Chapter 1241 – Runes of Golden Life

Carmen parried the spear with her forearm, making it slide to the side as she closed the distance and elbowed the warrior in the chest. The guy let out a groan as he was pushed back, with Carmen pursuing to land another jab.

However, before she had the chance to, an arrow struck her in the side and released an explosion of fire, throwing her off-course and forcing her to abandon her attack. She quickly assessed the situation and realized that while the spear warrior was the most dangerous person offensively, he was also the hardest person to take down in the opposing party.

Quickly moving again, she avoided a flail that consisted of a long chain with a large spiked ball at its end that crashed down where she’d just been standing and circled the perimeter of the arena while looking for the damn shaman. After a couple of seconds, she detected him, and with a smile, Carmen infused her fist with power as she punched the ground.

The entire arena erupted with rock and gravel as a humanoid figure was forced up alongside all the debris. The man quickly responded by making a few hand seals while pointing toward Carmen. Everything she’d just sent airborne suddenly began to glow with light before it shot toward her, several of the pieces merging in mid-air to create large boulders.

Punching through several, Carmen closed the distance quickly, but once more she found herself stopped right before she wrapped her hands around the neck of her foe.

Oh… right, second shaman.

An odd aura suddenly surrounded her body, stopping all her movements as she heard the loud sound of chanting. For a moment, the world began to shimmer and change, everything warping as if she were being forcibly teleported into a separate dimension.

It was a powerful skill, but sadly, the shaman had tried to use it on a Runemaiden.

Several glowing runes lit up all over her body as she yelled, releasing a blast of energy that broke the spell apart. The first shaman manipulating the rocks had managed to get away, but the annoying chanting one wasn’t as lucky as the woman spat out a mouthful of blood from having her spell disrupted so violently.

Carmen smiled as she propelled herself toward the shaman, who had formerly been hiding away. The spearman tried to help, but Carmen kicked the spear out of the way before throwing the guy toward an incoming arrow.

The shaman desperately tried to stop Carmen again, summoning a web of chains, but the Runemaiden merely moved her hand through them, the magic within the chains breaking on contact with her skin.

Wrapping her hand around the shaman’s throat, Carmen smiled and spoke. “Do you surrender or-“

“I surrender,” the woman said. Carmen nodded and was about to speak again, but the first shaman and archer made their move, forcing the Runemaiden to just toss the woman to the side and dodge out of the way.

Arrows fell from above, with several coming each second. Looking upwards, she saw the beastkin man floating up there, unleashing his bombardment of arrows. Dashing back and forth, she avoided them while focusing most of her attention on the shaman, who’d just finished a minor ritual.

The man slammed a fist into the ground, and as he did, the entire land came alive. The rock and soil rose and shifted all around her, forming hammers and other weaponry that tried to hit her, mostly to constrain her movements. Neither the archer nor the shaman’s attacks were that dangerous to a Runemaiden, but she still had to be careful, because there were two combatants fully capable of hurting her.

One of them showed her face soon after, as Carmen quickly had to dodge a club of stone to block a spiked ball on a chain flying in from the side. She was prepared for it, yet its power still ended up taking her by surprise as the Runemaiden’s arms buckled from the impact, and she was sent flying through several weapons of hard stone that scraped up her back.

Smashing into the arena wall, Carmen wasn’t fast enough to get herself free before a Powershot struck her, actually managing to penetrate her skin and making her bleed. Just then, the spearman also struck, alongside the flail user, who swung down her chain from above.

Seeing the many attacks incoming, Carmen decided these people deserved for her to get serious. The runes on her body began glowing again as they changed from a slightly blue hue to a red one. A rush of power went through Carmen’s body as she grinned.

Right before the attacks struck her, Carmen smashed her two fists together, unleashing a massive blast of red, destructive energy. Her assailants were thrown off their game, allowing Carmen to quickly get the upper hand as she appeared in front of the flail user.

The woman reacted quickly by holding up a large shield in front of her, but it mattered little. Carmen threw a fist into the shield and punched straight through as her fist continued into the chest of the warrior. Finally, her fist exploded, blowing a hole out the back of the warrior and sending them flying with half their center region gone.

Despite this show of power, her opponents didn’t give up, and Carmen barely managed to avoid a thrusting spear aimed at her neck. With her increased speed, she tried to move in and finish off the second warrior, but the archer proved annoying once more.

An arrow struck her arm right when she tried to land a blow, penetrating it, courtesy of her lowered defenses in this Runic Stance. However, striking her arm also proved detrimental to the spear warrior as he was still too close to her.

Her entire arm erupted with energy after she was hit, sending out an explosion of destructive force that sent the spearman stumbling back. Despite the shaman trying to land his own spear of rock, Carmen managed to finally land a proper blow on the spear warrior, sending him into the far wall of the arena.

Being free of the final melee combatant, the shaman could do little before he was punched into submission. Afterward, she finished the spearman, saving the annoying archer for last.

Healers had already jumped in and extracted the injured by the time Carmen was done, and with a sigh, she released her Runic Stance, allowing the runes to fade away. On that note, not having a period of weakness after using her boosting skill was quite nice, though she was told that if she managed to unlock more powerful Runic Stances, temporary weakness upon expiration would be back on the menu.

“You’ve gotten stronger, but you still struggle with ranged combatants if they can break through your defenses,” a voice suddenly spoke from behind, making Carmen turn around.

“Yeah, I really need a better movement skill to close the distance,” Carmen agreed as she looked at the woman speaking. She was a human who stood about two heads taller than Carmen, with black hair in a ponytail so it wouldn’t get in the way. The woman didn’t wear much clothing, expressly to show off her body. Not to appeal to anyone in that way, mind you, she simply wished to show off the runic patterns covering her body with pride.

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“More accurately, you need to upgrade the one you already have and fully integrate what we spoke about last month,” the other Runemaiden said. “The Path of a Runemaiden is complete, and eventually, all your skills will find their Origin within the runes. Alright, maybe not all, but most of them anyway.”

“Already working on it,” Carmen nodded, cracking her neck. “By the way, the Ruination Stance is definitely good for offense, but is it really worth using it most of the time? Seems needlessly risky unless you really need to speed up a fight or are battling an enemy with defenses you can’t break through, but if you are, it seems like a bad foe to fight in the first place.”

“It is indeed risky, but as you said, also faster, and learning the concepts behind the Ruination Stance will allow you to empower your other offensive skills, even outside the stance itself,” the Runemaiden explained. “As you’ve no doubt noticed, something like Fist of Ragnarok relies on the same concepts to deal its damage. So yes, you might not find it wise to use the stance too much, but I would strongly advise you to use it regularly just for the training it provides. Also, let’s be honest, it’s fun to beat the living shit out of things sometimes, and the Ruination Stance is tailor-made for that.”

“You know what? Fair point,” Carmen nodded, especially in full agreement with that last statement.

“My points are always fair,” the other Runemaiden said before flashing a smile. “Now, that spar was a bit too easy for you, wasn’t it?”

Carmen already knew what was happening as she steeled herself and put on a smile of her own. “Can you even call it a spar if you don’t lose a limb or at least break a bone or two?”