It has cost me a great deal of my own personal wealth along with the entirety of the coin granted to me by those who believe in my research but I have finally acquired a Dealer with both Undeath and Bloom Resonances. While the unlocking of my own Life Essence, and the ability to Manifest are both welcome additions they pale in comparison to what this might mean for my research.
-”Field” Journal of Lady Clataire Asley
Chapter 61: The Final Thrust
Darius
Darius had initially put some distance between himself and the knight he was dueling so he could consider his options. There had to be a way to put this guy away, and before the mounting forces brutalizing Alley managed to finish the job.
‘Come on Darius’ He sneered at himself internally. ‘You are supposed to be The Prince Of The Dawn hunt! Your ancestors hunted world dragons, and you can't figure out how to put down an empty suit of armor?’
Except the suit of armor wasn’t actually empty, was it? There was a being made of Resonance animating it. He could see part of the ghostly being flowing out of the metal suit in the form of an ethereal cloak. Well if there was a weak spot on such a being he supposed that would be it, though it wasn’t going to be as simple as stabbing the knight in the back.
Resonance wasn’t exactly a physical thing, it could be made physical with a Duster or congealed into a defensive measure like Alley’s Buckler Ring. Otherwise, it was just kind of intangible flowing through the world around you at all times. That ghostly cloak was actually quite a bit like congealed Resonance.
‘Is that what a ghost is?’
If that was the case then Darius’ instincts about what Card in his hand was actually useful might just be right. There really was only one way to find out for sure, and it wasn’t standing here theory crafting while his friend got killed.
“Twenty Seconds Alley!” Darius shouted as he burst back into motion.
“Kay” Came the somewhat dubious reply.
Spear twirling around him Darius launched one more ineffectual flurry of slashes at the head of the knight. They couldn’t hurt the Undead thing, but they did a fine job keeping its sword occupied as Darius pivoted on the spot and reversed the direction of his movement.
“The Final Thrust!” The boy declared activating the Card. Two of the vials inside him emptied to fuel the effect, a feeling Darius was used to but never enjoyed. It reminded him of the sensation of heat leaving his body after he climbed out of a warm bath.
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The Final Thrust was a powerful Card, but Darius had always wished it could combo with DawnShot as The Final Thrust was costly and could miss. In his hands, Darius’ spear grew warm as it played host to congealing Resonance of its own. The dull yellow light of Pursuit Resonance poured from the weapon.
The knight adjusted to follow after the spinning boy, but its movements were simply a step behind. Darius recognized skill when he saw it, though all the skill in the world wouldn’t help if you simply couldn’t keep up.
Reversing directions again the hunter juked past the Undead knight, feet skidding as he suddenly arrested his momentum to spin one final time. The redheaded boy turned with his head before his body so that he could catch the quickest of glimpses to adjust his attack before he launched it mid-spin. It was a tricky technique to utilize but it meant Darius could attempt spinning attacks like this one without truly being blind.
As he turned the hunter brought his spear up and around, driving his momentum into the already enhanced attack. Spear met ethereal cloak and Darius was proven correct, The Final Thrust annihilated the fluttering Resonance. The moment the spearhead touched it, a disproportionately sized hole appeared in the Resonance. The way it vanished reminded Darius of the way a drop of oil spread when it hit the surface of water. One moment it was the glowing ethereal cape, the next almost half of it was gone.
Still surging forward the ancient spear struck the knight with an avalanche of force. Where Darius had expected his weapon to punch through the armor, it instead obliterated the knight entirely. It was like the monster exploded from the inside, sending plates of armor flying in all directions.
Raising an eyebrow the hunter ducked out of the way of Alley’s chain that had been sent flying at him.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
The attack had gone better than he had anticipated, a lot better, weird better. Darius tilted his head when the familiar rush of Life Essence didn’t flow down his spear and back into him. That meant he hadn’t killed the knight? If that was the case. Darius glanced down at the Card images floating near his hand. Each of them had a chain icon across them.
“Oh fuck me!” The hunter swore. He had no way to know if the knight had survived and was off gathering more Undead to throw at them, or had been destroyed and didn’t count as a kill by the standards of the Card.
It was a puzzle Darius didn’t have time to figure out. So he snatched up the CoreSteel chain and sprinted to his friend’s aid. It couldn’t come soon enough, not with yet another Manifested plant zombie stalking out of the glass building.
Armon
The wraith was dying again. He could feel it in the way his ethereal form was leaking Resonance from the enormous hole that had been punched through him. As an undead creature without a true body, Armon’s form was composed entirely of Resonance and it made him uniquely vulnerable to certain shield-destroying attacks. Attacks like the one that had plunged into his back moments earlier.
Feeling the nature of the blow and the way it dissolved his non-body, Armon had abandoned the armor In that instant, the knight had thought he had no choice but he shouldn’t have bothered. After reawakening his brothers there wasn’t enough left of himself to either self resurrect or heal the damage. By ejecting himself from the physical form all Armon had achieved was a slower slide into oblivion.
It wasn’t such a bad thing supposed the guardian wraith. He had served his order, his oaths, and his lady with honor and vigor. Even beyond his own death, there was no shame in allowing himself to fade away. Perhaps if there was a further afterlife than this he would go on to that, or rejoin the soul that he was a shadow of.
Floating invisibly into the greenhouse Armon resolved to at least apologize to the Lady Asley before that next end came. As soon as he was within the confines of the glass structure Armon felt a small surge of Resonance flow into him. Being in The lady’s presence strengthened any Undead, but it wasn’t anywhere enough to save the wraith.
Lady Clataire Asley had once been a small bookish woman, with a slightly over large nose. Now…
Now she was something glorious and terrible, a fusion of life and death, of birth and rot, of woman and tree. Standing tall enough that her branches were pressed up against the glass of the fifteen-foot-high ceiling, her roots were everywhere in the greenhouse extending out from the central trunk and protruding from the dirt floor. Deep below those same roots extended out into the swamp.
Each branch of Lady Asley’s botanical form bore ‘fruit’ that had blossomed centuries ago, dozens of crystals that glowed the pulsating purple of Undeath Resonance. She had achieved her goal of discovering a sustainable way to grow Undeath Crystals. It had cost the lady and her servants greatly, but she had done it.
Most striking of all was the woman’s form seemingly growing out of the side of the strange rotten tree’s trunk. She still held the shape of a woman, but that was all. Her form was now made of vines, roots and bark. All except for her eyes, those were the eyes of a person who was both conscious and aware, the irises the same pulsing purple as the crystals.
All around the greenhouse Armon could feel the forms of Manifested monsters,and he understood what was happening. The lady who was aware of all that took place within her home was preparing her defenses for a final stand.
The wraith was fairly certain her state of being had long ago driven her mad, but the lady had always indicated to him that she wished to continue living. She might not be able to move or talk anymore, but when Clataire sent a thought along the Resonance lines in the area, her commands or musings came through with extreme clarity.
That desire to live hadn’t gone anywhere, and neither had Armon’s oaths. The fact that her Doom was only a matter of time was irrelevant. The lady wanted to keep living, and it was his job to make sure it happened. The idea made Armon shudder with shame, how could he allow himself to slide so easily into oblivion with a threat to his Lady at her very doorstep?
Gathering his will Armon strode closer to the woman he served, his form seeming to become more real the closer he got to the source of the purple light.
“I am dying,” He said as his eyeless gaze met the purple irises of the tree woman.
“ But there is a way I can still serve you, my Lady.”
The slightest of frowns played across the woman’s brow.
“I know you do not approve of this sort of thing, but my destruction is imminent anyway, so do not try to dissuade me. I merely wanted to let you know it has been a pleasure to serve you these many centuries, and I hope that should the HonorBound contact you about my performance, you will inform them it was most satisfactory.”
Clataire closed her eyes and tears of sap began to flow down the wooden simulacrum of a face.
Were the lady to use her Dealer to turn Armon’s collapsing form into a Card it would lock down the device for an hour as it cooled off from forcing Resonance into the form of a card. Armon however wasn’t just a mass of Resonance, he was a mass of Resonance that could think and act.
Placing a spectral hand on one of the roots the wraith knight extended his consciousness along the half undead form of the tree until he found the energy of Lady Asley’s Dealer; the pair of gloves that were buried somewhere inside her tree form.
With a push of effort that almost cost him the last of his existence, Armon accessed the Dealer and forced himself to flow through its mechanisms without even the slightest resistance to the creation process.
Lady Asley’s Dealer had not activated and was not locked down for the next hour. Armon’s final plan had worked without a hitch, a thought that gave his fading mind a sense of satisfaction as he was added to the Lady’s Deck.
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