Aetherios System: Whirlwind

Book 3: Chapter 4: Glass Fangs

The day and following night had been quiet, which was suspicious in itself. In Alex’s experience, nights were rarely quiet unless something was about to go catastrophically wrong. The only sounds were the occasional crackle from the dying campfires and the deep, rhythmic snoring of the draft lizards, who were occasionally outdone by the roaring sound of Doran’s slumber, periodically through the night.

Tom-Tom was curled up under his pot helmet, muttering in his sleep. Garret had taken up watch duty, occasionally poking the fire with the seriousness of a man who thought this fire contained the answers to life itself, and he needed to find the center of it. Alex leaned against a wagon wheel, half-asleep, half-alert, because in this world, being fully asleep usually meant rapidly becoming fully dead. And then the world decided to scream.

A howl split the night, so piercing it felt like it stabbed Alex violently through both ears at once. The draft beasts screamed in response, rousing their handlers. Garret dropped the stick into the fire, giving up his treasure hunt. Tom-Tom immediately sat up and yelled, “I not stealing food this time! It was not Tom-Tom!”

From the treeline, they came; sleek, glass-fanged shapes which slowly moved and glinted under the bare moonlight, the sparkle of their teeth and fur giving an impression like someone had smashed a carefully crafted crystal sculpture, and decided to weaponize the pieces. Their bodies shimmered with crystal shards that caught the light as they darted between the trees and bushes, their movements unnervingly precise.

“Glassfang Jackals!” Someone screamed, because the obvious always needed to be announced in these situations.

The first wave hit like a storm of glittery knives. Razor sharp shards shot from their fur as they leapt, each crystal fragment heard humming with an eerie vibration. One embedded itself into the side of a wagon, slicing through the wood and crippling the vehicle, like a mafia boss going for kneecaps with a hammer.

Chaos bloomed everywhere around him. To his left, merchants dove under wagons, clutching bags of trade goods with all the desperation of men who knew they’d rather die than explain to their boss why they lost the spice shipment. Mercenaries scrambled to form a defense, blades flashing in the firelight.

Kate’s blade ignited with a hiss, fire dancing along the edge as she charged straight into the fray, cutting down the first jackal that lunged her way. Holly moved in a blur, her sword flashing silver as she vanished into the wind, reappearing behind a jackal with its head already separated from its body. Eric met one head-on, muscles surging with aether; the jackal collided with his fist, earning it a lightning bolt to its head, and promptly reconsidered its life choices. As in, reconsidered continuing life entirely.

Garret slammed his shield into the ground, holding a line against two of the beasts, and grunting through clenched teeth. “You know,” he shouted over the chaos, “I was just starting to like this trip!”

Alex grinned despite himself, energy flaring in his veins as he stepped forward. The crystal-studded predators kept coming, howls and glass shards filling the night. And they were fast.

One landed atop a wagon before anyone could shout, the glass plating along its spine cracking open with the motion and launching a volley of razor-thin shards down like nature’s cruelest splinters. Another slammed into a mercenary’s shield, the weight behind its pounce far greater than its size should have allowed.

Alex was already moving, fists clenched and an aura of aether building around his body in a dark hue. Devon rolled behind a crate, shouting over his shoulder as he pulled out enchanted object after enchant object. “Why are all the monsters in this world made of knives!?”

“No time, just kill!” Kate barked, blade already glowing with another aetheric charge.

The clearing erupted into chaos.

Henry drove a jackal straight into the dirt with a swing of his halberd, the beast snarling as it twisted mid-air to snap at him. Liquid -like aether flowed along Henry’s arms as he dropped the creature, then followed with a huge explosion of water that both cratered the ground beneath and the beast’s skull at once.

“You good?” Cole shouted, sending out chunks of sharp crystal as he smashed through a second beast with a precise sweep of his warhammer.

“Better now,” Henry grunted, shifting his stance.

Nearby, Sarson moved like a blur, he kept his shield slung over his back and instead attack with his dual curved blades, carving clean fiery arcs as he danced between three of the jackals. He didn’t hit hard, but he hit fast, and each movement forced the creatures to reorient. They hissed, their glass-tipped tails lashing like scorpion stingers.

Lance and Peter fought back to back, Lance deflecting strikes with wide, sweeping counters while Peter’s glaive flickered with light, that danced about like holograms. They weren’t showy, but their timing was nearly perfect. Whenever a jackal leapt to attack one of them, the other struck it midair.

Behind the line, Myrae and Allie worked in near silence, light flaring from their hands as they rushed from one fighter to the next. Myrae’s healing magic shimmered with a pale blue color, Allie’s with a warmer amber glow. Between the two of them, bleeding wounds sealed, and bone-deep fatigue lightened by just enough to keep the many fighters standing.

But even with the spells and strength of the mercenaries, the pressure was building.

The dark aura of the [Demon Asura Style] was already rolling along his body as he entered the first stance to the path of Asura. A jackal was running at him, the creature the size of a large dog, fangs made of glittering crystal, and jagged spires running down its back.

As it came within range, he slipped to the side, dodging the echoing snip! of the beast’s bite, before slamming a fist into its side where he assumed its ribs to be. His fist met hard packed flesh and launched the beast back a few feet. He didn’t let it rest, keeping up the pressure, rushing the creature while it tried to recover by sending a barrage of strikes along its body.

Obby highlighted the trajectory paths for him to follow in order to avoid impaling himself on the crystal protrusions of its form. He highlighted the sharp protrusions in a different color, as if Alex couldn’t plainly see them already.

It took a few blows before the internal damage, and the corruption energy of his [Burning Strike]s, finally compounded enough for the creature to die. He got his first kill notification in some days as the jackal wheezed its last breath, the air leaving its body like a shaky windchime.