Enmity of Atlas

“Watch yourself!” Walibeld shouted out, throwing his longsword towards Leo.

The cliff crawlers, little brown fleshy creatures a couple feet long, with a handful of bulbous eyes popping out of their bulging, stout bodies, started to swarm together towards them. In a moment, everyone had to make a decision before being overrun. Trenton slammed his foot into the ground, a stone longsword bursting through the dirt beneath him for him to wield. Leo staggered back towards Trenton, his eyes wild, and his blade held at an awkward angle. Walibeld raised his foot up, slamming it into the ground, causing the edge of the cliff to collapse in a small avalanche of rubble, many of the cliff crawlers falling down with him. Finally, Geren drew a halberd he had sheathed at his back, walking towards the oncoming hoard with unyielding confidence, a slew of sharp blue tattoos appearing on his skin.

However, just as he stepped forward, one massive bladed arm, easily the size of a small building, rose from the cliffside. It towered over them for a moment, casting a great shadow over the earth, before crashing into the ground off to their right, a sizable tremor throwing Leo and Trenton off balance. Then, another arm, this one just as large as the last, rose up and touched down off to the left, surrounding them. Now, right in front of them, the massive ballooning head of a colossal cliff crawler sat looking at them, its many eyes focusing onto Trenton. The vile creature opened its mouth and let loose a horrid hissing sound, which caused the crawlers remaining on the cliff to charge.

Geren smiled, his face shining with a grand luminance brighter than even when they first saw him, a shine even greater than the glowing blue enhancement tattoos strewn about across the surface of his skin.

“Now this is more my speed. You’re just my size,” Geren said,leaping high into the air.

For a moment, Trenton couldn’t even fathom what was happening, but after a moment it dawned on him. Geren the Giant. Aspect. How stupid could he be? Still aloft midair, Geren began to grow, his body, halberd, and clothes stretching multiple times beyond his original size, until he was blotting out the sun above them. For a moment, he hung there, a literal mountain of a man held aloft like a graceful angel about to play the harp, before he came crashing down. Feet first, his massive body plowed into the colossal cliff crawler, ripping its hands out of the ground and sending both of them toppling over the ledge, a resounding quake, which rattled Trenton down to his very core, following a couple seconds after.

When Trenton managed to reground himself, he saw several dozen cliff crawlers, a couple currently climbing over the ledge, circling around him and Leo, their bladed arms held high. Next to Trenton, Leo stood quivering, his head swinging wildly about, his face whiter than a snowy mountain peak, his breath as rapid as the rushing Liafer.

“Calm down. We’ve trained for this. Exploit their weakness. Focus on ranged combat and use your blade to defend any that approach,” Trenton said, glancing over to see Leo not listening in the slightest.

A move needed to be made, and right now. Trenton dug his blade into the earth, commanding a dozen small boulders to burst out of the ground. The boulders, traveling in a shallow arc, bowled over several of the less observant crawlers circling around them, the rest ducking out of the way. The crawlers charged, suddenly spurred on by the offensive force. Using his blade, Trenton used his range advantage to cut through some of their crawlers, their guts spilling about and making the ground slippery. He took a couple retreating steps to get out of the gory pile, using his footfall to summon several small earth spikes which skewered a couple advancing crawlers through their fat little buddies. Trenton felt a stinging pain in his thigh, a small cliff crawler digging into his flesh with its blades. He swung his leg, throwing it off of him, and catching another crawler’s head in the same motion, caving its skull in with his foot.

Behind him, Leo yelped. Around him, the corpses of a couple crawlers sat splayed out. Clearly he had some combat prowess, even if he did struggle to compose himself in the face of an actual threat, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Crawlers, still many of them untouched, began swarming around them. Three stab wounds, one through his foot, one by his calf, and one by his abdomen suddenly appear on Trenton, the creatures all around them slowly climbing their bodies to reach more vital points. The sheer mass of them threatened to push Trenton over into a waiting pit of sharp blades, certain death if he did nothing, but he had an idea.

Trenton gave into the crushing force, twisting around as he fell backwards, and slammed his arm through the mass of crawlers below them, a dozen lacerations tearing through his arm. He connected with the ground, channeling as much energy as he could for one last desperate cast, the ground yielding to his command.

Although most magic types didn’t have any particular benefit to movement, certain motions simply making casting easier, geomancy was different. Not only did a geomancer need to be directly touching the earth to use their magic, the strength of their cast was partly determined by the strength with which they struck the ground, meaning that even a weak geomancer could use a powerful technique if they were willing to throw caution to the wind. And in this moment, worried for both Leo’s life and his own, Trenton did exactly this.

As his arm made contact with the ground, it shattered, the bones snapping and cracking from the force, pushing their way out through Trenton’s elbow and shoulder to relieve the sudden burst of pressure built up in his body. But, in return, more energy than he’d ever used before was channeled directly into the ground below him.

Faster than they could react, two massive diagonal pillars of stone slammed into Trenton and Leo’s bodies, sending both of them sailing through the air away from the crawler death pit, the sudden force causing their rib cages to crack and blood vessels to burst. The pain was great, but as Trenton sailed through the air, he felt victorious. Any violent cast which might have killed the crawlers, spikes for example, would have undoubtedly killed Trenton and Leo as well, but this spell, one designed entirely to relocate them, served perfectly to remove them from the sticky situation they were in. With how much energy he used, it was a miracle he even got an effect close to what he wanted.

Trenton slammed into the ground, creating a fine trail of blood as he rolled along the ground. His entire body ached, his right arm felt oddly numb, and he was exhausted from the magic, but he managed to get himself and Leo out of near certain death. Even with all the training that they’d gone through, there was no way they would’ve been able to take on that many crawlers in such a bad position. Now, however, as the bodies of crawlers caught in the spell come raining down, some of them landing on their head with a great crack and falling limp, there was a chance. The crawlers, the ones that even managed to survive, would be severely weakened, many of them currently struggling to their feet after the sudden impact.

Trenton rolled over, channeling his presence into his arms and legs to force himself to his feet, a sizable pool of blood slowly growing beneath him. Trenten staggered upright, his eyes scanning the environment around him. Luckily he managed to keep enough control over the spell to send most of the crawlers with him instead of Leo, Leo having only a couple still moving near him a ways back. He would have no trouble dealing with that. Around Trenton, however, about a dozen crawlers staggered to their feet, most of them bleeding heavily or injured. Most animals as injured as they would run for their life. But, maybe that’s what made monsters different. As Trenton looked into their big eyes, he saw an ingrained desire to fight to the end, an almost human-esc trait.

Trenton blitzed forward, his stone sword nowhere to be found, to capitalize on the weakened state of the crawlers. As several of them were still trying to stand, Trenton ran over, slamming his foot or fist into their body and feeling their internal organs rupturing from the force of his blows. One tried to take a swipe at Trenton, but he dodged backward, slamming his foot down on top of the creature's face crushing its skull against the ground. Another one down.

Backing up now, Trenton saw them coalesce together in front of him, their great blades digging into the ground to help propel them forward. He wanted to keep them at a distance, hoping to exploit moments of weakness whenever he could, but they were much faster than him, many of them much less injured than him. They overtook him, Trenton flailing about to strike at whatever was nearby. His foot drove into several by his feet, his arms slammed into the side of two by his side, and he managed to roll on top of another one, crushing it’s body with his elbow.

He staggered again to his feet, this time panicking but one latched onto his back, its claws dug deep into his flesh. He fell over, twisting his body around to land on top of it, but it wasn’t dead quite yet. Its blades flourishing about, it dug through Trentons skin, carving a path out from under him, before turning around and climbing onto his chest, its arms held high. Trenton grabbed it in this exact moment, pulling it out from his body with his left arm, so as to exploit its short reach. It thrashed about wildly, lopping bits of flesh and muscle from Trenton’s battered arm, but it couldn’t quite reach him. Using the last of his stamina Trenton shifted his hand, grabbing it’s stomach firmly, before pile driving it’s body into the ground, its innards violently exploding from its corpse in every direction. That was the last one.

Trenton stood up, woozy and injured, but alive. He turned his head to look at Leo just in time to see another crawler leap at him, its blade pointed right at his throat. A crackling sound and a bright flash of light, the prelude to a great expanse of flame which engulfed the crawler several inches from Trenton’s face, the residual heat scorching Trenton’s hairs. The, now seared, body of the crawler fell to the ground. That was close, far too close. Leo limped over to Trenton, his arm still held up from the spell he just cast, and collapsed towards him, using Trenton as a form of support. They sat down together, focusing their presence into the most vital points of their body to slow the blood flow and preserve their rapidly fading lives. Each of them was horribly injured and losing blood in gallons. They’d need attention soon if they expected to live much longer, but without any supplies or magic capable of healing between the two of them, all they could do is wait for Geren or Walibeld to come back.

“Holy shit. I can’t believe we just did that. And, gods does it hurt,” Leo said, clutching his side with his hand.

“Looks like all that,” Trenton paused, light headed from blood loss, “training paid off…well, kind of,” Trenton looked over at his right arm, torn and sundered so completely he wasn’t even sure if it could be healed. The spell saved their lives, and it killed about a dozen cliff crawlers on its own, but the toll was heavy. His arm practically looked deflated with how horrible the muscles were torn, many chunks of bone visibly sticking out at various points. “Still can’t take a hit.”

But even as Trenton looked at his mangled body, feeling the intense pain of his many injuries all throughout, he smiled. He did it. Not just his first real fight, but one he had no right winning. He had no training whatsoever against hordes, but he did it. He won. And because of it, they were both alive, injured, but alive.