REAPER SCANS
Surviving as a Broken Hero
[Author – Farlight]
[Proofreader – Harley]
Chapter 110 - Hunt (1)
An arrow roared through the air, leaving a concussive boom in its wake and slamming into the massive demon at the forefront who was attempting to break down Karfana’s gates.
Leaving a hole the size of a dinner plate in the demon’s head, the arrow continued through and tore through the demons behind it as well in a cylinder of destruction.
“HA!” Koise lowered his massive bow, sweat beading on his brow.
Standing atop the walls of Karfana and looking out at the demon wave assailing the city, he yelled to Bernard, “That bastard counted as ten!”
Bernard’s greatsword arced through the air in a beautiful display of momentum, cleaving clean through two human-sized demons that’d just scaled the wall. “Figures! I bet I’m still ahead though!”
Demon corpses piled at the big man’s feet. All over the wall, similar scenes played out—Awakeners were letting loose for the first time in what felt like forever.
Momentarily forgetting his despair at being kicked from the Lion Guild and at the demons’ corruption of Londo, Koise reveled in the feel of focusing on his bow—each draw of the string, every arrow released, the twanging sound of a successful shot.
They were all simple pleasures he’d almost forgotten about since being dragged into what more and more felt like a losing war against the demons assaulting humanity on all fronts, both overtly and not.
Bernard felt similarly. He smiled even while small cuts stung in the open air of the midday sun. He was an adventurer at heart and, as much as he wanted to help save the Unawakened in stasis in the dungeons, it took a certain thrill-seeking attitude to actively court danger so often, even if he did it for the sake of others.
The city seemed to be holding fine—demons weren’t overwhelming the walls too badly elsewhere.
Karfana was small enough that the relatively meager number of Awakeners still there could move around and reinforce the defense where it was weakest.
Also, they saw brief gouts of flame from time to time as Eve moved along the walls, incinerating any demons threatening to overtake the Awakeners.
They all lost themselves in the feeling of gaining experience and levels, all hoping to contribute the most and kill the most demons so they could earn the top rewards.
“I’m at fifty-two now!” Bernard yelled, stabbing his sword through a demon trying to scale the wall with its claw-like appendages.
Koise smirked, “Fifty-seven for me!”
“Damn! Why do the big ones have to be worth so much?”
“You know what they say…” Koise said, pulling back his bowstring to the max and unleashing another skill. His mana was already dangerously low, but it didn’t look like there’d be any need to conserve it.
“The bigger they are…” He squinted at a monstrous corrupted orc in the distance as it ran its way through the demons, barreling straight for Karfana’s gates.
In the next moment, the arrow flashed from his bowstring, and a brief silence followed the glint of light reflecting off the arrowhead in flight before a sonic boom erupted.
A light gust of wind followed, blowing Koise’s hair in the direction of his arrow.
Dead before it could even process the hole in its head, the corrupted orc fell into a chaotic tumble and mowed down countless other demons with its body.
“Oh, that one gave me fifteen.”
“Tsk!” Bernard gritted his teeth, frustrated. “That’s it! You can use some of those arrows to actually defend yourself. I’m going in!”
“Into what?” Koise asked, raising an eyebrow as he glanced down between the hordes of demons clambering at the wall and Bernard.
Slightly tilting his head, Bernard grinned at Koise. “Match this.”
A moment later, he casually stepped from the wall, plummeting downward toward the demons waiting on the ground.
The horde looked up and raised their weapons, eager for an easy kill.
That easy kill never came.
Instead, Bernard used his skills mid-fall, depleting almost half of his mana instantly.
[Momentum
- Amplify the momentum of your body by 3 for a devastating blow.]
[Entrench
- Amplify your weight by 10 to become immovable.]
[Amplify
- Increase the area of your next blow.]
[«Strike»]
Instead of aiming at a demon, he shot downward like a bullet and struck the flat of his blade into the earth, the increased area and force of the blow spreading outward in an aura of pressure that vaporized a wide swathe of demons around him into a wet mist.
Working like an invisible press, the area around him became a field of death, even if only for a moment.
“That’s twenty!” he yelled up at the wall, where Koise was watching.
Shaking his head, Koise mumbled, “This guy’s something else…”
If he wanted to be the one with the most contribution, he had his work cut out for him.
* * *
Reaper Scans
[Author – Farlight]
[Proofreader – Harley]
Join our discord for updates on releases! https://dsc.gg/reapercomics
* * *
Meanwhile, on the other side of the city…
Demon attacks continued on the walls, but Velle and Rhil had another goal in mind: they had to leave the city and track down Alikr before he could escape the range of the tracking scroll.
Given that Rhil couldn’t use her mana, Velle moved a bit ahead and scouted out the safest exit from the city.
“Here,” she said, leading Rhil up the cracked stair alongside the wall. “I’ll have to use a skill to get us out, but we should still have plenty of time. If what Aizen said is true, then Alikr should be in a bad state.”
“You think you’ll be enough?” Rhil asked as she ascended to the top of the wall and stood beside the other woman.
There were still a few demons trying to scale the walls there, but the handful of lower-level Awakeners manning that section kept them at bay.
“You don’t think I will be?” Velle asked. “I know Bernard is the flashy one, but I can hold my own, you know.”
“It’s not that…” Rhil trailed off, still not wanting to admit that she was as good as dead weight if it came to a fight against any Awakener, let alone someone like Alikr.
Understanding what Rhil was trying to say, Velle placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Relax. He’s injured, and I already told you… I can hold my own.”
‘Come to think of it,’ Rhil thought, ‘She was pretty good at getting the Unawakened here safely…’
During their escort mission, Velle used her water-based abilities to keep the demons away from their targets. How strong would she be if bent on pure destruction?
“Are you ready?” Velle asked, snapping Rhil from her thoughts.
Rhil gave a nod in response. “Let’s get this over with and get back before anyone starts missing us.”
Again, images of Aizen flashed through her mind. ‘How could he just up and leave when demons were attacking and we were mid-conversation?’
It was a far cry from the days of them sharing baked sweets in the early morning hours.
Channeling her mana through the crystal on her staff, Velle recited a few incantations that would get them off the wall, away from the demons, and into the forest, where they could begin their hunt in earnest.
“«Wall of Waves, Frigid Domain».” She swept her staff outward toward the forest, and a wave of water manifested from the crystal at the end of it.
Multiplying upon itself, the wave extended outward in a condensed lane of water and swept the demons in its path away.
Before it could simply seep into the ground, the water gathered at either end of the lane it’d cleared and rose into a wall of liquid before freezing, creating a central, protected path for them through the demons.
“Come on,” Velle said, waving Rhil onward. “We have to move before they break through. It won’t last long.”
Velle hopped from the wall. Even as a mage, her Awakened stats were high enough for her to absorb the impact through her body. A normal human would’ve likely broken their legs or even worse from such a fall.
She turned around, the walls of ice on either side of her, and held out her hands.
“Jump! I’ll catch you!”
“This is your plan?!”
“Hurry!”
Letting out a breath of exasperation, Rhil looked down. She’d never been one for heights. ‘Funny. Imagine what those who called me the ‘Skybreaker’ would think.’
‘Screw it.’ Death was better than having everyone view her as a liability.
She jumped.
Air whipped at her face and clothes, and she contemplated whether it’d hurt when she hit the ground, but then the breath was forced from her lungs when Velle caught her.
“See? Not so bad, was it?”
Still in the other woman’s arms, Rhil took in a shaky breath and gave her a slight smile. “Yeah. Let’s get going.”
Velle put her down, and the two ran through the icy hall Velle had created, the demons on either side of the wall already cracking the ice with their furious attacks on the new structure.
Vapor drifted from the ice in a miniature climate of light fog and chill in defiance of the bright sun and the warm sky overhead. Luckily, the demons weren’t smart enough to simply go to the other end of it and block the exit.
The two emerged into the trees and kept running through the underbrush, Velle slowing herself so she could watch over Rhil’s progress.
A short while later, the icy walls collapsed behind them, crushing some of the demons who’d been trying to break them down.
When she judged it was safe enough, Rhil stopped to catch her breath for a moment.
“When we get back…” Velle said, replacing the cracking mana crystal on the end of her staff with a new one, “I look forward to seeing what you can do.”
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