Rune Seeker

“Can’t say I’m thrilled about my part in this plan,” Seena said less than half a minute later, still sprinting to stay ahead of the Enemy’s relentless assault. “But I’ll do it. Just say when.”

Hiral pulled his RHC triggers as he darted between blasts from above, having cycled through his weapons to keep Ever Changing+ up, then sheathed the weapons again and took control of his two floating swords.

“When,” he said, activating Double Trouble, Enraged, and Eloquent in quick succession.

Yellow energy exploded off him, an echo of the double-helix script seeming to hang in the air a few inches from his skin. With the 50% boost from the first ability, Enraged enhanced his physical stats—most importantly, his Dex—by a whopping 75%. Eloquent only had the usual 50% boost, but considering something else he wanted to try, it should be enough.

With the sudden power boost—and the three-minute timer until the side effects kicked in—Hiral blasted into the air on a powerful burst of Rejection. He angled off to the side of the squid as it continued to toss blast after blast in his direction, but it’d already been struggling to keep up with him. And that had been before his Dex had climbed to almost 300—even after losing the bonus from Yanily and Shared Attributes.

A sphere of green energy erupted high above, solar power radiating outward with an ominous aura, and Hiral could only smile as Seeyela activated her cooldowns as well. They were putting it all on the line now, just the two of them versus the Boss.

“Go,” he told Seeyela through the Party Interface. Then he cut hard inward on more planes of Rejection.

Tentacles came up to intercept him, but he darted high then low to avoid the ranged attacks, closing the distance before it could erect its force shield. In closer now, the squid moved from using two tentacles to chase him and one to block his attacks, to all three blasting away at him. From the way Seeyela was Bamf’ing around, she had three after her as well. And with how versatile the appendages were, the lethal blasts could come from almost any angle.

Still, at this pace, Hiral had the speed advantage.

Left then right, he darted back and forth on planes of Rejection, his swords lashing out as he spun and struck. Still doing next to no significant damage, they barely shaved off a fraction of the beast’s massive health bar with each hit. He’d need to do better than that.

Dropping the swords and grabbing his Bestial Axes again, Hiral burst forward to close range. Hack, hack, hacking as soon as he arrived, he tore into the side of the squid, Bleeding Wounds and Hack and Slash quickly stacking up. One tentacle tried to sneak in directly below him, but he deftly sidestepped, an instance of Vengeance capping him at 10, and the Lost Echo exploded. With the additive 20% bonus to his critical hit chance from the max-stacked Vengeance—and the way it interacted with the Second Movement of the Lost Chord of the Primal Echo—he was gaining buffs and debuffs almost as fast as he could use them.

Troblin Might, Nature’s Blade, Lashing Vines, Blood Corruption, Blood Volatility, and Predator’s Eyes stacked up one after another, skyrocketing his damage potential.

And he definitely got the squid’s attention with the unrelenting assault, a fourth tentacle coming to join the other three. A burst of Rejection shot him sideways to evade a slicing beam of Energy, then he dodge, dodge, dodged three more. Just as four orbs of Impact launched his way, he lunged straight ahead, passing between the attacks, and resumed his assault. Frenzy reached its second stage, increasing his attack speed by 50%, and his axes came around in a blur.

“Got a fourth after me,” Seeyela said into the party chat, “and I’m barely keeping ahead of it. Don’t think I can handle a fifth.”

“No problem,” Hiral said. “Seena, get ready for your part in all this.” He landed a final double strike with his axes to push Frenzy up to three stacks, then vaulted backwards.

The cascading bonuses from these axes are ridiculous.

“Been patiently waiting this whole time,” Seena pointed out, though two tentacles still rained death on the town below. “You going to be okay, Hiral?”

“One more trick up my unbelievably soft sleeve,” Hiral said. “Just be ready.”

“Consider this your shoulder tap. And don’t die.”

“No, it’s totally fine if you die,” Li’l Ur added. “Encouraged, in fact.”

Hiral pushed the comments out of his mind as he dropped his axes and focused on his runes. A sweeping kick of Separation didn’t do much damage, but it kept the squid’s attention on him while he dashed away and began building his plan. Running literal circles around the monster while it peppered the air with attacks, Hiral threaded power into his Runes of Sealing, Unsealing, Expansion, Increase, Decrease, Gravity, and Connection.

A sphere, visible only to Hiral, ballooned out to a hundred feet in every direction with the squid at its center. Maybe the Enemy was the Boss of the dungeon, but this space—here in the sky—this was now Hiral’s domain. Within it, his stats and abilities would be boosted by the Increase rune connected to him. Gravity and his cooldowns were lowered, and while he could’ve prevented the rain from getting in, he didn’t have the power to keep the squid inside. So, instead, he took a page from the Enemy’s book, threading one more trick into the sphere.

One heartbeat, two, and the space within the sphere blossomed to Hiral’s senses. Like the Enemy in front of him, he was connected loosely to every single raindrop passing through the sphere. He could sense everything within like it was part of him.

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Barely a twitch from one of the tentacles, and Hiral was already moving, long gone by the time the arc of Separation reached where he had been. Even Seeyela, through her constant Bamf’ing to stay ahead of the squid’s attacks, moved in predictable patterns. The place where she would appear bloomed slightly, the rain getting displaced, and only her increased stats were letting her stay ahead of the squid focusing on that spot.

Amazing.

Hiral danced through the air as the Chord of the Primal Echo incorporated the falling rain like an undercurrent melody, then reached over his shoulder as a climax began to build.

The Emperor’s Greatsword burst to life like an earthbound star in his hands, and the whole atmosphere within his domain changed. Four tentacles aimed in his direction seemed to pause, like they tasted the energy of the weapon in the falling rain, and the squid shifted.

Hiral didn’t wait to see what it would do, springing forward and lashing out. With an increase of 75% to his attack speed, not even including all the buffs from his domain and the Second Movement, the greatsword was a literal blur of destructive force. Weight at twenty times normal, the blade whistled through the air and dug deep into the Boss’s side.

Quick shifts of Gravity reduced the weight and increased it again before the monster could even react to the first hit, and Hiral brought the weapon back around for a second swing. Below him, three of the tentacles moved through the rain to take aim, but he had time. Pushing the weight of the sword to thirty times, he added in weaves of Expansion and Impact.

The glowing blade tore through the squid’s rubbery flesh in a cutting wound three feet deep, and then the comet-like trail of force behind the swing hit it like a giant hammer. The whole Boss lurched in the air under the blow, but Hiral had to dart back as the three tentacles loosed their payloads at him. Step, step, stutter-step back, and then he darted to the side and back in to continue the attack.

Shatter Armor added deep red veins to his glowing blade, which spread like a contagion into the squid when he struck. One, two, three more deep gashes before he was forced to circle around, squirming and racing tentacles coming after him. A fifth had joined the previous four, leaving only one harrying Seena on the ground.

Almost there, he thought as he charged back in.

The five tentacles lashed through the air all around, forgoing the ranged blasts that couldn’t touch him in favor of trying to simply swat him like an insect. With his Dex boosted by Enraged and his perception enhanced by the falling rain within his domain, the Chord guided him flawlessly through the weave of attacks. His sword fell in time with the raindrops, each slash cutting deep, though it still barely reduced the long health bar.

Seeyela Bamf’d in, familiar red veins on her daggers from Shatter Armor, and managed to land a quick hit before teleporting right back out. Now, with the Boss’s armor reduced by a significant 30%, Hiral’s next slash drew a shriek of pain that shook the air.

Seemingly tired of dealing with Hiral beating the hell out of it, the squid turned a sixth and seventh tentacle at him, taking the last one from Seena and even one from Seeyela. Attacks came at him from all sides, near and far, like a net closing around him.

Even with the significant buffs and the Chord working, the window of escape was small and closing. Letting go of the Emperor’s Greatsword and leaving it embedded in the squid’s side, Hiral dove backward. Twin bolts of Impact exploded where he’d just been, while a tentacle swept above him. Landing and twisting on planes of Rejection, he sprang to the side, narrowly evading two beams of Energy aimed to behead him. That seventh tentacle, though, was just a touch faster, and a crescent of Separation sliced across his shoulder.

Blood joined the falling rain from the wound, Hiral’s whole right arm going numb so quickly he double-checked to make sure it was still attached. Barely. He brought his left hand up to his shoulder to keep the limb from ripping off, wound threads of Connection and Attraction into the injury, and then dashed off again.

Attacks from the seven tentacles came so fast and furious that Hiral had no choice but to completely forgo offense in favor of simply staying alive. Beams, bolts, crescents, and whipping appendages came at him from all sides as he bounced around the squid like a pinball. The sensory assistance of his domain and his enhanced Dex kept him just ahead of the multitude of things looking to end him, but there were just so many things coming his way.

Lost Echoes exploded in time with the thunder booming above, and Seeyela took advantage of the squid’s distraction to Bamf in and land a few more hits. Between the two of them dealing moderate damage and staying slightly ahead of attacks coming their way, they were officially getting all the Boss’s attention.

“Any time now…” Seeyela said into the party chat.

Her daggers scored two more venom-shrouded hits, and lines of green spread through the squid like small rivers. However, even with the Ghost-Web Venom eating away at it, some physical component of the monster kept the deadly substance from plunging deep into its body.

The rubbery layer must be holding the venom away from squid’s vitals.

“Seeyela, aim for one of the wounds I tore open,” Hiral instructed while flipping over another pair of sweeping beams that still managed to nick him. More lines of pain seared across his back, but at least neither of them was deep enough to take off limbs—his right arm was still completely numb. He could use the active component of Regeneration+, but that would leave him vulnerable to the small hits he was taking.

“Got it,” Seeyela said, teleporting three times in quick succession and then appearing to plant her feet against the side of the Enemy. One dagger drove in beside the garish cut outlined in red and green to act as a brace, while her Little Shadow’s Cloak extended claws of living blood to hold her in place. Then, with a scream, Seeyela thrust her whole body forward.

Burying her dagger—and arm—up to her shoulder in the wound got another pained shriek from the squid, its health bar turning a sickly green. It also left Seeyela open, and a tentacle slammed into her side with the force of a runaway carriage.

The woman grunted in pain from the impact, then a second time as she Bamf’d to roll across the ground instead of slamming into it from two hundred feet up.

“Seeyela, are you okay…?” Hiral started to ask. Then he noticed all ten tentacles now only had one target.

Him.

This could go poorly…

But before the squid had a chance to erase Hiral from existence, a surge of power wreathed in currents of flame erupted from the ground below.

Finally.

Glancing down, he found Seena standing within her Sheath of the Phoenix, wings spread wide and Left and Right at her side. Each had a hand on her shoulder, feeding her their solar energy through the Solar Supply ability, while Li’l Ur wrapped her in concentric circles of complicated blue script. Above her outstretched hand, a thick, spinning spear of fire fifteen feet long roared like an inferno. With Eloquent and Enraged active, the woman radiated power on a whole other level.

“Incoming,” was all she said, the spear of flame exploding off her with enough force to throw all four of them to the ground. Ripping upward through the air with a sound like a caged tornado, the spear cut the distance to the squid in a heartbeat.

And with all its tentacles stretched out to go after Hiral, it didn’t have anything left to defend the central weak point he’d spotted earlier.

“This is for Yan,” Seena said from her back as the lance struck home.