NOVEL NEXT 2.11: Echoes
Wings flapping above the settlement, Ethan kept his breathing under control and restrained the mana from rushing too fast toward the crown of forming fireballs as he took in the view below, rage churning in his guts. He had to keep their power limited, lest he'd catch the running captives in the crossfire.
As much as he wanted to glass the entire area and turn the cement below him to molten rock, he couldn't. Not yet.
With a snap of a wrist, he sent the third concussive fireball to finish off the still dazed and shaken soldiers as he stole a glance toward the enclosure bordering the compound's walls, then past it at the streaming shapes beyond. He'd carved a hole into the wall and had told them to just run. He'd join them once he cleaned up here, but in the meantime, he had to make sure the guards stationed all around the fenced portion of the base didn't intervene.
Fucking monsters…
People, old and young, had been in a sorry state. A sort of condition he'd never seen anywhere aside from reports of war crimes or historical footage. Emaciated, pale, and ready to tip-over, they had barely leveled, most still in the 20s and 30s. On their chests, there had been a ghostly, worm-like thing attached, sucking the mana out of them, and probably their vitality and energy as well. Ethan would have tried burning the things away, but between the state of the fragility prisoners and not wanting them to get caught in the crossfire once the responsible parties came at him, he refrained and instead, he began his distracting assault, hoping the poor souls would manage to get as far as possible.
I should have brought someone else with me. Someone to watch over them, he chided himself as he took in the layout of the camp.
The prisoners had been held at the back of the base. The leaders had closed in the old buildings and a portion of the parking lot behind a haphazardly raised fence before they stuffed the worm-implanted people in it, with no space and barely a handful of tents for them to manage. That fence had a single, watched entrance and before it, a no-man's land that separated the abhorrent prison from the new barracks and cabins. Four barracks and two cabins, and right next to those, the pylon.
Ethan considered that anyone benefiting from the pylon-provided dwellings was worth burning, and while he was extremely tempted to lob some empowered fireballs at them, he worried that more innocents were being held within.
That wouldn't surprise him, given how depraved the people in charge seemed to be.
Ethan had a bitter taste in his mouth. Bile. Anger. He had considered the likes of Edwin and Lance to be absolute pieces of shit, but somehow, whatever was happening in this camp had managed to one-up their actions. And not even by a little.
While Ethan began allowing more and more mana to slip into the fireballs forming on his crown, a few forms began running out of the buildings. Mostly from the two barracks below him. Armed men and women, carrying bows, crossbows, spears and showing a variety of spellforms. But his eyes were on the cabins.
He must be there. In one of them. The administrator.
The first projectiles began flying at him, so he banked to the side as he flew lower to get a better idea of their levels.
44,46,51,58… 66 and 68. Those two first, then.
Stolen novel; please report.
Ethan narrowed his eyes on the two highest leveled individuals. One man was wearing metallic vambraces and showing hide-like brown plates around his stomach and back, reminding Ethan of an armadillo, while the second had a black, lacquered crossbow aimed at him, with three-digitted hands that looked as if they'd been dipped in tar.
Then a metallic glint shot out of the crossbow.
Ethan dropped out of the air in a dodge, beginning his fly by to shoot his first overloaded fireball, only for the bolt to ricochet through the air and come directly at him. With a curse, Ethan blasted fire out of his bronze scales, raising a hand to guard his face and neck, only to realize the bolt's head was glowing with oddly purple energy.
He hadn't noticed that before.
The bolt detonated like a gunshot, sending tiny shrapnels all over. Most were rebuffed by his flames and scales, but one or two managed to cut through his defenses, and instantly, he sensed the familiar burn trying to crawl into his veins.
"Fucking rats," he groused as he resumed his dive, ignoring the poison as his body was already burning it away. More projectiles came up to meet him, crackling bolts, fire-engulfed arrows, slimy-like orbs of sickly green, but Ethan just summoned and pointed his Prime wand before he cast [Arc of Force], activating the wand's special effect.
The vertical gray crescent shot out of the black and red wand and met the oncoming volley, parting the spells to his left and right as Ethan sped through. A moment later, he let one of the heavier fireballs drop, and seeing the crossbow-user jump away, he pointed the wand clasped in his claws and sent him an Echoed fireball.
A retort to his explosive, poisoned bolts.
The two fireballs detonated in quick succession, ushering a handful of notifications, and from the corner of his eyes, Ethan saw pieces of burning wood go flying with a wince as part of the barracks had been caught in the explosion. He hoped no bystanders got hit, and a quick glance at his notification told him no one with low-level had died.
It also told him that none of high-level individuals died either, so Ethan circled and readied another fireball while he worked on recharging the crown while the fire and smoke cleared.
First, he saw the armadillo-dude, shoulders and hair smoldering, face twisted into a pained grimace. Surprisingly, he didn't seem too badly affected by the fireball, unlike the literal three feet crater he was standing in. The barrack behind him had at last a quarter of its front side missing, while the archer was nowhere to be seen.
Ethan scanned the surroundings as the lance dropped into his open palm, dismissing anyone he saw below level 60. He couldn't find the archer, which meant he had to watch out for ambushes, but he can continue looking for him in a second.
Ethan pulled his wings behind his back and dropped down out of the sky, eyes set on the armadillo man who braced to meet him, only for something to crack into the side of his head, sending him careening for a couple of seconds before he managed to regain control, barely in time to dodge another zipping projectile that whistled past him, leaving a ghostly trail behind it.
The cabin door was open, and in the doorway, was a person. Or at least, it looked like it.
Ethan could see some unaffected skin. Mainly around the hands and the face. The man was still wearing pants and combat boots. But the rest of him, his exposed torso and a good portion of shoulders, arms, and neck, were covered in purplish patches of pulsing flesh that matched the ghostly colors of the worms of the refugees. Some had eerie eyes swiveling back and forth. Some had lolling tongues. Ears. Or just a pustule-like growth that didn't seem to be as 'mature' as the specialized parts. As for the person itself, the man's eyes glowed with the same purplish-hue, purple veins spider-webbing around a pair of unblinking white eyes that tracked Ethan as he flew around.
The man raised a pulsing, flesh-like wand at Ethan, then some of the mouths began cackling in with a whistling, echo-y voice that sent shivers down his spine.
[Human (II) - Level 70]