Chapter 19

“Go!” cried Opal.

Rain burst into motion and his legs powered him across the camp in one fluid leap. He landed on the Hob and smashed him to the ground where his teeth came down on the unfortunate Hob’s neck. With one savage motion he tore out his throat, literally ripping it from his body.

Opal rushed up beside him as the sound of disturbed sleep started to emanate from the tents.

“They’re waking!” she whisper hissed.

Rain swung between the three tents unsure what to do. He made a decision and sprung on the nearest. Ripping through the side he came down on its sleeping occupant teeth first, viciously biting down with the intent to kill as fast as possible. He had one split second look at a terrified Elf who had woken up to see Rain’s blood covered head sticking through the wall of his tent and then his maw descended on the Elf’s face and savagely tore it off in a fountain of gore, along with a good portion of his skull and brain leaving behind a horrifying ruin.

A furious roar came from the tent next door and the Orc charged through the side of her tent crashing directly into the tent Rain was in. A muscular shoulder rammed into him and he went flying from the canvas with a yelp and slammed into the cave’s wall before slumping down. The Orc roared once more and ripped apart the tent covering her with her bare hands. She swung around looking for what she had shoulder checked but completely missed Rain who blended into the shadows. Instead she was distracted by the recently freed Kobolds and Goblins running around in a panic.

“You fucking shits! What did you do to my Elf!? I’m going to kill you allll!!!”

She stomped back to her tent and ripped it apart then pulled her massive anvil hammer free, hefting it easily. She turned and brought it down on a Goblin. The Goblin exploded under the sheer force of it, spraying blood and skin and mashing everything solid that was left into the ground.

She torqued and spun the hammer around herself causing it to obliterate two Kobolds and catapulting part of them across the cave at extreme speed where they pulped against a wall.

She strode forward swinging at targets as Eliza crawled from her tent and used her staff to climb to her feet. She looked around wide-eyed at the chaos and brought the staff up. Water boiled from a chunk of azurite on its tip and four water orbs began floating around her, each nearly a foot in diameter. She swung her staff and they began gliding forward, homing in on escaped slaves. Once they reached a target they engulfed the unfortunate victim’s head and clung in place as they desperately thrashed around trying to move the unbreathable ball of fluid. Most hadn’t been quick enough to hold their breath and were rapidly drowning.

She suddenly flinched and turned, holding her staff up as a set of teeth leapt from the shadows. Paws grabbed her staff and the teeth came down on it, instantly snapping the staff in two. She let go and the black furred monster flung the two halves aside.

She stumbled backwards in fright as it came on.

“Do you recognize me Eliza? I climbed out of hell for you, but look at the monster I’ve become.” He spread his paws wide, bits of Elf gore dripping from his snarling muzzle.

“W-what?!”

“Let me give you a clue. Me, you, Lira, Adlen, Myra, and Brax all went to do a little power leveling. Then you all stabbed me in the back and tortured me to death for fun.”

Her mouth flapped open, working up and down as she tried to find words.

“Rain!?”

“Yes! You threw me away like trash, and for that, I am going to kill you.”

“W-wait! Please! I didn’t mean it! I said as much, I said, I said it was a mistake! I felt bad about it!”

“After you gleefully gutted me like a fish Eliza.”

Eliza’s face went from pleading to scowling anger in an instant, as though a switch had been flipped.

“Oh go fuck yourself Rain. You turned into a monster? Yeah, that would be fitting. I’ll ensure it’s a short lived experience.”

She lifted her hands into the air and the water orbs rushed back toward her in a dizzying orbit. They met and merged forming one massive two foot wide ball of water with a splash. She flung her hands forward and it rocketed at Rain, he tried to dodge but it homed in on him and engulfed his shoulders and head.

“We threw your worthless ass in the lake so I think this is a fitting end for your second death!” She giggled as she held out her palms keeping the huge ball of water over Rain as he stumbled about hopelessly swinging at the yielding liquid. Air bubbled up from his mouth as he panicked, he tried to reach for Eliza but to no avail, she simply backed away and kept him submerged.

“I’m going to skin you and sell your pelt so you will have at last found a way to contribute a little value to our town Rain. Choke and fill your lungs and di- wait, what are you doing?”

Rain had stopped moving and was standing still with his mouth open wide. Eliza blinked and stared at him.

“Are you ... are you trying to drink it? You can’t be serious. Pffaahaha!”

Rain met her eyes through the watery orb and the corners of his mouth curled. Then he began to swallow. The water rushed inward as though sucked in by a whirlpool and the orb rapidly diminished, within seconds shrinking down to a foot across and then vanishing down the wolf’s throat. He belched and patted his stomach.

“Nice try. But it was never going to work.”

“N-no!” She wrenched her hands to the side trying to affect the water trapped inside of him, but Rain simply set his feet and used his superior strength to override her globular control of the mass of water.

He belched again. “Urff, never drank water like that. Oh, here we go.” He rested a paw on his stomach as it rapidly shrank down to nothing and returned to flat. “Was wondering if that would work, too bad there’s no growth though.”

Eliza stared at his flattened abdomen. “What? Wh-where, did it go!?” She moved her hands trying to shift the now non-existent water.

“Oh is that all you’ve got? Guess this is going to end quicker than I like. Oh well. Time to eat you.”

He stepped toward her causing her to back away in fear.

“H-hey, hold on, you can’t be serious. You’re just some level-less freak, you can’t eat me!”

“I’m going to bite your legs off and splinter your bones Eliza, I’m going to make you watch me eat you alive bit by bit, your fingers, your toes, your limbs, you will beg me to kill you.”

Eliza’s eyes went wide. “No! No! You can’t! R-rain! I’ll do anything, what do you want? Money? P-power leveling?”

“Power leveling? Is that a joke?” He snorted. “No. Karma caught up Eliza. This is the end.”

Her knees shook as she backed up against the cavern wall, unable to take her eyes off Rain’s own yellow eyes she scrabbled blindly behind herself, desperate for an escape.

“Rain! Look out!” cried a Goblin voice and Rain dropped to the ground as the Orc’s anvil hammer flew through the air having been hurled, sailing just past where his torso had been. It struck the wall next to Eliza and fractured it from top to bottom with an ear splitting boom. Huge sheets of rock sloughed off and toppled to the ground. Eliza screamed and threw her arms over her head as she was peppered with high velocity splinters of stone.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck this!” She grabbed at her side and ripped off a water skin attached to her belt. She frantically pulled the cap free and upended it on the ground squeezing it out as fast as possible. Rain looked up in surprise from where he lay prone. She slammed her hands together in a strange hand seal and began breathlessly and rapidly chanting. The puddle of fluid she stood in began to faintly glow and then to Rain’s utter outrage she began to sink into it, her legs quickly disappearing. He scrambled to his feet and lunged at her, arm extended, paw reaching, he grabbed a fist full of her hair and heaved back causing her to scream. Rain underestimated his own strength however and that the pool had an unstoppable grip on her and a good third of her long blonde hair was ripped from her scalp leaving an angry red welt behind. She screamed again and slapped her hands down over her bleeding head. A tearful face shot him a look of pure withering hatred.

As she dipped below the puddle’s surface Rain could only watch as her lips formed words with no sound, carefully directed at him. ‘I liked what I did’. She vanished below and the water stopped glowing and became normal unmagical water once more.