Stormblade 4 C58: Stormstrike (2)

58 - Stormstrike (2)

The Craftsman had won.

His personal chamber deep within the Workshop had been compromised, yes. His greater Workshop was in shambles, yes. It would take him a long time to recover from the expenditure of resources thrown into the two battles in the world that the voices whispered for him to conquer. But he had defeated the first incursion into his portal world in a long, long time.

The S-Rankers who’d broken in, destroyed his Steam Hulk prototype, and ripped through his noncombat workers were all but defeated. One of them was dead—the armored figure with the gigantic shield. He’d slagged the armor. That had solved that. The others were wounded badly enough to be out of the fight, but not dead yet. The voice’s whisper was all but deafening. He needed to kill them. That would make the voice go away. Then he could get back to his true purpose.

Invention.

But there were two things in his way. The first was a device he’d installed long ago, when his sanctum had been shared with family and friends, none of whom he could trust like metal and silk. He’d engineered it as a bit of personal insurance against a violent takeover while he worked on slowly creating a world that was perfect for him, then set it aside when he’d removed the weakness of flesh and blood from every nonessential part of both himself and his wife, children, and closest confidants.

It had still been there, though. And when the S-Rankers had stormed his sanctum, it had activated, protecting his brass, silk, and flesh body from their every assault while his machines fought them to a standstill.

The other thing in his way was a growing sense of electricity in the air.

It had started as his machines and slag trap killed the armored one and turned the tide of what had been a surprisingly even fight. There’d been six invaders, but the Craftsman had assumed that the sixth had either been killed or fled. Since the sixth was back, and this battle was won, it was critical that the final one was hunted down and killed. And, fortunately for the Craftsman, that sense of electricity was coming this way—and moving shockingly quickly.

Oh, and there was one more tiny detail he’d forgotten to take into account.

The massive, multi-eyed tentacle currently denting his sanctum’s walls and crushing his machines below it as it tried to kill the surviving intruders.

He sighed.

All of this was so inconvenient. The Craftsman just wanted to create, not to exterminate pests. That was the job of his machines.

◄▼►

I was too late.

Sarah was down. Hugo slumped in a corner, a spike of brass pinning him to the wall through his stomach as she poured her remaining Mana into him. Nathan and Terrel lay on the floor. Monstrous machines loomed over them, frozen in place.

And Bernard the Wall was dead. There was no way he could be alive; parts of his armor poked through the mountain of still-molten brass covering him, but they didn’t move. The fight was over, and I’d been too slow to make a difference.

They’d fought hard, though.

Cold Steam Overseers littered the ground, their bladed wings impaling the floor and walls where Terrel’s hammer had shattered them. A second Steam Hulk wavered in the far corner. This one’s leg had been all but annihilated. It struggled to move, failed, and dropped to its knees and its single remaining arm. All around, the room had been churned into a mess of melted brass, twisted metal, and carnage, with a massive, unmoving tentacle at its center.

“Kade?” Sarah whispered from where she cradled Hugo’s twisted, obliterated arm and slowly healed it. “Kade, why are you back here? You should have escaped!”

“Yes, you should have, rat,” a voice said.

I turned slowly.

A blue shield of hexagons, much like Jeff’s Split-Second Shield, cut off part of the room. It hung in the air, unmoving; the sheer Mana required must have been overwhelming. Behind it, on a floating throne connected to the wall by an umbilical of silk and brass, sat the portal world’s boss.

Just like before, he’d once been human-like. Brass covered his face and torso, and the eye that had shone yellow now glowed an ominous orange. The rest of his body, with the exception of his atrophied arm, was brass. He’d made some upgrades, too. Where once there’d been only a single brass arm with countless tools on his fingers, now he had three. And each of the two new ones was armed.

The Craftsman: S-Rank Monster

He floated there, behind the shield, gloating.

And as he rambled on and on about his victory and the tentacle began to twitch, fury built up inside of me. Through rage and through wrath, the storm fulfills its promises. I’d committed to bringing this boss down. My team was dead and dying all around me—just like the moments before my fight with Yalerox. And just like Yalerox, the Craftsman needed to die.

But unlike when I’d fought Yalerox, I was complete. Powerful. Ready.

The Storm’s Blade appeared in my hand. Lightning crackled up and down its edge, and thunder peeled in the room. Cheddar emerged from his dimensional space, vanishing into darkness and filling the room’s upper reaches with light. Dad—the Stormkin Avatar—rippled into existence as I pushed my aura outward.

And the Craftsman’s army surged toward me from every direction.

I grinned. The prey was coming to the predator.

Thunderlord stance. Laminar Blade and Stormfall. The two skills together burned almost every Charge I’d saved up in my mad rush to the Craftsman’s sanctum, but they activated, wind and lightning mixing with compressed water around my blade. Then, as the first Cold Steam Overseer’s bladed wings snapped forward to impale me, I used Slipstream for the first time.

The skill attacked every enemy within range instantly. It didn’t say what the range was, but it was definitely the size of this room. Laminar Blade sliced through armor, and Stormfall’s shockwaves ripped plates of brass apart from the inside. Most of the Cold Steam Overseers fell in that one simple move as my strike slammed into every enemy, carrying both other skills with it.

The one-stance Slipstream combo worked beautifully.

A few Overseers survived, but not many. And, of course, the Steam Hulk was still up; I couldn’t bring that down with a simple, room-clearing combo. But I’d made room in the sky for Cheddar, and he vomited sunlight across the remnants of the Overseers. Dad’s sword and shield slammed into the Steam Hulk as the massive machine tried to stand and enter the fight, driving it back down.

My eyes locked onto the Craftsman’s. He stared from behind his shield, and I leveled the Storm’s Edge at him. The meaning was clear.

I was coming for him.

He grinned as the massive tentacle started to move and Phoenix’s surviving S-Rankers clawed their way toward the room’s exit. Then his human hand reached out and tapped a button, and a half-dozen hidden doors opened around the room.

And the rest of the Carlsbad Portal’s army entered the fight.

◄▼►

The biggest problem wasn’t the S-Rankers.

Dad and Cheddar were covering them as best they could. Granted, keeping the Stormkin Avatar up was starting to drain my Mana, even at S-Rank. I’d have to dismiss him soon. But by the time that happened, even Sarah and Hugo would be safe. She’d gotten him off the wall somehow, and all four of them were in the hallway outside now.

And it wasn’t actually the brass machines.

Sure, there were so many different A and S-Rank automatons that I had a hard time keeping track of them in the whirlwind of brass, silk, and lightning the Craftsman’s room had become. Pipes hissed steam and poured water into the fighting, adding to the chaos. Machines that moved even faster than I did, despite my new rank, launched rushing run-by attacks. A third Steam Hulk had arrived. It was missing armor plating, and it hadn’t activated its hexagonal shield array yet, but it was still dangerous. And dozens of the same soldiers I’d fought on the walls of Phoenix filled the gaps.

But even they weren’t the big problem. That ‘honor’ was reserved for one enemy, and one enemy only.

The Placid King: SS-Plus Rank

I could see the black tentacle’s rank now. That was something; the gap was closing. But it wasn’t closing fast enough. The monstrous tentacle’s eyes stayed locked on me as it pursued me around the room. It didn’t care about any of the Craftsman’s machines; when a Cold Steam Overseer got in the way, it wrapped itself around the offending automaton and crushed it until the wings popped off and the body split in two, held together by only a few strands of silk.

Stormrunner was up. I sprinted across a wall and threw myself into the air, then jammed the Storm’s Blade into a monster and used the leverage to turn on a dime. The wall buckled as the tentacle slammed into it; I shifted stances for a moment, fired a single, un-comboed Brendan’s Storm Sigil into the air, and kept moving.

I already had two Ariette’s Thunderheads running; I hadn’t been able to set up the combo with Rolling Thunder, so I’d cast them manually. It had been slower, and the potential of five copies was reduced to only the pair, but it’d still have a result.

As I kept running and Stormrunner ticked down, the damaged Steam Hulk threw the Stormkin Avatar aside and stumbled to its feet. It took two steps forward, blocking my path.

I was on a collision course.

But instead of diverting, I barreled straight for the brass colossus. Brendan’s Storm Sigil was behind me and to my right when I cast Hand of the Thunder God.

It wasn’t quite as impressive as the massive, unending beam of electricity I’d used to melt brass under a million gallons of seawater, evaporate half a lake, and annihilate Quellat’s arm. But the lightning ray I fired directly into the Steam Hulk was still a good four feet wide, and it lasted almost three seconds—long enough to bore through the S-Rank monster’s hex shield and the brass plating behind it. Flames erupted across the Hulk’s body; it didn’t die, but the sheer power drove it backward and out of my path.

I dragged the Storm’s Blade across its wounded leg as I dove past it.

The Placid King’s tentacle did the rest.

But even as I fought and the automaton army died, it was clear that something was wrong. The tendril kept up its pursuit. The automatons kept pouring in as fast as Cheddar, the tentacle, and I could kill them. My allies weren’t out of danger yet. But I didn’t feel anything.

No rage. No anger. No fury. I was fighting hard, yes, but the emotion wasn’t there.

As the Placid King finished off the Steam Hulk, its eyes locked on me, and I dropped to the ground. Stormrunner had run out.

“Boy, let go of all this,” the SS-Plus-Ranked Paragon said. “Allow events to take their course. Understand that your master’s purpose is the same as mine, and that there is no difference between us, and in that understanding, find peace.”

The Storm’s Blade dropped a fraction of an inch as the Placid King’s aura slammed into me. Every ounce of emotion drained from my body. It wasn’t just fury. The rest all disappeared, too. He was strong—as strong as the God of Thunder—and I couldn’t oppose him. Not if I wanted to survive.

My own aura struggled against the Placid King’s. A small spark of lightning crackled as the Stormkin Avatar appeared. And with that spark, the storm returned with all its fury.

Dad was crushed instantly as the Placid King’s aura crashed down on him.

But that was enough. I shifted stances back to Thunderlord. One Slipstream—this time with only a Laminar Blade backing it up. Wounds appeared along the tentacle, and every eye shut for a moment. Machines crumpled as my sword cut into their armor like it wasn’t even there. And in the moment I’d bought myself, I shifted back to Cyclone Forms.

Rolling Thunder. The combo started. Ariette’s Thunderheads filled the room, dark clouds fighting with hissing steam from dozens of broken pipes. Brendan’s Storm Sigil appeared in front of me. The Placid King’s tentacle rolled, shaking the ground as it thrashed and built up speed. It surged toward me.

And as it did, I cast Hand of the Thunder God one more time—this time at its full possible strength.

The lightning blotted out my vision. It rippled across the room, more power than I’d ever commanded in such a small space. Thunder exploded outward from the brilliant white beam in a continuous roar that assaulted my eardrums even as I pushed Stamina into them to dull the pain. The stink of insta-charred flesh filled the air, competing with melting brass as the room’s temperature spiked from unpleasantly cool to hotter than the worst days in Phoenix’s asphalt desert.

Something exploded. A second explosion roared in my ears, then a third. I panned the lightning beam across the room; more explosions followed. Automatons died, melted into slag by the sheer concentrated power of the Stormblade Path. It went on and on.

And then, it stopped.

The Placid King’s tentacle was, somehow, still in one piece. Not intact. Not even his might could have been intact after that. Eyes had popped from the heat, and fluid and gore ran freely down the blistered, burned tendril. But I hadn’t cut it free from its portal. The Placid King was still—most likely—in the fight.

I had landed a critical blow. But it wasn’t against the Placid King.

It was against the Craftsman.

His hex shield had given way. Parts of it still existed, but all across the bottom and right sides of his barrier, hexagons had burnt out. Behind them was only mechanical carnage; melted brass, burning silk, and scorched walls. Even as my vision recovered, the Craftsman pressed buttons on his chair, both flesh and brass fingers moving frantically. It didn’t help. More and more hexes gave way, and the shield collapsed completely.

Ahead of me, the Craftman’s eye flickered from orange to red. He raised his weapon-arms; cannons, blades, and steam vents opened as he prepared to receive my charge.

Behind me, the Placid King’s tendril thrashed in agony. It was only a fraction of the whole monster, and I’d used an incredible amount of power to land even that blow, but I’d hurt the SS-Plus-Ranked Paragon. It rose into the air, eyes opening one after another and locking onto me.

“Eugene, I hope you’re watching this,” I said as I raised the Storm’s Blade and sprinted toward the mechanical man, “Because it’s the last favor I’m doing you!”

The three of us all converged on the same point, and none of us backed down.