Chapter 357: Still Not Enough
Kael hit the battlefield like a dropped cannonball.
The first troll beneath him barely managed to look up before Kael’s fist connected with its face. Fire erupted through the impact, not as one of the controlled spheres he had been launching from his gauntlet earlier, but as a direct discharge through the punch itself.
Orange flame swallowed the troll’s head. Its enormous body remained standing for half a second before collapsing backward, smoke pouring from the blackened ruin above its shoulders.
Kael landed beside it just as another troll roared and swung a club toward him. He ducked beneath the tree trunk, felt the displaced air pass over his head and drove his left fist into the creature’s swollen stomach.
Frost exploded through the contact.
White spread across the troll almost instantly. Its belly froze first, followed by its chest and both arms as ice raced through its flesh faster than the creature could understand what was happening. Kael stepped forward and delivered one more punch.
The frozen troll shattered. Chunks of flesh and ice scattered across the battlefield, bouncing and sliding between the feet of the surrounding monsters.
Kael looked down at his gauntlets. "All right. That felt different."
The additional attributes had not merely increased his raw strength. His body responded faster to every movement, his balance corrected itself without conscious thought, and the internal energy passing through his channels felt easier to direct.
More importantly, he finally had enough of it to spend.
So Kael spent it, though not recklessly. He had learned that lesson after turning his cannon into a puddle.
The goblins did not deserve runes. Neither did the surviving hobgoblins mixed throughout the army.
A goblin rushed toward him with a spear. Kael slapped the weapon aside and punched the creature in the chest, collapsing its ribs beneath his fist. Another approached from behind, but he caught it by the shoulder, lifted it from the ground and threw it into three others.
No Fire, Frost or Heft.
Just strength.
His runes were reserved for the real problem: the trolls.
One of the massive creatures lumbered toward the gate with a tree trunk resting across one shoulder. Kael intercepted it before it could reach the entrance.
The troll swung downward. Kael stepped aside, allowing the trunk to crater the ground beside him, then placed one hand against the creature’s forearm and released Fire.
The troll screamed as its flesh ignited from within. Kael followed with a punch to the elbow, breaking the joint, before driving another fist into its ribs. The creature collapsed, and he immediately moved toward the next one.
"NEXT!" Kael howled as his eyes were finding a dangerous joy in the thrill of this battle.
The trolls were dangerous because they were siege weapons with legs. That also made them easy to identify.
Kael ignored almost everything else.
Goblins stabbed at him, orcs tried to intercept him, and hobgoblins roared as they swung clubs toward his back. He avoided what he could and physically broke anything that became too inconvenient, but every time he spotted another troll moving toward the gate, he changed direction.
A Frost-covered fist shattered the first troll’s knee. Kael climbed onto the collapsing creature and punched through the side of its skull.
Fire burned through the throat of the second.
The third did not even require a rune. Kael stepped beneath its club, drove both fists into its stomach and kicked the side of its knee when it doubled over.
They were hulking masses of muscle and filth, but they all buckled down all the same when their joints were shattered. Thankfully these ones seemed not like the Trolls he heard about in the normal Tower of Trials. These don’t regenerate or heal.
Turning to the fourth troll, he activated Heft for only a moment. His gauntlet became impossibly heavy at the instant his fist struck the troll’s chest, and the impact folded the creature inward. Kael deactivated the rune immediately afterward.
Small bursts. That was the key.
He did not need to keep the abilities active. He only needed to activate them, strike and stop before they consumed more energy than necessary.
A troll charged him with a metal-banded club. Kael sidestepped, allowing the creature to stumble past him, then grabbed the back of its armor and planted one foot against the ground.
The sudden increase in his physical strength surprised even him.
The troll’s feet left the ground. Kael twisted and hurled the enormous creature sideways, sending it crashing through a cluster of goblins before it rolled onto its back.
Kael reached it before it could stand. Fire gathered around his fist, and a single punch ended it.
His contribution continued climbing, but Kael barely looked at the number. The gate mattered more. Every troll he killed meant one less tree trunk striking the reinforced doors.
Another tried to reach them, and Kael intercepted it. Then another appeared, followed by another.
By the time the fighting around the southern entrance began to thin, fifteen more trolls lay dead. Most of the siege force that had been hammering this particular gate had been wiped out. The remaining goblins and orcs continued attacking, but their weapons could not reproduce the damage the trolls had inflicted.
Kael looked toward the wall.
Time to move.
He ran toward the fortress, kicked aside a goblin attempting to stop him and jumped against the stone. His fingers caught one of the seams, and he immediately began climbing.
His new Dexterity made the ascent almost laughably easy. Hand, foot, push, catch. Kael moved upward in short bursts, crossing distances that would have required careful climbing before. The stone offered dozens of usable holds, and his body seemed to recognize each one before he consciously chose it.
A goblin climbing beside him turned its head. Kael pushed away from the wall, kicked the creature in the chest and caught another seam without losing any of his upward momentum.
The goblin fell while Kael continued.
He reached the battlement and pulled himself over. Several soldiers cheered when they saw him, but Kael ignored them and immediately checked his internal energy.
His expression tightened. "Already?"
He had entered the fight with slightly more than half his reserve restored. Now, he barely had more than a third.