Bloodstained Blade-Chapter 183 - The Harder They Fall

The zombie orc didn’t even make the faintest effort to avoid the ogre’s giant hand, though it did struggle theatrically once the giant lifted it off the ground. This wasn’t any actual attempt to escape. It only served to distract the ogre, so its wielder could approach it from behind more safely.

The blade still remembered well what the ogre had done to Ivarr’s party, and while Geral might be Ivarr’s equal at this point, he was not that ogre's equal, and this one was bigger. So, the playing field had to be leveled, and the first step in doing that would be carried out by the blade's zombie. As the ogre raised the animate corpse to his rubbery lips and bit off the head like it was no more than a chicken, the blade plunged its well-muscled right arm into the ogre’s eye socket. When the monster bellowed in pain and pulled the headless corpse away, the arm did not release, and the eye came with it.

This made the sixteen-foot-tall beast roar in pain so loudly that Geral shuddered. He was already moving, though. Even as the ogre dealt with the fact that its vision had just been cut in half, its wielder moved in and did the same to its mobility. This time, he didn’t just cut through the creature’s Achilles tendon, though, as he’d been taught. He cut halfway into the ankle, embedding in the thick bone of the monster, allowing the Ebon Blade to taste the warm, rich marrow at its center. The pollution of this place had gathered there, but it wasn’t enough to spoil the rare taste of raw, distilled savagery.

+56 Life Force.

Be mindful, the blade cautioned its wielder as the monster didn’t immediately fall. One good hit, and it may be my next wielder.

Geral’s only answer was to grunt as he stepped back and started rotating around the giant to keep in its blind spot. It didn’t fall immediately as it pivoted. It was only when it lifted that foot up and set it back down that it started to fall like a mammoth pine tree. It was still bellowing in pain so much that it didn’t even have a chance to cry out in surprise, but then, it didn’t need to.

The earth itself groaned under that weight, and though Geral had planned on chopping at the monster’s spine as it came down, the risk of being crushed to death by its muscular bulk was too great. So, he moved back, and then, when it was on its back and stunned, he leaped atop its bulk and disemboweled the creature.

+231 Life Force.

It tried to swat him, but he ducked the first blow and leaped over the second. Still, the third almost ended him. The Ebon Blade saw it coming, even if its wielder didn’t, and very nearly used Bolt in a preventative way. While its wielder saw the giant was swinging again, he didn’t take into account the way its body was twisting, and so he dodged at an angle that let the ogre strike a glancing blow.

A glancing blow was more than enough to send a human-sized target flying, though. Halfway through the arc, the blade decided to burn a hundred Life Force to activate Position of Privilege. This let it flatten the trajectory and extend its wielder's airtime enough that he merely broke his spine as he tumbled through the grass rather than slam into the tree he’d been heading toward and break every bone in his body.

-174 Life Force.

This is what I warned you about, the blade chided him as he rolled to a stop. You are stronger than any man you might meet, but that thing is a mountain of muscle. It weighs as much as your entire herd of sheep, which forces you to fight with the utmost defensiveness.

The blade wasn’t a fan of fighting defensively. It preferred to go all out whenever possible, but it would still rather have a human wielder who needed to worry about such things than the hollow mechanical one it had relied on for so long.

“Yeah…” Geralt gasped, lying there as his punctured lung healed and the cracks in his spine faded. “I kind of get your point.”

-67 Life Force.

You are not the one who should be getting my point, the blade uttered, which was about the closest it had ever come to joking. You should be making my point to him before he turns you into paste.

Geralt would be able to take more damage than this and live, of course. By the sword’s standards he was still mostly healthy. Still, if he lost his arm, it would be over. Regardless of whether his condition was easily healed or not, it was painful, and he was slow in rising

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Still, the ogre was much slower. It obviously assumed that the insect that had hurt it so grievously was dead, and was more concerned with trying to figure out how to rise without spilling its guts.

-49 Life Force. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

That was a puzzle it never quite managed to figure out. Before it could do more than sit up and wonder about its wounds, the Geral was charging again. This time, he stayed on the ground, instead of trying to climb the treacherous flesh of his opponent, though, slicing off the first fingers that reached for him before sliding beneath the trunk-thick arm.

Those were desperate seconds, but once Geral got into the thing’s blind spot, his situation improved markedly. There, the thing waved blindly as he stabbed into the monster again and again. The dark blood poured freely from the repeated thrusts that it made through the ogre’s skin, muscle, and organs. Its liver and kidneys were punctured in a half a dozen places, but it was its life drain that was doing the lion's share of the work.

+431 Life Force.

-22 Life Force.

Even that wasn’t enough to do more than make the monster’s attacks more drunken and sluggish. “It’s too big,” its wielder declared, panting. “No amount of steel will fell this thing! We need to use your fire at least, or something stronger,” as he backed away from another awkward grasping hand.

The blade felt its wielder trying to set it ablaze with Helfire, but it suppressed the power. It did not want him to become too reliant on that spell, nor did it wish for this battle to end too quickly. That was the whole point of the fight. It wanted it to last as long as possible; they were unlikely to get such a perfect punching bag again any time soon.

Still, Geral wasn’t entirely wrong. No normal blade could hope to bring down this monster. Only age, a powerful member of the Aetharchy, or the Ebon Blade, was likely to do that. Its skin was crisscrossed with scars, old and new, and it didn’t have to search the creature’s mind to know that this was the closest it had likely ever come to dying.

It considered allowing its wielder to use Poison Blade at least, but in the end repressed that urge. It was a less dangerous weapon, but for now, Geral needed nothing more than time; if the situation changed, it would reevaluate.

The only thing that changed about the situation, though, was the opponent. Hour by hour, the ogre’s strength faded, and when it was bled white and lying face down in the dirt with a chest that rose and fell slowly, Geral finally climbed atop it and hacked far enough into its brainstem to still it forever.

+1,782 Life Force.

+1 Greater Monster Soul.

It was an ugly, gory mess, and its wielder looked little better than the ogre he’d killed, but he’d done it more or less on his own, and it congratulated him for that at least. Once he’d bathed, they talked about the fight in greater detail, but aside from watching his footing, the sword had little critique to offer. He was not a world-class swordsman, and if songs were sung about him, it would only be because he held the Black Blade of Baraga. Still, after nearly a year, he was a decently accomplished fighter and a talented monster hunter.

We need to find you a dragon to fight, the blade told him. Or at least a griphon. Something that has more inhuman features would make you assume less.

“Maybe not a dragon yet,” Geral laughed. “I want to live long enough to see my child yet.”

The blade almost told him that old age was promised to no one, but it decided that would be cruel, since it was promised to Geral, and soon. In a few years, he would be withered and gray. So, instead of doing that, and inadvertently twisting the knife, it said, Nothing in this valley will stop that from happening. Nothing. The monsters here may hurt you, but they will not break you.

The blade kept that promise, too. For weeks more, they purged den and tribe alike. They never found the griffon the blade wanted, but they did find a purple hydra with nine heads. It was much easier to defeat than the ogre, but only because the weapon let its wielder use fire once it became clear that the acid poison it injected with each bite required excessive amounts of healing to overcome.

+4,983 Life Force.

+34 Lesser Monster Souls.

+18 Monster Souls.

+1 Greater Monster Soul.

On this trip, they finally got deep enough that they saw people from other communities, too. They kept their distance and traveled in large, armed caravans, but the blade didn’t detect too much taint in them, which made it clear they were from one of the other highland communities.

Do you plan to make contact with these other groups? The blade asked its wielder after he avoided their third encounter.

“I don’t,” he said in a tone of finality. “My father had nothing good to say about them. If anything, they might be as much of a threat as the beasts we slaughter and roast if I make the way too clear. I might have to fight them too.”

The blade said nothing. It wouldn’t complain about that. It had been a long time since it tasted man flesh, and if its wielder considered them an enemy, then it did, too.