Runeblade

Kaius dashed towards the second hunter that had tried to harass him, bliss and satisfaction pulsing with every beat of his heart.

Even with the regenerative power of its Health and the power of its beastly body, the longfang was in a bad way. Scorched fur revealed boiled flesh, the arcing power of his spell ravaging its frame.

As bad as it looked, Kaius knew it would be worse on the inside. The power of lightning and storm was well known for the vicious internal damage it left in its wake, to say nothing of the shattering resonance of his metamagic.

The hunter whined, snapping at him as he leapt over the ground, lunging in a last ditch attempt to put him on the back foot.

Kaius met the assault with a thrust of his own, enchanted steel guided by skill and dextrous power to lance directly into the wolven creature's eye socket. He barely felt a crunch as his blade cut punched through bone.

The hunter stiffened, empowered vitality forcing it to persist despite its certainty of death. Kaius stepped up out of his lunge, levering his sword up to eviscerate the fatty meat held within.

**Ding! level 15 Longfang Hunter slain - Experience Gained! Bonus Experience for slaying a foe of Significant Strength!**

Grinning at the ease of his victory, he yanked his sword free with a casual flick of his wrists. Previously he would have never dared to aim for such a small target, too much risk of leaving an opening, too easy to defend.

Now though, with his enhanced stats, empowered body, and the thrumming rush of uncapped skills, it was like he was a horse released from the carriage. Unburdened.

The Pack-lord howled beneath his bond-brother’s feet, bucking as its paws scrambled in the dirt, desperate to release itself from its prison. Porkchop growled, pushing down harder with a splintering crack of bone.

Before he could bring his other paw around for a murder-stroke, the other remaining longfangs dashed in in a panic. Battered, bruised, and bleeding from internal wounds, they rushed in all the same.

One dived, going for the small section of Porkchop’s throat that was left unarmored by his gorget. Kaius felt his bond brother move.

He knew Porkchop’s intention as well as his own.

Momentarily lifting up from the pack-lord, Porkchop slammed his paw into the hunter’s side. Jade claws punctured its flesh as if it were an overripe peach, spilling its juices as the beast was sent airborne.

Right towards Kaius.

Howling in fear, trailing a stream of lifeblood, the beast flailed. Kaius set his stance, bracing with his back foot.

He swung.

Kaius let out a hefty roar, pivoting with the full weight of his body. As A Fathers Gift hit the beast, he felt it buck in his hands, trying to lever out of his grip. He snarled, knuckles going white as his missing fingers made themselves known once more.

Leveraging all his enhanced strength he kept a hold of his blade, pivoting his full weight through his hips to bisect the hunter at the waist. Entrails spilled, and the green grass of the frontier was painted in bright carmine.

The hunter’s jaw flapped soundlessly, severed lungs unable to give it breath. Pivoting through the movement, Kaius put it out of its misery, planting his blade through its skull.

**Ding! level 17 Longfang Hunter slain - Experience Gained! Bonus Experience for slaying a foe of Significant Strength!**

**Ding! Runeblade Initiate has reached class level 6!**

**+3 End, Str, & Int, +2 Dex, Wil, +1 Vit, Free - from Class & Racial Traits!**

A half a moment later, he felt Porkchop plunge his claws into the skull of the Pack-lord, ending the would-be threat.

**Ding! level 32 Longfang Pack-lord slain - Experience Gained! Bonus Experience for slaying a foe of Significant Strength!**

**Ding! Runeblade Initiate has reached class level 7!**

**+3 End, Str, & Int, +2 Dex, Wil, +1 Vit, Free - from Class & Racial Traits!**

…

**Ding! Runeblade Initiate has reached class level 10!**

**+3 End, Str, & Int, +2 Dex, Wil, +1 Vit, Free - from Class & Racial Traits!**

**Ding! Brotherhood of Ichor and Animus has reached level 31!**.

Power thrummed through him from his class, bolstering every facet of his being.

Totally focused, Kaius spun to the final hunter. He raced towards it, blade held to the side, as the blood of the beast's pack ran off his armour in rivulets.

It was too much for the longfang; letting out a wail of wounded terror it turned and sprinted for the hills, a sudden burst of speed taking it out of the range of Kaius’s spell.

Coming to a skidding stop, Kaius watched the retreating form of the beast in shock. It just…left?

He frowned, blade held loosely at his side.

“I honestly forgot they could do that.” Porkchop said, looking up from his victory to stare at the retreating beast with befuddled disappointment.

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Kaius groaned, raking his shaggy hair out of his face as he realised what had just happened. They weren't in the Depths anymore. Normal beasts didn’t have the unshakeable bloodlust and iron morale of depths-born.

“Bit of a lacklustre end to it all; it’s like dessert just decided to take its leave.” he muttered, bloodsong fading slowly with an unfulfilled twang.

It had been a fight, but he wasn't sure if it was a good one. Where was the risk of death? They’d just utterly crushed something most of the way to the same level as the bloody Guardian that had nearly cost them their lives.

“Pff, don’t be so grouchy.” Porkchop said, reading him like a book as he extracted his claws from his target's skull and stepped off its corpse.A moment later his summoned armour disappeared in a flash of mana.“It’s no wonder we tore through them. Even the Pack-lord would have fallen before us a month ago, and now we have the stats and power of our class and bloodline.”

He knew his brother was right, but it didn’t mean he had to like it. “That thing must have been a beast from before the change to have that level, I'm just worried about what we will have to do to get a good fight now. It’s not like powerful beasts grow on trees, you know.” he muttered.

Porkchop rolled his eyes. “Kaius, for one, it didn't have the enhanced power of a Champion or Guardian. Two, it was an overgrown dog, something bigger would have been much more difficult. Three, I give it a month or two before the mana levels reach a point where you won't be able to throw a stone without hitting something level forty or above. Potentially significantly higher, depending on how bad it gets. I know stories from my people from the far north, where the second tier is common.”

Kaius looked at his companion in surprise. “You’re sure?”

“Maybe not on the time frames, but eventually, yes.” Porkchop confirmed. “It’s like that in the inner Sea. Yes, there is a lot of variation, but the floor will rise. Common beasts and the lower races do … something with mana. It makes them grow without the battle we require. And it will happen quickly, if Ekam is to be believed.”

Kaius winced. That wouldn’t be good. Sure, he was entirely positive that he personally would love it, but excluding the dwarven holds and the elven conclaves, almost everywhere was built on a foundation of relative safety. At least, in the small section of Vaastivar he knew of. Sure, you would want capable guards to ward off monsters, but anything truly dangerous was a rare oddity. Something that had yet to migrate to a region of more comfortable mana density, or had wandered out of such a region for reasons unknown.

If level forty became the average for everything then trade and travel would all but grind to a halt, and the simple necessities such as farming would become monumentally more dangerous.

The second tier… He didn’t even want to think about it. That would mean all but the end for the higher races.

Porkchop’s eyes softened, seeing his worry. He crossed the distance between them to lay his heavy head on his shoulder. Kaius couldn’t help but chuckle at how his bond-brother now had to stoop instead of crane to do so.

“It’s alright Kaius, we’ll figure something out. Look, either way, we absolutely crushed a group of beasts that would have had us fighting for our lives a few weeks ago, and we reached level ten! Whatever happens, we are far ahead of the curve, and if we keep punching above our weight we will only get rewarded further.” Porkchop said, reminding him of their successes.

His brother was right, their gains from what ultimately ended up being a small battle were immense. If this is what was waiting for them if they kept fighting up levels, they were practically destined to be powerhouses.

It would be risky, but they had far more leeway than most. The average delver only had an Uncommon class, with a rare competent few having a Rare in the first tier. No doubt there were those hidden powerhouses that had earned an Unusual, but a Unique? A Heroic? He’d seen the requirements for his class, he simply did not see how anyone could come close.

With their lower stats and less potent skills, fighting upwards was a death sentence, the same went for fighting with anything less than a full team. All it took was one bad match up, one opponent with a power set that countered your own, and you were dead.

He and Porkchop didn’t have those issues, at least, not to the same extent. With the scaling bonus of their Honours and the stat growth of a Heroic class, they were almost certainly stronger than the pack-lord.

“I suppose if we get desperate, we can always return to the Depths. It shouldn’t be too hard to find a portal to a sufficiently deep layer.” Kaius mused. Circling around Porkchop, he grabbed one of their waterskins from their dimensional pack, as well as a soap and rag, before he started to clean himself from the gore of battle.

Porkchop nodded. “Exactly, we’ll have power in spades for our goals. Though, if we are going to seek out threats that are an actual challenge, it will make it that much harder to find a good back line to support us. We don't want to end up with a situation where a single monster makes it past us, killing our team.”

Quickly finishing his wipedown of his face and armour, Kaius set about wiping the worst spots from Porkchop’s new barding. Self Cleaning would take care of it, but cleaning off the globs of viscera that had gotten wedged between his bond-brothers heavy-plate and his under-armour would speed up the process massively.

“I have some thoughts on that,” Kaius said as he picked at a clump of bloody hide that had gotten worked into the leather. “I think the main thing is finding someone we work well with, is trustworthy enough that we don't need to worry about our…blatantly obvious secrets.”

“Such as?” Porkchop asked, lifting one leg to give Kaius better access to a splatter that coated his chest.

“Our strength, as well as glyph-binding and the fact you’re a greater beast. Other than that, I think if we can find a person or two who have at least a Rare class and a smattering of legacy skills, I think we’ll be able to force feed them enough achievements that they will fly up the ranks with their next class advancement.” Kaius explained, retreating from under Porkchop’s bulk.

Rinsing the cloth, Kaius wrung it free of pinkish water before he deposited it back with the rest of their supplies. He’d only used a little water, but even if streams were common in the grasslands, it was best to conserve. Who knew what could happen, and they could both live with a little travel grime.

“Makes sense.” Porkchop said, before he jutted his chin at the slain bodies of the beasts that had attempted to ambush them. “Shall we take some of those for lunch?”

Eying the corpses of the longfangs, Kaius winced at the waste of meat. Unlike the Depths, beasts above wouldn’t just reset. He was in no way opposed to culling a whole herd if he had to, especially to feed his growth, but it still rankled to leave anything to waste.

Consoling himself that he was at least leaving a meal to scavengers, Kaius drew his hunting knife and set about roughly butchering a mostly untouched haunch of the pack-lord. Predator meat was a little gamey, but he hoped its potent vitality would be worth the taste. Besides, he had a larder of spices to use.

He stood, hoisting his choice cut. “Set up over the next hill? It’s down wind.” he asked.

His bond-brother nodded, and they set off.

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