Duskbound-Chapter 35Book 2,

The man’s bracer crackled with power and a translucent pane of glass materialized in the air in front of him. Velik’s spear struck it, sending cracks spider webbing across its surface. They sealed back up as quickly as they’d spread, leaving the pane whole and almost invisible once more.

“Aggressive,” the man noted casually, like he hadn’t just been the target of a brutal attack. “I bet that’s served you well hunting monsters. They’re not hard to outsmart, and too much caution can be a handicap.”

“Why don’t you ask your bear?” Velik shot back.

Anger clouded the man’s face, but he just said, “We all knew the risks. Killing you is worth the price.”

“Why?” Velik demanded. “Why me? What did I do to you?”

He slammed the spear into the pane again, but without the momentum of his charge behind the weapon, it had no visible effect. Circling around it wasn’t an option either; when he tried, the man just turned with him to keep the translucent barrier properly positioned. Maybe I can go over, though.

“To me, personally? Nothing. You’ve just been sticking your nose in places it doesn’t belong and threatened to upset everything we’ve been working toward for years. It’s not so much what you’ve already done as what we’re afraid you will do soon. It’s better for everyone involved if you disappear before it comes to that.”

“You’re pretty chatty for a man who’s supposed to be trying to kill me, not that you’re doing a good job of it. So far, I’ve done in three of your pets and it looks like you left the rest behind.”

“They can be replaced,” he said coldly. Then he lifted his spear right as Velik was about to jump the wall, and a flash of blinding light burst out of the metal tip.

Velik blinked once to clear his vision, trusting in his high physical to counteract the effect, and executed his plan. The moment his feet left the ground, however, a pair of spectral wolves manifested on either side of him. They were a matched set, five feet tall at the shoulder and covered in a long, thick coat of cool blue and white fur.

In unison, they both slammed into him from either side, pinning him between their bodies and the barrier. The man took a step back and the wall vanished, allowing the wolves to push Velik to the ground and pin him there.

“I’ll make you a deal,” the [Beast Tamer] said as he squatted down in front of Velik. “Give me the class orb and I’ll kill you quick. Otherwise, my spirit wolves are going to tear you apart one bite at a time. They tell me the meat tastes better when it’s eaten while you’re still alive, and I’d hate to deprive them of their treat. So make it worth my while, or…”

“The class orb?” Velik gasped out, confused. He tried to shift, but the wolves didn’t merely have a lot of weight like the bear had. They had some sort of skill or racial ability to make them unmovable, anchored to reality in a way that physical strength couldn’t shift.

“You know the one I mean.”

He did, but he wasn’t sure how the [Beast Tamer] knew about it, or why he wanted it. Velik doubted the man would answer, but it didn’t hurt to ask anyway. “Why do you want it?”

To his great surprise, the man laughed. “For the obvious reasons, of course.”

“To… change your class?”

“What? No, you idiot. To add that aspect to my class. How do you have a gold pin from the guild and not know that?”

Velik hadn’t heard of anything like that, and nobody had ever so much as hinted that it was possible. He’d considered Chalin’s class orb to be a clue to the whole mystery and nothing more. Even now, the orb was just sitting in the bottom of his hip pouch, but there was no reason to tell the [Beast Tamer].

“Left it back with the guild,” he lied.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“No, you didn’t. Oh well. I tried to be merciful. Angu, Tezu. Tear him apart.”

Velik’s Ravensfeather Cloak wasn’t fully recharged, certainly not enough to give him even a full second of time on [Shadow Step], but he only needed a moment. If he was right about what was happening, the wolves were holding their position by bridging the gap between two different versions of reality. Hopefully the shadow world he was going to slip into wasn’t the other one.

He activated the cloak and the wolves vanished completely. Velik rolled to the side and sprang to his feet, his spear in hand, then the cloak ran out of mana and forced him back into the real world. Without hesitation, he drove his weapon into the side of the closer wolf—Tezu, he thought—and ripped it down the monster’s flank.

Black monster blood spurted, but this time it was tinged in glowing blue and white just like the monster itself. There was no time to consider what that meant, though, not when the wolf was already pulling itself free from the spear and spinning in place to snap at him.

Its twin leaped over the injured wolf, bearing down on Velik, but he wasn’t about to let them get him with the same trick twice. He willingly gave ground as he fended both wolves off, but he kept an eye on their master and a look out for a third monster. There’d been something hooved that he still hadn’t accounted for, and having it come at his back right now would make things difficult.

At the same time, these wolves didn’t look anywhere near as tough as the bear had been. The next time one of them lunged at him, Velik unleashed a [Dread Lance] directly into its face. The wolf was instantly vaporized, and in a literal sense. Instead of being showered with gore, the front two-thirds of its body melted away into wispy blue-white smoke. Its back legs and tail seemed normal enough, flopping over and giving a few feeble twitches as blood seeped out into the grass, but the rest of the monster swiftly vanished.

What is up with these things? So weird.

With only one wolf left to contend with, Velik almost immediately gained the upper hand. [Savage Rhythm] took over, but [Burden of the Beast] didn’t seem to have any effect on the monster. For all that, he was still drawing copious amounts of blood from the wolf, and the injuries were slowing it down. Strangely, the blood was turning to vapor just like the other wolf had, but as long as the monster died, he’d worry about that later.

At least, that was what he thought until the [Beast Tamer] joined the battle. No longer armed with a simple spear and a magical bracer, his whole body was now wrapped in blue-white energy and what looked like the wolf’s skull overlaid his head. Their eyes lined up and glowed an opaque white, and the man moved with more speed and strength than Velik had ever seen another person exhibit.

“Did you think a spirit beast that easy to kill?” he snarled as his spear slashed through the air. Velik’s hand snaked out to slap the shaft below the tip aside, only to receive a cut across his forearm for his troubles. “Did you think you were going to win this, stupid boy?”

Normally, [Dread Lance] took some time to recharge. Velik had been steadily growing his mystic over the last few months in an attempt to allow him to use the skill twice in a row, but he wasn’t there yet. As a temporary fix to that problem, Velik had invested in something the enchanter had called an invoker’s pendant. Its sole purpose was to temporarily boost his mana regeneration, and he called on it now.

Within seconds, the [Energizing] enchantment had done its work and the only decision left was whether to destroy the wolf or the man with it. If he blasted the wolf, there was every chance that its essence or whatever it was that leaked out of the body would just join its twin in empowering his enemy. Besides, it was already half dead. Finishing it off with [Dread Lance] would be overkill.

I wish I’d gotten a few more answers out of you, but I’ll settle for just removing you as a threat, Velik silently told the man.

In terms of spear play, [Spear Warden] was far superior to whatever his opponent was using. It was only the reinforcing skill that channeled the spirit wolf’s power that was allowing the [Beast Tamer] to hold his own against Velik, though the mobile glass pane shielding him whenever he called on the magic of his bracer certainly didn’t make things easy.

Velik skipped his spear off the magical shield, allowing it to be angled up just like the last time the man had blocked him that way. As expected, the counterattack came low and was aimed for his groin. Not eager to take a spear in the crotch, Velik had backed off last time. Instead of repeating that exchange, he hopped a foot straight up, letting the spear pass between his legs and reangling his own weapon to dive into the man’s shoulder.

Visit frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓ for the b𝘦st novel reading experience.

[Dread Lance] obliterated the spirit wolf shell protecting the [Beast Tamer] and pulped the man hiding inside it. There was an immediate kill notification, but Velik brushed that aside to deal with the remaining monster. It hadn’t hesitated, despite the death of its master, and was already lunging for Velik’s face.

Before it could get there, an arrow slammed into its skull, piercing through one side and coming out the other. Torwin stepped into the glade, his bow in hand and another arrow on the string. “Gods damn, boy, you couldn’t have waited an hour for me? I’ve been chasing after you all night!”