The past few minutes had been the most intense moments of Arthur's life. After the fourth time, Arthur had stopped counting how many limbs he’d had to regrow, the injuries his team had suffered at the hands of Shade quickly exhausting the healing affinity ether he had managed to store inside them. After all, eight hundred points of health would only take you so far when you suffered a debilitating wound every other minute.
Still, each injury had been returned in kind, well- at least partially, and Arthur could see that Shade was beginning to slow down from the numerous bleeding burns and cuts on his body. The only reason that they had even survived this long, let alone got the starved ghoul into this state was due to the spell that Selena had cast at the start of the battle. It was the only reason why they had a fighting chance.
Arthur had no idea what exactly she had done with her sound manipulation magic, except that she had somehow completely thrown off Shade's sense of balance. From their debriefing, he knew it had something to do with echoes, but Selena had naturally left the particulars of how her skill worked. She had to keep some secrets.
Well, judging by how off-kilter Shade looks and how he's always misjudging the timing of his attacks by split seconds, I guess he might be perceiving sound at an altered rate compared to the rest of us. He mused while healing a nasty-looking wound on his current patient, a mage who used some sort of toxic ether to slow her enemies.
Using some sort of debuff skill, Anna had played an integral part in closing the gap in abilities between the two opposing sides and it was in Arthur's best interest to make sure she got back into the fight as soon as possible.
Overwhelming Regeneration (Rare) has reached level 4
That was the first time the skill had levelled since evolving, despite the numerous times he had used it to heal people. Perhaps it had something to do with the extremely dangerous circumstances he was currently using it in. The wounds he'd been healing were nothing extraordinary, downright mundane if he was being honest, so it couldn't be because of that.
At the end of the day, Arthur didn't know enough to speculate on anything and now was probably not the best to be pondering about the workings of his skills. His inattention to the environment had almost resulted in the permanent loss of his own limbs once before against the shadow panther and he wasn't keen to repeat the experience.
Arthur felt a surge of ether from his left a moment before a torrent of raging flames enveloped the crazed ghoul. The beast screamed in both anger and pain when its wounds were cauterized shut and its flesh started burning. Probably wasn’t a good idea to stop it from bleeding out. It looked like it was doing something, Arthur thought to himself but kept his ideas within the confines of his mind. The last thing his exhausted teammates needed was to hear some demoralising words of advice from him. They all stood in silence as they watched the beast within the inferno, maintaining and enhancing it with flame and wind magic, praying that it would be enough to bring it down.
They were all low on ether and they knew that they were just one mistake away from disaster. One that thankfully hadn’t been made yet, but it was just a matter of time and the protracted battle had left them fighting on fumes. When the fire spell finally came to an end, Bryan groaned. Though the shadow monster looked like it had sustained a lot of damage, it still stood stubbornly in the realm of the unliving, and the fire of defiance still burned bright in its eyes. Its flesh was charred black and bits of bone were visible where an earlier attack had struck deep. Arthur quickly checked his ether reserves.
1694/3230
Just a little over half and hopefully enough to last him through the battle. This is my first fight where my physical attributes just won't cut it. But my offensive magic is dogshit. Shadow can't be used in this field of light and my only workable water magic is that bullet spell I got from the kingfisher.
It was a skill he'd never used before and so, he quickly took the time to observe the spell matrix within himself. It wouldn't do much but a little familiarity might just save his life if things went wrong. And speak of the devil.
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Shade's eyes suddenly locked onto his, and Arthur could feel the seething hatred within them. As well as some worrying traces of intelligence that seemed to blame him for its current predicament. After all, without his healing magic, the fight would have been over in minutes if not seconds. Selena looked like she was fighting off the effects of over-drawing on her ether reserves and Anna didn’t look much better. As battles of attrition went, this one had been going on long enough and the human party would be out of it if it didn’t end soon. Thankfully, Arthur's absurd endurance attribute meant that he had the stamina to go on but it wasn’t much help in dealing with the mental fatigue caused by being in such a stressful situation.
Shade hadn’t moved since tanking the fire spell head-on, and the humans welcomed the opportunity to recuperate.
“You. You are the healer I heard about,” Shade suddenly spoke, surprising them all.
The monster's eyes were locked on Arthur as it took a step forward. Arthur felt the hairs on his neck raise at the impending danger he could sense coming from all around him. The beast seemed to have deemed Arthur as the primary threat to deal with, having finally realised that it could never win this fight as long as Arthur was using his healing abilities.
The world seemed to pause for a moment and time was stretched almost to the breaking point. Arthur's new perception stat was strained to the limit as he tried to catch what the crazed ghoul was about to do. He didn’t see much, only a blur of darkness and he instinctively raised his arms to protect his head. His defensive reflex saved his life and he felt a staggering amount of force strike where his neck would have been. Instead of decapitating him as Shade had no doubt intended. Arthur's left arm was completely destroyed from the shoulder downwards.
The pain would probably make him black out if he could have felt it, but it was as if Arthur had never had the limb in the first place. Lowering his right arm, Arthur saw that Shade seemed to have disappeared into thin air and the rest of his team had their eyes peeled to see where he had disappeared to. Only Selena seemed to know what was going on, eyes filled with worry at the sight of his missing arm and she seemed to be gripped with indecision as to what she should be doing. Seemingly coming to a decision she began to move towards him, eyes focused at the point beyond his shoulders.
Arthur felt a sinking feeling in his chest. All of a sudden, he was a young child again, shocked and confused at the police station being told his parents were dead. He felt helpless, knowing what was about to happen but unable to do anything to prevent it.
Time seemed to slow down. He pushed his ether into the only offensive skill available to him but it wasn't enough. It would never be. He wasn't enough. Too little, too late.
Selena took the eleven steps it took to reach him, moving so fast she appeared as a blur in his eyes. She would never take another. Faster, faster damn it. Fucking move. Arthur tried to scream out a warning as he felt a gust of wind from behind him push him forwards but his voice didn’t seem to be working properly.
His throat was partially crushed from weathering the crazed ghoul's earlier strike, despite defending against it. Arthur's mind went blank, as he began to turn around, knowing what he'd see but unable to do anything. Bryan too had realised where the former shadow mage was and his eyes widened in horror, mouth parted to shout something. Arthur didn't hear the words leave his lips.
He was too late. By the time the sound left his mouth, Selena's lifeless corpse fell to the ground, a gaping hole where her torso should have been. Arthur watched in disbelief for an eternal second, as his brain tried to come to terms with what had happened in front of him. She'd taken the strike for him. She sacrificed herself. Why? Why! WHY! My health is so fucking high. I would've survived that strike. She didn't need to do anything.
She- she shouldn't have done anything.
Arthur vehemently tried to deny the reality he perceived, ignoring the fallacy his thoughts presented. Her corpse finally fell to the ground, almost folding in on itself without the support of a ribcage. She'd died near instantaneously.
The government spy, powerful scout, brave warrior but most important, a kind young woman, was dead in front of him, murdered right before his eyes as he watched uselessly from the sidelines.
Selena was a woman with a strong sense of responsibility, someone who did the jobs no one should ever have to. But more importantly, she was someone Arthur had come to like, dare he say it a friend.
A white-hot rage gripped him and he felt one of his molars almost crack from how hard he had clenched his jaws. Arthur reached for his ether, all the reserves that he had remaining. He had no idea what he would do, only that the monster in front of him would no longer exist after he was done. A rush of power flew through him as he cast a spell he didn’t even understand. Arthur didn’t care.
For the first time in his life, Arthur was going to use unstructured magic.