Evolution: A Warlock’s Rise To Power

The Plague Baron looked to Raze, but his patron didn't announce a winner. He quickly jerked his head back towards Lucan to find the bodies of his party members had disappeared.

A green portal opened overhead. Lucan's party dropped through from the ethereal realm, landing right behind the Baron's teammates.

"He, he, did you think it would be that easy." Lucan said getting up from where he laid, dusting himself off.

He had taken advantage of his rarely used rogue ability Feign Death. The plague Baron had let down his guard allowing Lucan's team members to get in close while the others were unprepared.

Silent appeared behind the archer with her daggers drawn. She plunged them into his back before stunning him and unleashing several more swipes. Taking away a quarter of his health, she kicked him away and made some distance before turning to fire an arrow at the priest.

Tango and Kyp had dropped behind the priest. The Quadkong grabbed a leg of the priest and began to mercilessly smash him into the ground over and over. The first smack into the ground did a decent amount of damage before a holy shield of golden light appeared around the priest protecting him from damage. Tango kept slamming the priest trying to break his shield while arrows came in to help.

MILOCARA appeared behind the knight. With the best reactions, the knight spun and raised his shield blocking the overhead fist imbued with ice that came slamming at his helmet.

He used a boot to kick the Cyromancer away. After creating space, he pulled out a spear while storing his shield. Typically, keeping a martial artist at a distance was a good plan, but MILOCARA wasn't a normal martial artist. He gripped the air and created two long sabers made from razor sharp ice. The knight thrust out his spear. MILOCARA leaped over it, delivering a set of dual slashes towards the knights face.

Holy Willow appeared behind the mage. With the judgment of the gods, a golden sword plunged from the heavens and locked the mage down while a set of golden chains ensured he wouldn't struggle free anytime soon. Not wasting a moment, Holy raised his sword that had been imbued with the might of the gods, quickly brining it down to smite his target.

"How dare you play tricks." The Plague Baron snarled. With a shake of his hand, the locusts returned to Lucan.

A small shadow drake appeared on his shoulder. Opening her mouth, hellfire instantly roasted half the swarm. Adrestia took to the sky, easily out pacing the rest of the swarm.

A blur of blue came from the fighting archers and swam through the air towards the locust. There was a clash of wings and tiny mouths as the two groups collided.

When the swarms parted again, the Plague Baron could no longer see Lucan. He quickly looked around.

Tango kept smashing while the others were unable to come to his aid.

*Shatter*

The priest barrier broke and on the next smash his head caved in.

"ROOAAARRRR!!!!!" Tango let out a celebratory cry.

The mage was tied down by divine power while Holy Willow continued to cut into him.

Silent and the archer had spread apart from each other and were sending arrows back and forth as fast as they could.

MILOCARA had shredded the spear the knight was using, while his armor was slowly starting to freeze together. A few more hits from the ice sabers and his suit of armor would turn into an icy coffin.

"Worthless, you are all worthless."

The Plague Baron took out his staff and slammed it into the ground. His vice generals suddenly wailed, the veins on their faces turned purple and then black. Even the corpse of the dead priest was affected.

*Bang* *Bang* *Bang* *Bang*

The bodies of the Plague Barons teammates exploded. Black blood and diseased tissue went flying through the air.

MILOCARA created a wall of ice to stop the foul material from touching him, but the cursed blood melted straight through his ice without resistance, landing on his body.

Tango wasn't quick enough to protect himself when the corpse of the priest exploded. Black goo covered the Quadkong's face and body, quickly burning away his flesh.

Not even the divine protection from the gods could stop the foul smelling ichor as Holy found his armor disintegrating as the blood seeped inside. Fully clad in protective gear he couldn't even reach his skin to wipe it off.

Silent was far enough away from the archer that she was able to avoid any of the mess caused from the explosion of his body. But Tango, MILOCARA, and Holy died moments after they were infected.

With his beast dead and unable to do any damage, Tyrannical Kyp forfeited and teleported out of the arena before he lost any experience form dying.

The Plague Baron's eyes locked onto Silent.

"You don't look at her." Lucan whispered as he plunged the Sword of Corruption into the Baron's back.

As he pulled it out, he was disgusted to find centipedes and spiders crawling out of the wound. The tiny little creatures leapt at Lucan. He dove backwards to avoid what he assumed to be were poisonous creepy crawlers.

Lucan had managed a critical strike, but the Baron's health had barely gone down.

The Baron turned his attention back to Lucan and began to launch shadow bolts towards him. Lucan split into four copies of himself, each running a different direction.

The Plague Baron didn't have the patience for Lucan's games, so he once again focused on Silent.

When Lucan was about to rush forward, he received a telepathic message from Silent.

'Let me distract him while you prepare.'

'Be safe.'

Silent launched a dozen shadow arrows towards the Baron. With a wave of his hand, 12 spiders leapt from his sleeve and jumped in front of the arrows. Some how their tiny bodies caused the arrows to stop dead in their tracks.

The Baron quickly finished a chant and hundreds of diseased and infected shadow rats appeared around him. Every single one of them ran straight towards Silent.

She turned around and fled, firing arrows backwards when she could but there were simply to many for her to make a large dent in their numbers.

While she tried to deal with the rats, the Plague Baron waved his hand, disappearing in the shadows and reappearing before her.

He reached out to grab her but Silent took a step into the ethereal realm and jumped directly through him.

She kept running but the Plague Baron didn't plan on just letting her go.

The rats were getting smarter and cutting off her path of retreat. Adrestia flew down in her larger form to claw and bite at the rats.

"Adrestia, NO!" Silent shouted out.

The drake crunched a rat in its mouth an immediately became poisoned. Her health began to quickly fall.

Lucan cursed in his head as Adrestia fell over dead. A purple fire swirled around her as a hand reached up from underneath and dragged her down to hell. Lucan tried to hurry his chant as much as he could, but a single misspoken syllable would ruin everything. He tried to stay calm as Silent made her last stand.

She was surrounded with nowhere to run. In the short battle she had already shot out over a hundred arrows, leaving her quiver empty. She took out her daggers and used them to fend off the rats while burning through the rest of her daily time for ethereal step.

The Plague Baron pulled a long whip out and with a crack it bound around Silent as he yanked her into his grasp. She was poisoned and bleeding form several rat bites when she was lifted off the ground by her neck.

"PUT HER DOWN!!!" Lucan screamed as shadows rolled out from him. His shadow servants rose to serve their master.

*Slap*

Lucan pulled back his hand to find a squashed mosquito.

[You have been poisoned]

He quickly checked his stats to find his health, mana, and stamina all unaffected. He suddenly felt a calming sensation suppressing the rage in his stomach.

"HA, ha, ha, I have studied you quite a bit." The Plague Baron said. "I am well aware that you become a terrifying force when you become insane. I have learned that you need a large swing in your emotions to cause this. I have dosed you with enough sedative that even the wildest barbarian would lose their rage and become a docile little lamb if they were to succumb to that poison. Without your insanity you are worthless. There is nothing you can do but beg for your life."

*Crack*

The Plague Baron snapped Silent's neck and tossed her aside, letting his shadow rats devour her remains.

The expression on Lucan's face remained calm.

"There is something that you have misunderstood." Lucan said. "Yes, a swing in my emotions triggers my insanity, but it is not the cause of it. I only go insane when experiencing volatile emotions because I lose control and am unable to suppress it any longer."

"What are you trying to say? Just admit defeat and let me behead you."

"I am trying to say, that I have always been insane."

[Warlock's Insanity has been triggered.]