CHAPTER 17 FINALE!

COMBAT PRESCIENCE

Lucas’s heart was hammering, adrenaline surged in his veins and set his nerves on fire. His animal brain recognised the mortal danger, leveraging every possible tool that might extend his life by fractions of a second. In this frenzied and thoughtless scramble to survive, every sense was pushed to its absolute limit. Once the limit of his senses was reached, the pushing did not abate. In this desperate rage against the snuffing out of his life, no neuron or nerve was spared. There, at the boundaries of possibility, an ‘extra’ sense was found. His Read Aura ability, now empowered by 6 Spirit, created an effect that his primal instincts immediately exploited.

Preceding every action of his enemies was an intention that flashed through their Auras. The time between intention and action was a mere fraction of a second. It was useless to his conscious mind, to his ‘self aware’ brain, but to the primal brain it was ample time to fire instant physical reactions. Like an eyelid blinking before a particle of dust, Lucas found himself adjusting his balance to be ready for an axe that had not yet started to swing.

The result was a sudden onset of slipperiness as his body seemed to glide between the gaps in the Hunter’s blows no matter what angle they came from. His body contorted as his subconscious calculated microseconds and fractions of angles, sending every blow that couldn't be dodged to ricochet off his armour.

The Hunters were becoming frustrated at Lucas’s eel-like ability to slip out of any attempts to corner him, but his accumulated wounds were beginning to slow him down. Punctured muscles on his arms and legs narrowed the range of possible ways he could bend to avoid the blows. Blood loss made his limbs feel like lead, and soon his extra sense could do no more than allow him to wince, knowing a blow was coming that he couldn't avoid.

An axe cut deep into his calf muscle, staggering him at the worst possible moment. Several more unavoidable blows landed in succession, one to the side of his head left his vision spinning as he stumbled forward. The Clan Hunter’s Auras beamed in satisfaction as Lucas dropped to his knees, blood flowing freely over his face.

The moment they took to exchange satisfied glances with each other proved to be a mistake. They thought the fight was over, but Lucas was only buying time. Finally, a familiar feeling like the ire of a wrathful god swept over the area. The space around them seemed to fill with overwhelming menace and the silence became deafening.

‘About time,’ Lucas thought as he fought the familiar sensation of his body freezing up. The Clan Hunters, who were the direct focus of the supernatural hostility, were stuck frozen in panic. Their eyes went wide with shock, their legs began to tremble, and their Aura’s became soaked in fear. Korah burst into the clearing, the blue energy of Empower streaming off her as she swung her axe in a wide low arc.

One of the Clan Hunters had both legs cut off at the knees before anyone could react. Korah tossed Lucas a blue orb as she moved to attack the next Clan Hunter. He caught it without thinking, his body and mind still recovering from Overwhelming Presence. Realising that it was Korah’s healing Nexus, Lucas scrambled woozily to his feet and got out of the way while he had the chance.

Lucas’s crippled Ambusher was crawling back towards the fight. Its Aura was steeled with grim determination, ready to sacrifice itself for its master.

‘No need for that little buddy, I got a better idea.’

Lucas summoned a Fractal Mind. He then attached the Healing Nexus to one of the Mana bands in his Aura, causing it to float in a slow orbit around him. The Fractal Mind engaged the Healing Nexus immediately, having shared Lucas’s intentions. Healing energy flooded into the Arach. Nothing could be done about the missing Scythe and the dislocated limbs healed into unfortunate angles, but the bleeding stopped and the pained delirium cleared out of its Aura.

While his Fractal was immersed in the Healing Nexus, Lucas attached his Regeneration Bracer. Between summoning the Fractal, using the Healing Nexus and activating his Regeneration Bracer, Lucas had completely drained his 3 remaining Mana, but he and his Ambusher would be back to fighting shape soon. Using the Fractal meant he hadn't needed to risk entering the Nexus trance in combat.

Lucas turned his attention back to the fight just in time to see Korah hacking an arm off a Clan Hunter. She had his wrist clamped in an iron grip as she swung at his shoulder. He was desperately flailing, kicking, and screaming. It was making it hard to get a clean cut but the result seemed pre-determined. He was never going to get out of Korah’s 6 Strength grip with his arm attached.

Behind her one of the Clan made a series of strange hand signals while muttering under his breath. A concave depression sank into the centre of his chest and white tattoo lines from all over his body converged there, swirling as they fell into the hole. Korah was covered in blood and laughing as she finally managed to dislodge the arm. The last few tendons snapped as she pushed her boot into the Hunter’s chest to yank it off. A flash of blinding light lit up like a supernova, painting the whole scene in black and white for a split second before Lucas went blind and a shockwave knocked him off his feet.

An eerie stillness settled over the battlefield. Lucas could hear soft groans emanating from several people at once, as if everyone was slowly waking up. Lucas saw only black, so he concentrated on his Map. His state of emergency caused his icon on the Map to flash like a signal, and he saw all his Scouts rushing to converge on his position. He used Scry to iterate through each of their perspectives until he landed on one that had managed to avoid being blinded. A few seconds later it reached him and leaped up to latch onto his shirt, providing him with 'shoulder mounted camera vision'.

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Korah and the three surviving Clan Hunters were lying flat on their faces. Korah was not moving at all, smoke drifted up from her body and her armour and skin were painted black with soot. The Clan were slowly coming to their senses. Whatever that blast was, it had hit the Clan almost as hard as Korah. Lucas had been far enough away to avoid much of the blast wave, and wasn’t troubled by being blinded. He was the first to his feet, followed by the Ambusher that his Fractal had finished healing. The Ambusher began probing the air around it with its legs, apparently blind as well.

The Ambusher did share his Map ability, but didn't seem to be able to access the perspective of the others like Lucas could. Despite being healed it could barely walk. Lucas helped it hobble towards the group of prostrate combatants. When they reached one of the Clan, he was trying to roll over. Lucas planted a foot on his neck while his Ambusher, who recognised the enemy when their Aura’s made contact, dosed it with Paralytic Venom. They repeated the process with the other three before Lucas turned his attention to Korah. A quick check on her pulse confirmed she was alive.

Lucas was totally drained of Mana by that point so he took off his Regeneration Bracer and attached it to her wrist. Unfortunately she couldn't activate it while unconscious, but after a few more seconds she began to groan, followed a moment later by slowly sitting up.

“What happened? I can't see. Are you there Lucas?”

“Yea, I have no idea what happened though. You are wearing the Regeneration Bracer, if you put some Mana into it you will get your vision back. As for what happened, the Clan Hunters have tattoos over their body that seem to store a variety of special powers. One of them, apparently, was like a concussive flashbang.”

Korah started blinking, then took the Regeneration Bracer off and handed it back to Lucas.

“There must be a very powerful Shaman in this forest. Those powers were far greater than what the Clan in my homeland could manage. What’s a flashb…”

“Uhh, never mind that.” Lucas cut her off. “Let's call it a thunderbolt. Anyway, I don't think it was supposed to be used at close range like that. You took the brunt of it, but they stunned themselves also. My spider mate and I took over from there.” Lucas said, patting his Ambusher.

Ambusher’s Aura lit up with joy at its Master’s attention, but it was also shot through with pain again. The small amount of walking it had done since the last healing session had already caused fresh internal damage. The spider's Aura began to weep with shame, having read in Lucas’s Aura the realisation that it would never again be able to fight for him.

“It’s not your fault, it’s mine.” Lucas said, feeling his own shame for not properly testing out the Ambusher design.

“Don’t worry.” He said, gently patting it as he tried to make his Aura as reassuring as possible.

“I’m going to make you into something new now, something strong and proud. Don’t be afraid.”

The Spider couldn't understand his words of course, but the intention in his Aura made it clear what he was talking about nonetheless. Before Luca’s eyes the Ambusher’s Aura underwent an internal struggle as it came to understand that he intended to sacrifice it. With courage and grace Lucas was sure he couldn't have managed, it overcame its fear to accept its fate. Its Aura now shone with peaceful resignation, only glad that it could still serve him in death.

Korah watched the exchange wordlessly, powerful emotions stirred in her Aura and her eyes looked like she might tear up. When Lucas looked at her she said:

“I… I did not know Arachs could be that way, giving its life with courage and honour.” She turned away, her voice strained.

“Do it now then, let's not drag it out.” Lucas said, feeling at the edge of tears himself.

“Do all of them in quick succession so I can combine their energy.”

He entered the Nexus and all he saw of what happened next was the Mana flowing in.

The combination of one Arach and four Clan Hunters produced 33 Mana. 29 of which he fed into one of the Brawler eggs that he had created last night. Since Lucas had drained his Mana completely during the fight, there wasn't much he could do with the excess 4 Mana. He considered hatching one of the little Broodlings that had helped him in the cave, but decided it wasn't worth using up one of his eggs. Withdrawing his senses from the Nexus, Lucas stepped back to watch the Brawler hatch.

It took twice as long to hatch as a Combat Spider. The egg just kept growing and growing. It had reached nearly three metres tall when a massive Scythe erupted from the top, slicing its way down the front for the creature to step out. Lucas had spent many hours working on the design so he knew exactly what it would look like, but the design interface did not prepare him for how imposing it was in real life. A massive Arach that must weigh more than four tons braced itself on its powerful legs and lifted two titanic Scythes into the air, saluting Lucas. He Analysed it.

Korah whistled in appreciation.

“Now that is a big boy. I have never seen an Arach like that. Can it use that size properly in a fight?”

Lucas smiled in response, knowing from the dream simulations that she wouldn't be disappointed, but did not say anything.

“So how do we find the rest of the Clan?” He asked instead.

Korah was approaching the Brawler carefully as she answered.

“They are skilled at moving through the forest so we will not be able to follow their tracks easily. If they were walking in a straight line when you scried them we might be able to simply follow the way they came from.” As she spoke she attempted to reach out to touch the Brawler.” Its Aura flared suddenly with a warning, causing her to back off reluctantly.

“Yea they were, Let's head off,” Lucas said, putting the Brood Nexus and eggs back in Storage.