A Touch Of Lightning (COMPLETED!)

Chapter 80 Berserker

       

Chapter 80 Berserker      

Callin opened his eyes, finding himself standing on the edge of a cliff thousands of feet high. Everywhere he looked, on all sides, everything was painted gray. Even the sky was a muted, swirl of complex shades of gray. He lifted his hands, seeing his bone armor, his lengthened claws hissing with vicious power, the backward facing, curved spurs with their razor edges everywhere.

He was so consumed with rage he didn't even register that his armor was back, that he had his powers again.

Moving purely on dark instincts, his logical mind far away, he raised his head and looked out over the valley so far below, and narrowed his eyes. What was that out there, so perfectly lined up in rows, stretching from the left to the right, out of sight?

Then, as he focused, his eyes seemed to bring it in closer, clearer. And he saw an army. Rows upon rows of soldiers dressed in strange, overlapping plates of some curved, gray material. Wearing shields and swords, pikes and battleaxes, crossbows and maces. All facing him. And he knew, without a doubt, waiting for him. Hundreds of thousands of warriors assembled on the battlefield. Millions of soldiers. Ready to fight. Ready to die.

Callin blinked, looking out over the waiting army. The sky above the vast plains had begun to swirl and darken, shifting power and shades of gray amassing. It was awe inspiring, raw power in motion, stretching out past the edges of comprehension, like watching the birth of a star. The swirling was increasing rapidly, growing darker by the second, all light sucking out of the sullen gray, warping into a great, sucking blackness.

The instant the swirl went pure black, it simply disappeared. A shocking, silent blink and it was gone, making Callin nervously twitch backwards, his clawed hands rising up to ward off an attack. And he saw the army below that great swirl shift and change, their forms suddenly blurry to his enhanced eyes, surrounded by faint black halos, like each and every soldiers shadow had suddenly attached itself to the back of its host and was now dancing crazily just behind each of them. Dancing with insane, lethal intent.

And the blackness was familiar. A terrible familiarity, piercing deep into Callin's memories, cutting into him mercilessly. Cutting at the edges of his sanity and his control with perfect precision. It was the power wielded by every telepath at the lab. It was the blackness of their minds, of their seeking, violating mental tendrils, burring into his heart and his soul, raping, changing him! It was as if the entire army below had just changed into one of the telepaths from the lab, waiting for him. Ready to violate him yet again.

Callin raised his claws to the gray sky, his eyes blazing out across the plains like twin holes into a lower hell overflowing with electric, blue, uncaged power. He brought his hands together over his head, all ten claws touching together at the same instant. And he threw back his head and screamed.

And fiery, lashing, blue bolts of power rained from the sky, ripping into the army below and shaking the earth with its ripping thunder. Bolts of power snaking every way, blinking in and out of existence in instances so sudden it defied the eyes, and death followed behind. Bodies were torn apart and tossed across the plains like gory, shredded dolls, some thrown hundreds of feet into the sky before falling back to the ground.

It went on for many minutes, the sky raining blue death up and down the lines of soldiers, and then it stopped. Callin was snarling. Nearby, rocks were blistering and shivering, smoke rising into the air and bits of them being tossed away, just the sound of his voice filled with destruction, ripping at reality all around him.

He was crouched forward, twin, long, curved horns of purest black bone protruding out from his forehead and arching back over him, and a long, segmented tail was lashing about behind him, rising up into the sky in darting, fitful twitches, a demon snake seeking flesh to rend. His armor was no longer white. It was a swirling, darting scene of pure white and pure black, like power and the opposite of power painting him and battling within him at the same moment.