Ruthless ~ 57!

~ 57 ~

The mercenary was slapped away, and he went bouncing along the bodies that had piled up due to Joe’s Dark Lightning Strike. Arthur the Neigh-Bear fully phased into being, instantly becoming the focus of hundreds of people in the area. On a positive note, most of them were screaming and backpedaling.

“What in the…?” The silencer took a trembling step back.

“A Neigh-Bear! How rare and sought after!” The Jester took a decisive step forward. “A single fang is enough to guarantee a rare-quality dagger-”

“That’s not just any…” the scholar’s eyes widened. “That’s… that’s Neigh-Bear King Arthur! Leader of the Seven Hordes, brightest light in a generation, Ember of the Flaming Berserkers! I’m sure of it, look at those markings! He even wields the claw weapon excalibear!”

Joe jumped on Arthur’s horsey hindquarters and dug his heels in. “Giddyup.”

The area descended into silence once more, this time in shock. Only the creaking of a building burning and collapsing broke the still air. Arthur growled, “What did you just say?”

“We need to get out of here, right now. I need you to clear a path directly to that building, and time is running out for your summoning.”

“The people in the way?”

“Enemies, one and all.” Joe pointed at the distant wall. “Go, now! Hurry, Arthur!”

“You will not use me as a mount again.” Arthur rumbled as he started charging toward the core of the town. 

“Deal.” Joe winced as Arthur got up to speed. There was no way for people to get out of the way in time, they were packed too densely together. Arthur trampled anyone in his path, his huge hooves pulverizing anyone they landed on. His paws and jaws seemed to work independently, and the Neigh-Bear sent dozens of people to respawn every few steps, and critically wounded even more. Somehow, he was able to keep increasing his speed the entire time. 

“You have ten seconds remaining until I vanish.” Arthur spat out the words and a hand at the same time, so the message was a little garbled. 

“Understood. Get as close to the wall as possible, and jump as high as you can.” Joe stared at the distant wall, then moved from sitting into a crouching position. A dagger slammed into his arm, and a sharp *slap slap* rang out nearby. 

Damage dealt: 617 Dark damage. Jester slain x1. (Retaliation of Shadows)

Joe was silenced a moment later, and a strange metal ball impacted his back and finished off his Shell, as well as cracking one of the ribs on the left side of his back. Joe silently spat out a mouthful of blood, his lung must have been punctured. Arthur jumped, and started to fade. Joe felt his feet starting to slip through, so he empowered his legs and jumped. This was a smooth jump, and he went ten feet above the wall, clearing it easily. 

He came down, falling toward the stone ground that surrounded the bathhouse. He landed badly, his legs cracking, his wrist shattering, and he could feel internal injuries stacking up rapidly. The silence countdown had another ten seconds, and Joe was staring down a half dozen swords right now. He could only pray that someone would recognize him under the ash, blood, and bruises. 

“U-um. Excuse me, he’s my party leader.” Joe managed to turn his head slightly, and saw Alexis lightly tugging on one of the men that was about to skewer him. “I really think killing him is a bad idea. Please hold off?”

“I…” the man hesitated, clearly tightly wound. If someone had harsly demanded he step away, he likely would have finished Joe off. “Yes, miss. Just, make sure it is who you think it is. Looks like one of them mages that messed with our defences.”

The timer finished, and Joe slapped his unbroken hand to himself and cast Lay on Hands, which caused his bones to grind against each other as they aligned. 

Skill increase: Lay on Hands (Student 0). You can now use each hand independently to cast this spell! This means you can have two spells ready to go whenever you need them, which seems to be pretty often! Their cooldown is determined individually.

Alexis offered her hand, and Joe took it to stand up. As he did so, the majority of the grime that had accumulated on him just… slid away. Every second, more blood would flake off, and ash fell off him as if he wasn’t there. “I need to see Aten.”

“I figured as much.” Alexis started pulling Joe away from the still-suspicious people staring him down. “He’s in the main building coordinating the defenses. He left orders that you were to be brought straight to him when you show up. I don't know how you did it, but that man has a crazy amount of faith in you.”

Joe felt his eyes burn with shame at the undeserved praise. “I’m just a cockroach… really hard to kill, seems to survive against all odds, but not really great to have around. I’ve barely got any good news for him at all. I…”

“It’s fine, Joe.” Alexis assured him. “Even if all this goes away, all that happens is that we need to start fresh. We got here in such a short time, and next time we will build with heavy defense in mind. We went to luxury too fast, trying to bypass security because of our life experience on earth to this point. Next time…”

Her eyes blazed with fervent belief. “Next time, we’ll make them fear coming after us.”

They crossed the remaining distance in silence, and Joe was admitted to the meeting room right away. Aten held up a hand and cut off an accounting of supplies. “Joe! Blast it man, you did make it back!”

“Aten, I don’t have much-”

“Quiet, Joe. I haven’t pinned all my hopes on you.” Aten could see at a glance that Joe didn't have the news that he had been hoping for. “You’re one man, and we are a full guild. Even if you didn’t come back with a miracle, we’ll figure this mess out. Did you succeed? Are you third tier now?”

“Yes. but-”

“Was it worth getting?” Aten demanded with shining eyes, clearly picturing glory and battle prowess. 

“I can only hope.” Joe sighed and ran a hand over his bald head and down his neck. “I do have some good news. I cleared out the area around the Pathfinder’s Hall, and our people there are ready to strike when we give them a proper signal.”

“You made it there too!” Aten grabbed Joe’s shoulders. “Did you get the box? Did you-”

“I got it, and managed to get everything linked before I came here.” Joe nodded at Aten’s wide smile. “I think that we will be able to retake our town, at least for a while. This will give us a shot of getting the walls up, at least.”

“Do it now.” Aten demanded. “Make them start feeling it. Wait, how long will it last?”

“At least a few hours?” Joe shrugged, slightly off-put that he couldn’t give a definitive answer. “I didn’t set this one up, my juniors did it. Can’t imagine it lasting any shorter than that.”

“Do it then, we’ll plan the counterattack to go out in an hour.” Aten slapped Joe on his unprotected back, reminding him that he needed to get his Exquisite Shell going again. Joe nodded at Aten and pulled out the gold ingot.

Joe pressed the activation sequence, starting the ritual.

Ritual ‘Blooded Quarantine Area’ activation started x4! Players who will remain unaffected: none. All beings in the impacted area will feel sick, and gain symptoms ‘vomiting’ and ‘no bowel control’, stacking to higher ranks the closer they are to the ritual diagram. Once active, this ritual will remain for .25 seconds per impacted living being, increasing range by one foot in radius per impacted living being. Timer does not increase if a living being leaves the impacted area and returns. Activate all four rituals now? Yes / No.

Joe selected ‘yes’, and flopped into a chair. His part in this war was over for now, and a nap was long past due. He blinked at the gold as his hand began to hurt, then dropped the ingot with a yelp as it turned red-hot and began to melt. “What… what was that?”

Ritualist Hannah has broken a vow with you, and has been given the title Warlock V!

His eyes went wide, and Joe scrambled to pull up his notifications. 

Alchemical agents added to rituals have taken effect! Altering effect of ritual ‘Blooded Quarantine Area’… complete. Substance ‘Blood of Endless Hunger’ from being ‘Gameover’ has significantly altered the ritual! New ritual in place, see effects?

“What? Yes, see the effects!” Joe’s bellow attracted attention, and anyone who had interacted with him before saw that his face was pale, and his hands were trembling as he read over the information that he alone could see.

New ritual activated: Ritual of Liquifying Membranes. Players who will remain unaffected: none. All beings with less than 80 points in constitution within the impacted area will become sick, and gain symptoms ‘vomiting blood’, ECC, and ‘damaged organs’, stacking to higher ranks the closer they are to the ritual diagram Once active, this ritual will remain for .25 seconds per impacted living being, increasing range by one foot in radius per impacted living being. Each impacted being increases the threshold of constitution required to ignore effects by .0001 each. Does not increase if a living being leaves the impacted area and returns.

“Show status, guild contribution points!” There was only one thing this could be, but there was no way-

Contribution points: 6,189,761.

“Oh… oh my… Mike. Mike authorized extreme measures.” Joe was dizzy. He nearly fainted as he read the horrifying effects that this ritual had. “See information ‘vomiting blood’.”

Vomiting blood: take 1 bleeding damage per second per stack, lasts 10 hours. Maximum: twenty stacks.

“Ten… hours?” Joe felt a tear roll down his cheek. “Damaged organs?”

Damaged organs: reduce effects of healing by 50%.

“What in the world is ECS?” Joe whispered, truly not wanting to know the answer.

ECS: Exploding Corpse Curse. When a being inflicted with this curse dies, their body explodes, dealing half their maximum health as concussive damage and inflicting all debuffs they had at the maximum possible stacks.

“I need to stop this. I need to stop this right now!” Joe stood up, and turned toward the door.

“Joe? What’s going on? Joe!” Aten called as Joe ran from the room.

“Don’t let anyone into the central area of the town! We just released a massive curse… a plague that might kill us all!” Joe bellowed over his shoulder. “Wait… the safeguard I put on all rituals! I can end this now! End ritual: Ritual of Liquifying Membranes!”

Nothing.

“End Ritual: Blooded Quarantine Area!” There was no message, there was nothing. That meant there was no response from the ritual, it was still starting. Why? He had always been able to cancel them before! Joe’s hands slapped to the sides of his head as he remembered a conversation with Hannah. She had said… “She was stripping everything down to make it as efficient as possible… she wouldn’t know… the safeguard! No! She removed it!”

Joe ran to the top of the ramparts, and staggered over to the edge of the wall. Thousands of people were milling about, and he could hear someone give the order to launch a full-scale assault. He shouted as loudly as possible, infusing his throat with mana in an attempt to make his words reach further. “No! No! Listen to me! You all need to run! You need to scatter! If you stay here…”

Darkness flashed through Joe’s eyes, and a shadowy version of himself appeared behind him with a sinister grin on its face. The words that rumbled out of Joe’s chest were filled with dark charisma, and caused fear to run through the crowd below. 

“You’re all going to die!”