Tower of Avarice: A LitRPG story

Chapter 166 – Floor 15: Part 12

The Kraken rose from the sea; its blue scales looked nearly black in the darkness as the water cascaded down from the gaps between them. Its eyes glowed a bright yellow and were slit like a cat. It slowly began to climb out of the water on four gigantic limbs with webbed feet like a turtle.

Mana gathered around it like a mist or fog, encircling its body and sweeping across the ground and the surface of the water.

Alfred watched it carefully from the top of the wall. Even from this distance, he could feel the power in its enormous body, its mana reserves as large as the ocean from which it had just risen. It was on an entirely different scale from any of the other Ancestral Beasts he had seen, and the only weakness he could ascertain from looking at the monster was that it was slow and awkward on land.

Not that it mattered much, considering its thick skin and iron-like scales that covered it. Plus, there was an entire Merrow army between the city and the Kraken that they would need to kill before assaulting the beast directly.

Their plan to draw it out of the water had worked; the lure of the ritual was too much for the Kraken to resist. The sight of the Merrow breaching several points in the wall had no doubt assured it of its victory, an important point in their plan.

Everything they had done was a ruse. The city wouldn’t fall so easily; their reserves were just waiting for the right time to attack and drive the Merrow from the city and back into the sea. Now that the Kraken was here, it was time to implement the next stage of the plan.

“It’s time.” Alfred said to the Governor, who nodded and gave the command. All along the wall, burning torches were being raised to signal the start of the counterattack.

Alfred had thought he had understood what a barrage of cannons could accomplish. He had seen them used in Northern Anglia and Francia. But the scale of what happened next was beyond anything he had had experienced before.

The simultaneous firing of dozens of cannons started with a whoosh of air, followed by an explosive sound so thunderous that Alfred thought the world was ending. He couldn’t imagine what the Merrow had experienced at that moment. Did they think that a god of noise and light had descended to Earth to see their destruction?

The wall shook under his feet, and Alfred had to cling to the battlements to stay on his feet. It was lucky that he did so for, after a moment, a rush of air pushed past him with such force that he was nearly swept along with it.

The darkness was instantly turned to an intense bright white by the detonation of dozens of magical spheres, all containing enough electricity to make a thunderstorm look tame by comparison. Alfred shielded his eyes against the brightness, but even then, the light burned through his eyelids, and he screamed in pain and terror.

The rumbling worsened, and the wall felt like it would collapse at any moment. But, as loud as the explosions were, the screams from the Merrow pierced through. They died in the tens of thousands, burned out of existence by yellow lightning that arc between their conductive bodies.

When the light died down enough for him to see, Alfred beheld a shore covered in the burnt and blackened bodies of the corrupted Merfolk. Others were fleeing, and the presence of the Kraken wasn’t enough to keep them there.

The Ancestral Beast itself was battered but alive. Great rents had opened across its body, oozing blood and seawater. It roared in pain, and Alfred thought that it might manage to turn around and escape, but the humans on the wall acted swiftly to prevent that.

“Bring it down!” Alfred heard Mathew shout with a voice enhanced with enough mana that it carried across the entire city and most of the surrounding land.

Hundreds of harpoons were launched at the Ancestral Beast, pinning it into place with coiled rope anchored to great boulders from the local quarry. Trapped, the Kraken couldn’t flee when another barrage of magical spheres landed on top of it, sending another round of electricity coursing across its body.

By the time they ran out of ammunition, most of the Merrow that had arrived were dead or fleeing. Those that hadn’t managed to run were being driven into the ocean by the reserves, cut down by sword and spear.

But the Kraken wouldn’t die. It continued to struggle so fiercely that it began to destroy the harpoons and snap the ropes that kept it in place. It would soon free itself, but the violent movements and the strength it possessed meant that anyone who approached it would be crushed.

“Why won’t it die?” Alfred muttered. He had never seen a creature with such vitality before; even in its damaged and beaten state, it refused to succumb. And they were left with no choice but to fight it directly.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning, Alfred saw that it was Mathew. Prince Louis stood next to him, and both men looked grim.

“I want you to stay here. Make sure that no one follows us. This isn’t a fight you can participate in.” Mathew ordered. Having said his piece, Mathew leapt off the top of the wall, followed a moment later by Louis.

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“Weep, For Your End Is Nigh.” Louis whispered as he drew the Sword of Tears from the scabbard at his belt. The blade vibrated slightly in the night air, making a wailing sound as he held it steady in front of him.

The Kraken was free; the harpoons that bound it lay shattered on the ground. The Merrow were regrouping in the waters and would soon return. They needed to kill the Ancestral Beast and finish this while they could.

Louis could see the damage to the Kraken; the beach was drenched in blood, and the seas were dyed red. But its power was intact, the mana surrounding it so strong that it felt like sandpaper against Louis’ skin.

He pushed his mana into the sword, and an overwhelming sense of sadness flowed back from the weapon. The Sword of Tears was aptly named; it contained the remorse of all the innocents whose lives had been cut short by its edge.

It was once wielded by Charlemagne himself, who used the sword to end the lives of thousands of Saxons and Lombards. It was said that when the Emperor drew the blade against his enemies, the heavens would weep, and the fields would flood. Each life ended would make the sword stronger and that much more difficult to use.

That resentment and grief were still within the Sword of Tears centuries later, passed down through Carolingian lineage until it now rested in Louis’ hands. It required immense willpower to resist, and those who failed would become a broken, gibbering mess.

Raising the sword upright, Louis slashed down toward the Kraken. The mana within his body plummeted as the sword consumed it to fuel his strike. A crescent moon of bluish-white energy shot out toward the Ancestral Beast, accompanied by a sorrowful scream of despair from the sword.

“La Fin!” Louis shouted the command word for the attack, The End. The penultimate ability of the Sword of Tears, he trained for years in order to bring out its full power.

The crescent moon of energy struck the Kraken in the body, along its chest and shoulder. Cutting deep, it sent a spray of blood from the Ancestral Beast, and it howled in anger. But it didn’t kill the monster, and soon, the Kraken was charging toward the Francian Prince.

“Alter Body – Investiture of Lightning.” A bolt of white lightning shot down from the sky above, accompanied by the sound of thunder. It struck Mathew and began to arc from the Wrathful Blade in his hands and across the metal pieces of armour on his body.

He could feel his body change to accommodate the investiture, his muscles strengthened, and his thoughts seemed to flow more quickly to account for his newfound speed. He dashed toward the Kraken, and Louis could only see a streak of light as Mathew disappeared and reappeared in mid-air above the Kraken.

“Alter Body – Iron Bones!” Mathew shouted, and his weight doubled, then doubled again. The sword in his hands felt as heavy as a mountain, and he plummeted down toward the Ancestral Beast. He could feel his body straining; his flesh began to burn from the electricity, and gripping the sword was agony.

He slammed the blade against the Kraken’s next, exactly where Louis had just struck, and the magical sword carved its way through scales, flesh, muscle and bone. The lightning along the weapon’s edge flared brightly as Mathew gave it as much mana as it required.

A shockwave of force erupted from the point of contact, and Louis was pushed backward. Shielding his eyes from the sand blowing with the wind and the suddenly intense light, he could see nothing beyond his own fingers. But the sound was horrendous; a horrible screeching exploded from the Kraken as its head was separated from its body.

When the light faded, Louis saw his friend standing next to the remains of the monster, its body already turning into specks of light that floated on the wind. He held a crystal heart in his hands.