He drank the potion as fast as he could, shuddering at the salty taste that filled his mouth and lingered after he gulped it down. He felt the effects taking root, breaking out into a cold sweat and causing him to grow sluggish. In a quick motion, he pulled out and downed a cleansing potion to remove the Water element toxicity. With it gone, he could only feel the nascent power of the water cannon potion. It almost felt like something actively swirling around in his stomach.
Unlike the spell Rize taught him, he actually didn’t know how to use the cannon. He thought back to the fight with Oorden, when Leo saw the swelled corpse use it, he spewed it out from his mouth, and Leo desperately hoped he wouldn’t have to mimic the action. Still, with his practice in imagery from learning magic, he hoped with that and a bit of luck, he’d be able to work it out. While the darkling matriarch still thrashed, trying to crush Hayumi and Kazato, he held up his hand, aiming it at the creature and imagining the water swirling around his hand. After a moment, the power responded, gathering and readying to launch out in a pressurized burst. He timed it for the moment that the matriarch slammed down on the ground in an attempt to squash another illusory version of the kitsune, and he willed the cannon to fire.
In the next moment, he blinked awake, feeling a sharp pain in his back. As he moved, he found himself on the ground against the wall of the building that had been behind him. His blurred vision started to clear, and he realized he must have launched himself backward with the force of the cannon. A roar snapped his attention back to the fight he’d been a part of, and he looked to see the matriarch, dripping with water, beginning to rush toward him. Scrambling up, he immediately bolted to the left, away from the building, wincing at the ache his back gave him in protest. Hayumi, or an illusion of her, appeared in its path and began to cast a spell, but the matriarch continued on and stepped over it, ignoring it completely.
Leo looked on like a deer in the headlights of this creature’s sightless gaze. It was so large he didn’t think he could dodge out of the way if it got that close. As he prepared to try to do some kind of desperate roll, he heard a noise behind him and felt an arm wrap around his waist. A moment later, he was airborne, dodging out of the way of the matriarch as it charged into and completely demolished another building, kicking up a plume of smoke that rose high into the air. Leo craned his neck to look as he and the person he grabbed him landed, catching a familiar glimpse of dark skin and gray, wolf-like ears. “Axilya?”
“Can you do that again?” She asked. The matriarch rose from the remains of the building, only to have its attention drawn to Kazato tossing another flying sword at it. “It seems like it hates the water more than anything. I’ll keep you steady so you don’t go flying back.”
“Okay, I still have mana potions left.” He pulled out another one of the potions he received from Zumra. He nearly dropped it as he started to drink it, with Axilya moving around to try to get into a good position. Gulping it down, he felt the rush of his mana refilling, and his energy being restored. He didn’t need to check his status to know it’d all but filled back up. Axilya moved and carried him like a ragdoll. He’d almost feel embarrassed if they weren’t in the midst of a fight for their lives and the city at the moment.
She skid to a stop once she saw him gathering the water around his hands once more. The matriarch, who’d started chasing after Kazato, turned to him immediately, possibly feeling the building energy of Water from Leo. Axilya planted her feet firmly on the ground, grabbing on tightly to Leo. The matriarch didn’t even get a chance to charge before he let loose. As if his arm was a pressurized hose, water came flying out at high speed and slammed into the matriarch. Leo felt himself pushing back into Axilya from the force of it, and could definitely see how he knocked himself out earlier when he tried it the first time. It hit the matriarch with enough force to push it back several feet, the first significant hit to it he’d seen other than it crashing itself into buildings.
Unfortunately, it only lasted about five seconds, and he only had one more potion from Zumra left. Barely a second after she felt the power of the cannon fade, Axilya leapt into action once more, bringing Leo along as the matriarch chased after them.
“Well, look at that! You were holding out on us after all, Mixer!” Hayumi called out. “Got any more of those in you? It’s so angry at you now I might actually be able to get a spell off!”
Leo scrambled to pull the last mana potion out of his Storage, and gulped it down at a relatively steady part in Axilya’s overall frantic movement to get away from the chasing matriarch. “I’m good for one more!” He called back, trying not to think about what might happen after, if this joint venture didn’t kill it, when neither of them had mana to spare. He also noticed spots appearing in his vision along with blurring along the edges. Likely the effects of using so much mana at once, he reckoned, but he’d deal with this over getting eaten.
Axilya dodged out of the way of the matriarch as it lunged at them, jaws open, in an attempt to swallow them whole. She then scrambled back as it hit the ground with a tremoring thud, and started to recover. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” She asked Leo.
“What?” As Leo asked for an explanation, he felt something reverberating through him as Axilya’s magic enveloped them. He could see small rocks on the ground beginning to float, and he had about half a second to realize what was about to happen before she leapt straight into the air. With her skill manipulating gravity around them, she cleared twenty, thirty, easily forty feet while still holding Leo. He wanted to ask why, but the answer quickly became clear. The matriarch stood underneath, unable to reach them at least for the moment. He took a deep breath, and at the apex of the jump, started gathering the water once more for the cannon. Axilya’s ability also slowed their descent, allowing him to charge up the cannon before they fell directly into the matriarch’s waiting maw.
The matriarch roared up at them in return, and Leo used that opportunity to let the water fly. The force of it pushed himself and Axilya up several feet as it slammed into the matriarch once more, bringing it down to the ground for the few seconds that Leo could maintain it. At this point, more spots filled his vision, and he felt like he could barely keep his eyes open, but he did hear the sound of Hayumi chanting a spell. A few seconds after Leo’s cannon finished and the matriarch started to rise again, a brilliant pillar of blue fire rose up from underneath and enveloped the massive darkling, causing both a hissing sound from the evaporating water, and another pained roar.
Axilya drifted to the right, floating down away from the matriarch as the smoke cleared. The square stayed quiet for several moments, save for the continuous crackle from Rize’s ghostflame as she continued to fling it toward the lesser darklings. Axilya had barely hit the ground when they all heard the heavy footfalls of the matriarch, regaining its footing and searching around for the laborers.
“That’s all the spellcraft you’ll get from me, I’m basically out of mana.” Hayumi called. “I might be able to switch out with the ghostflame girl, though.”
“Can you stand?” Axilya asked while setting Leo down. He was mid-nod when he felt himself lurch forward. Thankfully, Axilya grabbed him again before he hit the ground. “I guess that’s a no. I’ll have to find a building for you to hide in. I can’t fight well enough while I’m holding on to you like this.”
“Wait, I can manage, you shouldn’t take too long to-'' He felt himself cut off when both of them heard the sound of thundering footsteps in the clearing mist, and Axilya all but threw him back into a wall and unsheathed her sword from her back in one swift motion. She brought it down with both hands, and it slammed into the matriarch’s head just as it appeared before her, and Leo could just barely make out Axilya’s feet sinking into the ground, cracking the cobblestones from the force and intensified gravity around her. Leo tried to stand, but he felt his knees wobbling and legs threatening to give out from under him as he steadied himself against a wall. He needed to get out of the way - quickly. Preferably to somewhere that the matriarch couldn’t just crash into and somewhere he wouldn’t get swarmed by darklings.
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He tried to move but he knew he’d only hit the ground if he got off of the wall supporting him, and he could see Axilya being pushed back by the matriarch, who ignored a flying sword from Kazato shattering against its flank, and the apparent chanting of Hayumi for a spell.
A shimmering mote in the sky above him caught his attention long enough for him to focus on it. A cool, refreshing feeling passed through his body briefly, and his vision cleared for a moment. It took him a bit to realize that it was probably the Seer’s magic to make his vision clear, but he used that moment of clarity to see someone falling from the sky, sword in hand, cracking with electricity. Like a bolt of lightning itself, Leo recognized Layne’s form in the split second before he collided with the matriarch with a deafening boom, and a flash of striking lightning so bright it completely filled Leo’s vision.
He didn’t think to look away in time, so he could barely see, only hear the anguished roar from the matriarch and feel the ground shaking as it thrashed around. Leo’s mind swam with questions, no small number of them concerning Layne’s sudden appearance. He did manage to remember, however, what Layne had been studying when Leo learned how to use a sword, and what he’d likely used just then to kill the matriarch. The Collapsing Sword Dance from the Stormcloud Saber Art.
Someone - he wasn’t sure who, grabbed him and started pulling him away from the fight. He tried to look, but he could tell who was dragging him. He also tried to move, to help them move him along so they weren’t fully dragging him off, but he felt his strength fading fast. He already couldn’t stand on his own, and now he found trouble even moving his arms and legs. He thought he heard the person holding him speak, but he couldn’t even make out their voice, all he could hear were the dying shrieks of the matriarch as his consciousness finally faded.
Oddly, he could see the notifications popping up. In his mind presumably. A dark void with nothing else around but the boxes to reveal themselves to him. There was a stack, but Leo could immediately see the latest one to pop up in his vision.
You have earned a title!
Equalizer
The last thing he expected to get out of this entire affair was a title. He wasn’t even entirely sure of the mechanics behind them or what they signified. Unfortunately, past the title and the rewards, something else popped up, so much that it filled his vision from all directions..
You have gathered the attention of the divine. A god casts its gaze upon you.
You have gathered the attention of the divine. A god casts its gaze upon you.
You have gathered the attention of the divine. A god casts its gaze upon you.
You have gathered the attention of the divine. A god casts its gaze upon you.
You have gathered the attention of the divine. A god casts its gaze upon you.
You have gathered the attention of the divine. A god casts its gaze upon you.
Name:
Leonell Bolden
Stats
Title
Equalizer
Fortitude: E (0/10)
Class
Mixer
Reflex: E (0/10)
Element
-
Intellect: E (0/10)
Total Rank
E
Intuition: D- (0/10)
Status
Health 56% Mana 0%
Vision Sharing, Barkskin (D Rank), Aqua Cannon (C Rank), Mana Fatigue
Will: E (0/10)
Skills
Combine, Auto-Loot, Appraise, Storage
Luck: D (0/10)
Skill: Combine
Mix different raw materials into a new item. You choose the shape of the form. Final form is affected by rank and element of materials.
Store Combine results into a mental guidebook that grows based on Intellect rank.
Skill: Auto-Loot (Mixer)
Automatically separates mixable materials from slain creatures. If the [Storage] skill is active, automatically places loot into storage space.
Skill: Appraise (Mixer)
Look at a creature or material and gain information on them. Information includes: Rank, Element, Class, Statuses, Titles. May have difficulty appraising creatures of higher rank, or creatures hidden by another skill or effect. Skill affect boosted by Intuition Rank.
Skill: Storage (Mixer)
Creates an inter-dimensional storage space that only you can access. Storage increases with Total Rank