Chapter 142

“Is that what I think it is?” murmured Rain.

“He used these tiny deadly fireballs, lots of them, and they just went through everything,” said Opal. “He didn’t seem to care very much. I guess if they didn’t stop when they went through you...”

“Hey, what are you saying?” said Rose, unable to take her eyes off the maid.

Opal shrugged. “Those guards said attack. I don’t think they meant the Lord, I think they meant everywhere. I think the guards didn’t come sooner because of those fireballs if they’ve been going through all the walls in this place, a lot of people have probably been killed by them.”

Rain began to step around the body, but then the door ahead opened. A Human stood there, one of the guards from the dining room below.

The guard looked between the dead maid and the bear.

“H-hey- Help! It’s here! It killed a servant!”

“Do something leveler girl,” hissed Opal.

“I don’t- uhm,” Rose bit her lip as the guard turned wary eyes on them, gripping his halberd tight. “Th-the golem-

The guard narrowed his eyes in disbelief.

“-the monster is under my control!” Rose finished weakly.

“If that’s true miss then you will submit to our word while we sort this out. Have that thing lie on the ground and toss aside any weapons.” He glanced down at the maid. “You see how this looks.”

More guards were spilling in behind him as he spoke, Lamia and various other species, each raising bits of steel and eyeing the bear warily.

“There’s more dead in the Lord’s chamber,” came muttered words from behind the guard. The guards became even more wary.

Rose glanced up at Rain in question, wanting to know if they should do as the guards said, but he shook his head.

“No. And you know why.” he gravelled. It wasn’t even a question really. Wranvyre was dead, a lot of people in the mansion were likely injured or dead from the fireballs. There were half a dozen dead female Lamia in the Lord’s chambers, and finally, he had had a sheep girl with him who every single leveler on the estate wanted dead and would happily kill him to get at, even without any of that they might kill him just for a boost in levels, pretend slave or not.

Rain took a step back from the guards.

The guards took a step forward.

Rain turned and fled back through the door.

The guards roared their indignation at this.

He charged through the hallways back the way they had come, this time without time to carefully open doors he smashed them aside with a flick of his arm.

He made it back to the Lord’s rooms far faster than when they had departed and he flung himself into the air as he entered, a great leap that took him up and then down, falling through one of the many holes in the floor where he came down on top a half destroyed dining table the thing immediately flattened by the impact.

“Ooh gods help me!” wailed Rose with the landing, her coils clutching desperately tight as her belly wobbled.

A dozen startled guards watched while he leapt from the table and charged through the dining room doors vanishing into the rooms beyond.

It seemed like a moment’s reprieve from the chase as they were slow to follow, but then he came through into a larger hall and found most of the original guards who’d been chasing them and many more. That was the problem with running from people who knew a place back to front and top to bottom, they could predict exactly where you might go.

He made a hard right and crashed through a pair of double doors, ripping them from their hinges, cries of anger hot on his bear heels. Rain charged down the corridor, an unending tide of levelers chasing him.

“Tell me how to get out of here Rose!”

“Uh, uh, I don’t know from here! You’ll need to go down, uh, down the stairs, which are back there where the guards are!”

The levelers weren’t stopping, magic filled the hallway behind him, a storm of fiery death that tore at the walls, far more dangerous than when the incensed teenagers had been after his tail.

Rain leaned forward and ran for it, belting down the corridor, feet pistoning against the marble and shattering tile after tile. But even with his great speed there were always many more levelers, those coming to see the commotion, and more.

Well, if there was no way out of this trap then he would just have to make one. He took aim for the blank stone wall at the end of the corridor.

The wall exploded as he smashed into it, doing his best to protect Rose and Opal as he hit the stone by turning to his side and curling over them, using his shoulder to pierce the stone.

He found himself flying through the air several stories above the ground, just as he had above the Lord’s room moments before.

He came down with a crash, his feet making small twin craters in the cobble before instantly launching himself forward, reusing his momentum. A moment later a hail of magic came down where he had just been, lighting and fire and ice crashing across the stone, turning it into thousands of stone splinters in a moment.

Rain charged through the estate, massive ornate buildings and decorative gardens flashing by, startled and expensively dressed Lamia staring at the giant sprinting bear plushie.

He knew he couldn’t get out through the walls, the walls of the estate were like any town, heavily and dangerously enchanted, so that left just one viable route.

He ran for the front gates.

They were in luck. The front gates had been left open, the carriages of the Lord left out while their endless luggage was taken inside and the monstrous horses were seen too. But that was nearly done with by the time Rain caught sight of the giant wooden doors, and the guards hearing the frantic cries of ‘monster’ from those chasing behind were rapidly closing them.

In fact when the guards saw the giant teddy bear storming toward them they panicked and began to close the doors much faster.

He still almost made it, a mere dozen feet away from being able to slip through, but then the impossibly thick solid doors slammed shut with a deafening boom and a second later lit up bright with myriad angular enchantments carved across their surface.

Rain hit hard, feet first, all the weight and strength he could bring to bear in one desperate leap.

The huge doors crackled with light and magic, straining under the immense impact, the wood bulging outward.

They still held.

But that wasn’t what Rain had been aiming for. A smaller door was set into the much larger doors, a servants door. Rain’s full weight smashed into it at the exact moment it closed, the smaller runes on its surface only just starting to glow like the larger door.

The small door held for all of a second before being launched outward, the entire thing tearing from its frame, a giant bear riding it down onto the cobble outside, the wooden rectangle sliding halfway across the square like some kind of impromptu sled until it came to a stop and the bear was forced to stagger into a run once more.

Behind him nearly a hundred levelers poured through the once more opening main doors, and more, there were levelers waiting outside who heard the chaser’s cries of monster and joined, swelling the ranks of the furious mob already hundreds strong.

Rain skidded into the nearest alley, colliding with the wall before bouncing off, his feet pounding stone as he ran and ran. A storm of magic and arrows followed behind as well as several of the faster levelers, those with speed related Skills, weapons raised to slash and stab at his back. Rose was forced to take hold of the clothes of one particularly fast spear wielder as they landed on Rain’s back, picking him up and launching him through the nearest window.