Beast Slayer Online: Initialization
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 64
The potions Bordon had left behind.
Enhanced Thunderbolt, and Enhanced Blizzard.
The former could markedly strengthen the body and, by extension, make every blow land harder. The latter, once adrenaline flooded the veins, would lash the nervous system into a state close to what might be called bullet time.
Drinking both at once was more than even a witcher’s constitution could properly bear. The toxicity began eating at him from within.
When Lannor lowered his head, a drop of blood slid from the tip of his nose and struck the sand. It hissed there, as if the ground itself had been burned.
The protective barrier cast by the sorceress began to flicker, light guttering in and out.
The enemy noticed at once. The moment the magical ward collapsed, six crossbow bolts came whistling toward Lannor.
Three of them mistimed the gap. They struck or scraped against the last remnants of the barrier and were knocked wide. The remaining three slipped just inside the dissolving edge of the protective field.
The crossbowmen were already smiling the moment their bolts left the groove. A few even lifted their hands, ready to clap palms and mark the end of a rare little hunt.
He was kneeling, eyes shut. To make sure they hit, all three had aimed for the largest target, the torso.
No one could dodge from that posture.
No one.
Then their smiles froze. In the next breath, disbelief opened their mouths.
A black shadow flashed before Lannor. The three crossbow bolts were in his hand.
His wrist turned. The stopped bolts were given motion again.
The men rushing forward with longswords and hammers, ready to smash through what remained of the magical protection, took them full on.
Lannor’s throw was not as strong as a crossbow, of course. But the scum charging him were not wearing plate.
A crossbow bolt did not need much force to enter a man.
Three screams rang out, followed by the dull thud of bodies hitting sand.
But it was not over.
“Where is he? Who saw where he went?”
The crossbowmen shouted in panic.
They had lost sight of the figure who, a heartbeat before, had still been kneeling on the ground.
Only two impact-shaped footprints remained in the sand.
Lannor was tall, heavy, solid in build, yet now he moved with a speed that made him seem thin as paper.
Thunderbolt had strengthened his muscles. Beyond making his strikes heavier, the same change in his legs gave him greater speed. Blizzard made the world before his eyes slow and drag, as if the scene had been dipped in thick oil.
The enemy’s coordination, which had looked smooth enough a moment ago, now opened itself to him in gaps, delays, and clumsy seams.
The crossbowmen tried to track him. Two sharp twangs followed, but the bolts only struck the footprints he had left behind.
“Can’t, can’t keep up ... Why can’t we keep up?”
They could not even turn their crossbows as fast as Lannor moved.
The men handling the close work were all old hands. Though they stood nearer and saw less than the crossbowmen behind them, the instant the laughter at their backs died, they knew something had gone wrong.
Counting on fellowship among cutthroats was laughable.
The swordsmen and hammer-men without shields immediately tried to slip behind those who had them. Some went further and reached to tear shields out of other men’s hands.
In cold-iron fighting, a shield gave a man a sense of safety second only to a reliable comrade and a suit of plate. These thugs, wrapped in little more than beast-hide jackets, now clawed for shields like drowning men for driftwood.
They had all seen what was wrong with Lannor’s size and speed.
None of them wanted to face that monster.
The problem was that Lannor very much wanted to face them.
Hiss.
The sound of blood spraying from a throat could chill the marrow.
It came from a shield-bearing warrior. He clutched uselessly at his neck, but blood kept pouring through his fingers and out of his mouth.
A shield ... was useless?
No one fought for shields after that. The men in front stared for the blink of an eye, eyes wide and white, then did not even dare turn back for a second look.
They ran like mad, wanting only to put distance between themselves and that mutant.
“This is wrong, this is wrong ... He’s not human! He’s a monster!”
That was what they shouted.
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