Chapter 136: Fire Against Frost

Crimson light burst around Wraithlord the instant the bond answered.

His body bent and twisted inside the glow, armor and bone folding together, compressing, until the light drew down into a single shape and fell into Kael’s open hand: a long spear of dark, blood-red steel, cold and heavy and humming with a low note of power.

The moment his fingers closed on the shaft, a surge of raw strength rushed up through his arm and into his chest, and every stat on his panel climbed in the same breath.

Overhead, the Bone Dragon Knight wrenched his mount around. The skeletal wyrm banked hard in the air, wings snapping out, and came plunging back toward the wall.

The bone lance in the rider’s fist blazed with a dazzling skill glow, its tip leveled at one target.

Elara.

"Protect the princess!" Sir Gareth Thorne planted himself in front of her, both hands wrapped around his sword, his face a mask of grim resolve.

Kael’s jaw tightened.

Not today.He reached for the new power that had settled into his blood barely half an hour earlier.

Skyborn Awakening.

It felt as if every vein in his body had caught fire.

A wave of heat poured through him from the very root of the bloodline, scalding and brilliant, and a pillar of crimson flame burst around his figure in a roar, curling and dancing in the air above his shoulders.

His growth rate already ran twice that of any ordinary player, which meant that even at level 50 his bare stats stood level with someone ten levels higher, and the full suit of Legendary-grade gear on his body added more on top.

Wraithlord’s fusion gave him another eighty percent of his companion’s attributes. Together, they put him in the range of a level 60 boss.

With the Awakening, all of it doubled.

His numbers still fell short of the level-79 Legendary boss descending toward him, but they sat well above Sir Gareth’s own level 70, and that was enough.

Kael roared. He fixed his eyes on the Bone Dragon Knight’s weak points, which the Seer’s Eye had flagged in gold across its armor, and drove forward.

Cinder Charge.

A blaze of fire exploded under his feet and hurled him up and out of the crowd like a bolt from a bow.

He struck the Frost Bone Dragon’s neck with a thunderous crash, and though his frame was tiny beside the beast, the force behind the blow was not.

The impact landed on a flagged weak spot, and the creature’s skull whipped sideways, stunned.

The enormous body lost lift. It slammed onto the rampart with a sound like a falling cliff, shattering two crenellations, skidding for yards across the stone and gouging a trench through the flagstones.

On its back, the Bone Dragon Knight’s charge collapsed, and its attention snapped to Kael.

Two red lights flared from the depths of its helm. It let out a roar and speared forward, a long beam of crimson spear-light stabbing toward his chest.

He did not try to block it.

Spirit Communion.

He copied the skill he had been waiting to try. For the first time, he borrowed one of Stormwing Sovereign’s abilities.

Stormstep.

His body dissolved into a streak of pure golden lightning.

The spear passed through the place where he had been, and in the same instant he rematerialized behind the knight, spear already drawn back.

Bloodspear Volley.

Streaks of crimson light burst from the tip of his weapon in a rapid-fire series and stabbed through the Bone Dragon Knight’s body, one after another.

The knight screamed, and rage drove it past caution. It dragged its mount back to its feet and hauled the great wyrm into the air, then wheeled and thrust its lance at Kael’s chest with a roar.

Kael had expected exactly that.

A heartbeat before the lance touched him, he triggered Phase Shift and swapped places with Void Cataclysm.

The bone lance drove into the colossal creature’s foot instead. Even with the gulf in levels between them, Void Cataclysm’s hide was thick enough to bear it.

It opened its jaws, and a wave of Hollowscream blasted into the knight at point-blank range.

In the same moment, its monstrous mass landed squarely on the dragon’s back and stamped the Frost Bone Dragon back down onto the wall.

The rest of Kael’s companions and the Northvale soldiers around them surged in on the opening. Spears, arrows, spells poured onto the pinned monster.

Even a level-79 Legendary boss could not weather that. Its health bar began to plummet.

With a ragged roar of fury, the Bone Dragon Knight swung its lance in a wide arc and knocked Void Cataclysm off its mount.

It dragged its dragon up off the stones and flung it into the sky, trying to regroup.

It got barely ten meters above the wall.

Two sharp cracks split the air, one on each side.

From left and right, enormous bolts hurtled out of the ramparts, thick as a man’s thigh, chased by chains of runic iron. Both found the Frost Bone Dragon’s body and drove deep into its ribs.

Wyrm-slayer bolts, fired from the wall’s great crossbows.

The chains snapped taut. The dragon was hauled to a violent halt in mid-air, wings thrashing, breath gouting in wild bursts as it fought the bindings, held fast.

Two direct hits from those bolts took the Bone Dragon Knight’s health below half.

And Kael, watching the numbers shift, saw something else change with them. The bond rate had climbed all the way to six percent.

His eyes sharpened.

With the fifth class advancement, he had gained a seventh slot. Valen, the Bone Dragon Knight, was not a creature he’d have chosen as a core member of his roster.

Its growth potential was limited. But its level was high, and as a temporary hand to be put to work for a few days, it would be extremely useful.

He raised a hand and cast the bond.

It failed.He did not mind. He gripped his spear and charged back in, hammering the knight with a flurry of thrusts, and when the cooldown finished, he cast it again.

[Notification: Warden’s Mandate successfully activated on Legendary boss Valen, the Bone Dragon Knight. Legendary companion acquired.]