Stormblade [Skill Merge Portal Break] (B1 Complete)

I'd forgotten about the Ice Troll. Tunneled in on the D-Ranked archer. And now I was paying for it.

I staggered under the blow; it wasn't just the agonizing bite of its three claws—though they'd ripped clean down to my spine and my shirt and skin were in tatters. It was the sheer weight of the monster. I bit off the scream in the middle and tried to spin to face my enemy, then dragged my sword up to block its other arm. The blow shook me to the core, and I stepped back.

The Ice Troll's eyes were two white orbs, but its pupils were already reforming—they burned with a frigid blue fire that offered no warmth.

My battle trance demanded I fight it. A rematch—this time with so much more at stake than the first time I'd fought an Ice Troll. It would be glorious. And Zeke had already switched his skill to regenerate my wounds.

But…

I was exhausted. Even with the deflection Script, it was all I could do to parry the monster's blows and try to riposte. With fifteen Stamina, I couldn't even use Vital Lunge as a finisher. Worse, I couldn't simply not fight the monster. Now that it was awake and in combat, it'd pursue Zeke and me all the way to the portal exit.

Without Stamina, and with a dozen slowly closing wounds to my back and neck, I couldn't rely on my blade to win.

So, if I couldn't rely on my sword, I'd have to rely on my magic—and on my ally.

Because I still had Zeke. He was staring at the sprays of frozen blood that had spread from the archer's chest, back, and neck, a vacant, distant look on his face.

"Zeke! What's your Stamina and Mana at?" I asked. I already knew his Mana—his aura was low but not flickering. I needed to know his Stamina, though.

His eyes snapped to me. I half-saw a few moments of confusion, but another swipe of the monster's claws crashed into my sword, and then my focus was on parrying. "Now, Zeke!"

"Fifty-two Stamina, thirty-one Mana," Zeke said. "Nearly full and about half, respectively."

Okay. More than I expected, honestly. His Unique skill must not cost much. I could work with that. "Be ready." I started backing up, rapier in front of me in a high guard, ready to block. My free hand reached behind me, to my journal.

I'd prepared several lightning trap Bindings. If I could find them, I could give Zeke an opportunity to attack. But the light-headedness that I'd felt before was in full force. It was all I could do to focus on the Ice Troll's claws. "Zeke, I need you to take a hit," I said.

"What?"

"You've got solid armor. I need time to heal up and recover. Get the troll's attention." I parried two more attacks and checked my Stamina.

Stamina: 9/170

It'd be enough. But only if Zeke jumped in.

"Are all portal raids like this?" he asked. I ignored him, too busy backpedaling and desperately blocking as my strength faded. I pulled back my Stamina from all but the worst wounds; pain was preferable to exhaustion.

Then, finally, Zeke's sword came out and he attacked.

It wasn't a clean stroke. The longsword wobbled in mid-air, and the blade bit into the troll's back at an angle, scoring a grazing wound that left a flap of skin hanging loosely. But it had the effect I needed it to. It roared in pain, turned, and slammed both massive, meaty fists into his chest.

The armor buckled; it was only E-Rank, and not built for D-Rank abuse. The blow drove Zeke back a step, and the air left his lungs in a cloud of vapor around his head.

But he stayed standing, the armor held, and he counter-attacked. He was a wild swinger, not a trained fighter; one rank of Heavy Blade Mastery wasn't enough to simulate real practice. But his sword was better than the Stormsteel rapier, and the wounds he left drew the monster's attention even as they rapidly healed.

And that bought me the time I needed. I flipped open the notebook and tore a handful of pages free. Then I scattered them to the winds. As the papers hit the ground, the Bindings activated, and in seconds, the maze of icy stalagmites and frozen pillars was a minefield.

"Watch the papers, but rotate to me!" I yelled.

"How?" Zeke screamed back. The Ice Troll was pressing him; in the seconds it had taken me to set my trap, he'd gone from in at least a little control to battered and hunkered down.

I'd need to step up and get the monster's attention if I wanted to spring my trap.

I groaned—as much in frustration as in pain, although none of my wounds had stopped bleeding entirely—-and launched into an exhausted assault on the Ice Troll. Thin cuts sliced deeper into the monster's back that Zeke's longsword had cut, and its hair stank as lightning singed it. The troll roared, spine arched in pain.

When it turned, its ice-flame eyes locked on me. There was nothing in them. Nothing but cold killing intent.

I glared back with stubborn fury. Dad had forged my anger into something I could use in the heat of countless spars and duels with my practice foil, and I'd bound it more tightly when I'd merged Stormbreak into Stormsteel Core. As my Stamina rocketed toward zero, that furious determination was all that was keeping me in the fight.

There was something there—a rule, or a truth—about the storm inside of me. It tickled my brain, and the urge, the compulsion, to understand it was all but overwhelming. It sparked inside of me, howled and battered against my mind, demanding I give it my attention. But I couldn't. Not right now. Right now, I had a fight to fight, and I had no idea what was happening.

The Ice Troll charged toward me. My feet shuffle-stepped naturally—even my fatigue was no match for the Footwork skill and hours of training the steps. I backpedaled. The Stormsteel sword lashed out. It cut across the monster's clawed hand. A second set of claws sliced into my hip. I stumbled from the blow, clawed myself to my hands and knees in the cold, and rolled behind a pillar of ice.

Stamina: 1/170

The Ice Troll reared up. Its two hands raised high, and it smashed them down toward me.

My Stamina ticked down to zero and my vision faded. Every wound on my body, from the cut on the back of my neck to the dozen slices across my arms to the three deep gouges on my back, suddenly hit me with overwhelming agony as my Stamina stopped suppressing the pain. It was paralyzing. My muscles tightened against the crushing, sudden sense of hurt, and my vision faded.

All I could do was wait. And hope.

Everything hurt.

But I was alive, and a timer was ticking down in a box in front of me.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Portal Collapse in: 08:13

I opened my eyes. The ice and snow all around me was stained with blood—the archer's, the Ice Troll's, and mine. My back itched and burned, my neck felt like someone was pressing a red-hot knife across it, and the only thing keeping me from scratching my hips and arms was that I could hardly lift my hands.

But I was alive. And that meant…

"Kade?" Zeke's voice felt distant and faint. I blinked. Turned my head. His armor was divoted and dented, and his sword had a crack running from the hilt to just below the tip. "Kade, are all portal raids this out of control?"

I laughed. Then I coughed up a little blood. "No. Some are worse."

"I'm not sure I can do this," he said. Then he went quiet, and I checked my status.

User: Kade Noelstra
E-Rank
Stamina: 01/190, Mana: 28/200 (Stamina +20)

Skills:
1. Stormsteel Core (E-08 to E-10, Unique, Merged)
2. Dodge (E-09)
3. Light Blade Mastery (E-08 to E-09)
4. Parry (E-07 to E-09)
5. Footwork (E-06 to E-8)
6. Vital Lunge (E-06 to E-07, Active)
7. Riposte (E-05 to E-07)

Everything I'd hoped for—and more. Dodge hadn't moved, buying me time before it hit D-Rank and messed up my plans. I wouldn't get this core; with the portal collapsing and Andrew's team most likely already gone, it was out of reach. But everything else had moved, and Stormsteel Core was at E-10.

As I thought about Stormsteel Core, that same tickling in my brain returned. Now that there was no fight to fight, it was harder to resist the urge to disappear into my head and try to understand the storm that much better. But I was at one Stamina, hurt badly, and with less than ten minutes on the portal collapse timer, I couldn't get involved in that process.

"Kade?" Zeke asked again. "I killed it."

"You…what?" The words felt gummy and slow.

"I killed the Ice Troll. After it hit the first lightning trap, I got a bunch of good hits in. Then I just kept running away until it stepped on another one. You saved my life with those pieces of paper, Kade." Zeke's voice cracked, and he reached for a water bottle. "Thank you."

"You did the hard part. I was out cold." I shivered at the sheer amount of blood around me. "How long?"

"Seventy minutes. Maybe eighty. I tried to wake you up, but…"

"I needed the rest," I said. I slowly pulled myself to my feet. Every joint and muscle hurt. The motion opened two of the gouges on my back, and I hissed in pain. I'd tried to find my limits before, but I'd never pushed myself even close to this hard in a portal except in the trap one, and my wounds kept drawing on my Stamina as I regenerated it.

"I'm sorry. My healing buff isn't strong enough. It can't overcome all your injuries. We're stuck here until the portal collapses," Zeke said.

"Alright. I guess we're stuck here, then," I said, and I slowly leaned against the ice pillar as Zeke started talking…and talking…and talking.

The timer hit zero.

One second, I was propped up against the ice pillar. The next, I lay in the middle of a Phoenix four-lane road, the setting sun beating down on me. My frozen clothes melted as precious, precious warmth hit my skin; I'd forgotten what it was like to be hot.

Then I looked around. Seven people stood—or lay—in the road.

One Governing Council rep. He stood by the flashing traffic barriers that shunted cars around us. One look at the rest of us, and he pulled his tablet and started tapping.

One dead archer, a hole in her chest and a burned cut across her throat.

Zeke and I, battered, dented, and bleeding, but alive.

And Andrew, the string mage, and the other fighter. The D-Ranks. They stared at Zeke and me. Then at the corpse of their teammate. Then at the GC rep. And then all three of them started talking and yelling all at once about how I'd killed her, and I was the murderer. It was enough to make my head spin.

"Everyone, stop. In compliance with Council Order 391, subsection 3a, all five of you are considered under detention until we figure out what happened. A B-Rank is on the way, your registry's been shared with the Council Delver Task Force, and any attempts to escape or fight back will be met with deadly…" he trailed off and looked at me more closely. Then he tapped his tablet again. "You shouldn't even be alive. I'm summoning a healer."

Zeke cleared his throat. When he spoke, it was surprisingly quiet; I barely picked up what he was saying. "Can you call two numbers for me? I think they'll go a long way toward getting to the bottom of what happened in there?"

"Who are—" the rep looked at his tablet. His face whitened a little, and he nodded. "Who am I calling, sir?"

Fifteen minutes later, the B-Ranker had arrived, scooped up the three D-Ranks, and vanished just as quickly. A team of road workers was ripping down the barriers around the former portal. And a healer was pressing gloved hands into the gouges on my back. "Whoever did this should be ashamed of themselves. Two-bit healers, doing shoddy work and making my job harder. I can stabilize them and stop them from bleeding, but you'll need to let them heal naturally after that."

"Understood," I said.

"I'm serious. If you don't, you're going to have scar tissue build-up, and it'll affect your mobility."

"I got it."

The healer sighed. "I'm a delver, too, and I've seen enough idiot E-Rankers who don't know when to take a break. Your body isn't superhuman yet, and you can't just keep pushing. Let it catch up. Take a few days to recover. You need them."

Someone cleared their throat nearby: Zeke. "Are you about finished with him?" he asked.

"Yes. As long as he promises to chill out for at least seventy-two hours."

I coughed. It hurt, but not as much as it had twenty minutes prior. "Forty-eight."

The man's eye-roll wasn't visible, but I felt it anyway. Then, his shoes clicked on the asphalt as he walked away. "I won't stick you in the hospital, but if you don't let yourself recover, you'll wish I had."

Once he'd gone, Zeke held out his hand. "I got something for you," he said. Then he set it next to me. I reached out. My fingers touched something warm and solid; electricity arced from my fingers to it, and I pulled back. Then I grabbed it.

A D-Rank core.

"Zeke, how did—"

"For saving my life, getting me through the portal, and being my friend," he said.

"But how—"

"I can't answer that. But, like I said, my dad has some pull with people, and when you know someone like him, you end up knowing a lot of people," Zeke said. "I just pulled a few strings."

But something in his tone had shifted, and I had a sudden feeling in my gut. The pieces were starting to come together: why Zeke's healing power had felt inconsistent, how he'd been able to pull me from the icy water after the avalanche while wearing full plate armor, and how he'd won the fight against the Ice Troll. And how he'd gotten—and given away—a core that was worth more than most people made in three months. "How much of what you told me in the portal was true?" I asked.

He said nothing, and when I rolled to face him, he was already walking away. I couldn't even tell if he'd heard my last question: "Who are you?"

Zeke—Ezekiel Elwood—waited until he was in his pre-Blitz sports car before he let Mask fall.

Almost everything he'd told the kid was a lie.

He'd been picked up by the Portal Tyrants a long time ago—not only that, but he'd been picked up by Terrel Young, their S-Rank leader. Before that, he'd had no interest in delving, Power of Friendship or no.

After that…Ezekiel still had no interest in delving. He'd wanted to be an actor. He'd been one—Arizona Broadway, dinner theaters, and a half-dozen other places. But after his system awakened, he'd felt lost. He was supposed to be a delver. But he wanted to act. The dissonance was paralyzing. His thoughts flipped between his purpose and his calling. They were unresolvable.

Until Terrel Young had given him the opportunity to do both.

Now, he was a high B-Rank, and the Portal Tyrants' best talent scout. He could be anyone, do anything, and the weird build the guild had come up with allowed him to moderate his power level to whatever rank he wished.

He pulled out his phone, activated the voice-commands on his fancy German car, and let it speed-dial the first number.

Ezekiel hadn't joined the group thinking Kade was going to be worth his time. His eye had been on Andrew, or the string mage. Either would have been a powerhouse with a few build adjustments—well worth the investment to get them to B-Rank. He'd written off the skinny-looking kid with the lightning sword skill.

Ezekiel had an ego. A big one. He was the best at what he did. But he wasn't blinded by it. He could admit when he'd made a mistake. And with Kade Noelstra, he'd made a big mistake.

The kid was a madman. He hadn't panicked when the Ice Troll attacked. He'd fought back. Then, when he'd realized the D-Rankers planned on betraying him, he'd kept his head, warned the only teammate he could possibly trust, and started coming up with a plan. Not a plan for escaping, either. A plan for vengeance. Even better, he'd made it happen, even when he'd had to push his body to the limits to do it. Zeke hadn't even had to unshift his Rank to D to beat the Ice Troll; he'd told the truth about how he'd killed it.

And his power? Sure, the kid wasn't D-Rank—not yet. But he would be. He'd be an A-Rank for sure, with the right nurturing. Ezekiel had been recruiting for fifteen years, and in all that time, he'd only grabbed a handful of people who could actually reach the As.

It had been more than worth losing the D-Rank core to make a connection with him.

The only problem was that he was smart. Zeke had covered his tracks well. He hadn't revealed anything. But the GC rep had slipped up; that 'sir' had given the game away, and from there, the kid had started to put things together. And that was only a problem if Kade had something against the Portal Tyrants. Otherwise…Ezekiel shrugged as he turned onto the 202. no biggie.

"Ezzie," the voice on the other end said.

"Terry," Ezekiel said, "You're gonna want this one. He's special."