Call of the Abyss [Book 2 Complete]

Ravina started at the sudden noise, struggling to keep her feet.

What the hell just happened?!

Looking around, she could see the situation on the battlements was mostly unchanged. Elves still crowded around, their bows held loosely. They'd stopped shooting once the animals started their rampage. She thought that was daft—they should keep the pressure up even when the tide seemed to have shifted in their favor.

Ravina wasn't their commander, though. Julia would have to give the order—

Where the fuck did Julia go?

She'd disappeared—that was the only way to rationalize it. She'd been standing right next to Ravina, and in the blink of an eye, she was gone.

The ground shook again, drawing her attention to the middle of the Nashiin horde, which looked more like the eye of a storm now.

What used to be an organized army was now a mishmash of scattered melees. Nashiin on the left fought against the unstoppable tide of monsters, while Nashiin on the right continued advancing on the wall.

In the center of the army, there was a large clearing—a hole. The source of that hole was a huge storm of…energy? Some kind of bright white energy or magic or something was swirling around what looked like a crack in a mirror—if space was the glass.

The energy created a swirling disk that must have obliterated the Nashiin close to it, if Ravina were to guess.

Unfortunately, that storm seemed to be growing.

The ice fractured, spiderweb-like fissures growing from the storm and reaching for the Nashiin's frontlines, like the cold hand of death coming to reclaim those who defied it.

Where the fissures were more than a finger-width, they rent apart, and water came blasting up like geysers before settling back below the sheet of ice. Although, "sheet" was no longer very accurate.

The ice, several stretches thick, was breaking apart and floating freely like calving glaciers. Each iceberg was now an independent island that hosted its own battles atop its flat, but increasingly craggy, surface.

"Soldiers! Loose! The battle is not won until the Nashiin are destroyed! Do not let complacency root, for that is the seed of defeat!" Seyatha—the important elf, apparently—commanded.

That was a good call. Ravina had personally used an enemy's assuredness of their own victory to orchestrate their defeat several times in the past. It was one of the most reliable tactics in her arsenal—a last resort, but a powerful one.

"It would appear that Julia is indisposed at the moment," Seyatha said, her gaze flicking toward the portal, a complicated expression flashing across her face before settling into a practiced neutral.

"Thornalûn, maintain order on the wall. Do not let any soldiers become complacent. We must turn this advantage into a victory, no matter what.

"Nadhem, please relay my orders to the Zal'Nadir in the breach: continue to hold. Victory is in sight, but only if we maintain this course.

"Ithsharûn, with me. Hold the Nashiin. Do not let them approach Ithshar and I while we work on that portal," Seyatha ordered.

Nods were exchanged, and people darted this way and that to follow the orders.

"What will you do?" she said, looking at Ravina.

Ravina heard, but her attention was occupied.

She drew her sword, a slow shink as it slid from its sheath. It had seen use today, but she could feel its craving: there were larger foes to slay than mindless skeletons.

"I got places to be," she replied curtly.

Seyatha seemed confused until she followed Ravina's eyes.

"Good fortune to you, and good hunting," Seyatha said.

She and Ithsharûn dismounted the wall, graceful as most of these elves seemed to be.

Ravina's dismount was not so pretty.

She crunched to the ice below, cracks webbing outward from her landing. She bent her knees slightly to absorb the impact, though she barely registered it—her eyes were locked on her quarry.

The Thol'Morrak withdrew its twinblade from the ice, feet steady now that it had found the storm's rhythm. It met Ravina's gaze, and the stare between them took on a gravity of its own—almost tangible, sharp.

It was as though each glance loosed an arrow, the weight of their focus parting the battlefield like a drawn bowstring. Nashiin and beasts, still engaged in their own brutal conflicts, nonetheless shifted. Unconsciously, instinctively, they cleared a path. A corridor began to open, not by command, but by silent consensus.

Perhaps it was an animal instinct—to step aside when greater predators moved to fight.

Perhaps it was the world itself, recognizing a moment of significance, and making space for it to happen.

Or perhaps it was something older, deeper—an immutable law of reality: when titans clash, even the world itself must stand aside and watch.

Both warriors stopped several strides from each other, staring for a moment. The sounds of battle rang around them, the roars of the living, the pained groans of the dying, and the moaning wails of the undead matted the air like a blanket of humidity, but Ravina heard none of it.

Her eyes were locked to the Thol'Morrak, scanning it from head to toe, a tiny, familiar weight pressing against her chest—its presence always more noticeable in battle.

Ice cracked and splintered as the Thol'Morrak pushed off with its back foot. The battle had begun, and no words had been exchanged. Words were useless to warriors. All that needed to be conveyed would be through the clashing of blades.

Ravina approached quickly but cautiously, wary of the twinblade's reach. It was closer to a spear in length. Even with the Thol'Morrak holding it in the center, its reach would be far greater than Ravina's own blade. However, while having a double-bladed weapon had its advantages, its disadvantages were also damning.

The titan swung his blade in an arc, aiming to separate Ravina's head from her body. She shifted her body slightly to the side to avoid it and continued forward, only peripherally aware that its strike continued past her and cleaved into the ice like a knife through butter.

Now in its guard, she thrust the point of her blade—glowing a slight pink—into a crease in the armor where the arm met the body.

The thrust hit the crease, but the blade was deflected—the pink glow disappearing.

Fuck, it's Adamantine.

Adamantine was heavier than Mithril and Orichalcum, but it had tremendous mana dissipating properties. If it weren't so rare and expensive, every city, town, and village's walls would undoubtedly be made of the stuff.

"Sir, you must understand! Your girl has a mana capacity that most humans will not possess even into their Level 75 Classes! She must train her magic! It would be a tremendous waste otherwise!" the old Magister pleaded.

"No girl a mine is gonna be fuckin' around with magic. She's gon' learn the sword like good, honest folk," her father said firmly, spitting on the ground beside him.

Ravina shook her head, banishing her memories from long ago—why were they bubbling up now of all times? A sort of "life flashing before your eyes" situation?

She jumped back, dodging the elbow that came for her neck, the force from the displaced air physically pushing her back. The Thol'Morrak backed up slightly as well, regaining distance that would favor its reach rather than pressing her.

So, its armor is Adamantine…that would complicate things. Ravina's massive mana pool had been something of a hot topic as a child, with casters of all types showing up nearly every week to take her as an apprentice. Her father, the owner of a local dojo, was having none of it. She was trained to be a swordswoman nearly from birth.

However, she had found ways to make use of her mana pool through her Classes. Her Level 25 Class had taught her how to channel her mana into a weapon, allowing her to reinforce it with an otherwise-wasted resource. Now, she could fell trees in a single blow with her sword alone, as long as she infused it with mana.

High steel was necessary for such a feat, as regular steel would be strengthened by the mana in the moment, but over longer periods of time, the constant infusing and dissipating of mana would wear it down. High steel was receptive to mana and wouldn't degrade from its infusion—or would degrade slower, at least.

Adamantine, however, scattered any mana that it came into contact with, save for incredibly high, incredibly dense sources—which her sword was not. That meant that she couldn't hack away at this black knight, as its armor would scatter her infused mana such that she was simply striking a harder metal with her sword. That would lead to her damaging her weapon, at the very least.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

She sometimes cursed herself for sticking with the sword for so long, even after leaving that fuckwad's dojo.

"You'll never be shit if ya ain't stick to ma teachin's, girl! Ya hear me! Yer nothin' without me, without our family!" her father yelled, throwing a tankard at the door that swung shut behind her.

"You'll see, ya old bastard. If the bottom a the bottle lets ya live long enough, you'll see whether I'm shit or not," Ravina whispered, shrugging her satchel over her shoulder—jaw set firmly—and heading off into the unknown.

As an adult, Ravina realized that the hotheaded teenager that left home only stuck with the sword out of pure spite. She wanted to make something of herself—wanted to be a big-name adventurer. She wanted her name to be so big that it eventually made its way back to that small town—that small dojo.

Her father would hear about how she was the best swordswoman to ever grace the Guild—without his help—and he'd weep over her mother's grave for being such a piece of shit her whole life. He'd weep for how he'd treated her, how he'd treated her mother, and—most importantly—how he'd let her go.

Now, Ravina didn't think much about it. She'd been in a pure swordsman Class since Level 25, so it didn't make much sense to swap to some other focus at Level 50. She didn't need approval from some shithead abuser and neglectful reprobate in that backwater town. She knew who she was, and she knew how strong she was.

And now, as a pure swordswoman, she had a huge mana pool to supplement her sword in any way she saw fit.

The Thol'Morrak backed up two more steps before standing his twinblade to his side like a spear. It reached its other hand forward, as if he could grab her from that distance.

Ah, she knew what this was. This was always how strong warriors operated. If she managed to get inside their guard and deal damage that wasn't fatal, they immediately tried to pull out whatever magical tricks they had up their sleeves.

Well, Ravina hadn't managed to damage this thing, but getting inside its guard with ease and striking it successfully was good enough, apparently.

Suddenly, a great weight settled around her. It was similar to how she imagined it might feel to be buried alive—it even had the faint feel of rot and corpses long buried and forgotten. An unseen force was closing around her, matching in time with the Thol'Morrak closing its fist. It seemed to think it would be able to squish her with its magic.

It was wrong.

"Waaah, momma, it hurts!" Ravina wept, small drops of blood dripping from her injured foot falling in time with her tears.

"Oh, sweety. It's ok. It's just a little cut. See? You stepped on this shell," her mother said, picking up a shell that curled in a spiral pattern.

"Throw it in the water, mama! I don't like it!" Ravina cried, holding her foot.

"Honey, it's just existing. It didn't do anything to you. You're the one that stomped on it out of carelessness.

"Besides, look at how pretty it is! It's so blue! There are even little speckles of white, like clouds! Oh, it's empty. The crab must've outgrown it. Here!" her mother quickly brought out a piece of ribbon.

She tied the ribbon around the shell before tying the ends of the ribbon around Ravina's neck.

"There! It looks so good on you! Now you can wear it as a reminder to step carefully. Your actions have consequences far beyond what you can imagine," her mother said with a smile, leaving the shell to rest against Ravina's chest.

In retrospect, it was amazing how much impact her parents had on her fighting—especially her mother. Her father—the piece of shit—had specifically taught her to fight, but her mother had taught her to be careful and gentle. That had been just as valuable, both in and outside of combat.

Ravina tapped her chestplate, sitting right above the necklace she still wore, though the shell now hung from a Mithril chain. She kept the ribbon in her dimensional bag, as it would certainly not survive the kind of life she lived.

She'd felt that damn shell so many times over the years, sometimes frustrated, sometimes impressed. It was so little, but somehow it had managed to punch right through her foot without so much as a scratch. She'd thought about that for so long, and it had finally—eventually—hit her.

It was the spiral—spirals were strong.

Ravina began to circulate her mana, sending it outside her body. It pressed back against the Thol'Morrak's dread grip, but it didn't make much progress, instead sort of pooling around her body.

She began to spin it, not like a tornado, but like the spiral of a shell. From a point in front of her, her mana spun, twisting around itself into the shape of that shell. As it twisted and spun, it tore the dread aura apart—ripped it piece-by-piece and carried it away from Ravina. The aura broke apart and scattered, following the flow of her mana as it spiraled around her.

She took a step forward.

The interaction between her own mana and the Thol'Morrak's dread mana created an effect that was visible to the naked eye. A pink spiral surrounded Ravina, spiraling, like the shell around her neck, and trailing behind her. The oppressive black mana flowed and spun around her mana, looking like smoke coming off a pink fire.

She began to run.

A pink comet streaked across the ice, trailed by a smokey black tail. This was not a Skill gifted to her by the System. It was not a move created out of some fusion of Skills, or derived from something anyone else taught her. This was Ravina's own creation—a violence born of care, crafted in the shape of a mother's love.

The Thol'Morrak lowered its hand and took up its twinblade once again—the dread grip seeming the extent of the magic it could bring to bear—in this moment, at least.

Ravina dashed in, throwing her head back as a beheading slash passed above, even the shear from the wind seeming threatening.

She jumped, catching the dread knight by surprise, and latched onto its chest with both hands. Her grip was loose due to her right hand still holding her sword, so she released that hand and smashed the knight's helm with the pommel. She wanted to see if there was a way to get an attack inside this suit of death armor—it was so big that she had little hope of striking its head from the ground.

The knight's helmet recoiled back, but it remained stubbornly attached. Ravina felt herself grabbed by the cuirass and slammed against the ice—back first.

"Gah," she choked, blood spraying out of her mouth.

She rolled to the side, just as the twinblade stabbed down—cratering the ice and sending fractures spiraling outward from where it sank nearly to the haft.

She flipped backward onto her feet in a sort of reverse-somersault, avoiding yet another swipe from the twinblade. However, she paid for the moment of taking her eyes off the enemy with a fist to the face.

The Thol'Morrak had transitioned its slash into a sort of pommel strike, though gripping the twinblade like the haft of a spear meant that she got a gauntleted fist in the face rather than a hilt. It made a sickening crack that reverberated through her head, along with the familiar feeling of her nose being where it shouldn't and pouring blood.

She let herself slide backward on the ice with the force of the strike, spitting blood as she went.

Well, no information in battle is free, she thought as she reached up and snapped her nose back into place. The immediate relief refocused her on the fight—a good thing, as the Thol'Morrak was not going to let her rest.

It dashed forward, sending a horizontal slash toward her knees. She jumped backward using only her legs—keeping her center in place as the slash just barely avoided grazing her knee guards. She quickly reset her legs directly beneath her and took a firm stance, ready to strike.

The black knight released its twinblade with its right hand, while its left hand followed the blade's momentum. Its right hand came back as a fist, aiming to strike her with one of the spikes on its wristguard in a sort of backhanded slap.

Ravina leaned back to avoid it, and she was now directly in front of the black knight, who had both its arms extended in opposite directions—it was completely open.

However, she'd seen far too many battles to take this bait. She bent down 90 degrees at the waist, torso now parallel with the ground. When the clang of both the knight's arms coming together to crush her sounded above, she lunged at a leg.

This knight was heavy, but terrain was always something to keep in mind during a fight. She pushed with all her might, and while she wouldn't have been able to do anything on solid ground, the knight slid backward across the ice.

The pink comet pressed the black titan across the ice, and the Thol'Morrak regained its sense enough to clasp both its fists together and slam down on Ravina's back.

She didn't try to dodge—she simply let go. The two-fisted chop missed her by a hairsbreadth, and the knight continued sliding. It tried to plant its back foot and control its slide, but rather than stomping on ice as it expected, its foot instead sank into a large fissure—what Ravina had been pushing it toward.

Having placed a great deal of its weight onto that leg, thinking to plant it, the sudden loss of ground underneath it sent the Thol'Morrak to its knees. It barely caught itself on the ice with its hands before its other leg went into the fissure. It scrambled back to its feet, but the two-to-three seconds it took might as well have been a lifetime on the battlefield.

Ravina came sprinting into the Thol'Morrak like a pink meteor, and she struck with all the force of one. Her sword tip smashed against the knight's breastplate, dealing not a scratch of damage to it. The tip of her sword snapped and went skidding across the ice and into a fissure. Ravina was not upset, her sword wasn't the weapon that would win this fight.

The pink comet, spinning in the shape of a spiral shell went pouring into the Thol'Morrak. It flooded into any opening it could find: the visor, the gaps between gauntlets and wristguards, the tiny gaps between rivets, and everywhere there was even the tiniest of spaces.

Ravina didn't have any great control over mana or magic, so she did the only thing she could manage: she sent her mana into its armor with the will to destroy.

She poured everything she had—her entire freakishly-large mana pool—into the Thol'Morrak. All her setting up had paid off, as the Thol'Morrak was completely unprepared to counter the move, both physically and magically.

Such a tactic wasn't usually viable against an opponent with any amount of control over mana—or the living. One could simply block the opponent's mana with their own. What's more, being the defender, the opponent's mana would have a healthy advantage. All it had to do was prevent the foreign mana from invading—it would be like spraying water against a city wall to breach it.

The Thol'Morrak, however, was not a living being. It didn't have mana constantly suffusing its interior. It could consciously project it outward, sure, but all it could think about in that moment was recovering its footing to defend against her sword—it was not thinking about protecting its body from a mana invasion.

Ravina felt her mana smash against a wall of that foul, fetid mana that had tried to crush her—the Thol'Morrak seemed to have some automatic, internal defense against foreign mana. However, she had sent everything she had, and it was spun into an extremely fine point. It pierced through the wall of black mana like a person walking through a spider's web—barely even aware of it.

The mana rampaged inside the Thol'Morrak's cuirass. Some mana became heat and boiled its insides; some became lightning and sent a pink current jolting through the armor, some became a torrent of high-pressure water that poured out of the rivets and gaps, and still other mana froze the interior of the knight solid.

The chaos inside the Thol'Morrak culminated with a bright pink glow shining out of its joints, rivets, and anywhere light could escape. A horrible screech filled the air—somewhere between the cry of a damned soul and the screech of metal scraping against metal—before the Thol'Morrak fell motionlessly to the ice.

Ravina stood heaving, sucking in breaths of burnt and charred rot, as well as the stink of a wet corpse—all mixed together into a foul odor that would set even the strongest stomachs heaving.

She didn't smell that foul air, though. All she smelled was the sweet scent of a hard-fought victory. She stood with her broken sword held at her side, her eyes distant.

Ain't need no fuckin' validation. I know who I am: a damn good adventurer.