Chapter 57 - 3v30
The morning arrived, catching Mason off guard. He usually woke up wanting too desperately to just go back to sleep. Today, he found himself looking forward to seeing Mayry. He found her already up, gazing out the window.
He walked up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and pulled her close. “Good morning. How was your night?”
She, in reply, shrugged and said, “Eh, it was alright”
"Alright?" Mason raised an eyebrow, feigning surprise. "Just alright? Nothing interesting happened?"
With a playful grin, Mayry shook her head. "Hmm, not that I can think of."
Mason clutched his chest with an exasperated sigh, exclaiming, “Oh, my heart, your cruel words have broken it.”
She turned and gave him a playful shove, “Oh stop, we have to get ready. We have a fight with a bunch of creepy snake guys to get to, remember?”
“Remember?“ He asked, “Of course I remember, that was the highlight of the night!”
Dodging a shoe, he retrieved their Basilisk armour from his inventory and started to get changed into it.
******
They reached the outskirts of the city just before dawn. The combination of pink, purple, and red hues in the sky as the suns rose was a impressive sight to behold. The two of them watched it together until the romantic atmosphere was intruded upon by the sudden appearance of the Kethul.
To Mason’s annoyance, there were at least 30 of them. All but the one Mason thought of as the leader looked ready for battle. The hooded robes had been replaced with leather armour that was reminiscent of their own Basilisk Armour with only some slight differences. Mason’s and Mayry’s were solid pinks, whereas theirs were faded and dull. If he had to guess, the reason probably was that Kethul’s had been made from the Basilisk's shedded skin while their’s had been made with its actual hide.
Mason preferred seeing the Kethul when they were wearing hoods. In the current attire, it was hard not to stare at the holes where their eyes had been.
The leader was the first to speak. “It is good that you have come. We present to you a selection of our strongest warriors.” The Kethul leader gave a small bow as if this was a gift. “kill them, and I will reveal to you the prophecy, but if you are defeated, they will not hold back.”
“Wait, you want us to kill them?” Mason asked, surprised. It was a shock that the Kethul was so quick to throw away so many of their own people’s lives. Unless they didn't expect him to win, but in that case, what was the point of doing all this?
The leader let out a sound that Mason interpreted as a chuckle but came out as a hissing, coughing sound. “Do not worry about them. To die in combat in service to our lord is the highest honour, and they will be rewarded in the afterlife.”
Mason hesitated. He wasn't religious and didn't believe in an afterlife, but what did he know? This world had gods for certain, so why not an afterlife? He still wasn't sure he wanted to kill these people, especially since they thought they would be dying for a snake god that Mason had already killed.
Sensing was still that reluctant, the Kethul leader continued. “There will be a battle today. Your consent is optional. However, If instead of fighting you choose to run, we have orders to slaughter every man, woman and child in Trilil.
Well, that cleared up his conscience. He had doubts about killing them when he thought they were just religious nuts who didn’t know any better, but he had no problem killing people who would happily go on a murder spree because they didn’t get their own way. Now that he thought about it, they did worship a giant snake that could kill with a look, so it was not really a big surprise.
“Mason,” Mayry whispered from his side, “We have to; we don’t have a choice. We can’t let them kill all those people”
Angry at the threat of such needless slaughter, Mason growled, “No problem. I’m over my doubts. It’s been a while since I've had a good fight anyway.”
The Kethul leader sounded pleased. “As our lord chosen, it is only fair that you are warned that each Kethul has its own chaos abilities. The fight will begin shortly; if you have anything to prepare, I suggest you do it now.”
His last fight had only been a few days ago, but it felt like a lot longer. In that fight, he had absorbed a cloning ability from an ‘Other’, and this fight would be the first time he had the opportunity to use it in combat. Hopefully, the ability would help even out the odds a bit.
He also considered using Random Summon, but using both abilities at the same time would eat up a massive portion of his Mana pool, and in a fight like this with so many unknowns, he didn’t want to risk it.
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He closed his eyes and activated Division. The full-body sneezing sensation left him feeling dizzy. When he opened his eyes, he saw his clone staring at him. The last time he had used the ability, it had only been for a minute. He hadn't realised how weak he felt being at only half power.
“It is time.” The Kethul leader said.
The original Mason started giving orders, “Mayry, try to keep your distance. Pick off as many as you can from a distance.” Not wanting to talk about Mayry’s secret out in the open, he added, “I’ll try and keep them away from you, but if any get too close, see if you can muster up any of your father’s charm.”
Mayry just replied with a determined nod as she conjured fireballs to hover in each hand.
Original Mason turned to clone Mason, “Concentrate on the ones on the left. I’ll take the ones on the right.”
The clone spoke up, “I need a weapon, apparently I can’t access the Inventory. I also tried my own Random Summon and Division abilities, those aren’t working either.” He shrugged. “Was worth a shot.”
Original Mason tossed him a short sword, saying, “Try and keep up if you can.” Before running towards the Kethul, who had started advancing.
The clone called back, “I’m literally your exact copy!”
*****
Mason wasn’t sure how this battle was going to go, he had acted confident in front of Mayry but apart from knowing they were level 15, he had no way of telling how strong they really were or what abilities they had. He probably could have taken the 12 from the night before on his own, but this was a lot more. His best bet was to take out as many as he could as soon as possible and then whittle down their numbers from there. He debated using the ‘Clop wand’ he had gotten from the unicorn but decided the rainbow acid it emitted might do more harm than good if it hit his clone.
As he ran towards the Kethul, he shot three full strength magic missiles at them at random, one hit a Kethul in the head, killing him instantly. Another hit the dirt, the blast knocking two more Kethul to the ground, dazed but not dead. A massive fireball flew over Mason’s shoulder and incinerated them before they had the chance to right themselves. His last Magic missile hit a Kethul but fizzled out against a forcefield before it did any damage.
This was going well. 3 down in the first 10 seconds of the fight was far better than he expected.
An array of range attacks flew at him, but his speed allowed him to dodge most of them luckily the Mason clone was diverting a lot of their attention.
A streak of red lightning shot at him, with almost no time to dodge he twisted his body as much as he could so he took the attack on his left arm instead of his chest. The pain was intense, it felt like hit the lightning was running through his blood. It was hard to think through the pain but he Managed to find the Kethul who was attacking him and activate Mental Manipulation pushing loyalty into him.
It was surprisingly easy, the man’s psyche was already fragile and a gentle push with the ability was all it took for him to break. He felt the pain subside and saw it being redirected onto another Kethul. The distraction was enough for Mason to catch his breath for a moment and retrieve a health potion from his inventory. His arm was in agony but the familar warmth of the healing potion soothed the pain until it was no more.
Mason’s loyal Kethul used his red lightning to incapacitate another Kethul long enough for an Ice spike shot by Mayry to run him through. Having seen his target killed, the red lightning was redirected onto another Kethul. Before a it had much of an effect another Kethul teleported behind the lightning user and telelported away before Mason could do any thing.
By this point he had lost count of of how many Kethul were left but a quick glance told him there were still a lot. He was looking for his next target when a scream came from behind him. He spun just in time to see Mayry fall to the ground and the Kethul standing above her holding a glowing bloody dagger disappear.
*****
Clone Mason
“I’m literally your exact copy!” He called, rolling his eyes as he ran into the battle.
He swung his sword at a spear-wielding Kethul that looked vaguely female. She dodged and countered, thrusting her spear towards Mason’s neck. He ducked below it and used his off hand to take hold of the spear shaft and yank it away from its owner. With one fluid movment, he used Ballistic Touch to send the spear shooting off into a group of five Kethul who had been sending a barrage of spells at original Mason, the high speed spear impaled two of them and caused the other three to lose focus.
Turning back to his now spearless opponent Mason swung his sword at the Kethuls head but was surprised when a sword suddenly materialised in her hand and parried his attack. A storage power? He hadn’t met anyone else with one of those. His split second of surprise cost him some HP as he missed the dagger appearing in the Kethuls other hand, he took the blow in his side but his armour negated the majority of the damage done.
He knew he needed to be more careful; he had never been in a fight with so many unknowns; one slip and he’d be out of the fight. He knew he was the clone and was fine with that. He knew his dying wasn’t that big of a problem, but he still didn’t want to be killed! Out of principle!
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the Kethul Masons fighting to turn his attack on his allies. Understanding what must have happened, he chose an enemy at random and used Mental Manipulation to force loyalty on it. He only had a moment to see the now loyal Kethul slit its own throat before his opponent was upon him again. The clash of loyalties must have been too much for him.
Ducking a sword slash at his head, he began to get sick of the tenacious woman. He waited for her to swing her blade at him and then activated Invisibility before sidestepping and cutting the Kethul’s head off, taking advantage of her moment of confusion.
Keeping his invisibility active, he took down another three Kethul without much effort. They started to panic when they saw their suddenly get their throats slit. If he and the original Mason had done this from the start, they might have already been done by now! Although, if all 30 Kethul could only see Mayry, then…. Yeah, it’s probably better this way.
He felt himself suddenly become 100 times heavier, lost concentration and felt his invisibility fail. His high strength stat meant he stayed on his feet and could still move, but only very slowly. Some sort of gravity-controlling ability?
He heard a scream from behind him that made his blood run cold; he used all of his strength to turn his body as quickly as he could. The last thing he saw was Mayry on the ground with blood pooling beneath her.