Chapter Seventy


    Like a great strumming guitar, the Word of Power thrummed. Its power was said to transcend even the System. As Ambrose felt a wave of utter, bone-deep exhaustion overcome him, Fenrir paused in trying to eat him as the Word went to work.


    The great wolf began to vibrate, moving backward on its great paws.


    Its dead eyes widened, and for the first time, Ambrose saw real emotion within them.


    Fear.


    To Fenrir’s credit, it tried to attack him again, to fight through it, but the Word was simply beyond it. Perhaps, at one time, it wouldn’t have been. Maybe, before his captivity, Loki’s child would have been able to do something.


    But the chains that had bound him had done their work well. Over the eons, the chains had drained Fenrir’s power, much like Mordred’s curse had drained his, but for far longer.


    Ultimately, it wasn’t Fenrir’s heart shredding itself apart and bursting forth from its chest in a spectacularly horrific detonation that killed him.


    It had been the chains themselves that had done it.


    He dismissed the notification as soon as he had gotten it and warily stood up. Fenrir lay on his side, chest open, and a mess of dark golden blood, bone, and bits and pieces of a crimson heart coating the ground around him.


    His eyes were bleached white, devoid of all life in truth now.


    “I wasn’t expecting that,” Eric said dryly.


    Ambrose was weak as if he had just finished a marathon beyond his skill.


    Slowly, he limped towards Eric, who hefted gungnir, and adjusted his tie.


    “You won’t be able to break through this circle, Mr. Severen.”


    Ambrose said nothing. He just kept walking. Holding his hand to his side, his armor enchantments allowed him to summon Akaroth with a thought.


    Eric laughed,


    “I’ve always admired that determination of yours. It’s what made you such an effective employee. But you’re wasting your time, Mr. Severen. You cannot break through the wards.”


    He lifted Akaroth, and with his muscles screaming their protest, swung it at Eric.


    Glyphs flared, and light pulsed, Akaroth was knocked away.


    “You see? It’s futile.”


    Eric grinned at him, his viper eyes glittering like dark crystal.


    Ambrose lifted Akaroth again, and again, he smashed the axe into the circle.


    Light flared, repeating what had happened before.


    Ambrose hit it again.


    Then again.


    And again.


    One might have said that Ambrose knew only one way to solve a problem, but the truth was that what he was doing was effective.


    With the wards the fire giants had used, he couldn’t have been expected to break through. There were too many, and he would have needed a much larger assault force to have a chance.


    But with time and enough people, and if the fire giants had been courteous enough to let them sit there pounding at their wards unopposed, they would have gotten through eventually.


    Eric was using a personally contained circle. He didn’t need an entire assault for this.


    He just needed himself.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    So he kept slashing, and as he did, his strength slowly began to return. The Words effects always faded after a time, though he wouldn’t risk using it again for a while. If he used it too many times, he was afraid he wouldn’t have enough mana in his core. If that happened, it would be his life force that was drawn instead.


    “Mr. Severen, this will not work. Cease this pointless attack.”


    Ambrose did not speak. However, he did note the slight anxiety in Eric’s voice as he hacked away at the circle.


    “Ambrose, I know it hurts, but you won’t make it through this circle. You have other friends, other people on your island relying on you. Go, turn back. Leave me alone, and I’ll do the same.”


    Eric’s voice was calm now, but there was a pleading edge. He could see as well as Ambrose could that the light was growing dimmer with every slash.


    He ignored the bubbling fury that built in him. With a final, mighty slash, Akaroth bit into the circle.


    The glyphs exploded apart into glass shards of crystalline light.


    Eric Delrosa swore and rolled away from Ambrose’s follow-up.


    “You stupid ape! You think I’m helpless?”


    At his words, Eric’s clothing began to ripple, and with it, his skin. He grew, elongated, and in the span of a second, Ambrose was looking at a massive silverback gorilla.


    It raised its fists and brought it down on Ambrose, and he let them connect. [Infernal Aegis] held, and the fists did not connect.


    Dismissing Akaroth, Ambrose punched the gorilla in the face, and it flew back, form morphing back into Eric’s human shape as it did.


    “You can change your form, but no matter what shape you’re in, you still lack the experience necessary to be effective.”


    Eric snarled, and Ambrose’s awareness let him know that Gugnir was flying his way from behind him.


    Without looking, he brought a portal into existence, and the spear flew through it.


    Right into the back of Eric’s left shoulder, spinning him around.


    Eric cried out as he hit the ground. Gritting his teeth, he lifted his face and spoke,


    “Stop and kill yourself!”


    Ambrose felt the words settle over him, and he did stop.


    Eric laughed, standing up, hand grasping at his bloody wound where the spearhead poked out of.


    “I should have ended it this way from the start! Silly me, thinking you had the willpower to resist.”


    Ambrose brought the force of his thoughts, backed by the Forge Icon, against the compulsion like a hammer.


    The Forge Icon wasn’t just some mystical force of reality. Yes, it was that, but to have an Icon, to make an Icon work for you, one had to meditate on how they fit within it.


    In other words, when the Forge Icon backed up his thoughts or enforced anything he did, it did so by bringing all he was and all he had the potential to be into the equation.


    He was who he was not just because of his personality but because of the people who had influenced his life.


    His father, who had trained him, raised him.


    Andrea, Thom, and all those on Avalon who supported him. Believed in him.


    Darren, who had died because of him.


    Alice, who had loved him.


    His daughter, who would never know him.


    They forged him.


    All of that influence, those people who made him who he was, came to bear in the Icon he called forth to support his bladed thoughts.


    Eric’s voice was a skill, nothing more.


    It could not hold against such a thing.


    As Eric raised his spear for the killing blow, his eyes widened in shock and fear when it was batted away.


    Ambrose’s spirit flared, and he saw Eric’s spear shine in response, sending forth its own spirit to counter his.


    At that moment, he could have laughed. All of that effort to get the spear, the armor that surely allowed him to shapeshift, all of it was for not because he knew the flaw in using these items.


    If you didn’t have the item, you didn’t have its effects.


    Ambrose spun a portal into existence.


    Right near the shaft of the spear.


    His portals would cut through almost everything, and though gungnir was a powerful weapon.


    It was ultimately a tool.


    Tools could be broken.


    The broken spear fell out of Eric’s hands as he stared in open-mouthed horror.


    Like an extinguished match, the spear’s spirit vanished, and breaking from the dam that had held it back, Ambrose’s spirit slammed down onto Eric like a crashing wave.


    Eric was slammed to the ground, groaning.


    “You’re a manipulator, Eric. That’s what you are at your core. A serpent hissing lies into people’s ears to control them. I’ve learned something about the System, you see. It takes note of your choices, and the skills, classes, and rewards it offers are directly related to those choices.”


    Almost idly, he formed a portal above his palm and stared at it. Like a miniature gate to hell, the infernal portal slowly spun, its edges sharper than any mortal blade.


    He flicked his hand, the portal zipped forward, and cut Eric’s left hand off.


    He would have screamed, but Ambrose’s spirit was smothering him.


    “Alice couldn’t talk that night, remember? She couldn’t say anything to me as you killed her. So you don’t get to talk.”


    He cut off Eric’s other hand, calmly watching Eric’s silent scream of agony as blood poured out of his stumps.


    “Some people say there are worse things than death. I could cripple you, take your tongue, and then let you live. That might be worse,” Ambrose shook his head.


    “I won’t be doing that. You’re going to die here, Eric. In this cave. Forgotten.”


    He cut off a knee, Eric’s leg falling to the ground like a broken branch, sanguine liquid gushing as if from a broken pipe, bits of bone glistening in the light.


    This was justice. This was the fulfillment of a long road.


    It’s also torture and makes you no better than him.


    Ambrose almost scoffed, but he knew that voice in his mind.


    It was what Alice would have said.


    Her memory was the one light inside him he didn’t want to extinguish.


    Fingernails digging into his palm, Ambrose flicked a hand.


    A portal of hellfire ended Eric Delrosa’s life while an expression of agony and fear was etched onto his features.


    His head plopped on the ground like a discarded melon.


    That was it.


    Journey over.


    Ambrose had avenged his dead wife and daughter.


    So why didn’t he feel better?