Low-Fantasy Occultist

The cage of electricity dancing at the mage’s will was ripped from his control with little effort, leaving the man staring in sudden horror as its blue arcs turned a bloody crimson.

Nick stepped into the Knight Commander’s guard, ignoring the flaming broadsword descending toward his neck, and released the hijacked current.

[Bolt of Wrath] erupted from all around them, tearing across the short distance to strike his foe point-blank. His plate armor acted as a perfect conductor, cooking the man alive inside his steel shell before the blade could even graze Nick’s coat.

The current then chained to the mage, shattering his defensive barriers and stopping his heart with a thunderous crack.

CONGRATULATIONS!

You have defeated [Jan Odess, Knight Commander of House Cinder - Level 86]

You have defeated [Bart Wull, Mage of House Cinder - Level 73]

+237,667 Exp

Barely sparing them a glance, Nick stepped over the bodies still smoldering.

He ascended the grand staircase, sweeping through the upper corridors, where he found the remaining guards, who’d been drawn by the thunder in the foyer.

Nick met them with ruthlessness, too short on time to do anything else. He slipped under a spear thrust, driving a spike of wind into a guard’s throat, then spun to catch a second man with a point-blank sphere of water that caved in his breastplate.

He carved a bloody path to the master suite, ignoring the servants' screams as they fled, where he found his quarry.

Lord Cinder stood near the center of the opulent room, wearing a gilded breastplate over his velvet doublet. He held a repeater crossbow and seemed well-versed in its use.

Beside him stood his daughter. She was a striking woman with cascading dark hair and flawless, pale skin. She wore a simple silk gown, looking every bit the terrified noble heiress.

Nick’s [Empyrean Intuition] told a completely different story. Her soul was black as fresh tar, dripping with an oily malice that eclipsed her father’s simple greed.

That one is going to be trouble. Normally, I’d hesitate to kill a young woman, but something tells me she won’t extend me the same courtesy.

“You will pay for your actions, more than you can imagine,” Lord Cinder spat, raising the crossbow. Anger and hatred boiled within him, and Nick knew the man was skilled at taking his displeasure out on others.

Fortunately, he had no intention of visiting their dungeons.

The daughter moved just as her father pulled the trigger. She dropped her terrified facade, drawing a pair of slender stilettos from the folds of her gown and moving with blinding speed. She blurred into the room's shadows to flank Nick, intending to pin him between her poisoned blades and the crossbow bolts.

Dark light wrapped around the latter, enhancing their piercing power enough that he was forced to pull himself away with [True Flight] rather than meet them with a barrier, as he’d have liked.

That left his side open for the girl to lunge, but at his command the air between them exploded, sending them both tumbling away.

Before either of his enemies could regain their wits, he summoned a sphere of [Zealous Flame] in his left hand and anchored a tight coil of [Windburst] in his right—no easy feat, given the spell’s normally massive nature—and slammed his hands together.

The fire fed greedily on the sudden influx of oxygen, and the resulting detonation blew the doors off their hinges. A roaring cyclone of white-hot flames expanded outward, vaporizing the crossbow bolts mid-flight.

Nick guided his firestorm so that it caught the daughter mid-lunge, the searing heat stripping the flesh from her bones before she could even scream. Lord Cinder was thrown backward through the stained-glass window, his gilded armor melting into his skin as he plummeted into the courtyard below.

The flames caught the heavy velvet drapes, hungrily consuming the expensive tapestries and oiled wooden furniture. Nick turned his back on the inferno, leaped out of the burning suite, and fell upon his enemy with a drill of air in his hand, which turned the lord’s head into paste.

CONGRATULATIONS!

You have defeated [Daniela Cinder, Shadow Dancer - Level 79]

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

You have defeated [Lord Valerius Cinder, Devout of the Bolt - Level 84]

+231,001 Exp

Level up!

The rush of reaching level ninety-five flooded Nick’s body. The exhaustion from the long hunt washed away, replaced by a thrumming vitality. His mana coils thickened, preparing him for the next Step, when he’d shed his mortality.

Just five more levels. It’s both so little and so much.

He slipped out of the estate just as the manor's roof collapsed in a shower of sparks, turning House Cinder into a funeral pyre.

Fire brigades were just beginning to notice and would take a while to arrive in full force, but the estate’s walls should serve as a decent firebreak, and he trusted they had enough skill in water magic to deal with the mess he’d left behind before it could grow too much.

By the time Nick returned to the subterranean sanctuary, the sun had dipped below the horizon. Only a few hours remained until the agreed-upon time.

He took his time cleaning up and even took a short nap, wanting to be as fresh as possible for the upcoming fight.

Gaelen and Rhea arrived shortly after he’d woken, shedding their snow-dusted cloaks.

“Our allies have been informed of our plan and have begun preparations,” Gaelen reported, his amber eyes hard. "The smugglers have secured the western canal, and the old retainers are armed. They will be waiting for our signal.”

From his tone alone, Nick assumed they’d been forced to purge a few so-called allies who proved disloyal, but that was better than the alternative.

Rosmaria Elpen was with them, seated in her wheeled chair, her thin fingers working the straps of a complex brace that encased her legs and spine. The contraption was a masterpiece of gears, straps, and incredibly intricate runic matrices that Nick had no hope of understanding.

It wasn’t so much that the runes themselves were unknown, as he could see hints of Irvinic entwined with other languages, but rather that the swooping loops and dense clusters worked together as a symphony that required a true master of the craft to even see in its entirety, much less understand.

She’s been preparing for this moment for many years. Despite her body’s weakness, she’s still a Prestige Artificer with decades of experience, if not more.

Nick had a suspicion that the old woman was at least a century old, which wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for a Prestige being, but he couldn’t find a polite way to ask.

"Help me stand," she ordered.

Rhea hurried to obey, taking her grandmother's arm. With a sharp hiss of escaping air, the gears engaged and the brace locked, allowing Rosmaria to rise to her feet.

Her face was pale, and it was clear she was in pain, but the suit allowed her to stand for the first time in years.

She reached into a velvet-lined box on the console and retrieved a crystal vial filled with a viscous, violently purple liquid that felt ominously potent. She uncorked it and drank in one smooth motion, not even bothering to explain what it was.

Color flooded back into her cheeks, and the trembling in her hands ceased. Clearly, it was some kind of alchemical stimulant, and from Rhea’s pursed lips, it was pushing her failing heart to beat with the strength of a younger woman, likely burning her life force for a few hours of power.

And yet, nobody dared say a word. If this was how the old woman wanted to go out, finally exacting vengeance on her hated enemy… Well, there were many worse ways to die.

And it’s not necessarily the case that she’ll die. If we can take the Forge before she’s consumed her life force, she’ll be able to free her soul from it, and that should give her enough power to survive the day.

Whether it’d be enough for her to recover fully, Nick didn’t know, but he doubted the Rosmaria cared.

"Let us go," the Matriarch finally commanded after she’d completed her checks.

They loaded up on the potions Rhea had prepared, said goodbye to old Silas, who watched them go with pride and fear, all wrapped as one, and left.

The city was tense, with unnaturally quiet streets in the lower rings, almost as if it were holding its breath.

They might not know what is going on, but it was clear enough that things were going to come to a head sooner rather than later. Hopefully, we’ll be able to spare them further suffering by keeping the fight confined to the area around the Elpen Estate.

As they climbed a tall bell tower overlooking the noble district, the preparations for the siege became visible below.

The Black Hounds were gearing up for war, and the mishmash of cultures and traditions he’d observed before was once again made clear.

In the southern squares, the tattooed eastern islanders painted their faces with white ash, swaying to a low, rhythmic chant that vibrated through the cobblestones. To the west, the towering northerners passed skins of fermented mare’s milk, beating their axes against their shields in a metallic beat.

Other men merely tended to their weapons, while a few even took a moment to fornicate with willing women, trying to burn off the nervousness or to give themselves one last moment of happiness.

Commander Varg sat atop a heavily armored warhorse, watching it all unfold and letting the tension build to a fever pitch.

Expanding his senses, Nick could see the Silver Falcons fortifying their barricades in the merchant district. They stood in silent rows, with gleaming halberds resting at their sides.

They made no move to reinforce the Ultimer garrison, despite being aware of the Hounds’ movements, and that, more than anything, reassured Nick that he’d seen right.

The Duke would not help, at least not until things were certain, but he wouldn’t work against them either.

Among the Falcons, a commanding figure stood, similar in strength and experience to Arthur, and he recognized him as their Commander.

The man even turned to look back toward the general direction where Nick was perched, showing he had keen sensory abilities of his own, even if he wasn’t making much effort to hide.

Nick extended his senses further, searching for the agents of the Crown, but he couldn’t find them. The Shadows had faded into the dark and were likely watching them, waiting to see who would claim Toneburg's ashes.

Again, he would have preferred their direct aid, but not having them as enemies was almost as good.

Almost an hour later, a booming horn shattered the quiet, and the siege finally began.

The Black Hounds poured through the wide avenues like a tidal wave, quickly gaining ground as they realized no forces stood between them and their target.

Soon, they crashed into the perimeter of the Elpen estate, and the violence began.

Siege engines, useless on the dwarven front because the fighting was taking place in the Underworld, hurled flaming casks of pitch at the shimmering red dome. Mercenary mages unleashed rolling waves of acid, lightning, and chunks of stone at the barrier.

The retaliation was swift. Homunculi scaled the outer walls, firing arbalests into the crowd, while automated defense turrets swept heat beams through the mercenary ranks, leaving smoking trenches in the snow and more than a few missing limbs.

“I don’t see him,” Gaelen grunted over the roar of the explosions. "A Prestige Artificer could handle the first wave in a single strike.”

Indeed, it had been their expectation that Ephor would do just that, and Varg had sent his less-liked underlings ahead for the same reason. Yet the Head of House Ultimer was nowhere to be seen, despite being somewhere in the estate, given that the blood wards were very much active.

Nick closed his eyes, filtering out the noise and diving deep into the ether.

The red dome robbed him of clarity, but it wasn’t enough to keep him from sensing everything. A strange, nauseating friction ground against Nick’s senses, something all too familiar. Grimly, he realized a ritual was beginning to take shape within the Estate.

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