(Second Book Complete!) Runeblade: A Delving & Skill Merging LitRPG

Still lost in the joy of victory, Kaius fell back into the hot sand below. His wounds ached—a dozen half-healed holes slowly weeping his thickened blood into the desert—and his armour was hung off him in limp strips.

None of it mattered, not even the soul-deep ache he felt from his utter battering at the hands of the ruinbringer.

They had won, and he felt alive.

It had been an age since he had felt so good, a visceral joy that he had almost forgotten—of that first sweet breath of air as he realised he got to live another day.

Not since his first delve had he been pressed so close to the brink of defeat. Even with a full team and all of their advantages, that scorpion had almost killed him—killed his friends—a dozen times over.

Yet it had fallen before them all the same, and they had been rewarded for their audacity. It might have broken his bones, spilled his blood, and ruptured a handful of his organs, but he was the one who got to live to see another day.

Staring up at the impossible sky, Kaius knew he was mad. He should feel fear at how close death had come, should have shied away from the pain and risk that would come with their next inevitable confrontation. He didn’t, not in the slightest.

Which definitely made him mad.

At least if he was broken, he was having fun with it.

As the raw, itching heat of his natural healing settled into every crevice of his body, Kaius chuckled — tasting blood and feeling a sting deep in his chest as his ribs rose and fell.

Hearing footsteps across the sand, Kaius didn’t move. By the end of the battle, only he and Porkchop had been injured, and neither of them were at risk of immediate death—there was no need to shake himself from his post battle bliss, not unless he heard screaming.

A moment later a body blocked out the worst of the sun, drawing his eyes towards a monolith of torn leather and bloody fur. His brother.

Porkchop settled down next to him with a grunt.

“I think the scorpion’s mother was a halberd,” he complained with halfhearted sincerity.

Kaius snorted at the joke, ignoring the burning fire that spread through his chest at the movement.

“Oh? What makes you say that?” Kaius returned to staring at the skies above, still amazed that the System had pulled off such wizardry as to put such a thing underground.

“Because I bloody well feel like I got hit by a couple of dozen of them.”

Kaius grinned, summoning a spare waterskin from his ring and taking a long swig. “Now that you mention it, someone seems to have stolen chunks out of my chest and stomach — perhaps their father was a thief?”

Letting out a rumbling laugh, Porkchop suddenly winced.

“No more jokes until we’re healed, I’m too bloody sore.”

Before Kaius could respond, another shadow passed over his face, and Ianmus entered his view. With the front of his robes utterly encrusted by sand and soaked in blood, the mage looked like he’d been through hell.

Vanishing his staff into his ring, Ianmus sighed and lay down in the sand next to him.

“I don’t know how you two do it.”

“What do you mean?” he replied.

“Practically get torn in half and then come back asking for seconds with a smile on your face. Spire’s Light, one little hole in my stomach and I was out of action for half the damn fight.” Ianmus grumbled.

Kaius grinned, noting that the mage hadn’t said that he’d been scared, or that he’d regretted anything. He was mad too.

“You get used to it.”

“Oh please, you have Pain Resistance — that’s basically cheating.”

Kaius turned his head and cocked an eye at his brother, before taking in the full extent of his injuries—half a dozen bone deep tears in his flesh rippling before Kaius’s eyes as they progressively shrunk. Rotten roots, he really did look like crap.

“Well, welcome to the cheater’s table, because you have it too now.”

Porkchop paused. “Huh, I did think it was a little easier to ignore.”

Rolling his eyes, Kaius turned back to Ianmus.

“So no second thoughts now you’ve had your first major battle-trophy? It’ll happen again, you know — eventually at least,” Kaius said to the mage.

Grinning at the blue sky, Ianmus shook his head. “None at all, my friend, none at all.”

“Though, perhaps we might try to minimize the chances of it happening next time?” he asked after a moment’s pause, hopeful.

There was less of a burn in his chest than the last time Kaius laughed, Lesser Regeneration doing its work quickly.

“Yeah, we can do that. I think we made just a little miscalculation when we decided against bringing a charge of War Haven into battle — though with how easily those spines penetrated Porkchop’s armour I’m not sure how effective it will be initially.” he replied, looking over to the shredded slab of steel that was his brother’s Autonomous Greatshield.

Hearing their final member approach, Kaius looked up into their Kenva’s frowning face. Her eyes roved between the three of them contemplatively, like she had been presented with a particularly troublesome riddle.

“Kenva! So nice of you to join us,” Kaius said, throwing his hands in the air.

“How’re you alive?” she questioned. “I’ve seen dressed game in better shape than you.”

“Practice.”

“What he said,” Kaius agreed, nodding seriously.

Their response seemed to take the wind out of Kenva’s sails. She sighed, shoulders slumping, before the bow in her hand vanished and she flopped down to sit on the sand just above their heads.

“We should be dead, you know? That creature was an Elite over double our level, and it took out our healer with its opening move. False coin,” she swore. “It tore the two of you to shreds—both of you should be cold and still from blood loss alone, but you’re all just sitting here like it was a stroll through a new market.”

She gave Ianmus an accusatory look. “I thought you were supposed to be the voice of reason, but you’re just as unphased as they are about having your intestines blown out the middle of your back.”

Ianmus rose one finger, though he did not sit up. “Relative voice of reason. I’m nowhere near as songlusted as these two barbarians.”

Kaius laughed again, this time with only a hint of pain. That was…not inaccurate — they might have had a little bit of a corruptive influence on their mage. It wasn’t like they’d pressured him into it, though. The man hungered after Honours as much as they did.

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The ranger groaned. “You do realise that this is insane right? No matter how many levels we received.”

He frowned, thinking back to the meagre six levels he had received from killing the ruinbringer. It felt…off. Even if it was a large jump to Kenva — it was likely that she’d never fought anything so far above her, even if she had earned a few Honours — their levelling had all but stalled since their initial capture.

“What’s up with that anyway?” he asked, voicing his misgivings. “I would have thought we would have grown far more from a fight like this.”

Ianmus snorted, pushing himself up to a sitting position, while Kenva gave him a disbelieving look. Even Porkchop cocked a brow at him.

“What?”

“Kaius, do you even know how long it takes the average second tier delver to reach their first class evolution?” Ianmus asked.

He shook his head. Judging by his team’s reaction, he assumed it was slow — hells, he knew it was slow, since almost everyone fought creatures weaker than them — but he didn’t know exactly. Father had always been far more focused on his training than generalities that had little immediate bearing on him.

“Twenty years, fifteen if they are fast.”

He stared at the mage, his eyebrows high on his head.

“Similar for us.” his brother interjected.

“Wait, really?”

Ianmus nodded. “And two-thirds to three-quarters of that is the climb above one-hundred, when experience requirements grow steep. They call it The Wall, and the fact we’re growing multiple levels with a single kill after it is nothing short of miraculous. That, and we now have a fourth — technically third in the eyes of the System, thanks to your Bond skill — that means less experience, split more ways.”

For a moment, Kaius wanted to curse — with their gains slowing, it was going to take longer than he had hoped to reach a point of safe capability. Still, it wouldn’t be the first barrier to his path that he’d run straight through, and there was no doubt in his mind that it wouldn’t be the last. They were in the Depths, fighting creatures far above them, with nigh-limitless access to tougher creatures in the layers beneath his feet.

If he needed more experience, all he needed to do was kill more.

“Great, he’s grinning like a lunatic again.” Kenva muttered.

Porkchop chuckled, a warm amusement crossing their bond.

Pushing himself up, Kaius brushed the sand out of his locks and scooted around to face his team.

“Well, even if we’re levelling slower, and we got a bit more battered than I would like, we still did well, and our goals are unchanged. Every ruinbringer we run into after this one will be easier than the last as we grow stronger and our plans more refined — at this rate, we’re still more than on track to reach the peak of the first tier in a month or two. Much better than a decade, no?” Kaius said, giving his team a teasing grin.

“Madness,” Kenva replied with a roll of her eyes.

“You have to admit it’s quite fun though.”

Kaius didn’t miss the hint of a grin that Kenva was just a little too slow to suppress.

As their wounds finished healing, and their resource pools slowly recovered, the post-battle glow slowly left them, and their conversation moved to how they could improve for their next confrontation.

The first, and most obvious, change that they decided to make was for him to start inscribing a cast of War Haven. Even if it couldn’t outright stop a ruinbringer’s tailspike straight away, it might still be able to deflect the projectile, or at the very least would slow it enough that Ianmus and Kenva would have a better chance of reacting.

Plus, the more he used it, the more Vyrthane would level — which would mean stronger barriers and a wider maximum region he could cover with its effects.

Other than that, a shift in tactics was required. Porkchop suggested that either he or Kaius should be the ones to trigger the scorpion’s ambush, while Ianmus and Kenva sunk everything they had into removing its tails with a pair of overwhelming strikes.

Even if it left them drained and needing to recover, removing the beast’s most dangerous weapons would make the battle far safer for everyone involved.

Ianmus was also of the opinion that Kaius should focus primarily on inscribing his Hateful Nail, so that he could use the persistent metal burrs it left behind to jam up and bind a ruinbringer’s pincers, something that he saw the wisdom in. It had taken a good half-dozen casts to just barely slow one of its limbs, but if he hit each pincer with two or three times that number he had a decent shot of leaving the creatures utterly disabled. Less, even, as his level and Skill grew, and each point of Drakthar made his Nails hit harder and bloom into a larger tangle of spikes.

As their conversation wrapped up, Kaius stored his scalemail and gambeson in his ring to give it a chance to clean and repair, and took a seat on the sand once more to spend his regenerated mana on refreshing his inscribed spells — nearly a full seventh of his pool dedicated to providing his backline with some form of defence.

He smiled in satisfaction, staring down at the elegant script that coated his limbs, now joined by a twisted and blocky glyph on his chest. Having such physical marks of his progress buoyed him — gave him something tangible to see and reflect on.

He really had come far. Regardless of the superficial similarities that surrounded the circumstances of both the times he had entered the Depths, he was a different man now.

That Kaius had been a scared boy, alone, afraid, and lost.

Now he was a delver in truth, strong beyond his years, seasoned in battle, and surrounded by friends and family who carried the same desire for progress that he did.

He’d ended his last journey perhaps earlier than he should have, driven by worry. This time, he intended to squeeze out every scrap of power he could. If he had his way, once he left he would no longer need to fear others discovering his strength.

No, it would be others who would need to fear his ire. Old Yon and the man with the scar most of all.

Before he rose to take his place amongst his team and continue their search for the next biome, Kaius checked his Status to cement his growth, his capability, in his mind.

Status:

Name: Kaius

Dynasty: Unterstern

Age: 19

Race: Human (Dynastic, Greater Beastblooded) - +1 Con, Str, Wil, and free stats per level

Layer Reached: 25

Class: Runeblade Initiate - +3 Int, +2 Con, +2 Str, +2 Dex, +1 Vit, +1 Wil per level

Level: 119

Resources:

Health - 6210/6210 (37.8/min)

Stamina - 6070/6070 (44.6/min)

Mana - 7370/7370 (49.3/min)

Free Mana - 370/370

Reserved Mana - 7000

Stats:

Constitution - 621 (387 + 70 + 36%)

Vitality - 378 (208 + 70 + 36%)

Strength - 607 (377 + 70 + 36%)

Dexterity - 446 (258 + 70 + 36%)

Intelligence - 737 (427 + 85 + 44%)

Willpower: - 493 (258 + 85 + 44%)

Stat Points: 0

Aspects:

Pillar Corporus: The Struggler’s Madness

Reinforcement: Titan’s MarrowSeed: Forged in Endless StrifePillar Mentis: The Veteran’s Edge

Reinforcement: Glass MindSeed: Campaigner’s ReasonPillar Animus: N/A

Class Skills (6/10):

Latent Glyph of Drakthar (Heroic) - 120 > 138

Initiate’s Glyphic Bladerite (Unique) - 84 > 109

Latent Glyph of Aelina (Heroic) - 114 > 124

Mystic’s Rend (Heroic) - 57 > 87

Latent Glyph of Vyrthane (Heroic) - 1

Sigil of Vesryn’s Pact (Unique) - 1 > 4

General Skills (10/10):

Rapid Adaptation (Heroic) - 200

Liturgical Bladeform: Primus Ordo (Heroic) - 105 > 145

Explorer’s Toolkit (Unusual) - 81 > 107

Tempered by Dissonance (Heroic) - 200

True Sight (Unique) - 89 > 109

Tonal Weaving (Unique) - 91 > 105

Resonance Amplification (Unique) - 88 > 99

Lesser Regeneration (Unusual) - 200

Uncanny Dodge (Unique) - 101 > 133

Brotherhood of Ichor and Animus (Heroic) - 200

Hymnbook:

Glyph of Drakthar -

Stormlash (Tier I - 120 mana)

Hateful Nail (Tier I - 100 mana)

Glyph of Aelina -

Yellia’s Slip Step (Tier I - 80 mana)

Trusant’s Expedient Shunt (Tier I - 100 mana)

Glyph of Vyrthane -

War Haven (Tier I - 1000 mana)

Formationbook:

Sigil of Vesryn’s Pact -

Unbroken Through Suffering (Tier I)

Honours:

Born for Slaughter (Bonus)

Sublime Prodigy - Glyph Binding (Bonus)

Birds of a Blood Soaked Feather (Bonus)

Persistent Survivor (Minor) (Bonus)

Kingslayer (Major) (Bonus)

Ruthless Underdog (Bonus)

Ruthless Underdog II

Trailblazer II (Bonus)

Hordebreaker

Ruthless Underdog III (Bonus)

Bound Artefacts:

A Father’s Gift - Common Growth Longsword

Growth Conditions -

Gain a class (1/1)

Absorb suitable materials (2/3)

Forge a link (1/1)