Chapter 75: Chapter 75

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Rain barely had a moment to breathe after Haldir collapsed before the entire hall suddenly became a hurricane windstorm, a tornado of deafening air that picked up everything not nailed down, the plates, cutlery, chairs, benches, and anything else becoming so much horizontal hail. 

Rain put his arm over his front protectively even as his fur rippled, whipped around by the howling wind. A small hand poked from his coat and pointed, his eyes followed the pointing finger and quickly found the source of the indoor storm. It was Lixiss, she was floating high above the head councillor, her fan glowing, a tall cylinder of static and unmoving air around them protecting them from the indoor storm. Rain tried to take a step toward her but the wind redoubled and he found himself slowed, having to lean into the wind just to keep from being pushed back, his massive body working against him by giving so much more surface area for the wind to act against.

Lixiss flicked her fan and a bolt of lightning struck from the ceiling to the ground, blowing apart a metal serving dish hurtling by and sending molten metal splashing. Rain tried to cry out as it landed up his leg, burning into him, but just opening his mouth snatched his breath away. He could barely keep his eyes open having to squint into the painful gale as flying objects continued to hammer against his body.

A flicker caught his eye and his brow rose as someone danced by, a person wearing a  sharp black suit. It was the butler. The butler danced and leapt through the wind as though it wasn’t even there, every languid motion redirecting the wind across his body allowing him to slip and shift and move in the hurricane, easily dodging any flying debris, really the complete opposite to Rain. The butler darted out of view and Rain gasped silently as a jagged line of agony was cut up his back. He twisted trying to catch the butler in the maelstrom but he slipped away like a leaf in the breeze.

A second bolt of lightning landed, barely missing him and only by chance being redirected into a cluster of steel cutlery sending a flurry of molten metal hail into the air.

This was bad, Lixiss had him cornered, the wind making it difficult to move and the butler slowly cutting him apart. The wound he had taken burned in a way he had never felt before and as he blinked a slow fuzziness crept over his body, a feeling of unnatural numbness. What was this? Poison? 

The butler darted forward once more and Rain fell back, trying to use the wind to his advantage, but it was no use, the butler was simply faster, more nimble, more dextrous, and Rain found his reactions sluggish and slow, too slow. The knife slipped by and sliced a path up his arm. He roared in frustration, his paws moving far too unresponsively to catch the nimble butler.

He couldn't see a way out, he needed something, anything.

Then he saw a head pop out of the side of his coat. Opal glanced up at him, that one look communicating all over her intent. He instantly understood, her thoughts clear to him.

The butler came in for a third cut as brain fog started to descend. This time Rain was not reacting to the butler however so his reaction speed was not a concern. He dove and rolled, his paw snatching at Opal’s waiting hand. Then with a grunt he hauled on the Goblin and with a shriek and a POP! she was ejected from his coat and launched into the air, the wind carrying her, making her go long, her naked legs kicking before she came down with a cry.

Her bare feet landed, landed on the base of Haldir’s ballista and she rode the entire thing as it skid-pivoted around on the chair, the giga crossbow leaning so hard into the chair it went up on two legs as it spun.

Opal didn't hesitate. She slapped a hand down on the trigger with a grin that stretched cheek to cheek, the light of weaponised madness in her eyes. 

The ballista Fired. The entire thing lurching back so hard it knocked Opal into the air once more as the overtaxed arms snapped flat and the titanic bolt exploded forward, the wind and air around it momentarily blasting back in the opposite direction as it carved a line up, up, up.

The bolt struck Lixiss in the throat, ripping her out of the air and slamming her against one of the halls cross beams as the bolt embedded itself deep. Her hands grasped at the bolt momentarily before the light died in her eyes and she fell limp, her body hanging like some macabre butchers slab from where she was pinned.

The wind instantly stopped. Hundreds of objects falling out of the air in a racket of falling metal, rattling against the priestess who had created a layered box around herself made out of her barriers. She glared through the transparency, her eyes furious.

Opal grunted as she landed atop the corpse of Haldir, the jagged shard embedded in his chest sticking up beside her. She wrapped her hands around it and with a heave pulled the long thing free, sending it flipping into the air trailing blood.

“Rain!” she cried out.

Rain stumbled, everything was becoming a poisoned haze, his thoughts slowed. He could see the butler casually dodging around the falling detritus unbothered by the sheer quantity, then Opal’s voice hit his mind like a bell of clarity and he lifted his paw catching the shard. The butler saw this and suddenly wary of what he was about to do ran behind the layered barrier box the Priestess was hiding in, she watched him as he passed her by then returned her gaze to Rain.

Rain lifted his arm, ready to throw, no, wait. He blinked, his mind still fuzzy, but not quite fuzzy enough to consider that he would have very little chance of piercing the priestesses barriers just by throwing the thing.

His gaze drifted over to Opal, she was miming something, lifting her hands to her mouth and … biting? 

Oh. Rain brought the shard to his mouth and tore into it, quickly biting it apart and swallowing it down.

The cherub let out a blood-curdling scream as Rain began to digest and motes of darkness spread across its body, then its outer surface began to bubble and swell. 

The priestess grabbed at the cherub and tried to pull it from her shoulder but found it as affixed to her in relative position as the barriers were in the air. The cherub Bulged outward its face distorting into a horrific visage. The priestess screamed, slamming herself against the barriers in a panic, desperate to get away. She could not get away of course. The cherub ballooned, and then it exploded. 

Rain stumbled back as the shockwave hit him, raising his paw to protect from the debris once more sent flying. He rubbed at his ringing ears and blinked to clear his sight.

The priestess was there, just standing there, swaying slightly, seemingly unharmed. 

“Monster, you will never know peace in this world, for as long as you are a source of levels you will always be ours to take.”

She turned her head revealing what remained of the other side, the cherub had blown off a large section of her face exposing her jaw bone and teeth, her eye socket just gone.

“The priesthood will come, you are a cause all of your own to make unrelenting war, your continued existence is against what our gods will... I will-...I...”

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She suddenly collapsed like a marionette with her strings cut, the horrific injury overcoming her sheer will to stay conscious. 

The hall was devastated, destruction an understatement, the corpses of the levelers strewn throughout, Rain stood at its center, the eye of this storm of ruin.

He breathed, in and then out, steady, and slowly turned to face the head councillor, still sitting at the end of the room. The butler was there, holding his arm as though injured. The butler was looking the head councillor in the eye.

“I’m revoking my contract under the best effort clause.”

“Wh-what?!” said the councillor, flabbergasted, “B-but we have the damned thing, you’ve already cut it! It’s over!”

“I did, didn't I? Too bad it doesn't matter. I can already sense my poisons absorbing into its body, being weakened by some mechanism or other. Continuing down this avenue of attack is folly, I have no real way I can deal with such a monster. Thus I’m afraid that I will be taking my leave. Terribly sorry about all this, that's just the way things go sometimes.”

“Wait, wait! We can do this together! We can! You just need to overwhelm it with more poison!”

The butler shook his head. “No sir, I do not. If you survive this you may submit a letter of complaint, but for now I must bid you goodbye.”

The butler smartly about-faced and delicately picked his way amongst the debris scattered flagstones, careful not to dirty his shoes. He glanced up at Rain as he passed, Rain himself was in too foggy a state to quite comprehend what was happening although already that was starting to lift. 

“Something tells me that you are worth more than most in levels, so I suspect you won't be long for this world as a walking treasure ripe to be taken. But if you do last perhaps I will see you again, maybe it is I who will end you, I will certainly be looking into acquiring more... effective poisons.”

Rain slow blinked as the butler calmly passed him by. He wondered if he should do something, he didn't think he was in any state to catch the nimble butler, he felt far too lead-footed. As it was he watched the butler open the door and simply leave. 

There was, however, something he could do. He turned back to the head councillor to find him shakily climbing from his chair.

Rain took a step forward. The head councillor paled, his gaze darting from Rain to the many corpses Rain had created. He swallowed nervously.

“Three.” said Rain.

The head councillor shrieked and dashed away, his fat wobbling dangerously as he sprinted. 

The surge of predatory instinct cut into Rain’s brain fog like a knife, the razor focus of a fleeing prey animal easily sharpening that part of his mind that demanded he move. He bounded forward. He still felt physically numb, and very clumsy, but that certainly wasn't going to keep him from the hunt.

The head councillor slammed through the door at the end of the hall and dashed inside. Rain roared and raced after him. He meant to push through the door but ended up shoulder slamming the thing open and breaking it off its hinges as he slumped against the wall. His legs didn't stop moving and he pushed himself down the corridor grasping at the wall trying to keep his balance. It didn't matter, he simply powered through, using his strength to brute force any need for balance. His head slammed off the wall and he winced as his foot collided with a side table turning it into kindling. Didn't matter. The prey was all.

He reached out, his paw wavering side to side in the air as he struggled to keep himself steady, the head councillor was there, right in front of his claws, he only had to-. The councillor dived into a side room and Rain stumbled to a halt and then had to backtrack a step or so to the door. He hunched down and squeezed through the relatively small doorway.

He found the room he came out into well lit, a study of sorts with a desk. More importantly, was the large free-standing cage that had been brought in. Its occupants: One red scaled Kobold and one fluffy wooled sheep girl. On the desk was a skull with green flaming eyes. All of them stared at him as he came in.

Then all of them began yelling and screaming at him. He blinked in confusion, struggling to understand what was happening. 

His gaze landed on the head councillor. He was hunched over the desk, a book out in front of him, frantically scrabbling at an inkpot, desperately trying to unscrew its cap. At last he managed it, the cap sent bouncing, and he snatched up a quill and with wildly shaking hands dipped it. The inkpot was knocked and spilt of course but that didn't stop him from inking the nib, his hand came down on the paper and it was then that Rain processed the other’s words.

“STOP HIM! The BOOK!”

“Brute, it’s an Inkerchange! You must prevent this fool-

“K-kill that scalerotted egg snatcher! He stole all my goooold!”

He didn't understand why they wanted the councillor stopped but his muddled mind could still feel the urgency. He shot his paws forward enclosing the unaware councillor’s head and in the same motion ripped his arms to the side, muscles bulging, twisting with all the savage explosive force he could apply, instantly snapping the councillor’s neck and every other sinew holding his head in place, shredding everything inside and turning his neck skin into a twisted mince wrapper.

The head councilor dropped. 

 

 

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