The king had a less than impressed look on his face, though Owen couldn't tell if that was do to the situation or his face was just like that. He had a slanted forward face, his face was cleanly shaven and his hair was slicked back, his whole appearance reminding Owen of a rodent. As Owen scanned the room he realized people were yelling and he turned his attention back to the scenario the gate had created.
General Advika was giving out her reasoning for why the royal family had done such a poor job and by the end of it had riled up the peasant soldiers into a frenzy as they stormed the throne room. None of the royals even made an attempt to fight back as the majority of those trying to harm them weren't strong enough. Just as Owen had the thought, the King let out a blast of power sending dozens of the attackers to the ground. Owen watched as the king stood up and flipped his cape as he drew a large 2 meter long sword and pointed it at their general.
*King Roman Advika Level 45
Uses chaos energy to boost his level for specific attacks*
One glance at the description told Owen what he had wanted to know about the last general and he began to boost himself again. Myra moved up to stand next to him beginning her own buffs. "You think we can take him?" Myra asked as she began coursing with power. "I only do best with burst damage, so I'll take the brunt of the attacks and you focus on dealing damage?" Owen asked in response. They were about to charge off, but he heard Peggy shout from the back. "Hold on you fuckers, let me cast my buffs as well." Peggy quickly used her casts and waved them forward.
Owen burst forward causing the ground underneath him to fracture, what sounded like a gunshot echoed through the chamber as he launched himself forward. Heads turned towards where he had been, but in less than a moment another sound like a gunshot went off.
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The King looked around to see what had caused the noise, suddenly, he felt a pain deeper than any he had felt in a long time as a spear pierced through both his enchanted armor and incredibly high resilience stat, ending up deep in his chest. He looked down and was surprised to see that the wound was pouring blood, he tried to grab the haft but a quick turn and pulling motion from the boy released the spear, causing another spasm of pain to rock through the king's body.
A cough sent blood into his mouth and he spat it at the fool who dared stab him. The young man dodged and quickly spun with the weight of his weapon throwing a wide slash towards him. The king scoffed, "It was a lucky shot and a lucky skill." He thought, as he pushed the boy from his mind and absorbed more energy to heal his wound. He felt the wind whisper in his ear and he turned abruptly to dodge the attack of a woman no less. He felt his scowl deepen as he caught one of her arms and swung her with his full strength into the ground.
She seemed to twitch but when she didn't move after, he felt satisfied. He heard screaming from the other side of the chamber, but they didn't understand, none of them could, life wasn't satisfying enough for them and so they had chosen death. He moved to slice the woman on the floor in half with one slash, but his weapon was interrupted as the same spear from earlier stabbed through him and continued until it punctured his wrist. "That was unbelievable precision, had I continued the strike for much further my hand would've been removed long before the woman would've died." The king thought in amazement as the spear was then torn out of the wound.
The king moved his energy towards each new wound finding them harder and harder to heal. His family all except that damnable daughter of his had already run dry on their energy stores leaving him to cover the rest of the fight on his own. Pitiful. Was his only thought before he began clashing with the boy in earnest.
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Owen felt his energy racing through him faster than ever before as the Polymath's level of skill started to take full effect. As soon as he had realized the look on the king's face was surprise rather than pain, he immediately made space and burned more than 1000 experience to begin channeling the special effect of his spear mastery skill, and he began to wield the spear with a masters proficiency. As soon as the skill took effect, he saw the king swinging his sword down to cut Myra in half. Without him being able to even react himself, it felt like his spear launched itself forward with power rivaling his silent execution damage and pierced through the king's chest and somehow catching in the end of his wrist before the swing could be completed.
After removing his spear he felt another burst of power from the king as he turned his full attention on Owen. "You are far more skilled than either your age or disposition indicates. Why associate with this rabble when you can join me, why risk death, you have no chance." Owen was surprised at the king pausing his attack to offer Owen surrender, but his surprised heightened even further when he saw the gate quest offer a change.
*You have entered the tier 3 gate, Kingdom of Sianos.
Clear Condition: Lead the resistance to overthrow the current royal family.
Would you like to change Clear Condition to: Destroy the resistance and join the king's retinue?
Y/N?*
Owen didn't even deem the offering a response as he began to move through each move like a rushing river and flowing water. Each attack was filled with incredible power and it didn't matter if it were deflected, dodged or if he hit, each following move flowed together seamlessly and the attacks began to pick up speed as Owen let himself be moved with the skill.
The king was slowly pushed back as the attacks grew in power and strength and an ever increasing amount of wounds began appearing faster than the king could heal them. Owen felt himself get barely grazed several times and before even having the chance to heal himself, Peggy would heal it for him from across the room. He could feel the channel period of the skill beginning to come to an end as he wasn't able to maintain the level of power it had reached. The timing was perfect however as Myra had slowly stood up looking like she was a mere step from death, but Owen recognized the red aura surrounding her had never left.
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As she moved into range of the boss her wounds began to heal at a visible speed, it took less than a second for the boss to realize why and he stepped forward in a large swipe. Owen launched himself towards the swipe as it looked like Myra was charging an attack, he placed his spear back in his storage and pulled out his bastard sword in the same moment and ran electricity through it just as his blade intercepted the king's.
A loud ringing echoed through the chamber as the swords collided. Owen saw cracks spread across the flat of his blade and he knew he had at most a single attack left in it. He tried over charging the edge of the sword and it began to vibrate and turn red as the electricity on the end continued to build more and more. It was beginning to looked like Owen had pulled the pin out of a grenade as everyone began throwing glances at the sword in discomfort. The king launched a spell of some sort that threw a wall of air at Owen pushing him back, but it hadn't mattered. He had pulled the attention away from Myra for long enough.
"IVAR'S FATED BLOW!" Myra screamed as she swung her axes down in a cross pattern. Two enormous gashes appeared on the king's chest as he was thrown back. Owen threw himself after the king and stabbed his sword into the center of the wound. Flesh immediately seared and the smell of cooking meat filled the air. The king grabbed Owen in that moment, throwing him into the air with incredible strength and thrusting his sword after Owen lodging it firmly in his gut. The king smiled up at him, "My apologies, but fools are always fated to die."
A cold energy formed on the blade in an instant and began pouring into him. Owen felt himself spasm, his eyes rolling into the back of his head and the king swung his sword sending Owen into the ground causing a small crater. And shortly after Owen saw everything go black.
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Myra spun out of her own attack swing and threw herself towards where Owen had landed. She was interrupted by the crash of sword against stone as the King blocked her path, sword buried in the ground before her. "Silly girl, as I said fools will die. I will give you the same option as I gave him." She saw the notification pop up but she ignored it. The sword in the king's wound was still glowing fiercely and she turned her eyes back to his. "You have one chance to live longer, get out of my way now or die." Myra said as she pushed herself even harder. Laughing filled the hall as the king laughed, "What a joke, maybe even a fool can be kept for something, now kneel."
The whole room seemed to shuddering as it felt like the air itself was trying to squeeze them to death. Myra barely noticed it however and she charged at the king. She moved faster and faster and she made attack after attack in the same several spots. She was waiting for an opportunity and it finally presented itself, as a wave of force push her back and the king began to charge up some attack. However distance had been exactly what she needed as she also began charging another fated blow. She tried to push as much energy into it as possible, but the king began to move first as a wave of black energy began pouring out of his wounds slowly closing them. The sword also began to get pushed out and as the king moved to pull it out she released her attack.
An explosion of power rocked through the chamber causing the ground to shake and the floor to crack. A hole the size of a basketball had opened up in the king's chest and he began to wobble. She didn't wait for another second as she stormed forward and began hacking. It took her several moments before she realized that she had already received the kill notification. She canceled her buffing skills and threw herself towards where Owen lay unmoving on the ground. She tried identify, but all it showed her was a name and level.
Peggy had rushed over at this point and began trying to heal Owen, but her skill wasn't working the way it was supposed to, as she tried to move around the energy in his body to heal him nothing worked. It was as if his body itself was fine and the hole in his chest had already healed, but something beyond her was the cause of his situation. She turned her attention to Myra who had fallen unconscious and began healing her instead, hoping that Owen would be fine.
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Owen watched everything go black, but instead of slipping out of consciousness, he opened his eyes to realize he had been forced into his core space. He looked around desperately and tried to force himself to wake up and focus back on the fight, but it was as if something was holding him here. Turning his attention to his core system he started to think he knew why.
Dark black energy had created a partial shell around his core and was slowly seeping into his meridians. Previously they had been large open pathways that allowed large amounts of energy through them, but as the black energy made it into his system it caused it to slowly shrivel. He quickly tried to cycle his core and push his mana through it, but nothing seemed to budge. The only thing he could move through was his experience that had formed on a portion of his core. He tried moving it around, but nothing he did effected the black energy.
Seeing no other option, he began to imagine breaking down the experience and absorbing it into his body as he did so, he tried mixing the black energy into the suction force he was creating. Just barely small wisps of the energy started to pour more quickly through his body. He began screaming as pain worse that any other rock his body. His meridians were forcibly being pushed open by the energy only to shrivel even smaller afterwards.
He had to take several breaks as he moved more and more of the energy through his system. The only solace was when it had reached a star that had already been packed full of mana. It dissolved the black energy in real time, but not as quickly as the mana dissolved. Seeing a way out of the situation he was in he began forcing himself to just barely stand the pain as he moved the energy into more of his mana filled stars.
They slowly seemed to pop then shrivel as the mana was worn away, but eventually he had managed to release the hold that had been on his core. However he wasn't sure he was in any better a position now. His whole constellation looked dim and barely functional, while his core seemed to sputter void of almost all of its energy.
His whole core seemed to ache as a burst of experience flooded around his core. He tried to cycle it through his body as soon as it arrived, but there was no response. He watched in despair as his core slowly seemed to bleed the last of his energy and everything turned black.
*Your core is mana starved
Your core has been corrupted by chaos
You have lost skills*
A crushing feeling suppressed every other in that moment as the last dregs of color winked out in his core space leaving him in a void.