Grand Saint Alloy

The elemental lord throwing around fire and lava was having a bad day. Luke intended to make it worse. Gripping Hestia’s Sickle he jumped, he had no reason to cut his way through the rabble if he could just go right over them.

The elemental lord had brought down one of the warriors and was ripping plates of armor off the man he had pinned down. Luke hit him like a bomb, which was not too far off from what he really was. Lightning scorched the surrounding area and fire burned into the elemental lord. Fire might seem like a bad match up against fire, but Luke’s was better. Well, the lord’s skeleton was still susceptible.

That skeleton was tier four, too low to take a full force blow from Luke. It made him feel giddy to say tier four was too low, but truth was truth and the truth sent the elemental lord bouncing along the dirt. Luke did not capitalize on the attack, why would he? Without their general, the normal elementals would be rounded up and put down relatively quickly.

Impatiently, Luke waited for the creature to get back up. It had obviously focused on power over speed, the tanky set up did not suit the fire elemental. Fire was fast and unpredictable, while earth was unyielding, it made the elemental good at nothing. Regis could output more destructive power, and while he was in his tower plate, he was more durable.

“You dare strike a herald of the Lord of the Underworld?” The elemental lord hissed as it got back to its feet, “I am his general, the traitors will all be forced to kneel.”

“What?” Luke said cleaning out his ears, “It’s quite noisy out here.”

“I said, you dare strike a herald…” The elemental lord looked down at the earwax that Luke had just flicked at him, “YOU DARE!”

Luke did. Fire exploded out of the gaps in his armor, a bonfire at each of the joints. It made him look like a creature stepping straight out of Hell, a large sword of onyx formed and fell into the Lord’s open palm. The elemental was now incensed and charged at Luke, he used explosions at the soles of his feet to accelerate himself.

However, no matter how fast he made himself, Luke was faster. His eyes glowed a neon green like they were back lit by a storm. Despite using lighting, Luke was less flashy than the elemental. He could be, there was just no reason to exhaust his reserves impressing a whole bunch of warriors he frankly did not care about.

“Don’t blink,” Luke said as he used the same technique the elemental lord was using to accelerate.

Fire had nothing on the speed of lightning. It was a good thing lightning kerns weren’t a thing, as they would easily be the most dangerous type out there. It was why Luke was better than everyone else, a final gift from his father that made him who he was.

Luke hit the elemental lord blade first, the point of Hestia’s Sickle slid into the armor, before the hook of the blade caught on something harder. Bones, they were at a bad angle to cut, but that was the beauty of sickles. Hestia’s Sickle hooked the rib allowing Luke to throw the elemental lord to the dirt again.

For a brief moment, Luke contemplated letting the general back up. He watched the obsidian blade move toward him in slow motion and made his decision. No, this was not an enemy he could break his kern with. The elemental lord was not weak, but it was made of three overlapping tier three elementals, making it an effective tier six. It was not much different from the dark elemental lord, though more of a brawler than an assassin.

Still, the elemental was the same tier, but Luke wasn’t. His weapon was better than back then, his tier was better than back then, and he had better control over his essence than back then. He frowned as he sucked in a deep breath, using his kern to siphon out the more explosive elements.

Tier five did have a perk, though not the one he thought it would. State of matter, he was sure that temperature would have been a force and maybe it was, but a ball of compacted nitrogen formed in his fist, so cold that it smoked a white color and burned his skin. He stepped around the obsidian sword and when the elemental lord roared he tossed the ball into its mouth.

Luke felt his connection to the construct get cut off as it entered the elemental. He was not sure what would happen, but it went exactly how he predicted. The explosive went off, throwing Luke back off his feet and pushing everything away in a ring around the elemental lord. When he looked up, the lord’s head was gone, along with a good portion of the upper torso.

The earthen bones were slowly dissolving into brown smoke, as Luke had just carved the heart in half. Only the anima elemental had survived, slowly healing, but it was a shadow of its former self. It was missing both its brain and its heart, Luke decided to simply put it out of its misery by cutting it in half.

Luke inspected his handiwork. Craters and lines of lightning blackened earth criss crossed the ground. A few unfortunate elementals had been flattened and the warrior who had been getting his armor opened like a can had cooked in his own armor. He might have died before Luke arived.

Had he reached the level of his father? His father had been a tier higher, but he had always played it safe. Both had a talent for bloodshed, clenching his fists Luke grinned. Soon it would be possible to step out of his father’s shadow.

The fighting had started winding down, most of the elementals were dead or incapacitated. Luke watched Siren dismantle one of those metal crabs. The axe in his hand having no issues opening the creature up. They technically shared a tier, but no one would guess that from the one sided beating that was being handed out.

He wondered what force Siren would get. There had to be a way for him to survive the process, after all the path to power could not be limited to those lucky enough to start at the bottom. The idea that tier zero could grow through what was essentially adaptation but not tier one or higher flew in the face of nature. The big lion got the food and grew bigger after all.

Thinking was not his strong suit. Filling creatures with so much electricity their eyes glowed was, so he found an unattended metal ghost crab that was eating the corpse of a warrior. It was missing two legs and its tail dragged on the ground, but it still ate happily.

Luke walked over, killed the elemental that had spawned from the cadaver and inspected the crab. It hissed at him, trying to get him to leave. For some reason they did not see him as food, but their hunger was also a stronger emotion than their fear. He placed a palm on the metal shell, the crab tried to break the contact but Luke ran a few lightning bolts through the shell.

Metal was a terrible defense against him, its beady eyes popped and started smoking before it collapsed to the ground. Smiling, Luke dusted off his hand like the miners did when they were proud of themselves.

“You two are going to have to tell me how you keep doing that,” Luke turned to find Kale standing behind him.

“Hmm,” Luke asked.

His opinion of Kale was neutral. The man was too weak to truly get anything done, but he was also trustworthy enough to give any responsibility. It was an unfortunate combination of traits, he was also old and Luke did not really like old people. They were wrinkly and creepy, a good man fought and died young, before he expired like a loaf of bread.

“How do you and Tristan keep going up in tier despite lacking the artifacts to do so?” Kale had his arms folded, “I’m sure you did not find a cache of tier four or five artifacts to get to tier five.”

Luke shrugged, “Find strong people, hit them really hard, survive it when they do it back. After a few times, bam, tier upgrade.”

“That seems really stupid,” Kale said, clearly not understanding Luke’s delivery.

“Do Tristan and I seem terribly smart to you?” Luke asked.

It was the best defense against probing questions. When in doubt, just play dumb. After all, he couldn’t give information that he did not have.

Kale realized that he was not going to get any new information out of Luke, so he asked a more pertinent question, “So what are we doing next?”

“We are gathering up all the warriors before the elementals can torture and turn them into mindless puppets,” Luke said, “Then we get to go to the Stone Caldera to break the siege there.”