12 Wrath Part 2

Damia was running as fast as her legs would carry her, skittering through a tunnel at speeds abnormal for someone of her hulking size. Her powerful arachnid legs crushing stone as she fled, Damia sat upon her back, hugging onto the woman half atop her carapace. Shockwaves and bone chilling howls echoing through the tunnels as a battle took place back in the ballroom.

"That could have gone much better." Idalia said, yawning.

"Of course it could have! He stabbed you in the guts, you reckless magician! How are you even alive? I thought mages were supposed to be fragile." Damia responded, still skittering through the maze of tunnels.

"We are fragile, but Gorum didn't truly stab me, I'm using a body double right now. The only part of this current me that matters is the gem in my head that acts as the magical catalyst for this body. I'm not like Gorum, I have an actual public image and schedule. The real me is trying to leave a meeting to prepare for battle." said Idalia, fixing the bangs on Damia's woman half.

"Oh good, since you're speaking to me through a disposable body double, I can just drop you and save myself having to carry the weight?" Damia said, a bit peeved that Idalia didn't even show up herself.

"Don't be such a grump, I need this body double and it's not even heavy. Plus, this thing takes an insane amount of mana to make, I would be pissed if it got wasted. Don't we have more pressing matters anyways?" Idalia retorted, shutting down Damia's pettiness.

"Well...You're right. Speaking of, why the hell did he flip like that? I thought it was all going perfectly! Do you think he saw through the holes in your story?" Damia asked, quite perturbed by the whole ordeal. Idalia changed her story every time she told it, in order to better appeal to potential candidates. Eventually once you stayed long enough in the organization, you'd learn it was a white lie that was necessary to further the Order.

"I doubt it, although Gorum has a memory even better than mine, he's not a history buff. In reality we probably leaned too hard into the whole 'getting even' thing. Should've just lied and said we were going to establish equality amongst all the classes, he would've said yes to that...probably." Idalia rubbed her chin, trying to think on what would've been better to say.

"Probably? You said you knew him better than anyone!" Damia asked, getting a bit angry again.

"I do, it's just that knowing a little bit about him is the most anyone knows. Therefore, I who knows a little bit more than a little bit, know better than anyone." Idalia said, her tone filled with the snark of a classic mage.

"Whatever...do you think Husk can handle him back here?" Damia asked, trying to ignore her cohort's snark.

"Probably not no, at best he'll buy time by being a nuisance long enough for my real body and reinforcements to arrive. If he does anything more, I'll be greatly surprised." Idalia responded coolly, even picking dirt out from under her fingernails.

"Are you shitting me!? I though husk was your 'Anti-Gorum Device'?" Damia said, her blood pressure rising because of the aloofness of the woman on her back.

"Originally yes, but I thought Gorum was going to die of old age soon, so I repurposed him a bit. Although even if I didn't, he still wouldn't win. Gorum isn't an opponent you beat in a one on one. He's an opponent you swarm and swarm until they can't take it anymore. Like Gorum himself has said, 'It's unlikely for a wolf to kill a dragon, but ten million wolves could probably do it.'" Idalia said, letting out another yawn.

"AH that's right! Gorum is still human, so old age is catching up with him! Were you able to see if it was affecting his stats?" Damia asked, hoping for a good answer. She had forgotten about it since she won't ever suffer from it, but once an organism reaches the end of its natural lifespan, they'll be hit with a heavy amount of debuffs, making even the strongest warriors a shadow of their peak form.

"Of course not, I can't use appraisal through this thing, it has to be in person. Hell, this thing is barely capable of 8th tier spells, we just have to hope Husk buys us enough time." Idalia said, shooting down Damia's hope in a flat second.

"I see...let's hope for the best." Damia said solemnly as she picked up the pace, hurdling further through the tunnels.

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Meanwhile, in the ballroom....

The tall and wrinkly gray man let out banshee like howls from its dislocated jaw, smashing and swinging its long arms down at Gorum with viscous killing intent, the winds kicked up by the blurringly fast motions of their arms making it difficult for the emissaries present in the ballroom to even step near the two as they clashed. However, despite the aggressive and powerful swings from the gray man, Gorum didn't bother dodging. He simply stood in place, parrying every single attack away from his body by using the flat side of his spearhead.

"Lots of power and speed, but hardly skillful. One of you give me information on this thing, hurry up." Gorum let out a disappointed sigh at the creatures' poor skill and barked an order to the still shocked emissaries.

The emissaries were conflicted, half of them still in the floor from the shock of the situation, as well as the actual shockwaves produced by Gorum and the gray man. Not only that but Gorum had attacked their main leader, out of the blue as well. But it's not as if they could do anything, though the majority were all between level 15,000 and level 35,000; they still wouldn't be able to even scratch Gorum.

"T-That's Master Husk, he is the Third Omen, the Hollow Omen." One of the emissaries finally spoke up after regaining enough composure. The young human man that was part of the group that first led Gorum to the ballroom.

"Good lad, what's your name and what's the story behind the big man?' Gorum said, not looking away from Husk as the blows kept coming, resulting in resounding bangs every time the creatures' fist collied with the flat side of the spear.

"My name is Tacitus Master Gorum, a-and as for Master Husk, he is a magical berserker made by Mistress Idalia. I don't know what they were like before, but after various surgeries and modifications, Idalia transformed him into what you see before you..." Tacitus gulped, trying to keep his composure in front of the scene before him. The booms from Husks strikes were terrifying, and worst of all is that it was all too fast for him to see, all he saw was a blur of violence between Gorum and Husk.

'So, Idalia improved her research then?" Gorum thought as he took a little trip down memory lane. Maybe around 50 years or so ago, Gorum was facing issues with his small stature in battle. His comrades and opponents kept getting bigger, yet he was still the same kuart and a half tall. Word got around about it and eventually Idalia came to him with a proposal. Act as her test subject and in return he was all but guaranteed to grow larger. Little did he know the process was so excruciatingly painful that every subject before him died. Specifically, the bone stretching killed them, the act of artificially growing bones to greater lengths and girths. Apparently Gorum was the only one that didn't explode. Even now, decades later, his bones were always aching.

'I'm going to assume he's not going to go down easy...' He thought as he kept scanning Husk for some sort of obvious weak spot. It was hard enough to fight a regular magically enhanced berserkers since they were basically unstoppable unless you chopped them into bits, flattened them, or blew them up with magic. HE could only guess at how difficult it was about to be to stomp out a berserker made by the greatest magical mind he ever knew.

"Well then, let's get to it!" Gorum shouted as he deftly sliced Husk's hands off in one go.