Leonidas, now armed with the advantage of his [Psionic Focus], put distance between himself and the Hive Tyrant. The creature had become more wary of him, it seemed, following its failed ambushes—and for all that it was definitely still stalking him, it appeared to be biding its time.
Why, he didn’t know.
But he wasn’t going to fail to take advantage.
His Psi was steadily declining with his [Psionic Focus] locked on the Hive Tyrant, and he did notice that it seemed to bleed away faster based on how far away he traveled from the submerged monster. Tarnys had said that the ability was like ‘active radar’ at higher levels, which meant that at his current state of strength, the Skill was more like a targeted tracking beacon.
He equated the Psi-drain, through that context, as battery life.
The further away the Tyrant was, the more battery his tracker drained.
With a mix of wariness and curiosity, Leonidas pushed his Intent toward the ability and tried to mentally configure it less like an active tracker, and more of a passive ping system. Instead of constantly marking the position of the Hive Tyrant, it could instead refresh the creature’s position every ten seconds, or each time that it moved closer to him by more than ten feet.
When he did so, he opened his map ‘widget’—he smirked at his own joke—in his HUD, and noted with pleasure that the Tyrant did appear on the ‘mini-map’, and that each time his [Psionic Focus] pinged, it caused the Tyrant’s labeled red icon to flash back into existence with a small range-reading under it which he understood without needing to actively read.
“Neat,” he said to himself while continuing his steady jog away from the creature. He hadn’t heard the announcer the entire match, he realized as he moved. The Arena Master had been silent ever since the initial confirmation of the bout—and he suddenly wondered at why. It wasn’t a thought that he had time to investigate, of course, but it certainly was curious.
His [Psionic Focus] warned him, and Leonidas changed direction.
Every time the Tyrant changed direction, Leonidas adjusted his own to maintain and grow distance, and each time he did it seemed to frustrate the Tyrant to some extent. The pings showed the occasional surge of motion where the arachnid, which was only separated from him by about eight feet of sand at any given moment, surged to catch up and then subsided once more.
Again, Leonidas couldn’t quite understand why, but there were only three possibilities: either the Tyrant was waiting for its claw to regenerate, which he thought was unlikely for several reasons, or it was waiting for him to grow too exhausted to run, which was also unlikely. The third possibility, and the one he most hated, was that it was waiting for backup.
And that, of course, was why Leonidas was opening the [Aetherium Store].
Other than the [Psi Potion] he needed, he’d also seen accessories on offer during his more frantic flight from the Tyrant earlier, and he needed to assess what it was about them that the store believed was so useful to him.
image [https://i.imgur.com/0mPKG94.png]
Aetherium Store
Welcome to the [Aetherium Store], Leonidas! An ideal selection of items has been curated for your perusal, based on your Intent! Special consideration has been given for your Core.
Psionic Amplifier (Helm)
[Quality]: Rare
[Price]: 80 Aetherium
[Requirement]: Level 1-10 Psionic Class
[Effects]: Amplifies Psi Skills by 25%
Spatial Storage Ring
[Quality]: Rare
[Price]: 80 Aetherium
[Requirement]: Level 1+
[Effects]: Can store up to 150 Kilograms
Health Potion
[Quality]: Uncommon
[Price]: 15 Aetherium
[Requirement]: Level 1-20
[Effects]: Restores 20 Health on use
Mana Potion
[Quality]: Uncommon
[Price]: 15 Aetherium
[Requirement]: Level 1-20
[Effects]: Restores 20 Mana on use
Psi Potion
[Quality]: Uncommon
[Price]: 35 Aetherium
[Requirement]: Level 1-20
[Effects]: Restores 15 Psi on use
----------------------------------------
Leonidas stared at the Store screen for several long moments, and then cursed emphatically. Two seconds. It would have taken two seconds to actually pay attention to what it was offering during his mad dash from the Hive Tyrant, and he’d have seen both of the items that were immensely useful to him. With the Spatial Storage, he could easily put away potions for later use—and the Psionic Amplifier wasn’t even a question.
A flat 25% increase to his Psi skills across the board? That was incredible.
Not to mention the fact it apparently served as a helmet, or perhaps could be melded to his existing one—though that seemed more like a question for Ceruviel, and only after he managed to survive the Hive Tyrant.
Besides, he’d had a storage ring on Elatra, and he could guess at how the one from the [Aetherium Store] functioned, if Elatra had been an [Integration Trial].
“Has to be the same…” he muttered while focusing on his enemy again.
Leonidas took note of the Hive Tyrant’s position and relative distance, then veered to the north while putting on a burst of speed. His new pace rapidly drained his Stamina, but it was necessary in order to evade the arachnid’s ‘swimming’ approach.
Once he had gained a measure of distance on the Tyrant, he quickly selected the [Spatial Storage Ring], [Psionic Amplifier], and one [Psi Potion].
“Deliver the items immediately,” he stated while hitting the confirmation, and projecting firm Intent to skip the packaging. The moment the confirmation was accepted, he came to an immediate and wary halt, and stabbed his sword into the sand. Almost immediately, he extended out both hands, and received the Amplifier, Ring, and Potion the second his palms opened.
The trio appeared in a stealth-destroying flare of golden light, and a quick manual pulse of his [Psionic Focus] told him that he had bought himself some time. The Tyrant had seemingly detected his sudden distance, and was beelining for him, but at a more sedate and wary pace—likely due to suspicion. How the creature could track, sense, and note his movements through the sand were another matter entirely, but Leonidas doubted he’d have been able to do anything even if he knew.
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The trio of items was relatively simple: the [Psi Potion] was a flask of shimmering, bubbling magenta-purple liquid that looked like distilled grape soda mixed with fairy lights, and made him thirsty for creaming soda just looking at it. The [Spatial Storage Ring], meanwhile, was a thick and rounded band of silver metal with shimmering blue sigils inset to diamond-shaped cuts in the ring, and worked around its length. It looked like stone as much as metal, due to its sheer thickness, but that was par for the course for such items.
The [Psionic Amplifier], meanwhile, was the most unassuming of the three: a simple dark circlet of metal, inset with a single amethyst at its center-forward prong, and lacking in ostentation. It looked like the crown of a humble prince, and Leonidas had to believe it was designed to be masculine. A brief thought of him wearing a tiara flittered through his mind, and then he firmly dispelled it. The 'Helm' designation had him wondering, though, whether or not it was a replacement for his helmet, or something that would fuse with it. He'd have to investigate that, though, after the match.
The most present issue of course was the Hive Tyrant's ability to appear at speed, and so Leonidas knew he had no time to waste trying to deduce whether or not he could fuse the [Psionic Amplifier] with his [Archon’s Warplate] at that moment. He was, for all his practical experience, definitely lacking in terms of abilities that could intercede with the creature’s tracking of him in any meaningful way—and that meant he had to do everything fast. Perhaps when his Psi mastery grew, but that was for the future. In the immediate moment, Leonidas looked down at his right hand and, after only a momentary hesitation, tested sliding the [Spatial Storage Ring] onto his right forefinger.
For a second the ring seemed to vibrate, and then it dutifully expanded exactly enough to fit over the armor, and slid snugly down toward his knuckle.
Leonidas grinned in relief at the adjustment. It worked just as he remembered.
“Now for you,” he said to the [Psionic Amplifier] and, without waiting, firmly plopped it onto his head. The moment he did, the Amethyst inset onto the front of the circlet flared to life, and Leonidas felt a shiver of power roll through him—right down to where his Psi Affinity lurked in his [Cataclysm Core]. The only way he could describe what happened next was that, in the instant he put on the crown; the Psi in his body grew more dense.
A sense of power vibrated through his mind, and he felt the detection power of his [Psionic Focus] sharpen and hone in with an immediate improvement to its performance. More than that, he felt like he could control Psi more easily, as well, and that it would answer his call at a denser and more poignant rate than it had previously. All of these things were, in a way, largely self-explanatory—but there was a difference between logically understanding the impact of the Amplifier, and feeling it for himself.
It felt like he’d been walking with weights on his Affinity’s manifestation, and some of them had finally been removed. He felt freer, and far more lethal.
More than that, his [Archon’s Warplate] seemed to be slightly denser and more form-fitting on his body, and with a start, he realized that his Synergy with it had increased by a full 5 percent.
A warning ping echoed through his improved [Psionic Focus], and Leonidas immediately channeled a sliver of mana into his storage ring, which he then used to deposit the [Psi Potion]. He didn’t want to use the potion until the exact moment before his fight, lest he burn through the resource again prior to the engagement.
With his new tracker, after all; the Hive Tyrant couldn’t surprise him anymore.
Leonidas extended his hand to grip his [Archon’s Psiblade] and draw it from the sand, and when he did the weapon hummed approvingly in his hand, as if sensing the [Psionic Amplifier]’s presence.
“Time to find a place to make my stand,” he said while searching his immediate vicinity, and finally letting his eyes rest on a large dune to the west, back toward where he’d originally entered the arena from the Sunset District. Leonidas’ mental marker for the Hive Tyrant told him the Arachnid was approaching from exactly that direction, and that dispelled all hesitation from his mind.
The creature had been in control the entire match.
It was time to even the score.
* * * * *
The prey was rapidly on the move.
It could sense the little adversary’s motion, like ripples through the Great Warm tickling its honed senses. So clumsy. So heavy. Its movements were like echoing drums to the Hive Tyrant’s enhanced senses, and it gnashed its teeth while following its sensory awareness toward the prey. The little adversary had wounded it, and forced it to dispense of a part of its whole. It had been pain, indeed, that had driven the Tyrant to the act of desperation—but such was its necessity when hunting. It had survived far worse than the little adversary, and would survive far worse besides.
This gnat would die. It had to die. The two-leg in strange black shell had harmed it in a way very few other two-legs had ever managed, and the Tyrant could never forgive such a slight. Almost it pitied the two-leg, if not for the fact it had offended the Tyrant’s greatness. All were either predator or prey, and the prey had bared its single fang and sought to challenge the Tyrant’s scything claws.
Oh it had to die. It had to die, die, die.
The Tyrant felt a sudden shift in the prey’s disposition, and it took a wide arc around where the ripple had sourced. The little adversary had stopped, but for what purpose?
The Tyrant could not understand its choice, either. The shadow of one of the Great Warm’s mighty expansions, rising like a hilltop upon the granular surface. Why had the little adversary stopped where the Tyrant was strongest? Unless…
Something approaching amusement thrilled through the Tyrant’s monstrous mind, and it chittered to itself in the security of the Great Warm’s darkness. The little adversary had to be exhausted, it realized. It did not know why the two-leg had not succumbed to its wounds already, but the Tyrant knew that it suffered.
The mighty beast had smelled the blood, so sweet, so bitter, on the two-legs’ body.
Oh its beautiful appendage had failed to pierce, to stab, to rend, to envenom the two-leg and its wicked black carapace, but it had scented the blood nonetheless. Like all animals, it knew that the two-leg would wear down with such injuries. It reeked of its own wounding, and had damaged its thorax and its head. Its little, ugly eyes had looked with appropriate shock upon the Tyrant’s six dark orbs of magnificence, and the creature had likely realized its doom.
The Tyrant shivered along its length in anticipation.
The prey would be in its maw soon enough.
The glorious tail upon its elongated form swirled and snapped through the Great Warm, and the Tyrant propelled itself forward with its perfect legs and sole remaining pincer. The remembered pain of its last loss filled it with hate, and filled it with an echo of fear, and the Tyrant’s hate only grew further as a result. Oh, how dare the two-leg make it—the great one—feel such intimidation. It would suffer. It had to suffer.
The two-leg had not moved from its position. It must have been truly weak.
The Tyrant knew that the heat, and the Great Warm itself, was anathema to two-legs. It remembered hunting and killing many, in the time before it had been trapped in the accursed Pit.
No matter. It would feed again this day.
The Tyrant’s speed ratcheted up, and as it approached the two-leg, it veered toward the mighty expansion. The rising sandwall loomed to its senses, and the Tyrant slithered up toward it. It would use the great expansion, and it would launch an assault on the prey from above. It would leave no room for error.
The time had come for a reckoning, and the Tyrant would have its due.
Its jaws snapped together in anticipation.
Oh yes, it would have its due.
* * * * *
Leonidas braced himself when the Hive Tyrant ascended up like a homing missile through the sand, and kept perfectly still when the creature rapidly accelerated toward the towering sand dune. His hands, wrapped around the hilt of his sword, were poised with the psiblade held to his right with the crossguard perpendicular to his shoulder, and the blade pointed to the sky.
His weapon’s scarlet edges were warped with the power of his psiforce, and his Cataclysm Mana churned within his body. Destruction, rage, and primordial force screamed at him to be used—and Leonidas ignored it.
He corralled it, contained it, and continued to draw it.
He held it in a tentative vise, balanced on the edge of plausibility, and waited for the exact moment to use it. It would need to be perfect, he knew. If the Tyrant sensed or saw what he had done, it would immediately seek to evade or disengage. It was not a stupid creature, after all, and Leonidas had seen the malignant cunning lurking in its grotesque black eyes when it had looked at him.
The laugh it had given, when he had tried to taunt it, had said enough.
No, he needed to be careful. He needed to time his attack just right.
When the Tyrant reached the zenith of its surging motion, Leonidas snapped his gaze upward and narrowed his eyes in focus. His Psi was down to less than 10 points. He only had one chance to pull off what he wanted to attempt.
His awareness of the Tyrant suddenly blazed.
The arachnid exploded out of the dune like a monstrously immense pouncing mantis, its one good scythe-pincer extended, fetid jaws agape, and chitinous spike-like legs angled toward him as if it wished to wrap him in an embrace.
Leonidas let out a slow breath.
His Battle Meditation kept him focused.
The Cataclysm Mana in his veins screamed.
The Tyrant was high enough for its shadow to throw him into darkness.
Leonidas waited, just long enough for the Tyrant to be wholly committed to its leap.
Then he exploded into motion.
Leonidas dodged the Hive Tyrant’s pounce by bare inches, and when it landed in a skidding heap, he threw himself toward it. The creature’s tail swiped at him, and Leonidas ignored it as surely as he had targeted his movement to come around on the right side—the injured side—of the creature’s body. He had planned for several scenarios, and only in his best case had the Hive Tyrant been arrogant enough to launch itself at him from the Dune.
The Cataclysm Mana under his control sang in his veins with the force of a restrained tsunami, and Leonidas rolled under the thunderous BOOM of the Tyrant’s stabbing stinger while still closing distance.
The creature continued to try to orient itself, after disorienting its own balance with the overzealous launch, and Leonidas took advantage of the chaotic dispersion of sand and mutual blindness to leap forward and—guided by his [Psionic Focus]—slice clean through one of the Tyrant’s legs.
The creature screeched in blood-curdling agony, and Leonidas was already moving. Another thunderous and violent impact of its tail shook the sand near his feet, but he relied entirely on the guidance of his mental awareness, and dodged backward away from the stinger’s next assault.
When he did, Leonidas ducked under another haphazard swing of the creature’s scythe-like pincer, and cut his sword upward toward its left-hand-side middle leg. The limb separated with a spray of viscera and gore, and Leonidas rolled away from a pincer back-sweep with a mix of his mental focus, battle meditation, and simple wartime experience.
When the Hive Tyrant finally had enough, and Leonidas felt what he translated as a mental scream of fear, he charged toward it before it could get away.
The Tyrant reared back when Leonidas approached, and released what he could only call a bugle-like trumpeting bellow into the air. The time it took to do so, however, was exactly the time he’d needed.
With every iota of his Strength Attribute in play, Leonidas leaped upward and oriented his psiblade to slam its psiforce-wrapped blade-proper into the raised right flank of the immense arachnid.
The moment he felt the [Archon’s Psiblade] sink down to the hilt, Leonidas squeezed his eyes shut in preparation.
“First Sword Art,” he roared while flooding Cataclysm Mana into his blade in a tide of destruction, “Requiem of the Tempest!”
The power of the natural disasters for which he had been named surged into the psiblade with unmitigated force, and Leonidas emptied two thirds of his mana pool into the action. He felt as much as saw the drop in his resources, and the psiblade in his grip blistered with heat the moment he let the tide go.
But that, of course, was nothing compared to what happened next.
Leonidas let go of the sword at the same time as the Cataclysm Mana met the internal matter of the immense Hive Tyrant, and like fire meeting a coagulation of pitch, the energy of Cataclysm ignited within the Tyrant.
The Arachnid barely had time to screech before its right side exploded in an eruption of blood-red flames, and hot, wet viscera and gore.
Leonidas was sent careening away when it did, and knew immediately that he’d broken something when he was. The Tyrant’s shrieking screams filled the air, and he managed to find the wherewithal to raise his head and stare with one working eye—the other was blurry at best—at the screeching monster.
It turned to him slowly, and then convulsed.
Leonidas smiled grimly.
His mana was still being drained.
The Hive Tyrant took one more lurching step, and then, abruptly, exploded.
Leonidas covered down when the fire, guts, and chitin washed over him and his damaged [Archon's Warplate], and gritted his teeth when he was flung further backward.
When he finally came to a halt, dazed, he stared up at what he expected to see—and, truthfully, prayed to see.
It appeared a moment later, and he started laughing even while warm healing suffused his body.
image [https://i.imgur.com/uyeOgbe.png]
Congratulations!
You are now [Level 8]!