Iris’s plan had been simple: send their best scouter to track wherever Frankenstein had ended up on the newly created island. Just because Farrah had dimensionally locked the area, it didn’t mean the skinwalker couldn’t teleport within it. Benjamin and Ursula had been dispatched, the former because of his sound affinity and the latter because of her species' inherent trait that allowed far greater tracking in forested environments.
From there, it had just been a waiting game, trying to time everything perfectly. Benjamin had given regular updates on how close they were to the skinwalker, which had certainly helped, but Arthur had still been forced to hold his skill far longer than he’d expected. While it wasn’t exactly an excuse, it gave a reason why his opening strike wasn’t a perfect hit; perhaps Ursula had timed the ritual disks wrong, or maybe she hadn’t gotten close enough for them to work properly. Any number of things could have gone wrong. But as far as teleports went, Iris’s ritual disk provided the smoothest transportation Arthur had ever experienced.
As Iris screamed “Now,” Arthur thrust a fully loaded Poisoned Fang of the Hydra spear forward, even as he was teleported directly behind the skinwalker. Even as disorientated as the creature must have been with its domain suddenly locked down, the skinwalker still reacted in the fraction of a second it took Arthur’s spear to travel forward, jerking to the left. Instead of piercing the ghoulish skinwalker’s spine as Arthur had hoped, he only managed to hit the bastard's right elbow.
He could tell Frankenstein tried to teleport- the creature’s body flickered momentarily before reappearing- a look of shock on his face as he realised his skill wasn’t working. It looked like Iris’ ritual had done an adequate job. A shame he couldn’t say the same for himself. Had his strike connected, the battle would have ended in an instant. Iris had clearly expected him to fail- they wanted to capture the creature alive, after all, but it galled him that she’d been correct. Well, she is a seer, I guess.
This was his second time using the Poisoned Fang of the Hydra at full power, and it was just as awe-inspiring as the first time. It almost gave him imposter syndrome. He couldn’t believe so much power originated from himself. Frankenstein was having a much worse time of it. While he’d avoided the centre of the blast, the entirety of his right arm was gone from the elbow down, and his right eye had burst into a gooey mess when some of Arthur’s poisoned ether flared out. The disintegrated jaw Arthur had left him with from his foray onto their ship was still present, which almost made him sigh in relief. Too often as of late, Arthur’s enemies possessed unholy regeneration capabilities. That was supposed to be his shtick, and recent encounters had almost made Arthur believe he wasn’t so special. This is how it’s supposed to be. My attacks actually stick for once, he thought before Iris’ teleportation ritual engaged again, jerking him back to the rest of his team.
His job, at least on paper, was now complete, and it was up to the rest of them to deal with the ghoulish skinwalker. That was the plan, at least. There was just one teeny tiny problem. Frankenstein had grabbed onto his face with his remaining hand. Arthur teleported into the mini clearing where his squad was planning on staging their attack, directly behind them where they insisted a healer should be, despite his very obvious grand displays of magic.
Frankenstein had come along for the ride.
What happened next felt like something from a dream sequence, a surreal series of events that aligned perfectly to mess him over as much as humanly possible. For starters, Iris’ rebounding teleportation ritual was horrible. Perhaps it was because Frankenstein had tagged along for the ride; maybe his overpowered attack had disrupted the ambient ether enough to mess up Iris’s calculations; or perhaps, for the first time, the seer had made an honest-to-god mistake. All Arthur knew was that it felt like he’d been punched in the balls and then hammered in the solar plexus for good measure.
Arthur tried to shout out a warning, but it came out more as a whine of pain that had no hope of reaching anyone in time. The skinwalker’s hand was still firmly clenched around his jaw, preventing speech.
The same principles that had carried Arthur’s inertia through the portal in his opening salvo now worked against him, the ghoul’s momentum pushing him backwards over a particularly gnarly tree root and leaving him sprawled on the fake forest floor. The world spun, and he was seeing two of everything, but Arthur knew he needed to act NOW. Yet it was like trying to act in a dream; everything was sluggish, and his body refused to follow orders. The monster above him began to get up, seemingly immune to the teleportation sickness gripping Arthur- after all, the skinwalker was a space mage- and he knew if he didn’t get a grip asap, he’d regret it for a long, long time.
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Less than a second had passed since his teleportation- hardly any time at all, yet an eternity in such a high-stakes fight. Sound travelled at 343 metres per second. Someone must have heard his less-than-perfect return landing. He could picture it: Ursula, or maybe Benjamin, starting to turn around to see if he was okay, maybe to even congratulate him for his successful attack. He’d seen how fast Frankenstein could move, how deadly the space mage could be in close combat. Someone would die long before the sound of his warning reached them.
All of this raced through Arthur’s mind in a fraction of a second, his intelligence working overtime to compute information so fast. His body wasn’t functioning properly, and his skills were unresponsive. He didn’t know Lady Sleyca’s people, but they didn’t deserve to die.
Iris was there too, and he actually cared for her. The monster had already shown it would target her first. Arthur did the only thing he could think of: he pushed his aura out, really pushed it, without any regard for his self-imposed restrictions. The aura suppression bracelet on his wrist broke like it was made of wet tissue paper.
This was the first time Arthur had let his aura loose with intent to harm, all aggression and violence without using his domain skill to channel that power. Everything slowed down, like time was coming to a standstill, reality pausing to witness what was about to happen. Arthur’s heartbeat pounded like a drum in his ears, the only sound in a silent world. Rationally, he knew nothing so dramatic was happening, that this was merely the result of extreme stress and pushing his limits for the first time in a while. Time must certainly be flowing normally for everyone else; they’d probably already noticed his aura explosion. But that didn’t mean that ‘something’ hadn’t happened.
Arthur’s stats felt like they meant more, as if his superior life form trait had gone into overdrive. His mind wanted certain actions to be done, and his body rushed to comply, as if he’d been living with some kind of lag his entire life and it had only just been removed. It was like his body and aura had become a single entity, lending his aura physical properties and his body esoteric ones he couldn’t quite understand. Arthur knew how fast the Ghoulish Skinwalker could move, and knew his body alone would never be quick enough to make a difference, at least not as impaired as he currently was.
Arthur’s muscles twitched, and his aura responded. He didn’t try anything fancy, didn’t even know what was possible and what wasn’t. He was acting on instinct. His aura rushed in the direction he’d seen Frankenstein go. The monster was three steps away, eyes trained on Iris’ turned back. The bastard was targeting her, just as he’d feared. Strategically, it made sense to go after the seer first, but Frankenstein seemed to have a perverse obsession with her that Arthur suspected stemmed from his master’s grudge against Iris’ father.
The demon in human skin would do anything to win the Harvester’s favour. Arthur didn’t know what he’d done with his aura, but it looked like his blind fumbling had struck gold. His aura manifested as a physical force, striking the skinwalker. It wasn’t powerful, less than a fifth of what he could manage with his body, but it was enough.
The blow struck the monster on the back of the knee, and its leg buckled. The strike that Ursula and Benjamin had noticed too late to stop was disrupted. Had the situation not been so dire, Arthur would have found it funny: the beastkin and human scout both had their hands outstretched to stop Frankenstein, with the beginnings of a sound spell forming in Benjamin’s hands. They’d failed to react fast enough, but Arthur hadn’t.
The blow that should have struck Iris’ neck instead struck the middle of her back. Four deep red furrows immediately bloomed, drenching her clothes in blood. They were about an inch deep and seven inches long. They looked bad, but Arthur knew it could have been much worse- fatal, even. The seer cried out in pain, fell to her knees, hesitated for the briefest of instances, then rolled forward to create distance between herself and her foe.
Then, reality returned to normal, everything flowing at a regular pace again. Arthur’s aura didn’t retract- it vanished, as though it had simply ceased to exist. He had cut too many corners with his aura attack, using brute force to power a process that required technique and finesse. The backlash hit him like a truck, and it felt like his heart was splitting in two.
Blood fountained from his nose, and he lost vision in one eye. It took him a second to realise the organ had melted out of its socket and was dripping down his face.
The damage was severe, akin to the soul damage he’d received when he’d tried to force his soul magic prior to earning a class. A notification was clamouring for his attention and he spared it enough attention to realise it was warning him against the damage he’d done to himself. No titles, unfortunately.
Arthur grinned. His brain felt like it was boiling in his skull, but he’d accomplished his mission. Everyone was aware of the skinwalker in their midst now. The bastard wouldn’t be taking them by surprise anymore. It was time to end this fight.