Chapter 200: The Legend of William Oh

As he spoke, Will finally used Phantom Hand for what felt like the first time in ages.

The hand supporting the bag of arrowheads high above their heads turned upside down, spilling hundreds of arrowheads out of the bag.

And now, we’re on a timer.

Will mentally marked each of Caddock’s men as the target of an arrowhead before turning his attention to the Pants of Darting.

 

Pants of Darting

+8 Kinesthetics

+3 Acuity

+15% Movement speed

Once per battle, user may drastically boost their movement speed for a short time. Scales with Kinesthetics.

Will triggered the Ability on his pants, the world around him turning into a blur as his movement speed more than tripled.

Each step he took spat out gravel and small rocks, which he designated as projectiles targeting Caddock’s men.

The spray of stones following in Will’s wake bent in midair, accelerating to their targets, fanning out and impacting against the soldiers with the force of a warhammer.

Hundreds of small bolts of lightning sprung up around these men, before each bolt arced to ten more, creating a confusing web of brilliant flickering light and ozone that covered the entire battlefield.

Each rock hadn’t done a staggering amount of damage, but in total it was enough for the trickle of lifesteal from the Bloody Colossus armor to snap Will back to full in an instant, replacing the missing chuck of shoulder and granting a couple inches of height in the process.

Now where’s his Nuker? Will thought, scanning the battlefield with Phantom Eye and wishing he could squint.

The sheer brightness made it painful to look at.

There!

A mousy young woman on a hill overlooking the battle had six bodyguards and bore a staff, shielding her eyes from the sudden burst of light. Staffs typically boosted the Abilities of charge-heavy classes, like Necromancers, Nukers, Healers…that sort of thing.

Will skidded to a halt and slipped his hammer in his belt before he picked up a rock the size of his head and lobbed it at the Nuker.

She was about a quarter-mile away, but Hammer of God performed splendidly.

The head-sized rock that should’ve drawn a gentle arc and fallen to the ground instead accelerated, gaining speed in midair.

Typically, even with high aim correction, a projectile will eventually run out of kinetic energy and surrender to gravity.

But a self-powered, self-steering projectile?

Distance was no longer a limiting factor.

The rock got faster and faster as it crossed the distance, until it turned into a streak in the air. Then it sped up some more.

For an instant, Will spotted a cone of air forming behind it, followed by a flash of light and an explosion as the rock tore itself apart before it even arrived at its intended target.

At least some of the pieces must’ve hit because an enormous tree of lightning that dominated the horizon joined earth and sky together and made the energy circulating around them look petty by comparison.

…I’m gonna need special ammo.

That doesn’t bode well for the arrowheads.

Will scanned the hilltop while also focusing on returning his Phantom Hand to himself as quickly as possible.

The hilltop was carved away, replaced by orange-hot glass where stone had been rendered into-

KABOOOOOM!

Kaboom!

The sound of the attack landing finally made it back to them, two peals of distant thunder, one suspiciously smaller than the other.

Will glanced down at the Ring of Echoing Thunder on his finger, then up at the sky, where the arrowheads were going to be raining down from above. They still hadn’t arrived, which meant that the amount of speed and mass that they had built vastly outweighed the meager quarter-mile of Will’s previous throw…which had changed the topography of his map.

It’s going to make shockwaves…I think…I think I’m standing too close. I think everyone is standing much too close.

“LOTH IF YOU CAN HEAR ME GET AS FAR UNDERGROUND AS YOU CAN! TAKE WHOEVER YOU CAN! TRAVIS IF YOU’RE STILL ALIVE, SURROUND YOURSELF WITH SEVERAL FEET OF SOLID STEEL! JUNE, HIDE INSIDE MASON! MASON, SHIELDS! LOTS OF FUCKING SHIELDS!

“JASON! GET-

A bloom of white light appeared in the sky above them as the first arrowhead hit the atmosphere.

…

……

Will gasped and inhaled dust and ash, forcing a raspy croaking cough out of him, his entire body aching as he righted his twisted limbs under him.

Okay, that’s broken, Will thought, raising his head and scanning the horizon. All the plant life had been both flattened and burned, as if some giant burning hand had come down from above and crushed everything.

The sandstone ridges most exposed to the blast were still cherry-hot, rapidly losing heat while nooks and crannies were much cooler, protected from the sudden heat.

Will coughed and propped himself up on his left elbow, inspecting himself with Phantom Eye.

He had multiple bloody tears in his clothes that suggested large wounds which had been healed by lifesteal, and a dried stream of blood on his forehead from a wound on his skull that no longer existed.

LIfesteal may have been the only reason he was still drawing breath.

Clunk.

The Bloody Colossus armor fell away from his torso, turning to dust as it finally failed to withstand the punishment he’d put it through.

Not ideal, but I can make another.

Where did my Greater Healing potion go? Will thought, searching his under-armor bandolier and coming back with sticky fingers.

Ah, it busted.

Will had more in his Phantom Hand, but it was on its way back.

Gonna take a few more minutes.

Will’s best bet at the moment was to lie low, then. Blend in with the rest of the debris and not make himself conspicuous. It would take hours for Caddock to recover from-

Poof!

…I know that poof.

It had the distinctive sound of raven feathers. About four feet away from his left side.

Will rolled, gritting his teeth as his broken arm was abused, sending fresh pain up into his body.

The ivory spear drove itself deep into the ground where Will had been laying an instant before.

“I was watching you,” Caddock said, pulling the spear out of the ground. “You seemed surprised by the amount of firepower your trump card had created. Then you started telling everyone to duck and cover, so I took a small leave of absence from the battlefield.”

“You left everyone to die?” Will asked.

“Yes, but let’s be entirely honest. You’re the one that killed them.” Caddock said, winding up the spear.

Will mustered himself, gritting his teeth and putting his feet under himself just barely fast enough to dodge out of the-

NEW QUEST!

HOLD STILL A SECOND.

REWARD: 1 XP, 1 Stabbing.

Will blinked the ill-timed Quest out of his mind as a fire bloomed in his stomach.

Caddock had timed the feint perfectly with Will’s distraction, impaling him on the spear.

Congratulations!

You have completed the Quest:

HOLD STILL A SECOND.

Reward: 1 XP, 1 Stabbing.

It really didn’t matter who you were, when a spear went through your guts, you made an undignified ‘urk’ sound.

“Urk!” Will croaked, locking his fingers tight around the spear. His broken arm was weak, but between that and his natural Resistance, it was hard enough for Caddock to move it that the paladin left it in place and drew his off-hand weapon, aiming for Will’s neck.

Will intercepted the strike with his left forearm, sacrificing a bit of flesh to protect his neck. His Resistance might not be as strong as it had been with the Ring of Explosive Doughmaking equipped, but it was still too high for Caddock to cut through his bones.

Will didn’t have to fake the scream of pain, or the thrashing as Caddock yanked the sword out of his arm and took aim again, like a man out to methodically chop down a tree.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

During the thrashing, Will tucked his toe under a rock and flung it up and away from the two of them. The rock hurtled out into the distance, unseen by the hulking wall of muscle, gaining speed and mass, looping around behind the paladin as it did so.

Will intercepted a second attack an instant before the rock struck the back of Caddock’s head, causing a bolt of lightning to arc from the clear sky and strike the exact same spot.

Caddock in place shuddered momentarily, and Will used the opportunity to raise his feet and shove the paladin away from himself.

…Ow.

In retrospect, tensing all of his stomach muscles to raise his feet while there was a hole in them, may have been ambitious. Will only got as far as the paladin’s kneecaps before the pain caught up with him.

Will kicked the paladin’s inner leg with a feral snarl and caused the huge man to drop down on one knee.

He didn’t let go of the spear, but his grip on the sword loosened as he tried to stabilize himself, allowing Will to snatch it up.

Will was holding it by the blade, and didn’t have time to flip it, so he copied the move he’d seen Caddock try, swinging the quillon right at the paladin’s face, cursing his broken arm’s weakness.

The sword jerked in his hand as the quillon impacted against the side of the man’s head, the sudden for cutting a bit into Will’s palm, but in exchange…something magical happened.

The paladin’s helmet finally popped off.

Will spotted a melted hinge of some kind dangling off the back of the helmet, right where the lightning bolt had hit it.

Ah, it was locked on.

The two eyed each other for a moment.

Caddock was panting with effort. More than Will had expected, given his seemingly endless stamina. There were splotches of dried blood across his scalp where he’d healed the wounds delivered by Will’s hammer. Blood pooling around his collar from when Will had gotten his lungs.

If he hadn’t been wearing a helmet, he’d already be dead.

Sadly, Will wasn’t in the same shape as he was at the beginning of the fight, so repeatedly bashing the juggernaut in the face with a warhammer wasn’t an option.

Most of his current options involved wriggling at the end of a spear like a worm on a hook.

Caddock lifted him off the ground, the spear resting Will’s entire weight on his ribcage, wrenching an involuntary scream out of him.

Caddock loomed forward, and Will grabbed a piece of air with his hand, layering and compressing it like a cat’s claw before flinging the cantrip forward.

Hammer of God treated it as a projectile, and the invisible dart shot forward with far greater force, catching Caddock in the eye.

A wrist thick bolt of lightning danced across Caddock’s face, burning out his left eye and carving fractal burns across his socket.

Caddock bellowed with rage and twisted, whipping the spear around and sending Will flying, tumbling to the ground.

The pain made his grasp on consciousness dim. The distant sound of Caddock groaning in pain and popping the stopper on a potion was difficult to place any importance on.

“So your trump card was just lightning damage?” Caddock’s voice came from somewhere above and behind where Will’s face was pressed into the dirt.

“To be fair, it’s a lot of damage, but a pure elemental attack is fairly easy to counter.”

Poof!

Will grunted and rolled over onto his side, where Orev Harti was handing Caddock a potion that seemed to crackle with lightning.

Aw damn.

“You wanna finish him off?” Caddock asked the teleporting ranger as he downed the potion and healed himself.

“To be perfectly honest sir, I’m afraid that kid’ll kill me if I get close enough.” Orev said, watching Will like one might watch a venomous snake.

Where is Phantom Hand?

Still a minute out, even moving miles per second.

What else do I have? What can I do?

Fear is a terrain.

Will scanned the wasteland he’d created.

Caddock no longer had the leverage to kill his Party if Will escaped. There was nobody left to pin them down.

Will glanced down at his feet. The soft leather boots were still intact.