Runeblade

Chapter 89 : Solo Brawler

The latest Champion that they had found on their journey through the Depths ambled at the base of the pit. As far as flesh abominations went, Kaius didn't see how it could get more grotesque. A misshapen blob of eyes, mouths, hands, and other random body parts smashed together into a drooping ball.

A bigger, meaner, cousin to the twisted teratomas that they had encountered in the laboratories and research rooms of this biome. As he looked down at it from the high stone gangway set into the pits walls, Kaius thought that it would be a surprisingly good matchup for Porkchop's second solo fight.

"Well?" He asked Porkchop, who was staring down at the undulating mass of flesh in horror.

"You want me to fight that alone?" Porkchop asked, aghast.

"Sure," he replied. "It's a little faster than the normal ones, but it's still slow and you won't be the most boxed in." Kaius waved his hand to the wide edges of the pit that contained the Champion, a good hundred strides on its shortest length. "I mean, if the others were anything to go by, it'll be a slog, but should also be a lot safer than anything else we have seen in the Depths. Just watch out for its skills." He finished with a cheeky smile.

Porkchop eye'd him warily, before looking back to the Cystic Failure that waited at the bottom of the room. "I guess… You'll be ready to help if I need it?"

"Of course." Kaius said seriously. There was no way he would let his friend fight a Champion without backup, even if it was just an oversized blob. "I'll wait on those." He said, nodding towards the narrow and steep staircase that descended from one edge of the pit to descend into its depths.

"Fine. Let's get this over with." Porkchop sighed.

….

Porkchop grumbled to himself as he made his way carefully down the staircase, hearing the reassuring steps of his found-brother behind him. The vast majority of the time he was vastly pleased with his beastly form. His fur shined and kept him warm, his beast blood surged with strength at every beat of his heart, and with fang and claw he was never unarmed. Stairs were one of the few exceptions. No greater beast in their right mind would ever consider stairs to be a smart invention, even den builders such as himself.

Trust the two-legs to come up with something so annoying.

He sniffed the air, tasting the heavy scent of acrid blood, twisted flesh, and vile alchemy. Disgusting, and something that had been ever present since he had entered the biome with Kaius. His brother said he could smell it too, but he knew what the man's senses were like. Saying it smelt bad was an understatement.

The scents were as solid as a stone wall, muting and dampening all others. With how much he used his nose, it was like staring into the sun. Even then, he could still pick up the bottom notes of discarded refuse and failing organs held in place by foul magic. It originated from the Champion, the Cystic Failure, as Kaius had called it.

Watching the way it oozed across the stone, leaving trails of reeking slime in its wake, filled him with disgust.

At the end of the day, gross or not, Kaius had been right when he said that the Champion was a decent match up for him. At least, as long as its skills weren't too dangerous. Slow, without much reach, and little defences to speak of, he should be able to simply harry it until it expired from exhausted Health.

Thankfully his brother would be ready to jump in if anything went wrong.

He looked back, Kaius smiling at him as they locked eyes. With a chuff he turned his attention back to the stairs. It wouldn't do to lose his focus and fall before he even got to the battle.

Not for the first time he gnawed on the decision that was coming up, the choice he would have to make, and the offer he would provide. It was a risk, but one that would be worth it. No matter how much the Matriarchs had warned him and his littermates off ever using the ritual.

It was his right, as a greater meles, and as a King of the Forest. There was no fear it was the wrong choice. For the first time Porkchop felt home. Not in the depths, the fights were nice, as was the lovely loot, but it was a bleak place. No, he had found a kinship with his brother that he had never expected to find. Not in his den at the very least.

They were all so…locked in the traditions. The meles were the meles, the den was the den, and the hunting grounds were the hunting grounds. No excitement, no desire to see more, to be more. He'd left, ready to seek his own path. Sure, he had grown enough to know now that there was a lot of wisdom in the Matriarch's words. He could admit that he had been idiotic to attempt to leave the deep forest on his own. But now he had found someone with that same drive, to grow and explore the world.

Plus, half of the Matriarch's warnings were that those who walked on two legs were weak. Kaius was strong, far stronger than he had expected, and of good stock. Sure, his strengths might be different, but not everything came down to who had the biggest muscles. There was no chance of his growth being hampered, if anything with the system's attention his brother was liable to pull him up.

No, he was making the right choice. He was sure of it.

He just hoped that Kaius agreed.

Porkchop reached the bottom of the stairs, checking the rolling ball of meat to find it ambling around the far end of the pit. It hadn't noticed him yet. That was good.

He took a final reassuring look at his brother who greeted him with a nod from his vantage point on the stairs. Kaius had his sword ready, and with his arm free to cast. Despite his brother's earlier joking about Porkchop having to face the Champion alone, he could see the hard lines on Kaius's face. The way his eyes had sharped, his body held in tension. Ready to move at the slightest moment.

Kaius's readiness reassured him.The battle might be his alone, but he would not be without backup.

Porkchop shook himself, readying his body as he dipped into the steady thrum of ferocity that simmered beneath the surface. No failure would best him.

He kicked off, feeling his thick claws dig into the gaps in the stone brick floor, accelerating him as he roared his challenge to the Champion.

The dozen dozen eyes that dotted its twisted surface moved, iris's swivelling to focus on him in unison. As one, the Champion's fang-ridden mouths groaned, and its corpulent body rippled as it started to glide towards him as the blob of flesh undulated. The hundreds of hands on its surface flowed across its body, bloodying as they clawed at the rough stone ground in a vile mockery of locomotion.

**Ding! You have challenged a Champion: Cystic Failure **

Porkchop grinned. The battle was well and truly on now. He refrained from tapping into the well of energy that sat in the amulet around his neck. It was a potent ability, an exhilarating surge of speed, power and momentum. Unfortunately, it was a poor tool for the job.

Blunt force was all but useless against the abominations of the biome, their Health and healing far too prodigious for simple force to overcome. Besides, slamming into the beast was only liable to bring him into range of its gnashing maws.

No, this was a job for his claws.

Feeling the fire in his blood, Porkchop crossed the intervening space between him and the festering mass in moments. He reared up, feeling the way his ring pulled at the mana in the air to spawn azure blades of his claws.

His paw came down, the sharpened edge of his mana enhanced natural weapons plunging into the soft mass of flesh with ease. He scooped. A great gout of flesh was torn free of the Champion, as large as his head.

The Cystic Failure wailed, a score of mouths opening wide to screech in agony. A moment later it lunged for him, flesh and tissue distending as a mouth stretched away from the main body to snap at him with its teeth.

Porkchop smashed the mouth down, clawing at the pillar of flesh that connected it to the greater whole. His claws cleaved through the meat, blood and alchemical fluid spraying from the wound to splatter against his barding. To his great disgust, not all of the liquid was warded off by his armour, the fur on his arms and head getting doused in stinking fluid.

He growled, tossing the severed mouth to the side.

The Champion was already healing, leaking fluid congealing over the edges of the chunks it had torn from its flesh. Visibly regenerating before his very eyes. He danced back from another snapping bite, watching more and more eyes and mouths slide over amalgamated flesh of the abomination to congregate towards him.

Plunging his claws into a cluster of eyes, Porkchop felt the orbs give way as they popped and coated his hand in jelly. He scooped. Another lump of meat fell to the ground.

The Champion didn't like that. A heavy screech echoed from its maws, stinging painfully in his sensitive ears. He flicked them back, dampening the noise.

Before he could rush back in and punish the assault with another gouging claw, the glob of flesh contracted. One mouth opened wide as the entire amalgamation quivered with rhythmic contractions. Deep within the core of the beast, he saw a pulse of virulent green mana surge. A skill.

"Watch ou-!" He heard Kaius start to call out in warning.

One of the mouths closest to him opened impossibly wide. It heaved. He tried to dodge, throwing his weight to the side. The mouth released a gout of steaming vomit with a final hurl, the chunky liquid coating his shoulder and dripping down his leg. Immediately he was beset by a stench so rank he could feel it scorching the inside of his nose. A moment later his flesh started to sizzle, the noxious liquid bubbling at the surface of his flesh.

Porkchop danced back, staring at the matted vomit that had soaked into his fur, feeling the slow burn as the acid ate away at him. He knew in moments that it wouldn't kill him, his Health restoring the damage. The acid was strong, but his body was stronger. If anything, it was the smell.

Laughter echoed through the pit, a full bodied cackle of mirth that came from the stairs. "Called it!" His brother taunted.

"Shut it!" He hissed back, pushing the words along the link he had forged with Kaius. It was still strange, thinking in language rather than raw experience, but he was getting used to it. Growling as he looked down at the sizzling slick of bile that had coated his side, Porkchop narrowed his eyes at the Cystic Failure.

It jibbered with its many mouths, eyes dilating as if delighted at dousing him with its purged fluid. He hissed, shoving the stinging pain of his wounds to the back of his mind as he delved deep into his growing frustration at the creature.

Fury welled up inside of him, the vile stench twisting in his guts. Fucking vomit. How dare it! Dare to mar him so! He let the surge of bestial fury wash over him, drowing out all but an overwhelming need to sunder the Champions flesh.

He charged.