B3 - Chapter 38: Bloodbath

The chains shackling the storm beside Seth’s core shattered. The sealed power detonated outward, colliding violently with Feral Instinct before ripping through his body like a rampaging beast with what felt like a surge in his attributes. Every muscle tightened. Every nerve screamed. Raw fury flooded his flesh so completely it felt as though something inside him had finally broken loose.

Seth exploded forward.

The world blurred into streaks of crimson as aether surged through Beastmaster Rage with a fierceness he had never experienced before. All he could see was blood.

“Quill!” one of the imperial soldiers shouted. “I think that’s the Pri—”

The man never finished the word.

Seth materialized beside him in a burst of darkness, and the blades of Dusk Scythes surged into existence at the same time they were driven deep into the soldier’s chest. The man choked on a wet gargle.

Before anyone else could react, another wet tear echoed through the clearing: Seth had carved open the chest of the man standing two feet away.

Blood sprayed across both the grass and Seth's face just before he turned and lunged again.

He was nothing more than a blur. A monster that tore through the Empire's ranks.

Nightmare crashed into the fray beside him, black smoke erupting from the direwolf’s jaws as he pounced at an imperial soldier's throat. Selena was still dozens of yards away, sprinting with everything she had to catch up.

"Kill him!" an enemy officer roared.

Henry caught sight of Seth through the chaos, his face draining of color.

“Seth, no!” he yelled, his voice raw with panic.

A barrage of elemental spells shot toward Seth and Nightmare, but Colossus took that as his sign to come out from the teardrop necklace. The massive scorpion manifested a Sandstorm Dome, and the barrier devoured the incoming volley in its storm of grinding earth. Seth and the direwolf didn't slow, continuing to slay their way through the surrounding infantry.

Seth barely hesitated before moving Lumi out of the teardrop domain.

The small otter burst into existence beside Colossus and joined the defensive battle as the giant scorpion cast Desert Aegis to boost their defense.

“Me!” Seth roared.

Lumi understood instantly. Without a shred of hesitation, the beast of light unleashed her empowering weave into him.

Power surged through Seth’s body. His muscles swelled beneath his armor, veins bulged across his neck and arms, and ground cracked beneath his feet as his speed climbed into something utterly inhuman.

Then the massacre truly began.

Seth tore through the Empire’s soldiers like a reaper sent by the god of death. No soldier could even follow his movements anymore. With his Agility having broken past two-hundred-and-fifty, he became little more than a flickering blur of blood and shadows ripping through their ranks.

And on the rare occasion a blade somehow managed to touch him, the steel did little more than scrape his flesh, his Toughness now rivaling that of a Peak-Iron Guardian.

Combined with the terrifying armor penetration of Dusk Scythes and his absurd Strength, the imperial soldiers never stood a chance. Their reinforced plate split apart like rotten wood, and the enchanted mail parted effortlessly beneath the blades of condensed shadow.

More soldiers rushed forward to swarm Seth, Colossus, Lumi, Nightmare, and the newly arrived Selena in an attempt to contain the carnage, while another detachment pressed their assault on Henry’s collapsing group. The squad leader and the survivors were barely standing, their armor blackened by flames and their bodies covered in deep cuts and burns.

A thought cut through the suffocating rage consuming Seth’s mind.

I have to get them out.

His crimson-filled gaze swept across the battlefield before locking onto a female mage positioned near the rear lines.

A glowing distortion rod hung from her belt.

Seth dashed toward her.

'Seth! Wait!' Colossus shouted through Link, pincers snapping frantically.

Seth ignored the warning entirely and ducked beneath a broadsword sweep without slowing. The moment Shadow Step came off cooldown, darkness swallowed him whole.

Then he appeared directly behind the Elementalist.

The woman whirled around in panic, desperately trying to weave a defensive barrier while the two soldiers beside her lunged with their spears.

You're all too slow.

With Seth’s absurd Agility and his heightened senses, they may as well have been standing still.

His Dusk Scythes flashed forth, and a brutal cross-slash tore through the mage’s throat before the guards could extend their weapons. Blood gushed into the air as her head snapped backward, and the spell forming in her hands collapsed on itself.

With a single step, Seth then drove his boot downward and shattered the distortion rod into inert fragments against the charred ground.

Selena, who had managed to fight her way to Henry’s position, carved her blade across the throat of an enemy soldier, then planted herself shoulder-to-shoulder beside the squad leader and the last two survivors.

“Get out of the Rift!” Seth shouted. “Now!”

His voice boomed across the battlefield like the roar of a maddened beast.

Selena, Henry, and the two others plunged their hands into their Endless Pouches and pulled out Escape Scrolls.

Though before any of them could activate the parchments, one of the imperial infantrymen yanked another distortion rod out of his own storage bag.

The surrounding aether warped, and a ripple surged outward, locking down the surrounding space once more.

Seth lunged straight into the heart of the enemy formation. As if I'd let you do that.

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A savage roar tore from his throat as he unleashed the Aura of Insatiable Hunger.

The spell erupted from his chest like a starving abyss, and the freshly activated field faltered before it could fully stabilize. Around Seth, half-formed elemental spells collapsed apart mid-cast while glowing weapon arts flickered. Aether sputtered like a dying flame under the sudden pull, and every strand of the drained energy was violently pulled toward Seth.

He devoured it all without slowing the slaughter.

The blades of Dusk Scythes ripped through another imperial soldier in a violent spray of blood, which was a second before the Dark spell finally flashed and dissipated from Seth’s forearms.

“GET OUT!” Seth roared again at Henry, Selena, and the others, his blood-red gaze snapping toward them through the chaos.

“Don’t let them escape!” an officer from the Empire screamed, rallying the remaining soldiers into a charge.

Yet the moment the infantry surged forward, a massive spectral direwolf head arose above Nightmare.

The direwolf unleashed Dreadful Shroud, and a tangible wave of terror exploded across the clearing like a physical force.

Bone-deep fear slammed into every imperial soldier at once, freezing them where they stood. Their muscles locked, their breath caught, and some nearly dropped their weapons outright.

Henry and the two other survivors beside Selena activated their Escape Scrolls, causing a blinding white light to engulf their bodies and carry them out of the Rift.

Seth let out another savage roar, and he used the aether still flooding into his Well to flare Armored Phantom Fists around his gauntlets. The Undead energy twisted violently around his fists as he raised them, fully prepared to crush the remaining platoon into blood and ruin.

He saw Selena look at him, the woman still clinging to her Escape scroll.

For the briefest instant, their eyes met through the haze of blood and aether. Her expression tightened. There was hesitation there. And beneath it... fear.

Fear of the monster standing in the middle of the Empire's troops.

“Go!” Seth screamed.

The Rogue flinched, then finally activated her scroll.

White light swallowed her whole and she vanished from the battlefield, leaving Seth alone with Nightmare, Colossus, and Lumi, amidst the remaining imperial forces.

Seth’s Well throbbed violently from the sheer volume of absorbed aether flooding through it. The excess raged through his Well like a hurricane, so he redirected the overflowing power to Colossus and Nightmare.

Both beasts lunged into the enemy ranks with renewed fierceness.

Bathed in Lumi’s constant blue waves, Colossus summoned Explosive Bastion over his fractured Quartz Armor and pulsing Desert Aegis while applying Deathcoil Venom to as many targets as he could. Beside him, Nightmare flowed through the battlefield like a phantom drenched in blood and shadows.

The direwolf slipped between frantic spear thrusts and desperate sword swings before tearing into soldiers with Gloom Fangs, the spell empowered by his now-monstrously-high Arcane Power.

Seth crushed the skull of an imperial Rogue with a single downward punch.

His gauntlet, still coated in a dense layer of Undead aether, smashed through bone and armor alike in a wet explosion before he lunged forward again; in that motion, he ducked beneath the sweeping blade of a Warrior who had only just broken free from the paralysis effect of Nightmare’s Dreadful Shroud.

Suddenly, thick roots burst from the scorched ground beneath Seth’s boots.

Before he could react, the things wrapped around his legs and anchored him in place.

The commanding imperial officer pointed his bloodstained sword toward Seth and roared at the remaining soldiers, “Use the scrolls!”

Seth activated Morsh's Unshackled Bracelet.

Ethereal chains materialized around his torso before snapping apart with a sharp metallic clang. The roots binding his legs crumbled apart under the artifact’s activation.

Seth’s hand shot into his pouch and snatched out his own Distortion Rod.

Then his gaze locked onto the piece of parchment a nearby soldier had just taken out. He recognized the runes and the seal.

An Escape Scroll.

"No," Seth growled inwardly, the word cutting through the chaos like the snarl of a beast. "I didn't say you could leave."

He flooded the Distortion Rod with aether before clipping it back onto his belt.

A wave of warped air erupted outward.

Every Instant-Spell scroll in the hands of the imperial soldiers went inert as the distortion field locked down the battlefield once more.

One of the infantrymen let out a desperate roar and lunged toward Lumi, thrusting his heavy spear toward the small otter while she mended a deep gash running across Nightmare’s flank.

Seth vanished and reappeared directly in the soldier’s path with Shadow Step.

His fist slammed into the man’s chest with a deafening crunch.

With Strength nearing two hundred points, the blow ignored the soldier’s armor and crushed his sternum while launching the man backward across the clearing like a ragdoll.

As the lifeless body slammed into the ash-covered ground, Seth suddenly felt a jolt ripple through the temporary grooves of Shadow Step. The dull ache signaling the skill's cooldown vanished the exact second it had appeared.

Seth’s eyes widened beneath the haze of his bloodlust. The partial effect he'd inherited through Nightmare’s newly absorbed Legendary Seed had reset Shadow Step.

Seth activated the spell again.

He materialized directly behind an Elementalist who was desperately gathering aether to launch a flame spear toward Nightmare. Seth’s Armored Phantom Fist slammed into the woman’s side before her spell could fully form. Ribs shattered inward as the force of the blow tore through her body before launching her sideways across the clearing.

The moment Seth forced another violent torrent of aether into the grooves of Huntbound Overflow, the pressure trapped within Colossus’s barrier hit its absolute limit.

Explosive Bastion detonated.

The blast wasn’t as devastating as it had been previous times, since the imperial soldiers had nearly shattered the barrier, yet the explosion still ripped violently across the clearing. Sand, ash, and wind tore outward, hitting the remaining survivors and sending them stumbling backward in disarray.

Seth seized the opening to deactivate his Distortion Rod for a split second while simultaneously triggering his Swift Eagle Bracelet and pulling from the reserve of his Fine Storing Ring.

Seth flooded the artifact's aether directly into his Well before channeling the surplus through Link into Nightmare and Colossus once again.

Before the dazed imperial soldiers could even realize that the suppression field had vanished, Seth slammed aether back into the Distortion Rod and sealed the space around them yet again.

The imperial soldiers slowly pushed themselves up, their bodies trembling as their gazes darted across the clearing.

Corpses littered the battlefield.

A few had fallen under Henry and Selena’s earlier attacks, but the overwhelming majority had been butchered by Nightmare and Seth himself.

Barely ten men and women were still alive.

And they were finally realizing it.

Seth could see the fear spreading across their faces . Despair and certainty that they were about to die.

And they were right.

Beastmaster Rage still had more than half its duration remaining, and the Wells of Seth, Colossus, and Nightmare were once again completely full. Desert Aegis still reinforced their Toughness, while Nightmare’s Dreadful Shroud steadily seeped attributes from the surviving soldiers and Lumi healed any injuries they might receive.

Even if the imperials unleashed their strongest spells, none of them possessed the attributes necessary to keep up with Seth in his current state.

The fight was over.

One of the imperial soldiers figured it out first. The man suddenly turned and sprinted toward the scorched forest in blind panic.

Seth moved without a second thought and crossed the distance separating them. His aether-wreathed gauntlet came crashing down onto the fleeing soldier’s skull and smashed the man face-first into the earth.

The Empire had entered this Rift with one objective: to make sure not a single person from Kastal left alive.

Seth intended to follow their lead.

With Colossus anchoring most of the remaining soldiers in place alongside Lumi and Nightmare sealing off every possible escape route, Seth continued the carnage.

He tore through five more soldiers in a storm of bone-shattering blows, each strike pulping armor, flesh, and bone alike. Bodies crashed into the ash-covered ground one after another before the aetheric light of Armored Phantom Fists finally flickered violently and dissipated.

But of course, he had another weapon to use.

His bow of radiant light materialized in his grip as Seth poured aether into the grooves of Ravenous Arrow. The energy surged through the spell faster than ever before, flooding the furrows with fierce power.

Three seconds later, the light-made projectile formed in his palm.

Seth drew and released in one fluid motion.

The arrow silently flew through the battlefield and pierced the skull of a charging Warrior, dropping the man. Nearby, Nightmare and Colossus cornered another panicked swordsman, tearing him apart before he could escape.

Seth pulled his bowstring again, and a second Ravenous Arrow speared the back of another fleeing soldier. Then he pivoted toward the final survivor.

The last imperial soldier was sprinting desperately toward the scorched forest, kicking up clouds of grey soot behind him.

Seth released the string.

The white arrow tore across the clearing and struck the runner in the middle of his back. The man collapsed, face-first into the ash.

A heavy silence fell over the clearing as Seth stood motionless, soaked in blood that wasn't his.