* * *
Joe felt himself fall into his rhythm when the thing stepped out of the shadows. It had been touch and go there, Joe having to shove his spear at center of mass of an empty space. He hadn’t actually been able to get a good hit off, striking with his spear from longer distances as he was a bit too worried to close in when he couldn’t precisely see where his enemy was at, especially its limbs. He did feel three or four glancing blows, and even found blood on his spear head after a lucky glancing strike, which had proved to be the most significant.
It was odd, considering how fast the thing had charged before, to see it move so slowly and deliberately. The thing did move back and forth regularly, trying to flank him all the time, its movements slow and deliberate as it attempted to move stealthily. It took Joe a bit to re-orientate on it, but Joe’s speed and ability to understand what the empty shape he was looking at was increasing, although Joe was growing very nervous. His mana in his mana points was depleting rapidly. The tide master had shown up just when he used up all his mana in his points. Granted, he’d had a decent amount of time planning with Allanar, getting down the wall, and waiting for the last of the monsters to die before coming out to face the tide master. Even the walk from the wall to the tide master had been taken with a deliberate caution, both just to be safe and to delay as much as possible to get his mana back. But now, Joe found himself growing worried as his points were draining quite fast, despite his attempts to make sure his mana emissions were as tight and focused as possible. I wish I could just outline it… maybe staple a point to …
Joe blinked, taking a step back, his smile grew. Right… one mana point on the shoulder, one at the elbow, one at the wrist. Six mana points zipped forward, slapping forward on what Joe thought was the arms of the creature. Joe smiled brightly, when the left arm spread wide to give counterbalance to a kick as the creature leaned back and his mana points remained plastered along the body and not on the obvious arm. The right leg came thundering up into his shield. Crap… Gotta actually know where I’m wanting it… they can’t magically find it… Line of sight thing? Joe rapidly outlined the right leg and left arm as they were so obvious with the creature laid out in the hard kick.
Over the next several attacks, Joe was able to get a point at each joint for the major limbs, then decided to add another two points across the lower parts of the limbs, from elbow to wrist and knee to ankle. The extra two points gave Joe a much better visualization of the striking portions of the limbs. A few clashes later, Joe was able to get a decent visualization of the head as well, highlighting it with a brilliant and ridiculous smiley face. Joe couldn’t keep his grin to himself.
But, as their fight continued, Joe’s strikes, despite the added help of the wireframe point system, felt less and less meaningful. He began to get a bit worried when each of his successive blows seemed to become less and less meaningful, the feeling of his spear glancing off of a surface more obvious with penetrations becoming less and less. The wireframe helps, but… I can’t account for the edges of his limbs and I’m not sure what or where I’m hitting except just… the big empty square in the middle. This thing…
Fighting an invisible opponent was both better than he’d feared, but worse than what his poor workaround helped with. Despite the lack of meaningful penetrative strikes, his blunt strikes were proving much more useful as he now began to use his spear like a staff, slamming it into the thing's limbs when it struck, although he still made sure to use the shield for any strike from the things right hand, as it obviously had a weapon. Joe had tried to have a couple points attach to the weapon, but they refused to move. Only able to stick to human flesh, or… well… joe sent a point to his spear tip, and it entered easily. As soon as he did so, the tide master leapt back from him, moving backwards rapidly, although it still seemed so slow compared to its earlier movements. Why is it… oh… mana point in the tip! Just like an arrow… but why is it moving so slow… is it a function of stealth? Seems dumb… so… But…
Joe left the mana point in the tip of his spear, and the thing began to be much more cautious of interacting with Joe’s spear. The number of spear penetrations rapidly decreased even further and Joe frowned, not sure he liked the creature being that much more defensive. He pulled the mana point out of his spear and the creature went back to striking him as rapidly and wildly as before. Joe grinned. Right… how to use this… Joe left the mana point out of his spear for now and found that he was able to get more thrusts to stick than before, although they were all still glancing blows that did barely anything. But now, a useful possibility began to jell in his thoughts.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
He moved to the defensive, allowing his body to control his defenses when the creature struck, then quickly and rapidly considering options when it retreated and gave Joe breathing room to think. With the wireframe, he was able to more easily use his normal martial arts forms and he could stay in closer longer and started to get strikes on the torso more consistently, although he was still struggling to easily handle the limbs, especially the arms. Is…oh, the points on the right arm aren’t exactly lined up correctly… are they sticking a bit off? Not exactly on the joint? Or… attached to a shirt? Not…
The creature leapt back and away and suddenly screamed, rage felt like a physical force as it erupted from him. Joe’s eyes widened when he realized that it literally was a physical wave of force and pulled his shield up, slamming a shoulder into the shield while ducking his head down and lowering his waist to better stabilize himself. Leaning into it, the shockwave washed over him, but somehow also had a force to it that broke almost entirely of what Joe knew of physics. His entire body was pushed back, his feet leaving a muddy trail. The push back was less explosive and more of a hard push and Joe easily handled it as it was even less powerful than when the creature had struck him at the beginning of the fight. The shockwave, however, deafened him, and he feared he may have even ruptured his eardrums as he felt liquid dripping from his ears. Joe staggered, the shockwave not a very comfortable to experience. OK. How’d I survive that? That’s… nuts! Explosions… and, where did the shadows go?
The creature stood now before him, fully revealed. It stared at Joe in shock and rage, before it leapt towards him and began swinging its limbs in a frenzied attack, not caring for anything but to strike him. Fast! The first swing of its right arm came almost faster than Joe could account for, but was still able to recognize its general trajectory and brought his shield up for protection. This time, Allanar’s defense seemed to trigger, and the hit was muffled behind a splash of water. It made the strike quite laughable, but its wild swing with the left hand slammed against his spear hard enough to cause to shudder. Strong! Crap… that’s…
Joe kept his defenses up, struggling a bit as its wild swings were blurs that Joe was barely aware of. It was only because of his long years of training with human combat that allowed Joe to recognize the normal strike patterns and where they would hit for each of the limbs. His feet stepped back slowly, giving ground slightly, but his confidence grew when he realized that while the creature was strong and fast, it was enraged and simply swinging its limbs in frenzied abandon.
His nerves calmed, and with that came mental acuity. Right. Fix the mana points on the right arm. Get a line of points on the weapon. Just in case it cloaks again… and… Got it! The creature still had a shadow cloak of some kind that melded together and obscured his body and limbs, especially when the two were close together. Even the sword melded into its leg, hiding in the cloak of shadows, but with a string of points in the sword, Joe was now able to easily see where the sword was at all times. With a bit more certainty of where the dangerous pointy thing was, Joe settled into his rhythm fully, taking the strikes with ease and found his footing.
With the rhythm found, Joe began following the others’s strikes and was soon able to counter, slipping in quick jabs and slashes. He maintained his distance, always retreating under the frantic attacks of the creature so as to keep it at distance for his spear strikes. He had to pull the spear in shorter as the creatures speed was just so fast it was almost impossible for him to keep it at a distance that was advantageous for his spear’s reach. Despite that, he found having it in closer allowed him to control the flow of battle much better. It appeared to become stuck in an agitated frenzy of strikes and didn’t use its superior speed beyond attempting to get around his defenses. While Joe was feeling more comfortable in the defense and fight, he was growing much more concerned with how easy the thing seemed to be making the fight. Can’t let this continue on much longer! How… what can…
His mind raced with options and grew ever more concerned with how the fight was going. The creature seemed intelligent, at least when he’d tried talking. And it’s using a freaking sword… badly, but still! But the thing seemed too beast like and Joe feared that it would begin to use its intelligence, if it already wasn’t, to trap him in a really bad situation. As he thought, he had already begun forming an excellent counter, the things strikes were wild but predictable. Strike, shield bash, disarm… no. Strike, kick, shi… no. Shield ba… no. Disarm, shield bash, thru… no. That…
Soon, Joe was struggling to hide his grin as the thing became more and more predictable and he simply waited, the creature would soon... there! A wild swing with his sword came around in a massive slash and Joe stepped into it, slamming a shield into the sword’s path even as he thrust his spear deep into the creature’s chest. The creature roared in pain, a screech that was sub-harmonically reinforced with its roar. Health! Can’t stop… not dead!