Stormblade [Skill Merge Portal Break] (B1 Complete)

As Ellen and I sprinted out the front door, I searched for the portal. If we could find it, we could get inside and start clearing it—or at least securing it for a proper team. The sooner it went down, the sooner the situation outside could clear out.

I didn't expect to find it, and I wasn't disappointed. I did find Carter, though. He stood next to Deimos, staring at the car as it idled on the sidewalk where Ellen had summoned it. "This yours?"

"Yes," Ellen ground out between clenched teeth.

"Will it get us to the break?"

"Yes."

"Alright. Let's go." Carter unslung his bow and quiver and jogged to the trunk. "Come on, open it up, and we'll get moving.

I didn't trust Carter. He'd given me no reason to. But I also trusted—fully—that every delver in the city would drop whatever they were doing to deal with a portal break. If it wasn't their sense of duty that motivated them, it'd be the rewards. Responders always got paid well, both by the guild whose territory the break was in and by the Governing Council if there was no guild. The rewards had been well worth it for me.

So I nodded quickly and glanced at Ellen. "Let's go. You're in the back, Caleb."

We piled in, and Deimos rocketed away, heading toward the Arrowhead neighborhood. It had been built near the ruins of an old, abandoned megamall, and the bulletin had said that the breach was in that area.

It took all of eight minutes. Eight long, quiet minutes as Deimos's engine revved and the three of us said nothing.

And then the first monster appeared in the middle of the road.

Ice Matriarch: C-Rank Monster

It was big. Stringy, white hair dripped as the ice that coated it melted in torrents of water. Massive claws, a body that dwarfed even the car we were in, and gorilla-like arms. I'd fought similar in the Rime portal, but this one was massive. And its eyes were locked on Deimos.

"Everyone out!" Ellen yelled. The doors popped open on their own, and I rolled, summoning my armor and weapon as I hit the asphalt. Ellen hit the ground on the other side, landing on her knees and grunting from the impact. And Carter managed to keep his feet, sprinting toward the open trunk where his bow and quiver were.

The Ice Matriarch surged toward us. I stared at it for a moment. Jaws and claws were the threats, but also its sheer mass. It'd crush anyone it hit. But its mass was also a weakness.

I cast Lightning Chain and pulled myself toward the hulking, snow-covered monster. The cable of electricity tightened, and I flew through the air. My sword cut across its shoulder and the back of its neck as I landed. Blood poured out onto the street for a moment before the cauterized flesh healed itself shut.

"It's only C-Rank?" Ellen asked.

"Yeah, they're tough. Help me out here," I said as I leaped off the Ice Matriarch's back just as two tree-trunk arms slammed together where I'd been. My feet slammed into the pavement. I dropped into a defensive Mistwalk stance.

And I stared at the towering spire of red-tinted ice that had erupted from the half-demolished megamall.

It was at least a couple hundred feet tall, the pale blue-green glacial ice I'd seen in textbooks and videos, but never in real life. The red light flickered against its cold-looking exterior. Even as it exploded upward, the sheen of melting water covered it. I watched in awe.

Then the Matriarch roared, and my attention snapped back to it just in time to parry a massive paw, leaving a thin cut across its palm. I riposted into its chest. The dueling blade sank in to the hilt, and when I ripped it free, blood erupted from the wound—and the monster's mouth.

Then Ellen's Shadow Shapes ripped into it, and a moment later, it was dead.

"Thanks," I said.

"No problem. What's going on with that?" Ellen asked.

"I have no idea, but I'd bet the portal's there. Let's go," I said.

Carter jogged over, bow hanging from one hand. "You two just…"

"Yep. It's dead. Keep up, Caleb," Ellen said tersely. Then she started moving, head pivoting as she ran toward the towering pillar of ice.

One look at the monsters surrounding the portal was enough for me to change our strategy.

Sleetsage: B-Rank

Rimelord: B-Rank

There were eight of them, all clustered around the bottom of the ice pillar next to the empty ruins of a storefront that was exposed to the Phoenix sky—and the Phoenix heat. The spire of ice melted in torrents that rained down on the white-robed, four-armed witches as the four of them stood at each cardinal point around it. Magic filled the air, but none of it felt offensive.

The Rimelords were more than enough for that. Each of them stood a solid nine or ten feet tall, with shoulders as wide as I was tall. I couldn't see their bodies under the thick layers of green and white glacial ice that covered them, but I didn't need to. The spike-covered hammers and shields they carried told me everything I needed to know. Brutes.

So did the red glow sneaking out from within the ice, and the single, narrow tunnel into it.

"Okay, we're changing plans. We can't delve into a B-Rank portal with just the three of us, and there are too many for us to get close. Let's switch to containment and try to stop whatever the Sleetsages are doing," I murmured.

"Agreed," Ellen whispered. "Plan?"

"Well, they're B-Rank. And there are eight of them. Think you can handle that?" I asked.

"Alone? Nope."

I turned to Carter, who had a phone in his shivering hands. He was typing on it. "What are you—"

"Not now. Wait." He kept working at the phone, then nodded and pressed send. "Okay, that should help."

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Two seconds later, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I didn't bother checking it. Ellen didn't either. She glanced at Carter. "You told everyone in the delver chat where the portal was."

"Standard guild procedure. If you're outgunned, you always call in back-up. That still leaves the problem of eight B-Rank monsters and a B-Rank portal, though," he said. "I have a thought. It'll be rough, but I think we can pull it off. The old Arrowhead mall's a maze. So, what I'll do is…"

He laid out his plan in less than fifteen seconds. I stared at him and then nodded. "That'll work if you're sure you can handle it."

"I don't think I have a chance of killing them," he said, "but I can avoid dying. That'll clear the board for you to—"

"Put the portal in check," I finished. "You play?"

"Casually. Unrated." Carter turned and started running, jogging low as he cut toward a rusted-over escalator. He climbed it, crossed a gap in the broken walkway, and put an arrow to his bow.

Then he fired. Ice and fire filled the air as the arrow split into a four-way volley that crashed into all four of the Rimelords. Their frigid armor took the blows, and all four of their eyes locked onto Carter, who stood upright and extremely visible. They surged toward the elevator as one, while the archer rapid-fired arrows into them. Not one of them drew blood.

But they didn't have to. As the Rimelords sprinted away, the four Sleetsages continued their ritual, and the spire—even against the Phoenix heat—continued growing upward. But now they were exposed.

I readied the dueling blade and crouched, moving toward the first one as Ellen circled to get her sights on the second. The distance closed. Twenty feet. Fifteen.

Ten.

Close enough. I broke into a sprint, sword in one hand and a handful of Zephyrs already in the air. They slammed into the monstrous witch as she turned, robe whirling to reveal ice-gray skin and sapphire eyes. The hat and robe took the blows, seeming to crackle as each wind dart punched into the frozen cloth.

Then two of her four thin, shivering arms reached toward me, and a massive snowflake spun in the air like a saw blade. She spoke a word I didn't recognize, and the blade shot at me, howling like a blizzard.

I ducked. It ripped over my head, ice forming across my hair as it passed. Then I closed the last few feet. Tallas's Dueling Blade shot forward. A wall of ice erupted in front of me. The sword stabbed into it, and I twisted.

Ice shards filled the air as the shield disintegrated under the force of thunder and lightning. But the Sleetsage was gone.

And the spell summoning the ice spire was still in effect.

The spire shook violently, but it kept growing overhead as Ellen called out that she'd killed her first target. Overhead, howls of rage and frustration mixed with arrows' whistling filled the air. And I looked around, trying to find the Sleetsage I'd been assigned to kill.

She was B-Rank. But I'd been fighting over my weight class for a while now. B-Rank didn't mean I couldn't kill her. It just meant it'd take effort.

Snow started to converge in a spot a hundred feet away. It whirled and shimmered. The Sleetsage appeared in the miniature snowstorm, all four thin hands already conjuring two of the hard-ice snowflake blades. I readied myself, dropping into a defensive stance. Both blades surged through the air toward me. I used Gustrunner as they did and started running. With my Scripts and the movement skill, I should have been fast enough.

Instead, one blade ripped across my arm and shoulder as I dodged the other. Pain surged through my body, followed by Stamina that suppressed it. I kept my feet and kept running—but I turned and angled straight toward the Sleetsage instead of away from it.

The gap closed. The monster started casting another spell.

And I threw a Darkness on top of it, then changed direction.

The snow-blade ripped through the air right where I'd been, but I wasn't there. I was inside the darkness. With the Sleetsage. And I had a single Rainfall Charge circling my blade.

As it started forming its ice wall, I shifted stances and used Saltspray to counter any spell it tried to defend itself with. My sword cut across the monster's chest, exposing blood so cold it had crystals in it to the air, and the ice shield failed.

Then Shade Scythe hammered down on it. Twice.

It collapsed, and I stabbed into it, looking for a reaction. Nothing.

I turned toward the ice pillar. Howls of rage filled the air; it had stopped growing, and the Phoenix heat was chipping away at it. The red portal's glow started shining into the sky overhead.

And a figure threw himself off the bannister overhead, hitting the ground next to me. Hard. "I did my best," Carter said.

His bow was broken, and so was his arm. I couldn't tell if he'd shattered the latter on the drop down to me, but the bow was covered in ice. The howls of rage redoubled. "They're on me. Sorry," he said. He pushed himself to his feet and kept running.

I turned to stare at the four B-Rank monsters climbing over the banister and preparing to jump. Tallas's Dueling Blade hung ready in my hand. Then I unsummoned it. "How close do you think back-up is?"

"A minute? Two?" Carter yelled back.

"Great. Get out of here," I said.

I squared up, hit Ellen and Carter with my exclusion zones, and used Stormbreak.

Positive. Negative. Connection. Lightning. Pain.

It happened quickly. My core took as much as it could, then offloaded the rest onto my body. Split across four enemies that outranked me, with no casters close enough to fuel it, Stormbreak wasn't the endgame move I needed it to be. But it didn't have to be. The raw power was enough to char and crack the four Rimelords' armor, shearing off massive slabs of ice as thunder and lightning ripped at it.

Then Shadow Shapes ripped into them, and a multi-layered Shadow Boxing shredded what was left of their armor. Fear filled my chest everywhere pain wasn't. Ellen's aura crashed into Carter and me—and into the monsters—as she brought her full, B-Rank fury to bear on them.

It still took almost a minute for them to die, but by the time they had, I'd recovered enough to help with the last one, a Slicing Bolt ripping into it and cutting deep into its exposed, pale-white neck. Carter's dagger punched into its chest, and it shuddered and died.

"Is that it?" Ellen asked, panting slightly as her aura retracted. "I hope so."

"Nope," Carter said quickly. "The portal's still open. Do we go in?"

"I don't think so." I pointed at it, then at the collapsing ice tower. "I think we back off and wait for reinforcements, like I told you to."

"Sure." Carter pulled his quiver off his back, shoved the fragments of his bow into it, and unzipped the side. A folded portal-metal box fell out, and he slowly unfolded it, snapping parts into place until a second bow sat on the soggy, wet floor. Then he strung it and stood up. "I'm going to hunt some of the portal monsters out there. Are you two guarding the portal, then?"

Ellen nodded. "We'll keep anything else from coming out until a proper team can get in there and clear it. You get moving…and thanks for the assist back there."

"No problem," Carter said. Then he was gone.

I waited a minute. A monster—C-Rank—emerged from the portal and started working its way down the tunnel toward us. A Slicing Bolt and Shadow Shapes obliterated it before it got halfway.

"So, Caleb did pretty well," Ellen said.

"Yeah, I guess." I watched the red portal churning for a few seconds. "I still don't trust him at all. He's…I just can't."

"I understand," Ellen said quickly. "He's not trustworthy. But he is competent."

"I wonder how much damage he's done to his build," I said. "He said he'd had to make some hard decisions, and I can't help but think that one of those probably screwed up his build to make him marginally harder to identify. It's what I'd do."

"Would you?" Ellen asked.

I paused. No. No, I wouldn't. I'd put too much effort into my build to sacrifice it the way he had. He'd had other options, and he'd chosen a path that didn't rely on anyone else. It clicked. It wasn't that I didn't trust Carter. I did. I had, when he'd said he could distract four B-Rank monsters long enough for us to make our move. It was that he didn't—and couldn't—trust anyone else.

If he could have, he'd have been able to do something about Deborah a long time ago. He didn't need me to topple her. He just didn't realize that.

It took almost twenty minutes for a B-Rank team to arrive. They looked almost as tired as I felt, and they wore armbands with the Portal Tyrants' logo on them. "Ugh, late-night and out-of-district. This one's going to be a paperwork nightmare," the team's leader said. He stuck out a hand, and I shook it.

"Kade Noelstra. Ellen Traynor, Car—Caleb Richter, and I were the first responders for this one. We'll take any payouts in money, not cores or gear. It'll be easier for the three of us to deal with it, since we're not all teammates. We're looking at a Rime portal—Rimelords and Sleetsages, plus C-Rank Ice Troll variants," I said.

"Understood. Thanks. The Portal Tyrants are officially taking over this portal break, with responder payouts to the three named delvers, plus any others in the area," he said.

"Great," Ellen said. "All on you guys, then. I believe you said I could crash at your place, Kade?"

"I did."

"Great. I'm beat, and that couch sounds great. Let's go."