Chapter 412 - The Hunger of a Gorger

This chapter was a lot of fun and came really naturally. Very pleased with it so I hope you enjoy :)

Hump felt a chill course through his body at the familiar touch of the gorger’s intent. The ground beneath Bud had erupted moments before, and now the gorger straightened from its crouch, its body emitting ominous cracking sounds as it rose.

It stood tall, towering over Hump, bronze eyes glaring down at him. Up close, Hump saw the red glow deep within its throat, like molten rock. The light glinted off its silver teeth. Spikes protruded from across its upper body and arms. Its clawed hands didn’t have fingers, but instead, a set of six curved spikes. It stood taller than the last gorger, but more lithe, with a hunched back and long arms like an ape.

The creature’s face twisted into an eerie smile, like a clay sculpture made to emulate the face of a person. It breathed deeply, and the air howled like wind through a cave. Hump felt a pull on his essence and saw the creature’s pleasure.

“Gorger!” Bud roared.

The knight sprung to his feet and charged to assist, but the gorger was quickly. It lunged, its clawed hand sweeping toward Hump with terrifying speed.

Hump threw himself back, but the creature’s spiked fingers catching the front of his cloak. A cold, invasive presence crept into his mind like icy tendrils slithering through his thoughts. Hump’s mental walls slammed into place, solid and impenetrable, shielding his soul from the gorger’s attack. It probed at him with furious hunger, throwing itself into the assault with reckless abandon, clearly not expecting such a defence.

Hump pressed his palm against the gorger’s stony chest. He could feel the essence binding its unnatural form together, a network of power pound together by the intent of the spirit within.

He focused his will, visualising the stone breaking apart into a thousand pieces, and the essence binding it to dissolve. “Melt Stone.”

A surge of heat roared beneath his palm. The centre of the gorger’s chest erupted into molten slag. The creature roared, releasing Hump and stumbling back, clawing at its chest as the molten rock cooled into a grey, crusted shell.

The brief reprieve was all Hump needed. He didn’t hesitate as he levelled his staff, its crystal focus aimed directly at the cracked surface of the gorger’s chest. Essence surged through him, a torrent of bronze energy swirling in the crystal like golden sand. It churned with such ferocity that Hump himself was momentarily surprised by its intensity.

Hatred boiled inside him, an unfamiliar but undeniable force. He channelled it into the spell, shaping it into a raw, destructive force, and letting it fuel the spell on his lips.

It crossed his mind that this gorger might be even more powerful than the last—there had to be ten times as many shades as there had been at Fisher’s Lake, and more beasts likely lurked nearby. However, Hump was not the same wizard that had been tormented by a gorger more than a year ago. He was not the same wizard Lucille had given her life to protect. There had been little he could do at the time but resist, and only thanks to Vivienne’s strength had they been able to defeat it. Now, it was different. Hump felt no fear, only focused anger. While the gorger had a body of stone, it was a spirit creature little different from the shades, only it had feasted more and grown powerful enough to form a body around its magical centre. If Hump could disrupt that, it would crumble, and he had just the spell for it.

The Tier 4 spell was powerful and one that usually required a few seconds for him to fully form. Without the time right now, he formed shards of obsidian before him—needles of razor-sharp stone, laced with disruptive properties.

“Titan’s Wrath,” Hump barked.

The gorger had only an instant to react. Enough time for the sneer to be wiped from its face as the needles shot forward.

It tried to launch itself back, succeeding in dodging a few, but not all of them. Hump heard three resounding thumps as his attacks made contact, burying themselves into the gorger’s body as it leapt backward. It screamed, landing in a heap on the ground, clawing at its own chest with a hand laced in bronze essence. Deep tears carved through the stone, dragging out the obsidian needles. Bud raced to finish it off. Hump prepared a follow up spell. But its spiked claws carved chunks out of the ground, power radiating from it, tossing an avalanche of shining rock and debris up in a cloud around it as it dragged itself back underground as easily as one might dive into a lake.

It was gone in only a few seconds, yet its voice followed, the ground rumbling with its fury.

“Feeeast!” the gorger roared, louder and filled with anger. “Kiiillll! Feeeeeeeast!”

The air was thick with its intent as its gravelly voice filled the air—a deep, ravenous hunger and powerful authority.

And the shades obeyed.

Their shrill shrieks pierced at Hump’s ears as they refocused on Randall’s party. Many of those that Celaine and the others had lured away with troll blood rose from where they rummaged on the ground, returning to the sawm.

Hump turned to face the wall of darkness, so tall and wide that the sky and the plains were blocked from view. From above, Nisha gave Hump a view of more shades rising from the fissures—their numbers were seemingly endless. There was only shadow. The individual form of each shade was lost in the mass, but he could see their eyes—thousands of them, burning with a pale blue, peering out line stars through storm clouds.

We cannot kill our way out of this, Hump thought.

Before the encroaching wall of shades, Madeleine led the charge from the front of Randall’s party, the other four members trailing behind her. She roared, her round shield braced before her, the red essence of Byzantius exploding from her in a violent, flickering aura. The war god’s power was a barrier around them, and the strength it radiated had that tingling warmth of the divine. Alone, surrounded by the vast cloud of shades, she was a beacon of light.

But she was not alone.

Hump and Bud parted, allowing the party a path to their rear. Celaine and Dylan arrived behind them, while Randall’s party passed between, until all ten of them were together. Hump braced his staff against the ground and withdrew his spellbook, the pages flying open as fiery light filled his staff.

The air sparked with heat. Embers floated before him on a wind of his own making. The air turned hot, essence expanding around him.

Just as the shades were mere feet before him, Hump barked his command. “Fire Shield.”

Fire erupted. Ribbons of scarlet laced the air in an angry blaze, expanding until a sphere surrounded Hump and everyone else. The shades closest to them screamed as they were engulfed by flame. Others flew back, avoiding the heat, while the greedy and the famished flew straight into his spell, burning as they drained it of its essence. Hump felt a chill as others joined the attempt. Some lingered on the outside, feeding slowly on his power, while others were pushed into it by the shades behind them, or simply gave into their hunger.

That’s alright, Hump thought. Come on you bastards. Have a snack on me and gather around close while you’re at it.

He sensed Nisha’s desire to come and assist but urged her to remain back. She was safest high overhead, and the view she gave him of the battlefield was useful.

“Excellently done, wizard,” Randall said. “Now we’re stuck together.”

“We’re not stuck yet,” Hump said through gritted teeth, a tight grin forming on his lips.

More and more shades gathered in, feeding on Hump’s strength. The drain on his reserves was great, but Hump was optimistic that it would be worth it. Still, he waited, letting the shades push each other in closer, giving time for those at the back to give in to their hunger. Finally, Hump used Shatter Shield.

The shield turned suddenly violent. The fire blazed once more as Hump flooded it with essence, the flames expanding like a bubble around them. Many shades were too slow to dodge, screeching as they burned. Others managed to get away, but they were launched back by the blast, their wispy bodies singed with flame.

And suddenly, the sky was clear once more.

“Run!” Hump snapped.

As ten, they sprinted away from the fissures, creating more and more distance from where the shades made their home.

“Oh fantastic,” Randall shouted back at Hump. “We’re not stuck at all! What’s the next step of this genius plan?”

“You complain a lot for someone getting rescued,” Hump shouted back.

“This is a rescue?” Randall’s exhausted chuckle lingered in the air.

“Next time, I think I’ll leave you,” Hump snapped. “Now shut up and let us work. Reinforcements are on their way.”

“Our locator beacon didn’t—” Randall started.

“We used our own and contacted Marcela,” Hump said. “They’re coming.”

Even as Hump said the words, he didn’t like it. They had come on a rescue mission to save one party and might soon be in a position where Marcela had to save them both. If that happened, Hump would feel very foolish.

So let’s make sure that doesn’t happen, Hump thought. First step: secure Randall and the others. Once they were all together, they could figure out a way to handle all the shades.

It was then that Celaine drew attention to enemies at their rear. “Flesh prowlers ahead! They’re surrounding us.”

Hump’s eyes found the pack of wolf-like creatures moving over the nearby dunes. The were dark silhouettes at this distance, but Hump recognised them as the pale fleshed beasts that had wiped out the village of Lakewood. He still remembered the scream of Kastin the fisherman as they had come across his devoured family. The terror of the girl, Sessil, found in a cellar of one of the houses. They were the only survivors.

 There had to be a few dozen of them. Alone, that wouldn’t be a problem, but between the gorger and shades, breaking through was going to be difficult.

Hump felt power deep in the earth. The gorger was making its move, and it seemed it was going with a less direct method of attack now. It must have recognised them as a threat, but at the same time it could not let a feast like them go. Hump knew how barren this land was from the memories he had seen of the last gorger. He knew how little food there was. The ten of them were the catch of the century.

He felt a spell activate. The earth jerked, a crack like thunder rumbling through it. A fissure opened before Hump and the others, spreading quickly, threatening to swallow them up. Hump met the expanding gap with his own power, fixing the earth in place for long enough for them to leap across.

Spikes erupted from the earth, spearing them, but they could not penetrate their defences. Bud absorbed the blows on his Armour of Ice. Dylan smashed them apart with his staff, elongating it with Growth as he slammed it through them. Madeleine based them apart with her shield, while the two new members of Randall’s party assisted with their own blessings.

The gorger emerged from the ground ahead of them, landing on all fours. The earth cracked beneath its weight, and then a second pulse of power pressed into the ground. Behind it, the flesh prowlers approached warily, snarling.

Ripples of bronze spread through the ground in three powerful waves. The ground shuddered and Hump stumbled, leaning against his staff for balance. He watched as tall walls of stone erupted in a circle around them, pincering them in between the shades and flesh prowlers. Hump felt like he was in a dinner bowl.

Celaine’s arrow was already going, a Power Shot aimed straight at the flesh prowler. Stone formed before it and the arrow shattered the wall and caught the gorger’s shoulder, shattering it. The gorger roared and skulked back, hiding behind its flesh prowlers, repairing its shoulder with essence. Bud whirled around, releasing a wave of Frostfire at the approaching shades, buying them a moment.

Thinking quickly, Hump dragged at the stone, drawing it up into the air and crushing it into spikes of obsidian with force of will. He had a few seconds now, and he used them to form eight, thick, large spikes of Titan’s Wrath.

With a thought, he rotated them and pierced the ground in a wide circle, enough for the ten of them to shelter inside.

The storm of shades veered back as the spikes sent ripples of bronze power out in pulses. To an ordinary person, they were enough to disrupt their magic. But against the shades, they functioned exactly as Hump had anticipated. These creatures fed off essence, but what could they do against essence that would disrupt the very power that held them together?

Those too slow to react were caught in the wave, their bodies falling to pieces like ash on the wind. They did not even scream as their forms collapsed.

The cloud of shades tried to circle them, until Hump saw nothing but the storm.

“We’re surrounded,” Emilia said.

“The gorger is committed now,” Celaine said. “It’s used up too much effort. Only a starving razorclaw will risk itself like this for a meal. We’re too valuable for it to let go, and it knows it. It’s too invested.”

“Celaine and I will handle them. You three focus on getting them out.”

“I’ll help,” Skander said.

“You’re leaving us?” Madeleine asked, stunned.

“I’m not leaving,” Skander snapped. “I’m helping this lot. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I’m an assassin. Not a whole lot I can do against all those shades with a dagger, let me stab some flesh prowlers.”

“Go with them,” Randall said. “We’ll be fine here.”

Randall was clearly exhausted. He was stumbling around on his feet, and Hump knew that maintaining his blessing for so long must have left him drained.

“You don’t look fine,” Hump said. “You going to be alright on your feet?”

“I can certainly keep up with you, wizard,” Randall said. “Though my sorcery may be a little lacking.”

Hump smiled. He appreciated the bravado, but Randall and his party were spent. They would not be much of a weapon in the battle to come.

Hump looked to the gorger, only to see it feasting on a few of the shades. It took Hump a moment to realise why—they had attacked it. It must have been due to the amount of essence it had used. It seemed, if given enough motivation, its authority over them was not absolute.

An idea began to formulate.

“Okay,” Hump said. “The three of you handle the flesh prowlers then. Bud, Randall, Madeleine, burn the shades. Dylan and I will deal with the gorger.”

“We will?” Dylan asked.

Hump nodded. “That thing can’t let us get away. I will be the bait and lure it forward, then I want you to trap it with Briar Cage. Hold it still and I’ll finish it off.”

“I can do that.”

There was a change to the air as the Chosen released their major blessings. Emilia’s Transcended Blade, and Hump’s manifested soul. Essence roared in a way that the Remnant Realm may not have seen for centuries.

Hump set his eyes upon the gorger. It watched them cautiously. Hump wondered if it was doubting itself now, but its hunger would not let it leave. He knew the gorger. He knew its kind. He had seen it. Whatever sense it had once had was gone, twisted by the many other souls it had consumed, and what remained was hunger.

A hunger Hump would take advantage of.

Hump’s soul was lay bare for it—a feast unlike any it had experienced. He had the vial in his hand. The shade had targeted the gorger and been eaten for it, but it showed Hump something important. The shades might be under its control, but it could not entirely override their hunger. They were not loyal—they were puppets. Hump just had to give them a treat delicious enough to overwhelm the gorger’s control.

What better than the gorger itself?