Liberty and Death: Chapter 62
Chapter 62
The Shimmer Titan roared, the blood gushing from the twinned wound Cora had gifted it via Donovan already beginning to stem. Kyra dashed over and around it, stabbing and slashing, but the flames of her skills didn’t burn hot enough to overcome its fearsome vitality. Not yet, at least.
Cora rushed towards it, rearing a fist back for a blow that Lacey delivered, a sickening crack! sounding out as its knee bent backwards. With a snap! just as disgusting, the knee popped back into place, and Lacey’s victorious cackle became an annoyed groan as she faded back into fantasy.
Cora, for her part, had appeared halfway up the Titan’s thigh, digging in with [Rib Cutter] and crawling her way up to place [Vector Driver] against its hip joint.
Jesus christ that is tiring, she thought, breathing hard and heavy. {Stunt Double} was amazing, but the effort….
She pushed it to the back of her mind, Angela’s own ability to ignore exhaustion helping immensely.
‘Tiredness is nothing, Cora, your body goes on.’
Easy for the girl without a body to say, Cora said, but grit her teeth, and unleashed a volley into the fragile joint.
Repeated explosions of gore painted her red, but the limb remained stubbornly attached, and a swipe from one of the thing’s massive arms forced her to retreat.
A roar erupted from across the street, and from the few remaining buildings, Links and Chained began to flood the street, rushing past Cora into Luxholme’s open gates.
“Damn it!” Cora roared, the titan not letting up long enough for her to help stem the tide.
But that’s why she’d invested time and resources into another team.
[Bertha] clattered to life once more in Fern’s hands, and had a much greater effect on these foes than it had the titan. Nor was it alone, as a delighted cackle preceded an absolute deluge of flame from Luxholme’s front door, killing few, but burning many.
A sharp, echoing Crack! from one of the second floor windows drew a groan of pain out of the Shimmer Titan, and Cora followed its source to see Trish working the capacitor bolt on the Railgun they’d taken off the Ultspire guard.
The weapon might not be [Integrated] but technology counted for something, and it had blown a chunk out of the Titan’s shoulder so deep that Cora could see twisted bone.
“Kyra! Focus in!” Cora called, sending a few follow up shots to keep that flesh from regenerating. That bone was tough though, even [Vector Driver] was only chipping at it.
Kyra danced among the monster’s feet, and its exposed insides began to blaze, as a hundred tiny cuts became a hundred tiny flames.
With Angela’s speed, Cora burst forward, running straight up the monster’s leg, stabbing in [Rib Cutter] and using it as a piton to fling herself upwards before her momentum could lose out.
Reaching the grisly wound, she braced herself, latching a hand onto the twisted bone.
“Let’s see if this counts a harvesting,” she muttered.
Eh +150%
Huh, wasn’t even trying.
She raised [Rib Cutter] and slammed it down onto the exposed bloody bone.
The Titan howled as the bone cracked, and slammed its fist into its own shoulder.
That impact probably would have crushed Cora, if Lacey hadn’t appeared, feet planted on the bone, to absorb the hit with the kind of insane glee that had been hard to shake even after Cora was done with Miss Fortune.
So, without all that much input from Cora, the Titan’s blow was what ripped its own arm off. Mostly. Technically, it was still hanging on by a few threads of grisly muscle and skin.
Cora jabbed [Rib Cutter] into the exposed marrow of its stump, then jammed [Vector Driver] into the meat, working that trigger like her life depended on it.
It probably did.
Through the spray of burning blood and, a throbbing, pulsing heart was unearthed by the repeated shots. Cora smirked.
“Mom always said I was gonna be a heartbreaker.”
Excellent!! +750%!!! The system announced as one final bolt from [Vector Driver] turned the Titan’s heart into meat confetti, and it slumped to the ground, Cora barely able to get out of the way of being crushed.
“Not done yet, Cora!” Trish yelled, and the deafening ‘snap!’ of her Railgun had been replaced with the sharp ‘crack!’ of her battle rifle as she picked off easier targets than the Titan.
Cora turned, but found pride instead of panic. The banfaeni were showing that the people of Luxholme, within their own walls, weren’t to be fucked with.
Fern had handed off [Bertha] to Polly, and now laid about with glowing mace and shining shield, both cased in the golden aura of her healing ability, turned to anathema on her enemies.
[Fern Janey][Level 6 Paladin(E)]
What few hits the Links landed on her faded almost as quickly as they appeared, her cowl of righteous light rejecting their right to harm her.
Behind her, Polly was well on her way to earning her class. [Bertha] would have been too much for her to handle standing, but braced on the overturned bookshelf she was using as cover? Good night Links. Cora even saw her bullets tear apart a Chained.
From the grand staircase above, a cackling Ysna tossed fireballs like she was handing out candy at a parade, and Cora could almost feel how stressed it was making Lux.
The biggest surprise though, was Emily.
She’d been the last to join Fern’s away team, following her fallen sister. And Renly had fallen. Cora had helped yank her off a nepo-baby’s spider limb herself.
So as to why Renly was beside Emily, mirroring her every move as the girl screamed and raged, laying about with a wicked glaive?
Well, the answer could only be magic, and a [Class]
[Emily Pius][Level 5 Remembrancer (A)]
There was no arguing the Chains hadn’t come Correct. It just wasn’t going to be enough, especially not with Iain in their midst, leaking smoke and dealing death even as he directed the others.
A BOOM! yanked Cora’s head back around before she’d even decided if she was going to help out her crew or let them farm Shimmer.
Dust was still shaking off Luxholme’s wall as Hawk slid down it, leaving a bloody smear as she did.
Oh shit.
Behind the thinning tide of Chains, stood a man, larger than the rest, in size and bearing.
He held himself straight, and prouder than a slaver had any right to. A black and red waistcoat in a military cut would have been enough to mark him as a Link himself, even if his face wasn’t wrapped in thin, intricate chains itself. His features were completely obscured, all save for a pair of cool eyes, nearly as beautiful and blue as Cora’s own.
Instinctively, Cora knew this was who had sent Hawk flying, and knew that starting a fight without a plan would just get her killed.
Next to her, Hawk groaned, but was already getting back to her feet. She roared, and stamped her foot like she was an actual bull in preparation for a charge.
Well, might be I don’t get a choice.
[???][Level 6 Class Traitor (A)]
With footsteps that shook the street, Hawk began her charge, and Cora followed.
Level 6? Can’t be that bad right?
CORA WAI–
The man was blindingly fast. At least as fast as Kyra, maybe as fast as Cora was now, and had the [Dex] to back it up.
He dodged Hawk’s charge, then shot towards Cora, arm outstretched for her throat.
Still, he couldn’t have been expecting Cora to have the astronomical [Agi] she was currently sporting, and she got out of his way as easily as he’d dodged Hawk.
Two follow-up shots with [Vector Driver] glanced off a shield, and Cora realized she was going to need to do some goddamn research on shield tech. Was it like Dune? How did every bad guy have one!
She didn’t have time to ponder, as <???> changed direction as quickly as she had, still following her with that arm outstretched.
He was ready for her dodge this time, and Cora was forced to have Cadey take her place just before those fingers closed around her throat.
Behind him, Cora saw Cadey’s defiant grin, eyes already going blood red from the pressure.
“Harder, Da–” she choked, before, with a soft snap, she cut off, and Cora felt her fall away.
Cora roared in wordless fury, driving [Rib Cutter] into the man’s back.
It pierced his shield, but it barely even broke his skin.
CORA!
HE’S ALMOST CERTAINLY GOT A PRESTIGE CLASS
THAT LEVEL 6 IS PROBABLY MORE LIKE A LEVEL 30!
Oh fu– was all Cora had time to think before the man’s spinning backhand hit her like a train. She went flying back, slamming into the base of the guard tower and losing any breath she’d had left.
As her eyes refocused, she saw an Avengers-ass fight scene unfolding.
Kyra darted around <???> slashing where she could, ducking where she couldn’t, while Hawk gave up trying for big hits, instead coming back in with a buttoned up boxing style stance.
The Hawk could take hits with the best of 'em, but this guy’s hits were something else.
As she caught a straight on her forearms, raised in guard, Cora watched the skin explode off of her plating, the force sliding her back a couple feet.
Still, that left Kyra enough time to dart in, and deliver a cut to the back of the man’s thigh.
He growled in pain, and smoke began to curl from beneath his mask of chains.
“KNEEL!” He commanded, in a tone that brooked no disobedience, and Kyra and Hawk both fell to their knees. He pulled back a hand for a strike that would certainly kill Kyra.
Cora was moving. Off her knees, to her feet, then to the wind, as she poured on the speed.
“They don’t KnEEL!” she roared, letting Lacey finish the word as she delivered the blow Cora had been building towards.
LIBERATING! +800%
The man flew backwards, tumbling through the rubble across the street.
Cora threw Kyra over her shoulder, and started dragging Hawk back through Luxholme’s gates.
“Close ‘em!” Cora ordered, and Lux slammed herself closed. In the moment before they met, though, Cora caught a flash of cool blue, the man’s eyes locked on hers as she retreated to the safety of her home.