章 564: CHPT 564: Bombs and Deeper Dark
He walked beside someone who may not have even known themselves.
Someone who may have been many…. Or another, self, at one point.
He was going into war with them…. Shoulder to shoulder.
There was a very obvious lesson hidden within the complexities of it all.
But that was just it.
Complexity. Enough to get drunk on.
It wasn't just his decision and his goal and his and his and his and his...
He wasn't all that mattered. He wasn't the only one enslaved in a hellhole in the middle of an ocean for days. In fact, he was fortunate.
The Gift of Romulus….
Fenrir….
Arne…
Ursula…
Cassidy…
He was lucky. He had the power to pass it onward. To give others what he so desired for himself.
So, yes.
He walked shoulder to shoulder with an egomaniacal enigma.
And he'd never been further from home.
The snow fell like debris after a calamitous event. Thick and blurry…. Suspended in slow motion due to lacking winds. It smelled of the sky and water…. Hints of gunpowder in the background.
It littered the air like a cloudy miasma of old aspects of war. It made even the calmest white scenery look….. violent in his minds eye.
The trees….. the animals….. the frozen over lakes and rivers.
All a warzone.
"[Welcome to the home of the Lupines.]" Arne commented as the rest of the group stepped out of the portal.
It was cold. Harsh. Claude could see how something so insane was born in Islandia. But that wasn't the focus now.
Everyone grouped up, hidden in a patch of forestry. Breaths visible in the cold winds.
"Alright." Rupont pointed directly ahead of himself, "Sgt Bertrand's Coven Stronghold is five miles that way. He runs it exactly like an Old World Military base as I said. Guards, watchmen, snipers, roll call the works. When the suns up their greatest strengths are minimized but not gone. We need to hit them hard— stun them, and fill in like a damned infection."
"I like an ambush…." Li growled.
"Agreed." Tara's bald head sprouted a thin sheen of dark blonde hair.
"I know he's got old Artillery systems around here somewhere." Rupont headed off and began carelessly kicking through the snow.
"What… you want to blast it with old equipment?" Tom questioned as they all slowly followed.
"Any better ideas?"
"Yea."
Everyone fell to their knees except Rupont.
"Shit… my bad." Claude unsummoned OverFang.
The Vampire sneered. "Cool trick."
"I don't know how strong the bombs are…. But I blew the face off a mountain with my spear."
Rupont rubbed his chin, "Right then. On your mark, Lupine."
Claude nodded and headed further from the stronghold much to everyone's confusion.
"Alright, Arne. Same as last time. Wild Magic…. Transformation ….. Will Power. Wolves. Just can't howl too loud."
"[Mate…..why would you call for Wolves when you have something infinitely better with you already?]"
Claude stopped trekking through the snow that went up to his knees and looked back at everyone.
"Good point….. and then some."
"[What?]"
"I just got an idea…."
The shadowy form of a Phantom Wolves head grew out of his shoulder and spit a ball of cloth into his palm. Beneath all the smoky spittle and leather, a Lunar Artifact glowed even brighter than the reflective snowflakes.
***
Minutes passed with Rupont and the Vampires watching as all the Shifters gathered around Claude in a massive huddle. He didn't speak physically much to Ruponts dismay.
Claude on the other hand, opted for mental speak to avoid the physical loudness of many convos taking place at once.
"[And how'd you come up with this idea?]" Arne questioned.
"I don't know…. I just remembered when Frosty and the Phantom Wolves ate that Gnoll infused with Lunar Magic. They absorbed it through touch and consumption and didn't go completely insane. There's like a…. diminishing transfer of energy? Dammit I don't know I'm basically a drop out at this point. But if that same thing works here…. Then the Shifters can get stronger and remain sane."
"[I can't say I ever saw such a practice in my years….. they say the High Alpha's alongside Romulus studied and wished to expand Lunar Magic. Maybe this is history repeating. Give it a go then….]"
Claude looked to Tom, "Lets start with you. One at a time."
Li scoffed.
Helena flicked him.
"Burning daylight!" Rupont yelled in a whisper.
Claude placed the Lunar Artifact in his naked palm, closed his hand into a fist and turned it over.
Immediately he transformed. An aggressive and violent shift in seconds that was slowed very clearly the moment Tom placed his hand over Claude's fist.
Blueish white semi-transparent flames sputtered out from where their hands touched.
The once maddening thoughts recentered if only slightly, causing him to snarl at the next shifter to join.
He touched Tom. Partial transformations awakened. Lunar Magic spread in a tight spiral. Claude's hand vibrated hard enough to go numb. Which was perfect since he could smell his skin burning.
It wasn't perfect. But he did something.
"Enough!"
The huddle dispersed with everyone twisting and rolling through the snow into their full transformations. Thanks to Rupont, their armor stayed on, suited to the body types of Quadrapedal creatures perfectly.
Almost too perfectly. The sight of saber-fanged mottle furred WereLions and prehistoric Crocodile beasts in armor was horrifying.
"You're a battery! Magnificent." Rupont concluded.
Claude returned the Lunar Artifact to its cloth binding and leapt to the nearest hilltop in a single bound. The Shifters followed.
As he called forth OverFang the Dominance Spear, he shared a mental image of the route they'd run, guiding the spear to its target.
As he stood atop the hill he could see it behind the blanket of snowfall.
It wasn't a grandiose castle of darkness and shadow. It was white— almost invisible. And low to the ground. A settlement of sturdy buildings and overhangs with layers upon layers of cover running in circles all around. If he didn't borrow the traits of the birds nestled in the trees he wouldn't have seen it.
But he did.
He saw it.
The memory of Sgt Bertrand holding a gun to his head sneering flashed across his mind.
He threw the Lunar Artifact around his neck, embracing the maddening magic. Understanding he couldn't risk wearing it too long. His mind couldn't take it. He couldn't become Aeron. He wouldn't.
The spear in his hands felt weightless and full of infinite mass at the same time. The black handle matched the tone of his skin. Dusky and dense. Full of writings… thoughts… feelings.
He let go of the weapon and watched it hover in his hands.
The rainbow glass blade took on a blue outline, leveling the moment he called to the Wild Magic in the air.
It felt like inhaling with a different set of lungs. He could feel the pull as magic poured from the skies. Streamlined off the fur of distant predators. Bubbled and exploded out of Wild Rifts beneath the snow like geysers.
Inhale…..
Inhale….
He tried imagining Frosty's Dominance waves for himself but it wasn't the same. Wasn't as powerful.
"[It doesn't need to be.]"
The snow melted off the hilltop and the grass flourished beyond the permafrost. Thick vines wrapped around his legs and hands made of roots held his back, supporting and grounding him for what was to come.
The snow vanished from the domain of twisting and synthesizing magical aspects. Forming an outline of what transpired to the unseen eye.
The Shifters slowly submitted to the weapon of the soul and found themselves rising to their feet as the weapon rose to aim. Now with the animals of the wild joining them. Dire Bears. Wolves. Snow Falcons. Shoulder to shoulder with massive armored black Tigers and ape-like Wolf-Men.
They harmonized.
The air stilled.
Inhale…..
Inhale….
The snow that twisted around them dispersed in the wake of an explosion of success.
Exhale.
BWOOOOSH!
He launched the spear with all the boosted strength he had. The Shifters took off, guiding the weapon that was now as large as a pine tree.
Snow erupted along the ground as it traveled like waves in the ocean, tearing up earth and Undead corpses for miles. Their speed— aided by various magics, was electric.
One mile….. two…. Four.
Right before the spear hit its target, the Shifters veered off the path and began circling back to the meager patches of forestry to lie in wait as land crumbled.
BOOOM!
A small mushroom cloud of dust and snow erupted in the distance, flanked by the shrieks of Vampires eating raw sunlight. They ignited like balls of fire, adding to the chaotic distant display.
[+300 EXP]
[+300 EXP]
[+300 EXP]
[+300 EXP...]
Within seconds a warhorn's rattling cadence rose above the shrieks and collapsing rubble. So loud and thunderous the snow shook and Claude's ears bled. He didn't let himself get distracted.
CRkcrCRk!
Something metallic and lined by chain twisted somewhere below ground.
He recalled his spear, now only joined by Rupont and his Vampires. They faced the sound just in time to find platforms rise up and burst out of the frozen over lakes that surrounded them in a previously assumed random series of placements. Placements decided by nature and not an Elder Vampire.
Undead wolfish things with ink like dripping skin, hunched backs and fangs manned multi-barreled things that reeked of flames and herbs.
"Dammit he upgraded his defense plans! Where the hell did this bastard get Gatling Guns?" Rupont near teleported over to Claude and threw him into the air as the whole field of white was carpet bombed with repetitive gunfire.
The Verdilak Vampires hissed and screamed under the burning sun as they twisted the wheel on their mounted guns, causing the heavy barrel to twist like a cyclone and vomit steaming pellets of metal.
"LUPINE!"
Claude spun in the air in response to his namesake just in time to see one of the undead beasts aim its Gatling Gun up at him.
The smell of the gunpowder— the feel of the heat spiraling from the glowing red barrels. It was like a prelude to violence despite it already being a constant everywhere.
Claude threw out his Malevolence Tether, wrapping the steaming barrels and pulling so hard the whole black metal platform lifted as he yanked himself into the fray.
His eyes watered as he rocketed back to the surface. Bullets grazed and bounced off his aura as he smashed into the mounted gun, destroying it with his fists.
The Verdilak went up in liquid smoke before he could close in for the kill and hovered over to the next gun.
In fact, all of them did. Shifting in a counterclockwise circle. Intangible for only long enough to shift like gears. Like the barrels on the Gatling gun.
The smoking remnants of the gun below him became the least of his worries as all new creatures manned the eight other guns surrounding the snowed in clearing.
"Ears!"
Rupont took cover behind a tree and plugged his ears along with the rest of the Vampires as he let out a Sonic Howl.
Laced with the magic of the wild and the moon it hit the ground like an earthquake, ripping apart the snow and ground as the Verdilak a few hundred feet from him was blasted back into physical form and so disoriented it died bleeding from every orifice.
The Vampires were up in smoke once more, closing in on the stunned gunmen with rotting wolf heads.
Claude moved to join them when suddenly another horn blew from the stronghold in the distance. It's echoes interrupted as a smoking thing large enough to see with human eyes rose towards the skies and exploded into the densest black smoke he'd ever seen.
It ate up the sun for miles, casting them in artificial night.
Immediately after explosions followed in rapid succession. A timed tempo.
Boom…..
Boom….
Boom….
Red flashes of fire and smoke ignited the night followed by a whistling from the skies. Rupont told him all about what that meant. He was running before the first artillery shell hit, even so the impact lifted him off the ground— the shake of the earth rattled up his spine.
Four more came. Laying waste to the clearing full of its own allies.
Then they stopped.
He wouldn't have questioned it if the shadows didn't suddenly deepen.
Whiiiiiirl—SHNK!
He spun around, searching the skies for the shells rocketing towards them.
All he saw was darkness. The only illumination came from the flares of the cannons rolled out at Bertrand's Stronghold. Small red muzzle flashes.
It allowed the shape of some thing to be outlined in lightning like flashes.
Something with massive bat-like wings. Flaps silent and gigantic in the way they swept up and coalesced the dark clouds into a twisting hurricane of darkness.
Hell, he thought it was a dragon swatting away the cannons.
Then he realized who was missing from the field.
Like last time, the twins were at his sides.
"Let's take this chance to enter the stronghold. I'm sure your pack is eager….. Lupine."
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_Avatar0FFury_
_Avatar0FFury_ hey in a bit of a rush. so sorry about the missed updates got some life stuff goin on nothing too crazy. lmk what ya think and thanks for readin! thanks for the powerstones Sonuis, Shazac, alex99, deadra606, train_master, w_g_gates, Bored_Soule, MAESTRO, Bop, Frequency_420, zakaria_f and Alex_Walk
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