Stormblade [Skill Merge Portal Break] (B1 Complete)

Jeff gritted his teeth as tree branches sheared off on his shield's edge and rained down on his helmet. The shock from the Misbegotten Ogre's roar had worn off, but the blow forced him onto one knee, then pushed him back hard enough for his kneepad to shoot up sparks against the stony ground.

The Governing Council had misdiagnosed this portal. But…it had presented itself as a D-Rank. This should have been a single, D-Ranked boss, and he'd built his team to kill a single, D-Ranked boss—not this. He'd wanted to retreat from the moment they'd realized their way out was gone, and it was a trap portal.

But there was no retreat. No way out. He lashed out with his short sword, trying to punch through the massive ogre's skin, but it wasn't just concrete-colored, but almost as tough as stone. Worse, he couldn't close the gap to the real threat. As long as the summoner kept casting uninterrupted, it would overwhelm his team, and he couldn't do anything about it.

The ogre had to be engaged.

But the summoner had to be dealt with as quickly as possible.

"Erik, hit the summoner!" Jeff shouted. Then he used his only C-Ranked skill—an unmerged one, like all his others, but a good one: his Unique skill, Retaliation.

The blows hitting Jeff were hard enough to shake my body, and I was halfway across the gigantic room. Each one would have ripped my arm off if I was blocking it, but Jeff not only took impacts hard enough to rip the branches off the tree's trunk, but had used a skill and was striking back. His blade took tiny nicks out of the Misbegotten Ogre's legs with each swing, but it was something.

I had my sword out, standing between Sophia and the second boss, the Hobgoblin Summoner. She had her hands full with keeping Jeff alive, and didn't have time to adjust her positioning as a steady stream of E-Rank shadow goblins poured toward her.

It wasn't the kind of fight where a single enemy would test me. Not a hobgoblin, or one of the goblin dogs. But it was a purpose: stop the goblins from killing our healer for as long as I could before I was overwhelmed.

Not to kill the goblins. That'd be the most effective way to stop them, but not the only one.

To stop them.

I took three steps toward the goblin horde and dropped into a battle stance, sword up next to my ear and ready to lunge. Then, as the first shadow goblin leaped toward me, I Dodged.

Dodge

The best defense is a good offense. The second-best is not getting hit in the first place. Dodge allows the user to move faster when avoiding enemy attacks, giving them the time they need to figure out how to convert defense to offense.

Each level increases your ability to dodge both physical and magical attacks.

Each rank decreases the Stamina cost of using Dodge.

Dodge had been a build mistake—and an almost lethal one for the integrity of my build. I'd learned it just after Mana Sense and Skill Control, trying to survive an E-Rank dungeon with a group of beginning delvers who weren't ready for it. It had given me next to no wiggle room in my build and delayed any further dungeons until all seven skills were filled and I didn't have to worry about earning more.

But right now, it was the best move I had for both saving Sophia's life and keeping her focused on healing Jeff.

The goblin's claws swiped through the air where I'd been standing as I sidestepped and ducked. I followed the motion with a quick slash across the monster's back as the battle trance set in. It wasn't enough to kill it, but it'd keep the monster down for a second or two. Another goblin. Another dodge. This time, I bent below its jaws. Pommel slam to the back of the head. One second before the next monster. Step back. Stab the first goblin a second time.

"Erik, the summoner!" Jeff yelled again.

"You got it!" Erik shouted. "Everything becomes dust!"

"No!" The word ripped from my throat as I breathed out and backpedaled away from a goblin's jaws. "Kill the ogre! Free up the team! Then kill the summoner!"

Normally, I'd agree with Jeff to swarm down the biggest threat, hit it with our most powerful spells, and survive the ogre afterward. But the Hobgoblin Summoner's aura hadn't so much as flickered from all the summoning it was doing. That meant it had high-powered spells, and it wasn't using them. If we pushed it too hard, it would, and if it did that while the Misbegotten Ogre was fighting Jeff…

If it did that, we'd be screwed.

Two more shadow goblins rushed toward me, and the one I'd stunned was recovering. One arrow slammed into a goblin, then another, as Carlos opened fire. I lunged and killed another, extending and taking a cut to my padded arm in return. The wound stung, but didn't hurt like it was debilitating.

The battle trance set in all the way, and all I knew was goblins.

One with an arrow to the chest, still coming at me. A dodge to the left, a counter-strike to the neck. Another threw itself through the air. Slash upward, cutting it from stomach to chest. Two more, claws ready. Carlos hit one, and I blocked the other, then cut through a thin wrist. No blood. Just shadow.

Another. And another.

Stamina: 61/120

"Covering fire incoming," Carlos yelled. I ducked, and a trio of arrows ripped into the swarm. Then another. Then another. He was using a skill to push it back. The battle trance pushed me forward, toward the Hobgoblin Summoner. The floor shook again as the Misbegotten Ogre slammed its weak shoulder into Jeff's shield, then swung the stripped tree trunk in a huge arc.

"This isn't working!" Angie said. She'd been pelting the summons with well-placed arrows, too, but in spite of her accurate hits, she hadn't slowed the tide of goblins.

"You're wrong! We're making—"Jeff cut off with a grunt, then kept talking. "—progress over here!"

He was right. The ogre looked like it was weakening. Cracks had appeared in its gray skin; it looked like an arroyo bottom a few days after a rain, all cracks and mud flakes. His counterattacks were starting to matter, too; if he kept it up, and Sophia didn't run out of mana, he and Erik would win their fight eventually.

But eventually wasn't fast enough to stop the goblin swarm. It wasn't fast enough to win before Sophia couldn't heal anymore.

We needed to take a risk, and I couldn't be sure it'd pay off. But we had to try something.

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"Angie, Carlos, ignore the summons," I said. "I'll keep the goblins back. Kill the ogre."

"Are you sure?" Carlos asked.

I dropped into a defensive stance, parried a goblin's claws, and stepped forward to buy a little more space for my inevitable retreat. I wasn't sure at all; a few goblins were one thing, but I was E-Rank and fighting against my build. "Yeah, I'm sure. I can take it!"

I couldn't take it.

Three shadow goblins? Even four? Fine. Their attacks were downright crude, telegraphed with long backswings and outstretched necks. I could handle a couple with Dodge and my sword if I focused on surviving, not fighting back.

But the Hobgoblin Summoner kept summoning more. And more. And more. At some point, I couldn't defend against them anymore. And I couldn't kill them fast enough. Not with my sword, and not with my nonexistent magic.

But I couldn't let them through to Sophia.

I sliced out the throat of one goblin that had gotten too close, and caught another on the backswing with the tip of my blade. Backed up a step. Teeth punched through my padded armor, snapping off as I jerked my arm back. They stuck in my skin; blood pooled in the cloth.

Just one of a dozen tiny wounds. The goblins were going to kill me the same way we were killing the Misbegotten Ogre: through a thousand cuts.

I redoubled my effort. Let the battle trance take me. Just hold until the others finished off the first boss. Then they could help push the tide back. I could do that. I could take—

Another set of cuts. This time to the side of my neck. This time, the blood didn't ooze out to dye my armor pink or red. It flowed freely. The bastard had…he'd caught something important. I stepped back again. Then again. The focus. I had to maintain the focus. Stamina poured into my arms and legs as I tried—and failed—to ignore my open neck.

A hand pressed against my back. Between my shoulder blades. I whirled to stab the new attacker, but golden magic poured in, and Sophia's voice said, "I've got you, Kade." She didn't lecture me or try to get me to take it easy; things must have been bad.

The battle trance vanished for a second. Two. Three. I looked around; Carlos and Angie had shredded the attacking goblins, pushing them back and buying a second. Ahead of us, Jeff charged the Hobgoblin Summoner. His armor was bent and battered, and his shield—his C-Rank shield—had been abandoned. It lay, cracked and splintered, in the center of the room. Next to it, a mountain of green blood-covered flesh and concrete-looking skin sat, quivering.

The D-Rank boss was down.

They'd beaten the Misbegotten Ogre. And then they'd saved my life, and Sophia's. A pair of goblins lay dead where she'd been standing, arrows in each of their necks. I'd failed. I hadn't been strong enough, and if it hadn't been for Jeff's team, Sophia would have been dead, and so would I.

I wasn't the only one who'd noticed the dead ogre, either.

Erik stood shakily near the corpse. I didn't have time to think about what he was doing, though.

"Kade, Binding of Slow, now!" Jeff yelled. "Next to the boss!"

Stamina: 13/120, Mana: 22/200

I had enough. Just barely, but enough. I could play my role.

Jeff had taken advantage of Carlos and Angie using their skills to push the shadow goblins back, and he'd closed the gap. He couldn't reach the boss—not yet—but he was making headway against the tide, his short sword held in both hands. I followed in the big man's wake, trying my best to cover him with one hand on my sword and the other on my notebook.

There. The right Binding. I dropped it on the stairs next to the boss's summoning circle.

The Hobgoblin Summoner's eyes flashed to the symbol. Then to my sword. I didn't waste any time—the second it was down, I swung. The spell shattered, and both Jeff and I started moving like we were running through syrup.

So did the boss.

It should have been enough.

The archers should have been able to turn the Hobgoblin Summoner into a pincushion in the seconds of slowness. Or Erik should have recovered from his casting. Something. Anything but what happened.

Instead, the boss stopped summoning shadow goblins. As arrows slammed into it and tiny rivulets of blood poured from the wounds, it started summoning something else.

Something huge. The size of the Misbegotten Ogre. The same shape, too, and carrying a massive club; that and its gigantic teeth were the only things that were real. Everything that had been gray skin was dark shadow.

Shadow Ogre: D-Rank

The summoning finished. The ogre roared. Its club towered overhead, scraping the cave's ceiling and sending dirt and rocks crashing onto the stone around me.

I Dodged. Or at least, I tried to. I was too slow; the club rocketed toward me, and my leg shattered as it blew through my armor and my attempt to parry. I flew through the air and hit the far wall, on the wrong side of Sophia. My vision went black, reduced to a pinprick of light. But I clung to consciousness. The battle trance wouldn't let me go.

This was what I wanted. To pit myself against more and more powerful enemies and figure out what I was made of. And I'd found my limit. Now, all I could do was watch—watch, and hope the rest of the team could win.

The shadow ogre's club raised again. Jeff had time, and he hadn't wasted it; his sword was ready, braced against his gauntlet and held up. The club smashed down. Then it smashed down again. Then a third time. Something snapped loud enough for me to hear even through the battle trance and the agony, and Jeff crumpled next to the bosses.

The ogre hit him again, just for good measure, then turned toward the archers.

The archer. Angie was covered in flames and rolling on the ground as the boss chanted a spell. She screamed and screamed in agony. Then, the screaming stopped.

I couldn't do anything. We were all dead. Angie was already dead, and maybe Jeff, too. Carlos couldn't beat the boss and its summon on his own, and Erik wasn't ready to cast again.

I rolled. Sophia had healing magic. She could pick Jeff back up—hopefully—and we could still turn this around. Somehow, we could.

Her aura was gone. A flickering golden flame barely bigger than her silhouette backlit her, but she had nothing left in the tank.

We were out of options.

Except one.

Stormbreak

The power of the storm within is yours, if you can grasp it. Burn mana from all targets in range, creating positive and negative zones around all targets. After burning the targets' mana, equalize the zones. With lightning. Lots of lightning.

Upgrade Effects:
Each rank increases Stormbreak's damage.

I'd been here before.

A year ago.

It had been a C-Rank portal break. That's why my system had awakened, and I'd been handed what I thought was the power to protect myself, my family—and everyone else. The bugs—massive centipedes—had ripped their way out of an abandoned building across the street.

Things had…happened.

And my system had awakened.

I hadn't known what Stormbreak was. That it deserved to be flagged in the Governing Council's system. I'd only known it was a way to fight back.

People had died because of Stormbreak. And because of me.

The fact that people had also lived because of me didn't matter. I'd used Stormbreak then, and it had been enough to save Jessie—but the cost was too high. After I'd recovered and gotten back to the apartment, I'd started figuring out the build I was now on the cusp of beginning in earnest. It was designed to channel the extreme power of Stormbreak, to control it and harness it into something usable in regular combat, not just in the darkest moment, when every other option was exhausted.

But I didn't have that. My support skills were worthless, and everyone else was out of options. I wasn't strong enough. I was too late to save Angie, and I probably couldn't save Jeff, either, but…maybe I could still keep Sophia and Carlos alive. Maybe even Erik. Maybe I could turn this around, even if it killed me.

It was a risk. More people might die, and if I lived, I'd have to account for that. But it was an acceptable one, because we were all dead already if I did nothing.

I used Stormbreak.

I had no mana. Neither did Sophia. The two negative zones formed around us, a crackling static that stood my hair on end. Erik got another one.

Everyone else—the shadow ogre, the Hobgoblin Summoner, Jeff, and Carlos—had mana. Mana to fuel positive zones. Mana to burn.

And burn it did. The charge in the air grew, an oppressive, violent calm.

Then it exploded as everyone's mana drained instantly.

Lightning. An unbelievable amount of lightning. It ripped between us, seven flowers of the brightest light imaginable, with petals of energy connecting positive to negative and negative to positive. It was bright. And then, it was dark. The darkness of a flashbulb going off next to your face.

Then it happened again. And again.

The sound hit right after that. Three thunder crashes, one after the other. The ceiling collapsed, stone raining down all around us. Someone screamed. A man, I thought, but I wasn't sure. And I couldn't move to figure it out, because the pain came after. First, a wave of it. Then a hurricane. It crushed my grit, my will, burned through my Stamina in an instant. Every nerve in my body burned. I tried to push through it, to cling to the battle trance that had kept me in the fight so far.

I failed.

Win or lose, I definitely wasn't going to be home like I'd promised Jessie.