FMH: Everything ~ Twenty-One

Even back when he was a child, Luke had always known that the Dynasty of Dogs was the boogeyman of the Hollow Kingdom. His homeland shared a border with only a few small nations, capped by the sea to the north, but the vast majority of their country was connected to land owned by the dynasty.

For as long as he could remember, they had been under the threat of annexation by the massive superpower that was the dynasty. Only the fact that their kingdom had an obvious dearth of resources and available mana to produce large quantities of Ascenders had kept them safe.

Weakness wasn’t Luke's idea of a good defense, but until recently, it had been the only defense they’d had. A small amount of mirth filtered into his manic smile upon realizing that it was the actions of his team, and his team alone, that had forced the kingdom out of obscurity and into being a target worth capturing once more. Anything to put a few gray hairs in King Vir’s hair. Pleased that the Lieutenant appeared ready for the fight, Luke sprinted forward, kicking up a divot of freshly grown grass as he pushed himself to his maximum speed in an instant.

He targeted the first of the dogs on the left, excited to see how well it could take a punch. It wasn't exactly surprising, per se, that the creature was able to react in time to adopt a more advantageous position as the Murderhobo closed in on it, but the shift did make him amend his strategy somewhat. Instead of bringing himself into perfect fist range, he instead swapped his weapon back to a manifestation of a long spear, selecting one with a lightning elemental variation.

Using both hands, he ensured the spear tip preceded him by several feet, saving him from getting mauled on the arm as both dogs moved in unison. The enormous beast to the right of the Lieutenant snapped its head to the right, biting the shaft of the mana-manifested spear, while his original target hopped lightly to the side to avoid the weapon’s crackling spearhead.

For the first time in practically years, Luke utterly missed his target.

He braced his feet, pushing off the ground and reversing his momentum to keep himself out of reach of the dogs’ lethal jaws. It didn't escape his attention that the Lieutenant was staring smugly at him, his arms crossed over his chest. The man hadn't moved a fraction of an inch since summoning the dogs, absolutely certain of his own safety. “Your handlers should have kept you on a tighter leash. At the very least, they should have informed you of how polite society works. I understand that, in your kingdom, everyone grabs whatever scraps of power they can attain from whatever useless world they manage to insert themselves into. But in the dynasty, your rank is determined socially, militarily, and politically by your ability to tame and train your dog.”

Dropping to his knees, Luke managed to avoid the lunge of the leftmost dog, passively shredding the underside of its front right leg against his armor. The Murderhobo let the splash of blood wash over him, knowing that it wouldn’t matter and could demoralize his enemies. With a simple jab forward, the spear tip punched through the canine’s rear-facing knee, forcing it to disengage in a limping retreat. Before he could get excited about the minor wounds he had inflicted, a wave of mana washed out from the Lieutenant onto the dog, wrapping the wound in power and causing the damage to fade away nigh-instantaneously.

Lieutenant Garmr continued to monologue, and by now Luke was nearly positive that he was doing so intentionally with the sole purpose of distracting him from the attacking dogs. “You cannot become an officer without managing to tame at least three dogs. Nobles will lose all ability to inherit, if they do not manage to subdue a Tier five at the very minimum. Higher nobility have higher requirements, as I'm sure you fully understand. As a Lieutenant and a noble myself, my dogs have all reached Tier seven. I don't suppose you understand what that means, do you?”

The Murderhobo did in fact understand what a Tier seven was capable of, perhaps even more fully than the Lieutenant himself. Luke begrudgingly amended that thought. Seeing as the man commanded multiple dogs at that Tier, he might have as much or even more data than Luke did. The huge Berserker decided that it was unlikely, but stranger things had happened. The real question was: why was this man giving him so much information? It must have been an attempt to get him to give up or run away, but the only effect was that Luke was informed ahead of time regarding how strong the effects of the dogs’ skills were going to be.

“Command! Open the gate of catastrophe!” As soon as the Lieutenant had barked the order, both of his summoned dogs moved into position next to him, their heads and feet perfectly parallel. Both ferocious mouths dropped open, tainted mana cascading out and forming a swirling miasma in the air. Several smaller, lower-Tier dogs charged out of the strange portal until dozens, then scores of creatures were snapping at Luke from all angles.

He traded his manifested weapons for his Chain-Link Scourge, which he began whirling around at high speeds, causing the blades hidden in the rope to pop out as they struck the summoned beasts. “Weird that your dogs are summoned by a Spell that calls cats. I thought everything was hound this, dog that, wolf here, dingo there.”

“Cats?” Garmr, to his credit, picked up on Luke’s implication right away, his tone darkening with disgust. “The command is for catastrophe. It has nothing to do with those disgusting felines. Enough of this… the first effect is clearly not enough. Command! Scatter. Command! Life-Threatening Growl.”

All of the newly summoned creatures, which had been unable to leave a single mark on Luke through his spiked armor, instead followed their directive to devote their talents of rending flesh to the soldiers that had been getting into position behind Luke. The Murderhobo was annoyed that his enemy was looking down on him, thinking that he could summon creatures to attack him, then not even bother to follow through. “None of you get to escape me. Cookie, c'mere. I found someone worth bothering with. Hobo Holler!”

Against the shouted orders of the Lieutenant, all of the creatures in the area that counted Luke among their list of enemies suddenly only had eyes for him. The smaller, less useful dogs that had been summoned were compelled to charge, and Luke sliced his way through them with his scourge as though he were calmly preparing a dinner for a baby. That is, he made sure that his attacks perfectly pureed anything that dared to try to come for his life.

As he moved to destroy more of the creatures, a low sound began to shake the ground, causing rocks to bounce, debris to tumble back and forth, and most concerning of all… a line of skin on Luke's shoulder parted, allowing fresh blood to seep out. The tiny twinge of pain was enough to draw his attention to the two dogs next to the Lieutenant which were growling, a deep, ferocious sound. It apparently counted as some kind of area of effect sonic damage capable of ignoring his armor. The growling continued, slowly ramping up in intensity and threat level. A small silver lining was that Luke wasn’t the only creature affected.

The effect seemed to be hitting anything within a certain cone in front of the summons, including the small creatures that the Lieutenant had tried to make leave the area. At least his reasoning was finally clear to the Murderhobo. Luke didn't want to be thought of as weak during combat, after all. It was nice to know that his enemy wasn't thinking he couldn't handle everything being thrown at him; it was his enemy not wanting to waste his limited minor summons.

As far as Luke could tell, the spell that was being used was mana-intensive, and took quite a while to ramp up before it started having serious consequences for those caught in its effects. As another small eruption of blood sent sanguine fluid flowing down his chest, Luke activated Bum Thunder and burst through the defensive line of canines stationed between himself and the Lieutenant. Just as he appeared in front of the robed man, a four-foot bone zipped through the air—and a few summons—to nestle perfectly into Luke's waiting hands as he hopped and spun.

Cookie and the Murderhobo moved as one, striking the summoned dog on the Lieutenant's right and ever so slowly destroying it. The Tier seven dog was incredibly resilient and managed to survive long enough for the Lieutenant to reposition himself. As it was being flung at a secondary summon, it burst into light and vanished, allowing Luke's swing to continue unimpeded. Were he a normal combatant, he would have been caught off-balance as the other dog leapt to take advantage of the situation. Happily, balance was his strong suit, with his Skill ‘Pristine Balance’ being at Tier four, level zero.

Still, he had almost never met another creature that was able to match his sheer speed, certainly not recently. As useful as Cookie was, he was forced to drop her in favor of slightly longer, most certainly faster, weapons. He didn't mind taking a hit or three, but he was certain some form of magical effect had enhanced the natural weapons of this creature. Even though its teeth *screeched* against his manifested armor–the spikes digging into its mouth and causing it to bleed–some of the damage passed through the armor to cause burning pain to his body.

Damage taken: 62 infernal damage! 169 damage resisted!

Infernal infection! -1 health per minute until the wound is treated.

Health remaining: 868/930.

“I see you're finally starting to realize the situation that you're truly in.” The Lieutenant’s smile grew nearly as wide as Luke's own, his eyes glittering in excitement as he confirmed the damage had begun to set in. “There is no Healer on this plane, unaligned with my faction, who can cure infernal damage. You're a dead man walking. From this point forward, no matter where you go, where you escape to, your health will be eroding. Whether it takes a day, a week, a month, or a year… eventually your Healers will grow weary of keeping you alive and let you succumb to the curse in your flesh.”

“Curse in my flesh? Good idea.” Running headlong into an attack, he intentionally dropped the armor around his arm and dropped his technique at the last moment in favor of allowing blood to splash into the dog's open mouth. “If that can kill a Giga ant, you shouldn't be a problem.”

It took almost no time at all for the dog to begin whimpering, clawing at its own mouth and throat as the noxious poison that was Luke's blood flowed down into its stomach. ‘You Need To Stop’ didn't have a direct damage meter, so it was unable to guarantee that the pain itself would kill any of the summons, but he knew that either way, he would have an easier time defeating this animal if it was distracted. The Murderhobo hit it twice, left, then right, ending his combination attack by leaping into the air, pulling Cookie to him, then coming down and cratering the beast.

Luke savored the warmth of absolute satisfaction as the summon was reduced to shimmering lights, and he basked in the glow for a moment as he shifted his stance and prepared to take on the Lieutenant. His eyes flicked to the clearing where the man had been standing, only to be greeted by an empty horizon. He blinked and hunted around in confusion, only spotting the hastily retreating Lieutenant thanks to the sheer volume of ostentatious ornamentation flapping wildly about his robe.

“Hey! You can't just run away in the middle of a duel!” Luke bellowed at the man as he started giving chase.

“Watch me!” The Lieutenant laughed wildly as he secured himself within the inner depths of his army, which closed behind him in a practiced sequence and raised their weapons in preparation of their impending deaths. “The next time you see me, I will be standing above you, watching the light fade from your eyes!”

“You can't just run away in the middle of a fight!” Luke howled in fury as he began taking his anger out on the assembled troops. After a swing or two, he was obscured by a mist of falling blood droplets. Yet, no matter how quickly he eliminated and chased, the Murderhobo was unable to locate the cowardly Lieutenant. He screamed in rage, walloping every last one of the Dynasty soldiers that threw themselves against the meat grinder of his attacks. “More! More! Hobo Holler!”

His words pealed across the landscape, bringing all eyes on him.