Chapter Two-Hundred-and-Eight

Loopshard

Adam watched the needle on his compass as it tracked the direction of the riders, which were somewhere to the south-southeast of the city. Chien was meditating, Seo-Yoon played with her staves, and Natalia and Diwa were taking quick naps.

Adam had made a minor breakthrough during the recess in activity, thanks to discovering the Blood Spider spell.

He lifted his right gauntlet in front of himself. The waning sunlight caught on the thin lines of red silk that were wrapped around the fingers.

With a simple nudge, Adam fired a finger into the air, before remotely triggering the Snare spell pattern wrapped around it. Vines and thorns instantly sprouted from the finger projectile, shooting out to anchor it to a tree, where the vines continued to spread, ensnaring the trunk and digging in the red glassy thorns.

The gauntlet finger regrew and he shaped another tiny spell pattern for Snare, wrapping it around the new finger.

Unlike with the spidersilk needle, it was much easier for him to manipulate the silk when it was made out of blood, and as a result he was able to make them much smaller, enabling him to turn every finger of his gauntlets far deadlier than normal, since they were each carrying a payload. His elementalist’s skirt had triggered the Magical Disturbance twice during the tests, which had allowed him to load up two of the fingers with snare and push spells that were wildly unpredictable. These would be part of his opening attack against the black riders.

If only I had upgraded the summoner down the Elementalist evolution route, then it might’ve taught me ways to adapt the spell patterns to include elemental damage like fire and ice.

Given that he’d obtained another wand, thanks to the ritualist, he felt incentivised to try and fuse it with summoner once he returned to Interim Island.

I’d like to mess with the Librarian spell-tome as well, but I think the wands are a much better investment in terms of what they can teach me about spells.

But stage ten is a true roadblock, since it’s so dependent on randomness and other players, so I might be better off investing all my points in meta upgrades.

Because he only had time-loopers to rely on for information, he had no idea just how bad the tenth stage could end up, although his chat about it with the Tome Keeper had brought up several troubling possibilities, such as encountering Voidspawn or being sabotaged by other players’ choices.

Adam got up from where he’d been sitting on a bench.

I shouldn’t get ahead of myself and focus on stage ten until I’ve actually beaten this stage.

It was one of the first things Emelia had warned him about, and he knew that she was right, even though it was frustrating to admit. The Forlorn Kingdom was especially volatile, given that a single player death could come back to haunt them if they weren’t quick to dispose of the body.

If the shadow bird takes someone and kills them without us being able to get them back… It would truly screw up everything.

Adam stirred Chien, and Seo-Yoon woke up Diwa and Natalia.

He tried to gauge their readiness from their melodies, and he was glad to note that nobody showed signs of fear, though anticipation and worry were aplenty, but that was to be expected.

Three knights at once, and we don’t know how they fight.

The only way to deal with them decisively is to eliminate them before they get a chance to let loose.

He looked at his gauntlets, in particular the two with the dangerous and uncontrollable spells scribed onto them in red silk.

Natalia yawned and Diwa stretched.

“Let’s get this over with before night sets,” Adam said.

Adam checked his compass again. The arrow shifted up and down erratically, which could only mean one thing.

The riders were close and coming in hot.

Adam’s team had found the ruins of an old village and were awaiting Chien’s hunters in the middle of the main thoroughfare, with traps covering the narrow paths between houses and lining the streets. Adam had used a lot of material to set it all up, but it would be worth it to take out the bosses.

Seo-Yoon hid on the roof of a building on one side of the street, and Adam was on the other. On the street below stood Diwa, Chien, and Natalia, though the Lightbringer was prominently out in front. He had insisted on this, since the riders were specifically targeting him.

The sun was setting behind the mountains that hemmed in the stage, and the sky was a beautiful orange-pink hue, with clouds dotted artfully here and there. The idyllic moment was undermined by the anticipation and anxiety shared amongst the group.

“Get ready,” Adam said, his voice carrying across the quiet village.

He had made a bone-chilling discovery as they’d been setting up the ambush, and because of it, he had to rely entirely on the compass to know the direction of their quarry.

A trio of bosses, roaming the stage as they hunt us down, and all the while, they cannot be anticipated by my blood sense.

The erratic golden arrow snapped violently up and down, and then he saw them.

Three shadow-clad shapes rushed down a large hill outside the village, moving in a triangle formation. It was impossible to tell where their steeds ended and they began, because they were covered in cloaks of shadow just like their mounts.

The only things Adam could see clearly were their masks and their weapons.

Just like Heiner had said, and which Adam had passed on to the others, their weapons were a lance, an enormous crossbow, and a long chain with a hook at the end.

Their masks were all the same: rusted metal faces with leering grins, crescent-shaped eyes, and short demon horns. They brought to mind cruel executioners who wished to give their quarry a fright before taking off his head.

In the street below, Diwa activated her mirror skill with the Gorgon Slayer weapon, before switching to her Shield Wall.

Natalia shifted towards the side of the street, planning to come at the horsemen from the side, but Chien remained put, his war hammer at the ready.

The riders came within fifty metres and the announcement appeared. All of them tensed, like the final pull of a bowstring before the release.

< < Secret Stage Objective > >

< Defeat the Forlorn Horsemen >

Diwa took a deep breath and then shouted across the village. “I’ll take you down, no matter how many of you there are!”

The horsemen reached the edge of the houses, where the grass turned to brick and the gravel road to packed dirt. Their masks were locked firmly on Diwa, and they didn’t notice the big spell pattern under their mounts as it exploded and shot out grasping snares of blood-red thorny vines, bone spears, and flesh-made arms.

[3 Afflictions applied.]

All three of the horsemen leapt from their steeds, which were quickly engulfed by the snares and dissipated like smoke. One of them landed on the main road, triggering a series of traps, while the other two landed on the houses and ran towards where Adam and Seo-Yoon waited.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

But Adam had predicted such a development, so even the sloped rooftops were covered in traps.

The crossbow horseman was down on the road, and despite having to dodge snares and avoid explosions, he fired off a bolt the size of Adam’s arm, aimed directly for Diwa. As it struck, it was reflected right back to him, knocking him aside. Chien rushed him as he started to get back up.

On Adam’s side of the street, the chain-wielding horseman rushed towards Adam, his momentary fixation on Diwa already gone. The traps went off under him, and while he dodged several, he was clearly taking quite a lot of hits.

But it’s not slowing him down, Adam realised.

“They have a way to avoid damage!” he shouted to the others as he fired off a bright fireball that the horseman wasn’t able to dodge in time.

As it struck, Adam saw the shadowy cloak over his body disintegrate slightly. Another trap went off and it lost a bit more of its coherence. As the veil was slowly destroyed, he could sense more and more of the horseman’s melody.

“It’s not permanent!” Seo-Yoon yelled from the rooftops on the other side of the street, noticing the same thing.

She and Natalia were engaged with the lancer horseman, who had discarded his long weapon and now wielded two curved swords, using them to repel Natalia’s frenetic attacks, but suffering several hits.

A barrier of blood appeared in front of Adam as the boss’ chain suddenly whipped right at his neck.

This is so much harder since I can’t accurately gauge their melodies.

Adam didn’t waste a second and pulled on his armour to fly backwards, making the horseman run through the last of the traps he’d placed and bringing his shadowy cloak down to maybe twenty percent of its total mass, exposing a decayed black leather jacket and pants beneath.

“Deploying the snare! Get clear!” he warned, firing one of the two gauntlet fingers with a spell pattern affected by Magical Disturbance.

The chain whipped forward again and Adam threw himself flat onto his back, while altering the finger’s trajectory to strike the horseman in the abdomen.

[3 Afflictions applied.]

Adam flinched as the pain reflected back to him.

On the street below, Diwa had already moved closer to the boss that she was fighting with Chien, but the Lightbringer was on his knees, a dirty black stain on his body from an attack that’d hit him. The boss still held his large weapon, but in his left hand was a wicked-looking throwing dagger.

Adam’s attention was pulled back to the horseman on the roof in front of him and the mass of bloody limbs pulsing out of his abdomen.

He flew up into the air to get clear, as every pulse of the uncontrollable spell flung the bloody arms out to grasp the building below, tearing it apart and pulling the pieces into the horseman, rapidly surrounding him in a ball of rubble.

“Chien!” Adam shouted, trying to get the Lightbringer’s attention, since he’d locked down one of the bosses. But when he looked back down to the fight on the street below, he saw the guy on his side, several metres away from Diwa who was reflecting a barrage of throwing daggers with her shield.

One of those daggers were lodged in Chien’s eye and his melody was gone.

Fuck.

The plan had been for Chien to deal the killing blow to each of the horsemen, saving them from having to use Natalia’s ring or taking the corpses back to the true flame on the wall of Gothershall, which was still untested as to whether it would work.

Adam gritted his teeth.

Fuck the plan.

I put too much faith in Chien’s abilities, and he died before we could even take one down.

“Diwa! Get clear!” Adam shouted and fired the second finger with the uncontrollable spell pattern on it. This one was the Push spell.

She moved backwards while continuing to return the daggers to the boss, but he caught each of them like a juggler, his crossbow now discarded to free up both of his hands.

As Adam’s finger struck, there was a weird pop that hurt his inner ear and made Diwa grab her head.

[2 Affliction applied.]

The air around the horseman was sucked in, the unstable effect having the opposite reaction of a normal Push spell and pulling the air in to create a vacuum. Given that the centre of this effect was targeted on the boss’ body, the result was gruesome.

Loud bone-snapping and crunching noises came from the ranged horseman as he was compressed into himself, but his shadowy veil remained, and he seemed to still be alive.

In front of him, the ball of rubble shifted violently as the horseman inside tried to break free, releasing some kind of attack that sent out shadowy slashes, though the rubble absorbed most of this without breaking apart. Adam focused on the blood inside the arms of the uncontrollable Snare that surrounded the chain-wielding horseman, and with a simple nudge, the blood crystallised and made the struggling stop immediately.

[3 Afflictions applied.]

Adam turned his attention back to the street below as the ball of crimson glass and rubble rolled off the rooftop, crashing against the ground and releasing its prisoner, who was very much dead. For now. There was no telling how long that would last.

To Adam’s brief surprise, Chien was back on his feet, slamming his war hammer into the disfigured and broken horseman, each strike breaking more of the shadowy cloak away.

His headband, Adam realised. It brought him back from death.

But with it gone, Chien had lost the ability to create waves of holy magic with his attacks, and his power was greatly reduced as a result.

I should’ve held off on killing my target…

On the other side of the street, Natalia had worn down the dual-wielding horseman, and his cloak was nearly gone.

Adam fired three of his fingers, all of them wrapped with the Snare pattern, striking the boss in the abdomen and legs, which caused his black blood to leak out and anchored his body to the rooftop with thorny blood vines.

[9 Afflictions applied.]

Each of the afflictions stack, counting them as new afflictions, Adam realised. This was both a terrifying and exciting benefit of the corset he wore.

A few more strikes from Natalia and his cloak vanished as well.

“Chien!” she yelled.

[Forlorn Knight defeated.]

On the street down below, the Lightbringer had just finished off the first boss, and he ran towards the building, trying to scale it, but struggling.

Adam sent a floating pair of bone hands over to grab him by the arms and lift him up onto the roof.

As he landed and ran towards the incapacitated horseman, Diwa yelled from the street below.

“Look at me!”

Adam instinctively spun around to figure out where the new threat was, rather than question why she was trying to taunt the snared boss, but then he was forcefully thrown forward as a shadow-coated chain tore through a blood-formed copy of himself.

Down below, the chain-wielding horseman was back to his feet, his cloak of shadow renewed and his weapon filled with malevolent power.

Killing him made him stronger!

Adam was starting to understand just why the priest in Old Town had warned him, because these knights weren’t like the others they’d fought. They had three ways to permanently kill the forlorn knights at their disposal, and yet they hadn’t managed to decisively clinch the victory.

He fired his remaining fingers down at the horseman as he pulled himself away. They struck and triggered against his cloak, whittling it down a little, but none of the snares managed to lock him in place.

On the rooftop, Chien, Natalia, and Seo-Yoon were forced to spread out as the shadowy chain sheared through the building below them, giving the incapacitated dual-wielder the opportunity to break free with his own application of dark magic, though his was not as strong as the other’s.

“Adam, focus on the chain-wielder!” Seo-Yoon shouted. “Tell me when its shield is down!”

Diwa taunted and pulled the empowered horseman’s attention away from the roof, giving Seo-Yoon the opportunity to jump across the gaps made by the powerful chain. Chien did the same, smashing his hammer into the side of the dual-wielding boss that Natalia was keeping busy with her excellent swordplay.

Adam rained hell down on the horseman swinging his chain at Diwa, releasing flame-coated gauntlet fingers with as much speed as possible, breaking off pieces of the shadowy cloak with every strike. He was quickly forced to dodge and weave through the air as the chain’s attention became focused on him.

Seo-Yoon said something to Chien, and he touched her Spellcaster staff, making it glow with holy energy.

So that’s what she’s doing.

Adam wasn’t sure Chien’s rosary would have enough power, but they didn’t have a ton of other options, given how hard Natalia and Chien had to fight just to bring down the dual-wielder.

Suddenly Diwa was right next to the chain-wielder, and with a slash of her sword that was empowered by the duellist’s glove she wore, she tore through the shadowy cloak and severed the horseman’s left arm. Then she fired her green slime glove directly into his mask, but it didn’t accomplish much.

Given a brief window of opportunity as the boss focused back on her, Adam wove a spell pattern for Heart Lance in the air above the horseman, making it bigger than he normally would and utilising all the elements at his disposal. Flames danced across the crimson blood, beige-brown flesh, and off-white bones. They melded together, turning an inky black, and when he released the spell, it was a pillar of dark fire that washed down over the boss, burning for barely half a second before the attack expired, but managing to destroy the rest of the cloak’s protection and searing the exposed body beneath.

[3 Afflictions applied.]

Seo-Yoon’s staff filled with a bright fiery power, before she launched a golden fireball, striking the smoking and charred chain-wielding horseman. He immediately turned to ash.

[Forlorn Knight defeated.]

“What was the third affliction from my last attack?” Adam asked his cube.

[Black Flame Incineration. It reduces the effectiveness of healing by 50%.]

Adam turned his attention back to the last horseman, whose cloak was almost gone. Sensing that he was the final one left, the shadowy power spread to his blades and he slashed wildly, sending shearing waves of darkness towards Natalia and Chien, both of whom had to scramble for cover.

Seo-Yoon didn’t see the attack coming for her, but her Shade Barrier construct triggered, throwing her off the side of the roof to save her from being hit.

Adam flew down to try and catch her, but Diwa was able to get below her just in time to cushion her fall.

He stopped in the air and prepared another attack with the black flame Heart Lance while the last horseman swung his swords to try and kill Chien and Natalia, both of whom were barely managing to avoid the barrage of shadowy slashes.

As the dark beam of fire washed over the boss, a momentary opening was created, and Chien ran forward swinging his hammer into the boss’ mask and knocking him onto his back.

Adam quickly shaped a small construct of silky blood and wrapped it around a gauntlet finger, before firing it into the exposed torso of the downed horseman, triggering Snare to lock him in place with red vines.

[3 Afflictions applied.]

Chien smashed his hammer down onto the leering mask again and again, until finally the announcement arrived.

[Forlorn Knight defeated.]

< < Secret Stage Objective Complete > >

< Defeated the Forlorn Horsemen >

They all breathed a sigh of relief.

Then Natalia said, “The boss dropped his mask. It’s legendary.”