Silence.
“Hahahahahaha, she was not my target, but oh well. One down.” The manic laughter was out again, the monster’s previous anger had been a ploy.
“Dammit.” Olga’s frustration showed with that one word.
Tisha looked into herself and for the first time in a long while she felt…anger, she was not angry specifically that the woman that saved her life died, no. She was angry at the waste of potential this was the first time she gained some insight on true feelings about others around her.
Olga summoned nails two in both of her arms and six more around herself sticking upwards. She could now summon more nails and what’s more she did not have to be holding them they could be summoned around her.
Tisha’s Orb was ready once more and she started charging it, she Observed the monster closely, it seemed the barrier was not back yet. She glanced back at the other two, death was not wholly unfamiliar to her, and sure enough Damon was fine but Finch had collapsed on his butt. Looking up at the Dancer a terrified expression a mask on his face.
They had to act, now. All the limbs were still where Mel had been, only some blood left in her spot.
Olga threw the nails one after the other as the limbs started to rouse themselves into intercepting them, three of them missed as the others got intercepted cleanly by the monster.
“Go, I would take care of him.” Damon nodded towards Finch and she nodded back before rushing in to join Olga.
She froze some of the limbs and in the process noticed something. She was able to get an idea of where the limbs were going to be. Her Perception had allowed her to predict some attacks from the test but had either been not needed as the enemies were too weak, or not useful because enemies like the Death Knight were somehow able to ignore it but it seemed with the upgrade to F- she was barely able to predict the Dancer’s movements. She used this to have the limbs be stepping stones towards the monster. Leaping, slipping and sliding off and around them.
The three nails that missed turned mid-air before barreling down towards the monster from behind her. The second of the nails increased in size become the comparable to a car. The monster was barely able to evade them as her limbs were busy trying to do significant damage to Olga as the juggernaut of a woman simply strode through them her Armament’s ability made it ridiculously hard to do any significant damage to her.
She had to be regretting using whatever skill she had activated outside the pyramid as her progress was slow unlike Tisha’s. Tisha reached the monster, dodging the first Chakram by ducking it. The second was smacked aside along its side as she leaped on to and off the third to dodge the fourth ending up slightly above the Dancer’s head.
The Chakrams quickly shot back to the monster’s arms, big mistake. Tisha froze each of the monster’s arms with Suspension which meant the Chakrams were frozen too, her blast was ready but not fully charged as there had not been to much time to do so. She released the energy stored at close range, the power behind it threw Tisha back into the air as it brought the creature down to the ground after slamming her through one of the few pillars still standing.
She did not stay down for long btu her limbs retracted towards her position. As she stood up from the dust her form flickering slightly.
“That hurt, your group is more capable than I thought, but it would not be enough to stop me.”
“Birdy, I’d protect ya, my attacks are too slow ta do anything ta her unless by surprise, we might have ta whittle her down with ya Orb’s blasts.” Olga said using the brief respite they had to plan
Tisha nodded in agreement.
“Can ya do ya thread transforming thing?” Olga asked and her expression was one of acceptance towards Tisha’s shaking of her head, she needed some more time.
“Thought so.” They were interrupted by a mass of spectral limbs, blocked by Olga.
“You really are a tough one, aren’t you? Try this one then.” The Dancer said with a bored tone.
The mass twisted and turned fusing into each other as the rushed towards Olga once more who pushed Tisha out of the way just in time to get hit by one gargantuan hand made out of the hundred others the nails on its end were huge and sharp. She was thrown back and into the air so far that she slammed into the roof of the room leaving a crater near the very top. Eventually she fell the hundreds of meters to the ground with a thump. Her left arm was missing.
Tisha couldn’t believe it, this was not too different from what had happened with the Giant Skeleton, however Olga had been unhurt. Here she lost an entire arm, the blood was pouring out covering the floor. Strangely, Tisha felt draw to it but caught herself, they had to find a way out of this predicament.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Spectral Arm Molding – Mold the Spectral arms together into larger arms, vastly increases lethality and destructive ability. After doing so
None of the attacks from the Dancer had worked but she could mold the arms together allowing her to breach Olga’s defenses.
“Ha…ha…that was a good one.” Tisha turned to see Olga getting up with her right hand pushing her up.
“My left arm disappeared entirely. If I hadn’t twisted my body at the last split second..” The damage would have been worse, Tisha could guess.
The exposed muscle and bone on the woman’s stump was a gruesome scene, she would die of bloodloss is nothing was done. The bleeding then slowed to a crawl before stopping. The Transcendental Body? No that was too fast, the woman was flexing her shoulder muscles together stopping the bleeding before using her right arm to lift her Sarashi on the left side and cover the bleeding.
The Dancer had not moved at all.
“I am shocked, I expected that to be the end of you.” She spoke plainly.
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Damon turned towards the boy as the fight had begun again.
“Hey, kid.” The boy was still in shock.
“Kid! Wake up, you have to help us!” He could understand how the boy was feeling, he had experienced many deaths in his line of work but a boy barely a teenager in age had witnessed such a sight of course he would be in such a state.
“We would not be able to do this without you, the monster is powerful but can be hurt, we need your help to ensure our survival.” He was just talking but had no way to be sure the kid was listening in the first place.
Then he remembered something, it had been brief, during their fight against the Death Knight something had happened between Robin and Olga. He had been too focused to do anything at that point, but he had felt Robin’s aura at that point.
Reaching into himself he grasped his Varos and released it to his surroundings.
[Varos manipulation upgrades from Novice to Amateur]
Finch woke with a jolt looking around as if just realizing his surroundings and he blinked up at Damon who smiled at him wryly.
“You back?” The boy nodded faintly.
“Lets do this then.”
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The arm reshaped itself into six smaller ones but far larger than the original.
“I would be taking you all seriously from now on.” Her aura took a dangerous feeling and Tisha noticed that the barrier was back up.
Varos Shockwave – A blast of energy power by Varos, useful for clearing and devastating a large group of weaker enemies.
A shockwave rocked out with the Dancer as the epicenter as Varos was released in a violent burst knocking the group back, only Olga standing up without a problem. A missing arm should have hurt a lot more than the woman seemed to make it out to be any normal person would have at least passed out and yet she stood against the shockwave a defiant look on her face.
Three limbs went after Olga and the others went for the other three, at the same time four portals opened near the Dancer releasing separate hails of blades onto her barrier. Finch was back into the fray. The hands were too big to stop entirely with her Suspension but Tisha could hold individual fingers which she did, completely freezing the limb coming after her and she rushed past it, climbing on to the arm that Damon had stopped with his empowered shield glowing a blue light that expanded the size of his defenses. His Armaments shield also blocked the attack heading for Finch, however it broke quickly causing Finch to focus a blade burst on the hand to keep it back.
Destroying the limbs was extremely hard to do, hacking at them when they were at their smallest size just meant she could summon more and at their large size they were incredibly tough. Tisha could not waste powerful blasts on them either. Olga tried pinning them to the ground with nails but it just resulted in them splitting apart and coming back together.
I the meanwhile Tisha noticed that a Sigil was forming above the Dancer, white in color, multiple shapes and lines came together forming a bigger and bigger circle. She trying suspending various parts of the woman but nothing seemed to stop the cast. It was like the thing had an even better failsafe than that of the Skeleton mages, instead of falling apart, it just froze.
“Hahahaha, try all you can, you would not stop this!”
Observation
Cryomancy – Magic that manipulates particles to create ice seemingly out of nothing.
That was all she got and her Perception told her that the main target was Olga but the others would be caught in it too. It seemed Olga had realized if her glancing around told Tisha anything.
“Get away from me!”
Tisha scrambled back from the large woman and Damon took Finch with him. A barely whispered phrase in an unknown language reverberated through the entirety of the large room.
“Ka`arz Heer`an.”
Frozen Castle.
PSSSHHH!
A loud sound it sounded like an avalanche had taken place in the room. With Olga as the epicenter a chunk of ice almost like a massive iceberg the size of a building appeared freezing her in place, the surrounding fifty meters in every direction also froze.
“You are finished!” The six arms reformed back into the largest one she had used previously and this time it would not miss.
“I won’t let you!” Damon charged forwards shield up the surrounding seemed to twist around him.
Magnetic Presence - For a few seconds all attacks within a range are drawn to the shield.
The arm twisted and turned away from Olga slammed straight into the shield Damon held slamming him into a gigantic crater.
The arm split apart again leaving Damon’s broken body for all to see, he had a content smile on his face as he disappeared into motes of blue light.
Tisha was getting a headache, another potential…something was lost, what that something was. It wasn’t clear to her but it was a big problem for her to see him just like Mel die like this. No, no, this could not be allowed. Her anger had reached a boiling point.
Claw Morph
It had finally come off cooldown and just it did a loud crack filled the room. The encasing ice fell apart as Olga broke out with a roar sending large pieces across the room, a chunk barely missing Tisha.
Looking around she noticed one person was missing and her already sour mood took a dive.