Elf world the complete s.., p.157
Elf World : The Complete Series, page 157
I barely got my hands up in the nick of time, and it was just enough to force the rush of flowing threads to part around me. The push was so strong, his power so intense, that my whole body began sliding back. It took all my will just to hold the shield in place as the powerful strands spidered all over it.
I dropped to one knee, my arms trembling against the surge of power. It was like water rushing over a glass globe, the wiggling strands of energy breaking around the invisible shield in a perfectly circular shape. Maintaining the wind- and spirit-infused forcefield was draining my strength at an alarming rate, and still it was starting to crack in multiple spots.
“With you out of the way, there will be no one left to stop me.” With my eyes closed, face trembling with concentration, I heard Zevoc’s soft voice cut through the rushing hiss of crackling energy washing over me. “Did you really believe you could beat me? I am much older, and far more powerful than you think. You are incredibly gifted, that I will admit, but true mastery of the power can only be achieved through years of experience.”
“Shit!” I grunted, my other knee dropping to the ground. The pressure seemed to have just doubled, and cracks were forming all over the shield now. This time I could actually see his energy leaking through in streams of brilliant white light.
“You should feel special,” he went on, his soft voice way too calm under the circumstances. “It is an honor to die by my hands. My only regret is that you will not be around to witness what I plan to do to your precious little elf world.”
“No,” I growled under my breath, fighting tooth and nail against the ever-mounting pressure. And on top of needing to maintain the barrier, I was constantly weaving new threads into it as well. But Zevoc’s insanely powerful assault was causing it to disintegrate faster than I could reinforce it.
“You...can’t...have it,” I growled, each strained word coming out in a rasping snarl. But who was I fooling? I was fading fast, and this maximum effort was completely unsustainable.
“Oh, but I can,” he said, each of his colorful power threads spiraling once around his body before funneling directly into the swirling mass. “And I will. I will enslave each and every one of these inferior creatures. Well, all except your little friends. Any of these little elf pests who were associated with you or helped you in any way will die a slow and most agonizing death. On this, you have my word.”
“Fucking bastard!” I roared. His harrowing threat seared into my heart like a hot knife. Triggered by rage, a thousand images flickered through my mind. They varied wildly, everything from all the precious memories I had made together with my wonderful ladies to all the horrible things this piece of shit threatened to do to them. “I would die before I let that happen!”
Filled with rage, I pushed up to one knee while continuing to feed more threads into the shield. “Arrogant piece of shit. You should have killed me when you had the chance.”
I pushed back to my feet, ignoring the burning pain from the threads that had already wormed their way through. To try to maintain this shield any longer was only postponing the inevitable. If I was to have any chance at all, I needed to go on the attack.
“You make a fair point,” Zevoc growled back, his threads spiraling at me in wild, looping attacks. “But it’s never too late to correct a mistake.”
I purposely pulled my attention away from the shield, praying it would hold just a few seconds longer on its own. Shadow, time, blood... I hurled as many different threads as I could against it from the inside, combining their energies as fast as I could.
“But once again,” I said, just as the shield shattered like crystal, his weaves flooding through like wild strands of white-hot hair. “I’m afraid you’ve underestimated me!” All the energy I had balled up collided with his.
My power threads rushed through his, obeying my every command with merely a thought. My wind cut straight through his shadow, my blood threads decimating his ice. It was very much the same drill Clio and I had worked through ad nauseam, only this time the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Zevoc reared back, stunned by the sudden wave of power surging right back at him. But the master recovered quickly, intercepting the incoming threads just before they overwhelmed him. His head snapped up, eyes flaring with anger at the close call.
That got his attention, and for the first time he was taking me very seriously.
The thrashing swirl of colliding threads became a constantly shifting standoff. The madman pressed, his threads worming straight down the middle of the funnel before I was able to put a halt to the surge. Then I countered, sending my writhing threads knifing right back the other direction.
The whirling cone’s center was an ever-shifting target, a point where two raging rivers collided in a blast of frothing white foam. The savage back-and-forth was as much a battle of attrition as it was a chess match, and the first to slip up would be instantly vaporized.
“Your persistence is infuriating!” Zevoc snarled, his voice an uncharacteristically low grumble. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his teeth clenched in a permanent grimace. The strain on his face was evident. I knew I was pushing him to his limits! “Why won’t you just die?”
“I...can’t...fucking...die.” I strained, forcing the spiraling wave back the other direction for what felt like the hundredth time. “Because unlike you...I have people in my life...who truly love me. I can’t...won’t... I fucking refuse...to let them down. I have...everything...in the world...to fight for!”
I roared, letting it all hang out in a single release. The black runes burned all over my body suddenly flared with angry red light while I drew in power just as fast as I released it. I blew my load, unloading a cannon blast of threads directly through the center of the funnel.
I was beyond exhausted. All I had left in the tank were guts, balls, and sweat. I was running on pure hate now, a deep loathing for the man who threatened to take everything away from those I loved.
“Grraah!” Zevoc snarled, stumbling away from the incoming rush. He tried to intercept each thread, but the titanic wave of power was just too much. It rode up near his chest, causing the madman to throw his hands out wide, severing the connection in a flash.
The whirling funnel burst in a flash of color, sending both of us flying back. But I was the first to spring back to my feet. My body was burning and numb, but I didn’t give a shit. Zevoc was back on his heels, maybe for the first time in his entire life.
I smelled blood in the water, and it was time for me to finish this.
“No, no!” he said, crab-walking away from me. What was that strange look in his eyes, a look I had had never seen from him before? Oh, yes...fear. “No, get away from me.”
“Where did you hear those words?” I stalked him down, my dead, cold stare fixed on the cold-blooded killer. “Is that what your victims said right before you killed them? Heartless bastard! You don’t deserve to live. I would have to kill you countless times just to make up for all the lives you’ve taken. I guess once will have to be enough.”
“No... I...” He rolled to his stomach and fumbled up to his feet, extending his hand as a blue sphere ripped open in front of him.
“Coward!” I boomed, my magically enhanced voice carrying in all directions at once. I wanted everyone to hear me, to see this monster for what he truly was. A sniveling coward! I raised my hand just as he stumbled through the escape portal. It snapped shut about halfway before I was able to halt it.
Oh no you don’t. I dashed in after him, the portal closing at my back. Now I am the hunter.
Next thing I knew, we were standing in what looked to be some sort of cave, the walls made of purple crystal. He turned back, his face a mask of horror at seeing me still in hot pursuit. “You won’t get away from me that easy,” I snarled as I came stalking toward him.
He flashed open another portal and again tried closing it behind him once he dashed through. But I halted its closure with a flick of my fingers and leapt through that one as well. The chase was on. Hell, I was willing to follow him to the ends of the universe if I had to.
Alien worlds rolled by in a flash as we sprinted through portal after portal, the sort of scenery I had only ever seen in sci-fi movies. Yellow oceans and green skies blurred past. Dark mountains topped with white ash, tropical trees with blue leaves the size of cars, and even dog-sized insects were only a few of the incredible sights.
Any other time, I would have been in complete awe, but this time I only had one thing on my mind. Driven on by a crazed bloodlust, I wouldn’t stop chasing this fucker until I had my hands wrapped around his throat.
With each pass through yet another alien world, I was slowly beginning to catch up in small increments. “You won’t get away from me,” I called out, the threat mostly just to spur myself on. I was exhausted, as was he, but I was still closing the gap bit by bit.
Another portal flashed open in front of him, but this time I was close enough to tackle him from behind just as he ran through. We spilled back out into the original battlefield, the two of us tangled up and rolling across the grass.
I halted our roll, ending in a mounted position on top of him. And from there I began dropping blows like rain, intent on turning his face into mud. “You piece of shit! I told I’d never let you take the elf world.”
I kept pounding away with reckless savagery, my fists infused with shadow and ice to make them hard as metal. I never would have guessed that this confrontation might end in a back alley–style street fight.
But here we were, and quite frankly, I was ready and willing to bite his nose off if that’s what it took.
“Bastard! You think the universe is your playground? You think lives are toys to be played with just because you’re bored? You demented fuck! You twisted piece of shit! I swear I’ll make sure you pay for every lost life with—”
“Isaac!” My head snapped up, eyes crazed with fury. Neia was kneeling down before me, tears flowing down her cheeks as she clutched one of my bloody fists with both hands. I got the impression she may been shouting my name for a while now, but through my bloodlust I had simply blocked it out.
Her eyes flickered down, and I followed her gaze. I had basically been screaming at wet meat, and there wasn’t much left of the man to beat. “It’s over,” she whispered, forcing a smile. “You did it, just like you promised you would.”
I pushed off the corpse, my gaze soft as I gazed off in the distance. As powerful as he was, in the end he was still just a mortal, flesh and blood just like me.
Like me. I wasn’t sure if that would ever sink in.
Before me was a whole battlefield full of elves, and yet it seemed like every eye was on me. No longer under Zevoc’s influence, the remaining olgoks had made a run for it, as had the other beasts.
“It’s really over,” I whispered, daring to repeat her words.
I felt numb. All I wanted to do was sit in this field for a while and not think about anything, so that’s exactly what I did. But when I flopped down and crossed my legs, my ladies all sat around me too. Not one of them said a word, they didn’t have to. They knew I had been through hell, and no words were going to change that.
For right now, just their comforting presence was enough.
Epilogue
“Are you sure about this?” Ursula asked, the beautiful witch still trying to talk me out of this just as the other ladies had. Days had passed since the battle, and things had mostly returned to normal. My elves had missed me terribly and seemed intent on proving it beneath the sheets every night since. And I thought the battle with Zevoc had worn me out.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said, unable to mask the touch of sadness in my voice. “I’ve thought this through, and my mind is made up.”
“You know you can stay with us as long as you want,” Ilenia begged, her blue eyes flashing with hope.
“Or us,” Lazziar added. Both she and her mother had yet to return to the underworld. They wanted to spend as much time around me as they could, fearing exactly what was happening right now.
“If you go back to your world, your people will never know what you’ve done here,” Xannor explained yet again, for probably the twentieth time.
“Yeah, I know,” I said simply. That was kind of the point, but I didn’t know how to make them understand. “I did what you brought me here to do. My job is finished now, and it doesn’t feel like there’s anything else I can accomplish here.” I swallowed the lump of sadness swelling in my throat. “It’s time for me to go back.”
“Stay here and you’ll be a god,” Neia said, a desperate last-ditch effort to change my mind.
“A god?” I forced a laugh in the bittersweet moment. But in truth, I could already feel the change in the air. The task I was chosen for had been completed. The weight of the universe had been lifted from my shoulders.
It was time, and that was all there was to it. The universe itself was telling me so.
We carried out our long, tear-filled goodbyes, but eventually I had to rip the Band-Aid off. I gestured to Ursula, who in turn waved her hands toward the center of the room. A portal ripped open, and there was the parking lot to my old college just as I remembered it.
I stepped through and turned around, waving back through the portal. As I did, the black runes all around my body began lifting away in flakes of smoky black ash. I took it as another sign that my journey was over.
But if the universe ever needed my services again, I would always be ready to serve.
Teary-eyed elves waved back, blowing kisses at me until the ring collapsed back down. I stared at the little glowing ball as it hovered like a little firefly. “Goodbye,” I whispered, a final farewell to the elves who had changed my life forever. “I’ll never forget you.”
The glowing ball winked out, leaving no trace that it ever even existed.
I love you all.
Thank you for reading Elf World. I really hope you enjoyed it. If you would like updates on my future releases, please feel free to follow my Amazon Author Page here.
And special thanks to my editor Claudette Cruz.
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Dax Hunter, Elf World : The Complete Series
