicked his teeth and immediately their demeanor changed. They whined as they took off and dove into the water. He needed the week to train that reaction as well.
"So that's where the other archers went….. I'm getting tired of this gods-damned hex-blade. At least now I know how Samuel knew about the goblins." Claude turned his eyes just in time to see a firing squad at his back. They all wore pendants with camo-runes engraved on them. He wondered how legal upperclassmen intervention was passively as he watched them.
Instead of looking triumphant, they looked exhausted from having to hold their bowstrings taut so Claude wouldn't have heard them earlier than intended. Smart on Samuel. That wasn't right…
"I knew your ears were good, so I had to improvise." Burp snarled as he held the blade to Claude's throat. Still completely invisible. Barely even able to be smelled. The hex-blade was talented.
And of course, looking to get in Samuel's good graces. He should've assumed. If he wasn't thinking about his inhuman ancestry and what gods would ask him stupid questions in his dreams he probably would've.
Too many pieces.
Too many threads.
Too many mysteries.
"Burp." Samuel said with a sigh as the other students at his side watched.
"Yes?"
"You're still too slow. You need to get in shape or your dead in the Tangents, invisible or not. This isn't back home, you don't get to stuff your face and hide from what your family did. The only reason we got the jump on Claude is because he's green. He won't stay that way. He's more obsessive than you. He could be better. Get your shit together, idiot."
He'd never heard Samuel speak to someone so harshly.
"Understood." Burp replied as if he wasn't the most abrasive and combative talker Claude knew.
If only for a moment, he questioned Ursula recognizing him before then. Good way to buy more time.
"What is he talking about Burp? What did your family d—"
"Shut-up!" Burp kneed him in the balls from behind in some weird form of long distance karma.
[90% HP Remaining.]
"Burp! You're done. Let him go."
"But— the hex-blade—"
"You lost that opprotunity. You can't get results with the advantage you have. You're still weak. It's my job now." Samuel spoke to Burp like he was a child misbehaving.
If Claude wasn't being made into a failure in real time, he would've felt embarrassed for the invisible jerkwad as the students watched.
The knife came away from his neck. Claude swung his leg back and returned the groin shot to Burp in kind before rolling right to pick up his sword and evade another round from the firing squad.
At the same time, Samuel took off after him, stumbling as a snake latched onto his leg, recently risen from the sands. He incinerated it with a fireball and continued approaching Claude.
Sprinting now.
Claude did the same. Even as the surfers came in from behind to intercept the firing squad, an arrow grazed his arm. Because of his vine armor the cut was minor. But the poison hit his blood anyway.
DING!
[You have acquired the (Rama Poison) Debuff. Low levels of (Dizyness) and (Paralysis) will spread from the place of contact if absorption is not interrupted.]
He stumbled. "Rama….. that's the genus of frogs. Burp must've used his frogs poison to coat the arrows. Better than Violet scourge I think. Still... shit!"
Anger gripped him.
The world felt circular.
Aspire. Train. Then get knocked down to size.
By snakes.
By Samuel.
By Tai.
By goblins and fishmen and hex-blades and gods and his own blood.
He was locked in a vice. A cycle. Chains of failure.
And then freedom came to set him free.
She moved in that way she always did in combat. Aggresive hard cutting movements from the most unconventional angles.
From below, she rose with her foot aimed for Samuel's jaw from the right side. It hit. Claude watched his teeth crunch in real time. His eyes rolled. His body went stiff as his feet came off the ground. Before her foot disconnected from his jaw, he was recovering. Reaching to grab hold of her leg and turn it to ash. Purple light bloomed on his palms like an explosion in slow motion.
Naz was quick. Like a dancer she spun from a handstand, slamming her other foot into his solar plexus and sending him skidding backward in the sands as a trail of dark-fire. Back beside his new followers.
"If your with me act like it." Samuel said without looking at them.
Claude could feel the mana in the air cringe as an elemental barrage approached from the combined might of Samuel and the sixth-wavers.
Naz turned her back to them, holding up a partially poisoned Claude with the end of her scythe. With her other hand she reached back and ripped the root band out of her hair. As it fell free down her back he could suddenly see the seeds and vines lodged in her dreads.
He pushed her scythe aside and fell into her, placing his hands against her hair. Pushing all of his dryad essence infused mana into their shared element.
The glow of elemental assault came in a flash.
The green was a steady spread of life itself. Blooming from her hair like a crown. Blue transparent petal flowers unfurled from her hair, spewing magical force fields. Massive vine walls encased them both and spread across the beach, connecting with the roots rising from the earth. Tree branches exploded like the fingers of wooden titans looking to rend the world and all its destructive elements.
The clashing elements shook the sands. Turning it to rows of glass and soot stained dirt overcome by lush gardens.
It was chaos as reactions and cancelations warbled in conflicting expressions of sight sound and smell. Sizzling blue steam and screaming red winds.
"Save your energy." Claude said into her ear over the chaos.
"And what of you?"
"I heal fast remember?" Claude could already feel himself waking.
"How could I forget?" She kissed him on the cheek and pulled her hair out of the wall of green standing ten feet high before them.
"You go left?"
"You go right." Claude replied.
As soon as they split, Samuel exploded through the wall like a purple juggernaut.
They kept running, closing in on the sixth-wavers.
Claude skidded to a halt, finding them all unconscious on the ground. He didn't let his hesitation bring further misfortune. Samuel was also fast.
He came in hard and heavy, not with a blade or shield or even fire. Just an aura condensed fist.
Claude knew not to meet the blow and instead chose to sidestep. At the same time, he willed his khopesh to curve harder so he could fit it around the dark-knights midsection and throw him off balance to the right.
Straight into another kick from Naz.
He took it to the chest, stumbling back into Claude.
Claude dropped low and swept his legs.
Samuel leaned into the fall and backrolled, scorching the floor into black glass. Before he even got to his feet, he punched the earth, shattering everyone's foundations.
They fell into a pit of dark-fire shards. Scorching hot shards sharper than low quality swords back in SkyHaven.
[86…..84….80% HP Remaining.]
"How are you scarier without a sword?" Claude thought as he raised his blade.
Samuel answered by showing him.
He showed them both.
Bare handed and dead faced, he fought first and second place holders and held his own. Just like in sparring, when his back was against the wall, he lashed out with a myriad of blended new age techniques and skills Claude wasn't trained to defend against.
He shoulder charged pre-emptively, sending waves of black glass Claude's way in the form of shrapnel blasts.
He reheated the floors causing the soles of their shoes to melt and slow them.
"This is why they follow me." Samuel kicked Naz to the far end of the bowl of glass and elbowed Claude in the chest so hard his shark armor split.
"They follow you because they don't know any better."
"I'm the best here." Samuel tackled Claude, taking him down to the ground where the heat burned through his armor.
He roared in pain.
[65% HP Remaining.]
"What do they learn from that? Be the strongest and make everyone a slave to your demands?"
"How do you think guilds work?" Samuel asked seriously.
"I don't. I think about how WE should work."
A singular charred root blasted from above Claude's shoulder and knocked Samuel off him.
Naz stood on the beach grounds above him, reaching down with her scythe.
He took it and escaped the black-glass hell.
Samuel hopped out in an explosion of fire. Dark bags rested under his eyes. For the first time, Claude noted how tired he looked.
And for the second time, Samuel noticed he was losing.
Claude's swarm plan only barely worked thanks to Isaac, Goren and Marion. Samuel's enslaved students being weakened also helped.
His forces were unconscious and being freed at the beaches edges.
He nodded as if coming to terms with the result.
"Don't relax." Samuel said.
"What?"
"You're relaxing. Stop." Samuel repeated, "You didn't win. I'm still standing, and you two were just losing. You need back-up."
Claude looked behind him where the seas waited patiently.
"I know."
Samuel assumed his fighting stance just as a focused wave of water spun onto the beach, swallowing him whole and pulling him into the ocean.
Claude took off, thanking the surfers in the distance as he dove beneath the blue.
His hounds swam beside him. They moved like bullets.
The blood crusting his armor fell away in red spirals, attracting the sea beasts for miles.
Samuel sank in a fiery purple mass. In shock from the cold.
His failsafe.
It was simple. He still couldn't take Samuel. And he couldn't risk getting one of his own brutally wounded in a mission he asked them to go on for people who might not even join them.
So he took him to his current turf. A place where Samuel's strengths were minimized. And their enemies maximized in number.
Only now, he knew the prospect of death was even less possible. Samuel had a talented hex-blade guardian to get him out of every tough situation.
Claude had dark-gods and a growing inferiority complex.
They battled beneath the sea.
He took down Samuel in high speed dashes through the dark, cutting open his arms and legs where his blood pumped. His hounds flipped and pulled him off balance.
Then, they simply left.
When he made it back to shore, his team was gathering themselves and their new allies. The others remained unconscious.
At his back, the waters bubbled and spit fissures of darkness. Fish-men limbs flew in charred bits.
"You sure that's a good idea? He could die…. If you kill Ronin's son, you're dead." Warren questioned.
"He'll be fine. He has help. He's even stronger than last time." Claude huffed. For good measure he took one of his golem-rune stones and threw it into the ocean.
"What makes you think that?" Isaac questioned.
"He's doing all this with snake poison in his system." Naz answered for them.
"She saw the bite too." Claude realized.
"How's that possible?" Marion asked.
"He's mastered internal-heating techniques." Isaac said. When everyone's confused gazes fell on him he explained further, "Fire-element users with enough skill can become impervious to most poisons by rising their internal temperature. They can literally burn it out of their system. But it requires physical tempering. Usually takes years and training from elemental cultivators of the east. He must only fight and do heating exercises. Probably barely sleeps."
"Quite disciplined." Darius replied. Xander was slumped over his shoulder.
"I wonder if his brothers any better. I heard he's cute." Carmen said with Emma over her own shoulder.
"Claude!!!! Claude!"
Claude looked past the crowd at the recognized voice.
Finn limped as he ran for him with a black eye and arm in a sling. Beside him, Juli and Reagan followed.
"Finn!? Juli and Reagan!" Claude approached Finn, surprised at the older man embracing him so passionately.
"It's great to see you, friend! If I would've found you sooner, I would've joined your battle... but Emma is a better shot than me…. Much better. Your healer cleaned me up well , though!" Finn explained. Then his face went dark.
"What is it?"
"It's….. it's Ursula. Tai has not been kind to her. No, not at all."