SB4 C46: Before the Storm

46 - Before the Storm

The weight of what I’d done hit me as Sarah’s powerful healing magic stitched my wounds back together.

I’d killed an S-Ranker. Not a monster, but a delver.

It wasn’t just that Deborah Callahan wouldn’t be hunting me anymore. It wasn’t even that I’d avenged Angelo Lawrence—though his loss would throw Phoenix into chaos as the Roadrunners fell in power and the other guilds all maneuvered to take their place. I didn’t care about the political implications of his death, or of hers. It was people who mattered.

Jessie had run into trouble with Deborah during council meetings. They hadn’t come to blows, which was good for my sister, but she and Deborah hadn’t been allies even before. And Carter had gone into hiding, changing his name completely, to avoid Deborah. Then, he’d had to play a dangerous game to keep his former allies out of trouble with her. All of that was over now. Whoever took over the Roadrunners after Angelo could work on getting Carter back into the guild. My sister could focus on doing her job.

But at the same time…it had been a while since I’d killed another delver.

The last one was the archer, in the Rime portal world I’d cleared at E-Rank. She’d hunted Zeke and me through the frozen tunnels, and it had honestly been luck that I’d killed her and survived the snow troll that had attacked immediately after. This time, my victory had very little to do with luck. I’d beaten Deborah in a no holds barred fight to the death.

It had cost me, though. Stormbreak was B-Rank now, and I couldn’t use it to buy myself time to think in future fights.

I waved Sarah over. “I’ve got a problem. My familiar—“

“I saw. Your familiar’s a monster, right? And Deborah got it good with the same attack she used to kill Nathan?”

She knew. Of course she knew; I hadn’t been subtle with Cheddar, after all. And that was fine. I doubted any of the S-Rankers would raise an eyebrow at me finding different paths to power than they’d used. “I need him back.”

“Summon him,” Sarah said. “I’ll do what I can.”

For the next couple of minutes, Sarah worked to stitch Cheddar back together. The winged serpent was in bad shape; blood poured from his wound like it had just happened, and it took the Spark of Life almost a frantic minute to stabilize him. Then the wound slowly scabbed over. Her face shifted the moment she looked away from me, turning from a cold, serious mask to an unguarded portrait of grief. I understood. She’d been close to Angelo Lawrence, and as far as we knew, he was dead. But she had to keep pushing—and she did.

“Keep him out of combat, but he should be okay to fly—carefully,” she said after a few more minutes.

I nodded. “Thanks.” Then I sent a mental image of Cheddar sneaking through the rafters overhead and avoiding fights as much as he could.

Sarah cleared her throat. “We need to keep moving. If she found us that quickly after…after fighting Angelo, she’s not the only one who can. We’ll be drowning in monsters soon—our best bet is to find a way down through the workshop’s floors and see if we can link up with Hugo, Terrel, and Bernard. Let’s go, and try not to pick too many fights. We’re not in great shape.”

I nodded. She was absolutely right. As we moved into the room’s far door, I readied Nimbus Edge. It wouldn’t do much good; if we were attacked, we’d almost certainly be outgunned. I crept forward slowly, much like the time we’d cleared out the Dark Citadel world. Unnecessary fights were just flirting with death.

Not that we didn’t have to kill any monsters. There were rooms of working, A-Rank Steamsmiths. Nathan had recovered enough to act the part of a mage, but regaining phoenix form was beyond him for now, and the skirmishes against even those A-Rank monsters were closer than I felt comfortable with.

And the rooms had shifted, too. Where on the lower levels, the rooms had been dominated by gigantic brass forging and casting projects or welding machines putting machines together, the assembly lines we passed on this floor carried pipes. Dozens of different sizes, from large enough that I could slide through them all the way to tubes smaller than a drinking straw. The walls were covered with them, too, and the gurgling sounds of both water and something thicker—and hotter—filled the air.

The one thing we couldn’t find was a way back down. The floor was thick enough that I couldn’t cut through it, and there were no stairs.

After a half-hour of hunting, though, something did change.

A golden portal opened in front of me. I’d seen it before; the God of Thunder was about to grab me and drag me through. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the portal hung mid-air. It seemed to be waiting for something.

I cleared my throat. “I think that’s for me.”

Sarah’s eyebrow raised. “You’re not planning on bailing on us, are you?”

“No. I’d invite you to join me, but I’ve got a feeling…well, I’d better not say, but it probably wouldn’t be good. I told Angelo a little bit about this—it probably has to do with my alternate path to S-Rank. I’ll be back as soon as I’m done in there. I promise.”

Then, without waiting for a response, I stepped through the golden portal and into the God of Thunder’s domain.

◄▼►

“It’s a trap,” Eugene said before I could even take in the blue and red sky or the gigantic floating spires that surrounded the flat landing zone in his world. “My rival is springing a trap. Kid, you’ve got to stay here; I’ve put far too much into you to let you die in that portal.”

The God of Thunder hovered overhead in his full lightning-dragon form. Power radiated from him; his aura was fully unleashed, and for the first time, I saw the true strength of SS-Plus-Rank. It was all but overwhelming. My mind stopped. The monster in front of me could surely kill me, my friends, and every S-Ranker in Phoenix without breaking a sweat. I was powerless against him. I—

“Stop that, Kade Noelstra. We’re low on time. The Placid King outplayed me, and now you’re going to suffer for it.”

I breathed as the aura withdrew. It wasn’t much, just enough for a lungful of fresh air, but it was enough. As the oxygen hit my lungs, my own panic faded a tiny bit. “What’s going on, exactly, Eugene?”

“Let me explain.” Eugene paused. Then he shook his head. “No time. Here’s the fast version. There are three SS-Plus Paragons interested in Earth. Of the three, I’m the most benevolent.”

I snorted.

“It’s true. I only care about you. The rest of Earth gets left alone under my watch. That’s as good a deal as you’re going to get from a monster as powerful as me. Then there’s the Crone. She wants influence. She doesn’t care about gathering enough power to ascend. All she cares about is expanding the Ghostmarket. So, if she wins our little game—which looks very likely—your world becomes a source of power for her. She takes the cores she wants, you end up harvesting more for her, and that becomes Earth’s entire purpose.”

“But the Placid King is worse than that?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“How?”

The God of Thunder sighed, the sound echoing from the floating spires around him. “To answer that, I need to explain how ascending from SS-Plus-Rank works. There’s a barrier between this reality and the one we’re all trying to get to. It’s a powerful one. Powerful enough that I still lack the strength to break through it, although I’m close. This is the only way to ascend. A Paragon pits their strength against that of the barrier, and the weaker of the two yields first.

“If the Paragon yields, they die. If the barrier yields, it shatters just enough for the Paragon to sneak through—but what’s left behind is more power than the Paragon should have used to break through. That’s the redistribution of power I told you about earlier—the sand in the hourglass.”

“And?” I asked.

“We think the act of passing through the barrier, even the weakened one, strips power from the Paragon. Whatever’s on the other side is worth it, though—an end to the game. But the Placid King…he has a different theory.”

I waited. The God of Thunder stayed quiet, and I stared at him. Jessie played this game sometimes, when I gave her the ‘wait for more’ treatment. I usually won, though—and I won this time, too.

“He believes that it doesn’t matter where the power comes from. That he can use the death of a different SS-Plus Paragon—to crack the portal, then slip through while keeping his own power.”

“He wants to kill you?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

Eugene shook his massive head, and wind rushed across the portal world from the motion. “No. He thinks he’s going to kill me, but to do that, he needs to remove pieces from the board. He can’t kill me while I have allies, because while the two of us are evenly matched, the two of us plus you would be a victory for me. And he can’t…”

He trailed off, and I picked up. “He can’t wait for me to reach S-Rank, because when I do, my core will be strong enough for you to, what? Consume? And that’ll give you the edge in a fight?”

“Right.” To his credit, Eugene didn’t try to deny it. Also to his credit, he looked a little guilty about it. “So, it’s in my best interest to keep you here until the danger passes.”

I stared at him, stomach churning. There was an implication that the God of Thunder had no ties to Earth, and that he’d watch my world burn if it meant keeping my core intact. I didn’t like that. And I also didn’t like the other unsaid part. If the Placid King needed me dead, and he could act on Earth through intermediaries like…like Deborah…then he could almost certainly make an appearance on the world. And the last time a monster that strong had arrived on Earth’s surface for even a few minutes…

The world hadn’t handled it well.

◄▼►

“I can’t stay here,” I said.

“You can, and you will,” Eugene rumbled. “I’ve invested too much to let you die.”

He had. The God of Thunder had put a lot of effort into giving me every advantage he could. And I’d taken them all. But…he’d also said it himself. He was only invested in me, and I had promises to keep on Earth. I couldn’t abandon my world. If the Placid King destroyed it hunting for me, I would sacrifice myself to save Jessie, Ellen, and the others. That was a non-negotiable truth. I would fight overwhelming odds for the people I cared about.

Nimbus Edge crackled to life in my hand a moment later. “I can’t, and I won’t. I need to go back. I made promises, and I need to help them win. You can try to force me, but you just admitted I’m not strong enough to help you ascend yet, and I don’t think you could kill me without me landing at least one blow that mattered.”

The God of Thunder stared me down. His eyes flickered with lightning, and a thick, dark gray cloud swirled in the air above him. And I met his eyes, lightning significantly less powerful surging out from my core as I pushed my aura against his. My sword was ready. For a few moments, the God of Thunder’s world was an apocalypse waiting to happen. I was absolutely ready to attack him and get on with the inevitable end of our relationship.

Then, to my surprise, he backed down.

“You’re not a prisoner here, Kade Noelstra. If you insist on going back, I can’t stop you.”

“That’s a lie. You certainly can.”

Eugene snorted; the force hit me like a tornado. “No, you’re right. I’m very capable of stopping you, physically and spiritually. But I’d lose too much in doing it. It’s not worth the loss. Now, listen carefully, because I don’t think I’ll be able to contact you again until this is over. S-Rank.”

“What about it?” I asked as Nimbus Edge disappeared. I wasn’t fully ready to believe Eugene, but I didn’t have any better options, and he was about to reveal the secret I needed to know.

“Your skills are approaching the point at which you’ll be ready to ascend to S-Rank. This process is different than your other rank-ups.” Eugene sounded more formal all of a sudden. “This is also why the S-Rankers on your world are stuck. They insist on ranking up in a familiar, known way, and they use Paragon cores to force the issue. That enables them to reach S-Rank, but stunts their growth.

“You, however, are not going to learn new Laws through the Paragon core method.”

“I’ve already done that,” I said. “To get to C-Rank.”

“You have,” Eugene agreed. “However, your reforged core—not to mention the two rank-ups you’ve been through since then—and those processes have cleared your core safely. Your friend, the shadow mage, will have the same thing happen to her when we reforge her core. The process of forcing Laws at at least one rank is part of the Stormsteel Path, and it is inviolable. However, forcing Laws at S-Rank fuses the core.”

“We want to avoid that, then. What’s the alternative?”

The God of Thunder swept down, forming into his lightning knight form. His spear lashed out, and he scratched a long, spiraling line on the portal world’s floor. “This is the Stormsteel Path.” The spear punched out, leaving a dot on the ground near it, and then traced another line, intersecting with the Stormsteel Path well away from its end. “This is your current Path, with your various deviations.”

I stared at it. The new line traveled almost parallel to the spiraling course the Stormsteel Path followed, and I was sure that if I asked the God of Thunder to plot the Path’s various laws on his map, he could do it perfectly. I’d been walking the Stormsteel Path, but I hadn’t been doing it perfectly. “You want me to do something to counter those deviations?”

“Exactly. You really are an incredible student, Kade Noelstra.” The God of Thunder nodded. “Truly the most interesting I’ve had in a long, long time. It’ll be a shame to do what must be done. But yes. In order to reach S-Rank and continue to walk the Stormsteel Path, you must find your own understanding of the Path, then form a new Law to push that path just a little bit further along.”

“That’s it?” I asked.

“That’s it? Truly? This is a difficult task, and one you cannot embark on lightly. You will have to figure out the specifics of that process. I cannot help you in that regard.” The God of Thunder opened his mouth to speak further, then stopped. His eyes widened, and he returned to his massive lightning dragon form. “It’s beginning! If you truly want to throw away my offer of safety, then get out of here, kid!”

I nodded. “I do.”

The portal opened, and I ran toward it. As I hit the golden gateway, the God of Thunder’s voice slammed into me. “Be careful, Kade Noelstra!”

And I landed back in the Carlsbad portal—knee deep in frigid water.