Chapter 92 Finally, Almost, Hit Me.
Jallen V’Nova launched at where Isaac had been a split second too late. Isaac ducked under the diagonal sweeping strike while jamming a poison spike towards Jallen’s eye socket. Jallen turned his head and closed his eyes as he felt something dangerous approaching his face. Isaac managed to correct the pathing of his strike enough, however, that the spike still ended up in one of Jallen’s eyes. The spike was two inches deep before an uppercut from Jallen caused Isaac to teleport away. Jallen’s fist was glowing with divine conviction as it plowed through the fading silhouette that Isaac had left behind. The shadows boiled in their brief moment of contact before they finished fading naturally. Jallen ripped the spike out of his eye with a roar and turned around with a wide sweeping strike just in time to keep Isaac from jamming his sword into the back of the larger man’s knee.
“When I get my hands on you,” Jallen swore.
“You’ll what?” Isaac asked while appearing in front of the paladin. This time only Isaac’s silver eyes were visible. “Beg for forgiveness?” Isaac taunted before vanishing again.
Isaac could feel Jallen recovering despite the ultra lethal dose of poison that had been injected into the edge of his brain. The paladin in front of him didn’t seem mortal in the slightest. Isaac moved in to try and stab Jallen’s other eye while his first was still recovering through the poison. “Why?!” Jallen demanded while swinging at the shadow of a feeling of imminent pain that was Isaac. He barely managed to take the second spike in the brow instead of his eye. He ripped out the spike with his free hand again and continued to be on the defensive as Isaac tried again and again to land a spike inside of his helmet. “Why isn’t my aura working on you?!” He demanded.
Isaac appeared a dozen feet in front of the paladin and let the ancient drow see his entire face. “Because you aren’t strong enough.” Isaac purred before vanishing again. Jallen didn’t know but Isaac was taking those moments of not having to keep his shadowcloak completely active to regenerate a scrap or two of mana. His cloak was helping to keep the mana cost of his shadowcloak ability down but the teleports were expensive when the time-compressing effect of the Quicken spell was messing with his regeneration to upkeep cost ratio.
“Who are you?!” Jallen demanded as he launched at Isaac. Isaac was gone from sight instantly and Jallen was forced to change his swing into a block in order to keep another spike out of his eyes. “Human!” Jallen roared. “WHO ARE YOU?!”
Isaac’s focus was honed to a razor’s edge as he tried to slip through Jallen’s guard to land another spike. Time after time he was thwarted and Jallen seemed to be getting better at feeling where his attacks were coming from. ‘Fine.’ Isaac thought to himself and switched tactics. He swung for Jallen’s face again only for Jallen to move to block him. Isaac shot his other hand past Jallen’s before turning the spike around and yanking his hand back. The spike caught the slight flange at the only opening in Jallen’s gauntlet and forced itself through. The spike scraped across the top of Jallen’s wrist bones before lodging itself in the back of his hand.
Jallen growled in pain even as his eye finally finished healing. Isaac repeated the same strategy three more times before Jallen finally found a way to keep it from happening. Jallen stopped trying to defend against the spikes entirely and instead used the shadow of Isaac’s bloodlust as a target for his swings. Isaac was forced to teleport out of the way of an attack again as he was caught on the back foot from the sudden change. Instead of getting space, however, Isaac did the opposite. Isaac appeared in mid air, upside down, right in front of Jallen’s face with a spike already being thrust forwards. Jallen turned his face but it didn’t stop Isaac from embedding the spike through his eye. Isaac teleported again so he wouldn’t fall on his head right in front of the monster known as Jallen V’Nova.
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Jallen’s roar was full of fury. The pain didn’t seem to bother him but the fact that he was steadily getting picked apart by an unseen human assassin with poisons of all things was driving his temper through the roof. “Ancestors hear my call, aid your child in crushing his enemies.” He ordered the spirits of the long dead V’Novas.
Four purple and golden spectral forms poured out from him and took up their positions surrounding their descendant. “What enemy plagues you, child?” The first one demanded.
“There had better be a good reason for this.” The second threatened.
The third one eyed Jallen with some concern. “What did that to you?” It asked. Their voices were all distorted and breathy so it was hard to hear the difference in their genders. Their forms were just as hard to discern as they always seemed on the edge of fading out of reality. They flickered and pulsed. They waved and shimmered with the flow of mana as they floated around him.
“There is an assassin.” Jallen explained as he kept his guard up. He spun and swung causing Isaac to turn his kick to the back of Jallen’s knee into a faint before switching which leg he was kicking with and driving his heel towards Jallen’s face. During the brief moment when Isaac didn’t have a foot on the ground Jallen swung his off hand in a fist at the incoming attack. Isaac couldn’t pull back in time so he teleported to the other side of Jallen and drove his heel into the back of Jallen’s knee instead. Jallen’s knee slammed into the ground and he kept himself from falling forwards by bracing on his sword. He turned and swung at where Isaac should have been but Isaac was laying on the ground after falling from his awkward kick.
“Yes.” The first spoke and scanned the area around Jallen for the unseen assassin. “It is here.”
“I don’t feel anything.” The second replied. “He is messing with us.”
“Why would he hurt himself so in order to prank his ancestors. Use your non-existent brain.” The third countered.
“Just find the bastard.” Jallen swore and rose to his feet again. He swung at where he felt the next attack coming from only for a blade to stab an inch into his eye before whipping out the side sending his blood splattering across the stone. Jallen’s retorting roar sounded more primal than not. “Do your damned jobs!” He ordered his summoned ancestors.
Jallen tried to counter Isaac’s next attack, this time he was expecting the increased reach, but it was moot. Isaac threw a throwing spike into Jallen’s same eye before his other attack had even been properly thwarted. “Wait.” The first spoke, drawing the attention of the other three. “There.” It pointed directly at Isaac. “I feel nothing from there.”
Isaac moved and the first specter followed him with its finger. ‘Shit.’ Isaac swore internally and decided to just continue trying to deal steady damage to Jallen until his mana ran out.
Isaac moved to attack again but was suddenly surrounded on all sides by specters. He tried to dodge Jallen’s counter attack but was instead suddenly pushed forwards by one of the spirits. His armor had prevented the spirit from going through him or trying to take over his body but at a cost. The soul defense of the Gambeson of the Guarded Soul meant that the spirits impacted him as if they were physical objects. He was forced back into the path of the incoming swing just enough so that the flat of the blade grazed the tip of his nose. The massive amount of oathbound divine fury that was in Jallen’s attack vanished into the amulet around Isaac’s neck and it started to glow. Isaac teleported away just as the glow from the amulet started burning through the part of the shadowcloak covering it.
Isaac stood a dozen yards away from Jallen as he let his shadowcloak fade. “Good job.” He purred at the paladin. “You finally, almost, hit me.”
Jallen growled like a hungry wolf. “It won’t be almost next time.” He promised and launched himself at Isaac with all four specters.
‘Kahtesh, I think I might need some help.’ Isaac sent to his favorite skeleton. He felt a wave of excitement and affirmation in return and couldn’t help but smile.