Ascension of the Primalist [A Tamer Class, LitRPG]

In the end, the black-haired soldier on the left noticed something was wrong first. The burn scar on his cheek tightened as he squinted at his two companions, both swaying where they sat. He turned his blade sluggishly in his hands, already losing the battle against the drain of the poison.

With an unsteady jolt, he forced himself upright. His gaze flicked across the campsite as he blinked rapidly, as if trying to clear the haze clouding his vision.

Seth slipped under the veil of Illusionary Emptiness and began sneaking toward the soldier.

'Be ready,' he told Colossus and Nightmare through Link.

The scarred man extended a hand, seemingly trying to manifest a spell. Aether flickered around his arm, warping the air, but dropped when he winced.

Then confusion twisted his features, and his head snapped toward the iron pot still hanging above the embers. The exact moment the realization dawned on him, Seth stepped out of invisibility and cast Dark Scythes.

The shadowed blades surged along Seth's forearms, hissing toward the man. The spell shredded through the man's weakened body and punched through his back before he could even lift a hand to defend himself.

A wet, choking cry escaped his throat, snapping the other two watchmen from their stupor. They stared in horror at the blades jutting from their comrade's chest.

"What the—" one began, but the other cut him off with a panicked scream.

"Ambush!"

Nightmare and Colossus emerged from Seth's necklace. The direwolf used Shadow Step, dissolving into darkness before reappearing directly behind the second watchman. The soldier lunged for the halberd resting against a nearby log, but he was far too slow.

Gloom Fang's smoke curled and sizzled as Nightmare's jaws clamped onto the man's upper shoulder. Teeth met bone with a sickening crunch.

A howl of agony tore through the quiet forest even as the third watchman swung his sword in a desperate, wild arc. The blade whistled through the air, missing Nightmare's flank by mere inches while the direwolf shook his prey with savage force to use him as a human shield.

Colossus charged into the center of the campsite the moment the other seven soldiers scrambled from their bedrolls. The scorpion moved with ruthlessness. Deathcoil Venom dripped in translucent beads from the tip of his stingers while the three tails lashed out again and again to pierce shoulders, arms, and thighs to inject the weakening toxin into every target within reach.

Seth dashed alongside the scorpion. He swept his arm in wide arcs, his shadow blades slicing through armors and tearing into the flesh of the disoriented soldiers.

His strikes met no shimmering barriers or hastily formed casts; Captain Michaelson's poison had already hollowed out the Wells of all the soldiers, leaving them weak and vulnerable. Only a desperate few managed to trigger the reserves of their Protecting Belts.

The artifacts' blue light flickered weakly through the gloom of the campsite, yet when they tried to regroup, Colossus unleashed Chitinous Taunt. The compulsive screech tore across the clearing, forcing the attention of five soldiers at once. Desert Aegis and Quartz Armor surged over the scorpion's frame, followed by the volatile hum of Explosive Bastion.

Nightmare flowed through the panicked cluster with grace while blurring in and out of Illusionary Emptiness. Slipping past hopeless weapon swings, he reappeared to tear through throats and chests.

The imperial soldiers had been reduced to their raw Toughness and the steel in their hands, and both were failing them. In less than fifteen seconds, seven of the twelve soldiers lay sprawled across the mossy ground, blood trickling across the forest's floor. Seth cast Intermediate Identify on the five survivors around Colossus.