Chapter 128 - Collision of Flows

"Three."

Someone shouted behind Victoria, and she felt the urge to pepper them with her knives if it meant they'd shut up and let her focus.

There was so much disparity in how Lucian and Vern built up their final attacks, and she was running out of time to dissect it.

A literal sea raged within her eyes as the fluids she saw curved and bent around Vern—swirling, twirling, focusing on that sheathe on his back.

She could generally figure out far more detail than just that, but Vern clearly had better command over the surroundings than she did, suppressing her perception.

How can a first shade like him distort reality to such an extent? she wondered, watching him compress all that force and reality with a frown.

What was even bizarre was how his eyes looked perfectly unharmed. Almost as if doing all this didn't empty his representation reserves at all.

Lucian had forcefully taken ownership of that space for a couple of minutes, and he was almost about to lose his eyes for good.

Yet, Vern had also used his visions non-stop since the start. Why, then, is he not even fazed?

She tried imagining herself going against Lucian, and the only path to victory for her was to overwhelm him right from the start. Allowing him even a single opportunity to use that sword on her would mean the end of fight for her.

It was a miracle Vern endured all those attacks head on. Even when reinforced by wave barriers, her knives would stand no chance against that much pure strength.

"Two. Just two seconds. It's about to happen, boys!"

Shut up! she almost screamed, but knew that would mean this fleeting moment would be lost in meaningless argument.

Somehow ignoring the ticking clock, she turned towards Lucian, and her heart began thumping in fear.

If Vern was like a sharp and deadly flow, Lucian was more of a raging torrent, one made of magma. Simply looking at him hurt her eyes. The Kingsmen are really like a wild card.

A bloody sea gushed out of him, smoldering the crimson fire around the man as he soaked up more and more of it—channeling it all into his sword.

Her family's Archon had told her not to make enemies of the Kingsmen even before Duskfall, and she could see why. Would they deny me if I asked for an infusion of the old blood? After all, she was from the newer wave of nobles.

The Bloodborne art had restrictions baked into it for the last generation nobles only, not the new ones like her.

"One."

Ughh! What the hell am I even thinking?

Victoria snapped out of her daydreams and gripped the edge of the railing, her knuckles turning white from the sheer force.

Her heart raced to a zenith in anticipation as their flow solidified almost like the calm before the storm.

The terrifying aura from both the monsters condensed into an even sharper wave as the ground cracked and the wind ebbed.

The morons behind her finally shut up, and both men down in the ruined garden leaned forward.

Above her, two more destructive ripples emerged in the sea of reality, surely the famed Kingsmen getting ready to defend their pupils.

She unconsciously held onto the cravat around her neck, crumpling it to try and release some of the pressure surrounding her.

That's when the silence shattered and came two shouts.

"Zero."

Bang

Waves parted behind them in her perception, and like bullets bursting out of the chamber, both the men disappeared from their initial positions.

She etched every minute movement in her memory—the way Vern broke the ground and launched himself forward, how Lucian brute forced even more power than that out of thin air, or how their flows exploded.

They parted the fluid that made up the reality like two ships on a collision course. Right as their bow were about to smash into each other, their masts unfurled and they released the terrifying might in their arsenal.

Clang!

A purple glow exploded from Vern's sheathe as it suddenly opened up from sides and two blades darker than the night itself whipped out of them in a cross arc.

Lucian, on the other hand, stomped right before Vern and his bloody greatsword launched into an upward arc.

That's when, "Shit! Move aside, girl, let me watch—" someone shouted behind her.

"Fuck off," she yelled without turning and created a small Wave bash with her hand, launching the man out of the crowd.

Forgetting about that untimely disturbance almost instantly, she savored the final moments of this battle.

Blade met blade—one red and two purple in the most satisfying Clang ever as her own blood boiled in this display of utter madness, the crowd exploding with excitement.

Lucian seemed to be entirely out of representation, for his sword didn't turn illusory and met a gruesome fate as the purple ones sheared right through the metal.

Not that it changed the course of the fight, for a vertical bloody arc had already sprayed out of that massive hunk of metal, corroding even the air itself as it landed on Vern's body.

In that very instant, something magical happened.

Two even deeper crimson auras exploded from both their chests, instantly expanding and swirling as they draped over their bodies like some skin.

Victoria sneaked a glance upwards and saw that the two master Kingsmen had their hands outstretched, a red haze flowing around their fingers.

What is this trickery!? They were creating something akin to a shield with the power of blood? No one had told her they could do such a thing.

Suddenly, people all around her who'd been holding their breath threw their fists in the air, screaming their excitement in one way or the other.

WAHHH!!! their combined voice was so loud she felt the vibrations in the flow of whole palace.

"AGHHH!!! Mother FUCKER—"

"HAHHH!!"

Almost drowned by these cheers, came a guttural scream followed by a yelp as she almost lost her grip when the destructive attacks interacted with the red aura of their opponent.

Vern's cross slash physically razed the dual armor on Lucian's body—blood and scales alike as they failed to hold the corrosion back. The red one stretched inside his body as the slices created deep wounds, blood spurting out of them in droves.

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Fascinating!

When the blades finished their arcs, purple energy remained—wreaking havoc on Lucian's flesh. The red armor didn't allow the energy to invade his innards, but it didn't entirely stop it either.

Is that intentional? To give them the taste of pain they'd face, had they received these attacks in real life?

Because Vern was undergoing the same process. An upward slash of a bloody arc wanted to split him down the middle, but the only part of his body that remained unharmed was his head.

Rest met the same gruesome fate as Lucian. The red skin protected him just enough to not exacerbate the wounds, but pointedly relayed every ounce of pain he was owed.

Victoria shuddered imagining herself on the receiving end of these attacks.

No...no. This is madness. The terrible sea of fluid colored by their personal perspectives raged around them with a fury so potent it disintegrated the waves time and again, just like the ones crashing in her heart.

Thump the chopped heavy blade fell to the side, but the two men were already on their knees, clutching at their abdomen. Yet, that first scream was their only expression of pain.

Almost as if they'd agreed to decide the winner and loser based on who screamed first—neither opened their mouth.

"Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod! I feel like I'm in love. Why is it over!? This is crazy! Who are these people!? Where can I meet them? How can I date them? They're so cool!"

"That was fucking beautiful! This is how real men should fight! FUCK, I want to duel someone right now."

"Hey, I am in Lucian's team, you know? If you guys have something to ask, I can relay your questions to him for a small fee."

"Shut up, man. Lemme replay that in my mind a couple times."

"A marvelous display of skills indeed. The finesse and the control they showed is breath-taking. We should—"

"Hey, forget all that. Look there!!" someone yelled, pointing behind Lucian, and the combusting crowd turned their attention.

Gasps echoed all around her when she noticed that the purple arcs that hadn't landed directly on Lucian's body continued to whiz through the air, disintegrating everything they touched.

"Fuck! Someone stop it. Looks like that thing has no plans of halting on its own. It'll enter the central tower and cut through who knows what."

Victoria suddenly felt an impulse to test herself against that attack. So she narrowed her eyes as the sea within them raged.

With a deep breath, she used the second vision of her shade sequence, Wave barrier.

The reality folded in front of the path of the purple hues and—

"Ahh," a cry escaped her mouth as her sight suddenly turned bloody. She'd definitely burst a vein there. Wh–what? she tried to get hold of the railing, almost keeling over.

But when that guy who'd been eyeing her like some candy since the start tried to touch her, she recoiled, finding her footing as she politely warned him, "Sorry. I am good. Just lost my balance there for a second."

He backed away with a scowl, and she couldn't help but wonder what the hell these nobles were doing here. She remembered that they weren't her colleagues, just random people of influence.

This guy specifically belonged to the trifecta of the top three noble families of the city. Vigil almost never had unnecessary people around.

What were they doing here again?

"Ahh, fuck." The guy who'd first warned everyone screamed, "Lady above and beyond, what the hell is this attack? It ripped through my aegis like nothing."

"You dumb logs, keep trying, or someone will get hurt."

"Shouldn't the Kingsmen be the one to handle these wayward attacks?"

"Yeah, you want to show them we can't do anything by ourselves, don't you? Shut up and try again."

Victoria massaged her head as she eyed the perpetrator of this attack down in the garden. She wasn't about to try and stop it again. It wasn't her problem; she had already reduced its potency enough. And its far too much for me anyways.

Both were sprawled on the ground as the vicious attacks continued to sunder their bodies—the light snow falling and evaporating instantly.

Her heart, which had been boiling all this time failed to calm down as she tried to imagine the damage these bloody armors had to negate.

Strings flew through the air as the two Kingsmen landed next to the two stars of this show.

She wanted to hear what the masters said to their writhing apprentices, but the ruckus behind her grew in intensity once again.

"Alrighty! Now that you kids got that attack under control, me says I won this bet," shouted Ambrose with a wide grin, his hand reaching to scoop the piled money.

"No. No, how can you say such a thing, esteemed lord? Clearly, Mister Lucian didn't lose. That other guy would be just as dead if this were a real battle."

"Yes, but that's not what we betted on, did we? You do see that only one of them lost their sword, right? Clearly, Vern won the ego competition here."

"No, sir, that's just semantics."

The heir from the Dexter family on the other side of the room simply shook his head and exited, leaving his money in the pile.

Even he agrees that Vern won? This made her wonder. Who was the winner? Did any of them really win? That fanatic of Lucian had a point that both would be just as dead in a real fight.

"Okay, tell me. Who do you think will win if they were to get up and continue fighting right now."

Well, that was a good point, too. This shut up the naysayers as Ambrose greedily swooped in all the cash, only letting the others who'd bet on Vern take their winnings.

"Hey, are you guys really okay with this!?"

"Whatever, man. Just take the loss. I say this shit was rigged anyway. How the heck were we supposed to guess at the power of these two monsters?"

"Yeah, no shit. These are first-shade observers? Got to be some kind of funny joke. What the hell kind of training did the Kingsmen and Vigil give them to produce these disgusting creatures?"

That had to be the sentence that resonated with Victoria the most in their rubbish discussion. For Vern, it wasn't his physical combat prowess that set him apart but the ingenious use of his Visions.

Just how many of them did he have? There was no way one or two visions could be this versatile, right? He controlled air, ground, marble, and snow; then there was also the wind and corrosive blades.

It was possible his viewpoint worked on a higher concept than those individual elements, but then hadn't he shaded his perception just a couple weeks ago?

How could he already control a higher order viewpoint with such finesse? And what was that endurance? Given the veins around his eyes hadn’t swollen at all, he might not have spent even half of his total representation.

And Lucian wasn't a slouch either. He had clearly mastered the first infusion of the old blood completely. In one week! She remembered that only those with a bloodthirsty nature could pull off such a feat.

But that kind of mentality usually clashed with the shade sequences available in their society—or the kingsmen would have no need for new recruits. How had he juggled both his progress as an observer and kingsman so well?

Victoria felt the pressure of waves of reality breathing down her neck. People said she was talented. Then what about these two? What would she have to do to catch up to them?

"Hey, you, girl." someone was bothering her again. What's wrong with people today!?

She turned around, but a guy with disarrayed clothes looked at her with a wronged expression, "Why did you blast me like that? I was just trying to get a better look."

Ohh. Umm, oops. That was indeed rude, wasn't it?

Shaking her head, she slipped into her noble persona and left it on autopilot to deal with the man as she tried to figure out how to use the experience of this battle to better herself.

Maybe she could ask the involved parties directly? No, that would be too much. No one's going to give away their secrets like that.

Hmm, I can try and do some missions with them and see how they think. That was usually what set observers apart—their perspectives on life.

That might just be the only way to not fall behind in this race to the top.

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Vern's eyelids felt heavy.

Something gouged at his chest and abdomen relentlessly. It didn't go away no matter what. He tried to clutch at it but failed at even that when his hands didn't respond.

Fuck!

His eyes soon opened for a second, and he noticed people. A lot of them. Cheering, jeering, and shouting. Soon, Mistress Amelia's face entered his sight and he relaxed.

Some grumbling words of…Lord Osric? "Ughh, what is this attack? It's still not done."

Mistress said something, but his mind was too dull to follow. Soon, the cold ground stopped embracing him and warm hands replaced it.

Whose? He didn't know. All he heard was, "Good job," and the world turned dark.

.

.

.

"H-hello, Mr. Plague- doc- doctor."

That's all he managed to say before the green light of that lamp lulled him into another deep sleep.

.

.

.

How long was it? He didn't know. There were many dreams, but nothing in particular that stuck out.

His consciousness slowly awakened, but his body refused to cooperate.

At some point in time, golden tendrils appeared in this unerring darkness, and he geared for the start of a lucid dream.

The tendrils soon whirled and twirled into tiny knots before they exploded. Following this light show, a monotonous voice resounded in his head.

"O Visionary of thine realm, trails from antiquity and futures yet born shall meet within the sanctum beyond the gaze of First Observer's. Arm thyself in spirit and flesh; for on the morrow, thou shalt be summoned to the epoch's confluence…"

Vern didn't have the mind to be stunned by the absurdity of these words or the meaning behind them, for something far more bizarre went on with the threads that had just exploded.

Right when they were on the cusp of disappearing, they suddenly shone with an even brighter energy and started morphing into…runes—similar to the ones in the convergence note.

However, as they settled toward their final shapes, a terrifying notion appeared in his mind.

In parallel to this, the voice continued, "This council, ordained by the threads of existence, seeks thy insight. For as the realm teeters on the brink of despair, we, the convened, shall dictate its salvation or its doom."

And with that, the voice was gone. Yet, in this numbing silence, the runes persisted, and the unease in his mind reached a crescendo when the glowing tendrils finally fell into a stable shape.

He couldn't help but shudder, for the notion in his mind solidified, and he realized he could…comprehend what the runes meant. They said...

'Help'