B2 Chapter 249: Bonefields, pt. 3

From where he was sitting in the autumn sun, Porkchop lurched to his feet—head snapping to stare out over the cliff at the far end of the plateau, into the Bonefields.

“They’re coming. I can hear them.” he said, voice broadcast widely so that Ianmus would hear him too.

Kaius was on his feet in a second. It had been nearly an hour since they had used an alchemical tonic to make their bait rapidly decay, and after the first ten minutes they had relaxed as the smell had stemmed partially with no sign of approaching beasts.

He grabbed his helmet from where it was sitting beside him, the thick plated steel cold through the leather interior of his gauntlets. Slamming it on his head, he tightened the strap that would hold it in place. As it settled, he felt the set enchantment activate—his armour becoming just that little bit lighter. The helmet narrowed his vision—but only just, having been designed to maximise as much of a viewing angle as possible.

A Father’s Gift was out of its scabbard in a flash, held ready in a mid-guard as it caught the light, bands of steel caught between crystal glinting a subtle red.

Looking up to Ianmus, he found his teammate standing ready—staff held firmly in one hand as he gazed out far into the Bonefields, the same direction Porkchop had been looking. Following their eye line, he took a look himself.

Kaius might have lacked Porkchop’s ears, but he had the best eyes in their team and spotted their foe quickly. One of them at least, just a pale cream and pink blur, dashing between the red stone monoliths as it raced off to their left. It was impossible to track it for long—the winding shadowed passages of stone and bone remnants of titans obscuring it in seconds.

“I saw one—only for a second.” Kaius said, confirming Porkchop’s alert.

Turning back to the entrance he knew the biters would come from, Kaius readied himself. He widened his stance—loosening his muscles so that he could react at the slightest warning.

“Do you know how many there are?” he asked, still keeping his eyes trained on the passage that the biters would enter from.

“Not perfectly,” Porkchop replied, his ears swiveling to track the distant sounds coming from the wider Bonefields. “But it sounds like a lot—maybe more than twenty.”

Ianmus snorted above them.

“I’m starting to see why everyone treats the reports we get so skeptically!” he called down.

That drew a laugh from Kaius.

“What? You thought farmhands and caravan guards would be masters of scouting and surveying?” he joked. Even if Ro and Rieker hadn’t taken the time to hammer it in that they had to come prepared for any eventuality, they would have figured it out eventually.

There were only so many times that he could run head first into a confrontation that vastly outstripped their mission briefings before it wasn’t impossible to avoid drawing conclusions.

Apparently, it hadn’t always been that bad—but even before the rapidly changing dynamics of the phase change, it had been something that happened with unfortunate frequency. The guild did its best to assume the worst, but there was only so much they could do without sending dedicated scouts to check themselves—at which point it was far more efficient for delvers to do that leg work themselves.

He still wasn’t too worried. There was almost no chance that any given one of the biters had anything more than the equivalent to a rare class. That meant both he and Porkchop would outweigh them in raw stats—even if his were spread widely. Their numbers would be an issue—but he had plenty of experience with fighting large groups. Hell, in the Great Warren, he and Porkchop had gone up against groups of goblins forty strong again and again, and that was as unclassed.

Plus, the biters outleveled them significantly. Every drop of blood they spilled, and every beast they slew, would bring with it strength. Their levels would rise, and the difficulty with which the next creature was felled would fall.

They could do this.

Standing and waiting, Kaius flowed through a series of slashes and stabs—warming his body as his heart pounded in his chest with rhythmic intensity. There was a tightness at the back of his throat—a tension that built at the pit of his stomach, winding tighter with every moment.

He was ready.

He could hear them now—the sound of snapping teeth, clacking plates of bone, and scratching feet on stone. A far off biter snarled—vicious and low.

It was a brutal sound. One that dripped with hunger—with the strength and arrogance of a creature who knew it had no betters. That it sat at the pinnacle of power, and prowled through the seat of its sovereignty.

All of his worries about tracking down his father’s killers, gaining the strength they needed to move with some degree of freedom, and working to progress the integration flooded away. In its place was a honed focus—everything focused on how they could pass this next challenge.

There was an immediacy to battle that he loved. A flow of motion and mind that centred him directly in the moment—connected him deeply to his surroundings. The howling wind raced through the monoliths, caressing his skin with the cool touch of late autumn. The sun shone down, glinting off the metal of his armaments, and focusing its presence on their battlegrounds.

All of that made itself known to him. He digested it—felt it keenly—without allowing it to cloud his mind. All he could see was the passage where they would come.

The hole in his centre flexed, widening as he fell deeply into the bond he had enshrined with Porkchop. Even with his helmet cutting off half of his view of his brother, Kaius could feel where he was perfectly. The way the muscles in Porkchop’s back tensed, and his back claws dug into the hardened stone with ease as he readied himself to lunge forwards in an explosive charge.

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Mana flooded through Porkchop’s aura—air displaced with a subtle pop as thumb-length thick plates of overlapping sacred jade were summoned onto his body. His brother’s face was sealed fully—though Kaius could still see through Porkchop’s eyes, his magic serving no barrier to his senses.

Above them, Ianmus unleashed his first spell in a searing wave of solar mana—charged to a new potency by his metamagic.

The magic settled over him like a dousing in scalding water—the radiant heat of the sun soaking into his bones, stoking his passions as his physicality grew to new heights.

**Ding! You have been Enhanced – Sundrenched Strength (Hypercharged Spell)!**