[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 209 – Falling Skies

The crumbling remains of a floating island flew by. Shattered rock, trees and dirt fell apart before Matt’s widening eyes. A stream of glistening water twisted through the debris, likely what had just so recently been a river or maybe even a waterfall or a lake.

Now it was nothing more than careening rubble, with boar-like monsters helplessly spinning through the debris. It wouldn’t have mattered if they were flying monsters.

There would be no beating those high-speed winds.

Jaw slack, dagger hanging forgotten at his side, Matt stared up at the hurtling monsters among the leftover pieces of a Skyshard.

“That could have easily been us,” he said hoarsely. A mixture of horror and awe filled his chest.

The mandragora militia huddled behind the dullahan beside Matt. The headless suit of living armor turned towards Matt, and seemed to regard him.

In response, it sat down heavily. The diminutive mandragoras scattered before the deepening shadow, then scurried into the dullahan’s lap.

On one hand, it was supremely cool to watch such wholesale destruction, and on the other, it was absolutely terrifying.

What happened to that Skyshard could have easily broken his own, the very land beneath their feet.

And they’d all be as good as dead as those boar monsters that were already spinning out of reach, shrinking into little brown motes past the barrier that shimmered like a soap bubble around their home.

The barrier around the kingdom of Sil’mara’s Skyshard flashed blue and green, repelling the turbulent and caustic winds of the Maelstrom.

The hateful thing was pulling in countless Skyshards. Maybe all of them across the whole First Layer of the Shardrune multiverse.

For some reason, Matt was trembling with excitement.

There was a deep CRACK, like a sheet of ice a foot thick breaking above his head.

Matt tensed, readying himself, adrenaline surging at the thought that the barrier had finally shattered.

The barrier had been punctured by a piece of glowing Skyshard. The ground trembled beneath his feet as the meteor streaked through the air and crashed into the clear-cut fields around Sil’mara’s thick palisade walls.

Matt motioned to the dullahan as it started to rise. The thing looked like it was one stiff breeze until it crumbled to dust. “You sit this one out, friend. Let me stretch my legs a bit, yeah?”

Besides, he had new armor to test out! Sam wasn’t the only hero, and what better way to repay him by showing him just how much more capable he was?

Can’t let him have all the fun, Matt thought to himself as he slipped out of the large gates and streaked through the rippling fields of stumps toward the smoldering crater.

The sight surprised him.

Swirling around a half-melted slag heap the size of a million-dollar house back in Hawaii (aka, a shack) was an aura of incredible malice and destruction. In fact, as Matt looked up at the bubble protecting Sil’mara, he saw the same energy out there.

As a Mage, he could sense and detect mana better than others. This had the same corrupting, aggressive energy signature as the Maelstrom.

Swirling rifts of dark wind and green lightning bolts appeared like tiny dust devils. They swelled and pulsed with dirty green light as creatures spawned from the chaotic bursts of energy.

Creatures that only vaguely resembled the boars he had seen earlier.

These creatures were eaten away by the caustic mana, eyes glowing green with electricity and tusks that sparked with the same energy. A dark purple-black wind rolled around them as they charged right at Matt with no hesitation.

“Welp, this is a lot worse than just standard monsters,” Matt said breezily. He dodged to the side. “I don’t know how I feel about killing a bunch of monster babies, but you are all very ugly and very aggressive.” Matt dodged another, dashing to the side as a bolt of green lightning blasted a clod of dirt from where he had been standing.

With Poisonmind as his Second Order Job, Matt lacked the high bursts of damage a Swordsman like Sam could dish out. However, he had something even better. At least, in his opinion.

He inflicted damage over time. All he had to do was outlast these beasts. Sam’s strategy was to kill the thing before it killed him. Which would be pretty damn hard considering his monstrous HP, but that was beside the point.

Matt’s M.O. was more patient than that.

He reached down and pointed two fingers, concentrating mana into his hand and slicing his fingers in an arc. He used his newest spell, [Poison Rent].

Cracks ran down through the grass covered ground, ripping open a magical fissure that glowed with an acid green almost magma-like substance.

Matt grinned. [Poison Rent] cost a crazy amount of MP, but the spell was well worth the result.

The monsters charged right over the fissure, dowsing themselves in the poisonous mana.

Sprays of hissing green poison splattered the monsters, staining their hides and hooves with the stuff. With every popping bubble, they took more damage.

Matt turned and ran, pushing his Agility and Dexterity to its limits. These things were fast. And if he didn’t know any better, growing faster by the minute.

So maybe I can’t outlast them forever.

As he curved around with multiple monsters on his tail, he noticed a group of mandragoras scouting out the battle from atop a hillock. One of them actually saluted him, then took off in the direction of the settlement, presumably to warn the others.

Matt planned to have these monsters dealt with before any help arrived. He wanted to see the surprised look on everyone’s faces.

I’m going to be the hero for a change.

He certainly wouldn’t mind impressing Raiko and Lenal for once.

Matt created another [Poison Rent]. The boar-like beasts were fast, but they were not terribly agile. By turning a tight corner, he was able to keep ahead of them while stacking up the poison affliction on them. Each lap through both rents increased their stacks, dramatically increasing his damage in the process.

A few more laps and I’ll be doing more damage than Sam can do without having to lift a finger!

With multiple [Poison Rents] to work with, he led the monsters over the poison spraying fissures several times. They weren’t smart enough to figure out what the source of the debilitating affliction was.

This wouldn’t work on humans, but his spell definitely excelled here.

Monsters were only as smart as their age and mana concentrations allowed. That much he had learned as a Mage and as an observant survivor.

By the time Sam and Komachi came out, Matt had lapped the foolish [Dark Boars] to death. Their bodies were sizzling with poison as his burly king came into view.

Unsurprisingly, Komachi was clinging to his neck like a big golden scarf. The cat was larger than she had been, almost too big to be considered a house cat, not that Matt would be dumb enough to say that to her face.

She was…delicate about her size.

The cat was hardly fat, though her fluffy golden fur did often make it seem like she had put on ten pounds. She had just grown somehow. And she wasn’t the only one.

Every damn time Matt saw Sam, he was bigger than the last time. Taller. Wider. Somehow grander. He was becoming the king that Matt knew he would one day become.

He didn’t know how the man’s armor could keep up with his growth spurts. Maybe it was that magical resizing that seemed baked into anything with a rarity attached to it.

Maybe that was why Sam never took his armor off. He couldn’t.

Matt chuckled and laced his hands behind his head. Behind him, the bubbling bodies of the dead boar monsters were melting away as the poison ate what it couldn’t infect.

A delicious treat awaits me, Matt thought with a glance over his shoulder.

When he looked back, his heart skipped a beat. Despite being an undead, a Necram specifically, Matt was still surprised at how alive he felt at times.

Sam’s normally friendly Hawaiian features–not a native, but he had that same easy-going and friendly attitude Matt couldn’t separate from the islanders–was etched in stone. There was murder in his blue eyes.

Before Matt could ask what was wrong, Sam was already unsheathing his blade. A glowing aura of silvery light washed across it as the blade grew and grew as he drew it from the small magical sheath on his back.

Sparks flew as mana sharpened the blade to a razor’s edge.

Sam brought his signature [Heavy Blade] down within an inch of Matt’s frozen form.

CRACK!

Turning to follow the trajectory of the glowing blade, Matt saw what Sam must have. Rather than warn him to get out of the way, he had dealt with it.

How very much like you, Matt thought, surprised that the man had been able to control his attack so well. Just a few days ago, he didn’t seem capable of such fine-grained modulation.

With his Mage senses, Matt could tell how finely he imbued his sword and the precision such a strike would require.

The meteor had started to spawn more monsters, so Sam being Sam, had decided to destroy the meteor. Only he would think of cleaving the damn house-sized thing in half as if it was no more trouble than cracking a coconut.

“You could have warned me,” Matt pouted, turning to walk alongside Sam as his king approached the slag heap now cleaved cleanly in two.

Experience rolled in for the both of them. Matt looked at the smug expression on Komachi’s furry face. Scratch that, the three of us.

“Heh, Sam stronk,” the not-so-little Bard said.

Raiko descended from the sky, flying in a curving arc like she was launched out of a catapult. Her katana carved a continuous line of luminous light through the air that allowed her to travel great distances like she was riding a zipline.

Lenal was clinging to the Ninja. Naturally, the elf was screaming.

The pair landed atop the hillock the mandragoras were waiting at. The friendly plantoid monsters gathered around the two women like an honor guard.

Matt sighed. “So much for impressing anybody.”

It took a little while for Lenal to stop screaming.

“What’s going on?” Sam asked, motioning to the crater. His massive sword looked ridiculous. No human could have wielded it, and yet Sam had used it with surgical precision not more than an inch away from Matt’s elbow.

“It broke through the barrier,” Matt said, motioning to its remains. “And started spawning these weird monsters. They were different, Sam. Like the—”

“Maelstrom?” Sam asked, dropping into a low and easy squat at the edge of the crater.

“Yeah, how’d you know?” Matt asked.

As far as the Poisonmind was concerned, only another Mage should be able to detect that mana. With it being destroyed and all, it wasn’t exactly radiating a similar aura, and all the boars were coated in poison.

“Just a hunch,” Sam said, looking over his shoulder and giving Matt a twinkling smile. “Seen any others?”

He inched closer to the broken meteor, eager to see what he could loot from it. “No, but…I can’t see everything from this vantage point. Too many trees around. Another one could have fallen. Though it did make an absolutely hideous noise. I don’t think we’ll be caught by surprise when another—”

The sky broke above their heads. Both men looked up to see three more meteors streaking toward them.

Sam grinned and shouldered his greatsword. It began to give off a tremendous heat that forced Matt to take several steps back. “Looks like you won’t get all the fun after all,” Sam said with a grin. “You ready, Komachi?”

“Machiii!” Komachi cried in excitement.