Chapter 70 - Art of Balanced Combat

Both the zealots rushed towards Ambrose with a twisted smile since he was closer to them. Vern couldn't let that happen. If direct attacks were out of question, he would stick with indirect ones.

He Observed the network of pipes running through the basement. Some were connected to the ceiling, while others stood tall, even if broken and battered.

Regardless, this was more than enough for him to work with. Picking one of the largest pipes standing tall on the path of the fanatics, he envisioned—

Instability Inducement.

BAM

A pipe thicker than his whole body and probably a dozen times heavier lost its support as the bolts holding it down came loose. The metallic behemoth plummeted down, ramming directly into the shoulder of one of the zealots—almost crushing him.

The second attacker dodged in time, twisting mid-air to face Vern and hurling a golden dagger at him.

Vern, grounded in a stable stance, yanked back his right leg and arched his upper body, barely dodging the golden streak that zipped past him, sending his heart into overdrive.

Luckily, the adrenaline or something was keeping him sharp, and there was enough distance between them. Or this would've been the end of line.

I really need to get my shit together. My physical strength and hand-eye coordination is piss poor.

Extrapolating from his experiences of the last few days, he would be dead sooner or later if he didn't change his ways in this department.

Jumping from cover to cover, he resolved himself, If I survive today, I have to get myself in shape. For now, he would have to deal with it.

Leaving no room for his enemies to breathe, he destabilized one pipe after another, even releasing some of the valves on them as steam came gushing out of them in bursts.

It singed their flesh and charred the skin, but all they shouted was, "MOTHER ASEA! Preserve thy flesh, for ye shalt preserve this heathen," and the burns scabbed in no time and fell over, a smooth skin visible beneath them.

The fuck is inside those tears? He wondered with a morbid curiosity. Both zealots had firmly turned their attention to him, ignoring Ambrose entirely. Just the way he wanted it to be.

One of them charged towards him like a mad bull while the other one recovered from the earlier shock and knelt down. Clasping his hands together, he chanted something, and a golden glow soon enveloped him.

It seemed like Vern had been underestimating them. They did know how to use strategies and Visions. It was weird that they hadn't bombarded Ambrose already. Or, Ambrose never gave them a chance. This, however, definitely looked like preparation for some Vision.

So Vern switched his perception back to stability and prepared to defend himself from anything that might come.

However, just at that moment, the eyes of the attacker charging at him glowed golden, and a similar aura surrounded his foot.

Next instant, his one-step covered ten, and he was almost upon Vern—a twisted smile on his face and a dagger in hand.

Fuck

A golden sheen appeared on the man's forearm, and he swung the dagger in what seemed like a blur.

SWISH

The dagger sliced through the entire pillar Vern had taken as cover, and he narrowly escaped being cut himself.

The situation was escalating rapidly.

He had to do something. Right now. Using a gun was hardly feasible without a proper opening. It was impossible for him to shoot them from afar because of his trashy aim, whereas up close, the man's speed surpassed his reaction time.

So, if no opportunity to strike presented itself, I'll have to create one, he thought, his eyes narrowing at the zealot who swung in a full circle and propelled himself towards Vern with that momentum.

A plan quickly formed in Vern's mind, and he hid behind another similar pillar. The man flashed a toothy grin and, utilizing another golden step—repeated the previous attack.

Exactly the same movements and pattern. Foolish.

Stability Inducement.

CLANK

The dagger, which had previously cut through the pillar like a hot knife through butter, was forced to a halt mere moments after it began cutting into the pillar.

Vern stabilized the pillar so rapidly that the dagger didn't budge even when the man almost dislocated his shoulder. Soon, the crevice created by the slash filled in, firmly trapping the dagger within the pillar.

"UGHH" grunted the man, channeling more power into the dagger as it glowed brighter.

Got you.

A smile spread across Vern's face as he aimed his vapor blaster directly at the man's head. The man, straining to retrieve his dagger from the pillar, was oblivious. Then, without a flicker of hesitation, Vern fired the gun at point-blank range.

BANGG

A hole ripped through the man's skull, and his eyes rolled over as he slumped down on the ground. But Vern didn't get the time to confirm the kill or press his advantage.

A stream of what could only be called Golden Stars was rushing towards him, ripping through everything in its path. This was the Vision of that other zealot who had stopped to pray.

Vern was ready. Retreating further, he found himself a neat little enclosure, a cabin of sorts. The health of the walls in terms of stability was perfect. Just what he needed to defend against something like this.

When those stars attacked from all over, he focused on the perfectly white and stable walls in his perception and ensured they didn't change their shade even a little.

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Each one of those stars ground against the walls, but they barely managed to nick it before they fizzled away into nothingness. These were…weak. Compared to the spirals he had dealt with, these were nothing.

Unfortunately, the stream was relentless, and the first zealot soon stood back up—the hole in his head nothing but a small mark now. It almost looked like some divine sigil rather than a bullet wound.

Vern needed another strategy for the ranged guy. If he continued to hide in here, the melee zealot would mow him down sooner or later.

So he wondered if there was some way for him to use a mobile shield. But nothing in here would work. The only reason he managed to exhaust the energy within these projectiles was because of the thickness of the walls.

If the object was thin enough to be pierced in a single strike, there was nothing stability inducement could do about it. Its Fundamental capability to 'create' wasn't as good as maintaining 'structure.'

What else? His mind raced anxiously. He could maybe run in a direction where walls would always shield him? But no, he can just curve them around the obstructions. That wouldn't work.

Nonetheless, something out of the norm happened. The melee fanatic growled at Vern from afar, extended his palms, and clawed at the ground. Vern was perplexed beyond measure. What the fuck is he doing?

WHAMM

But he realized the next moment. A tremor ran through the ground, and sharp golden blades jutted out of it—rushing towards his legs like some grinder.

The walls could do nothing this time. The blades had appeared mere inches away from his foot. By the time his brain registered it, he didn't know what the fuck to do.

In a panic, he jumped and managed to dodge two of the sliding blades, but the last one was going to chop his leg right down the middle. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! This was too damned sudden.

But his brain churned, and an idea he had fiddled with previously crossed his mind. Observing the stability of his leg's skin, he envisioned it to remain as bright as possible. But before he could imagine all the details, it came.

"AHHH!"

He let out a scream and keeled over, slumping against the wall, blood pouring out of his sliced shin. His stabilized foot had exhausted most of the blade's momentum, but he couldn't manage to protect his shin in time.

It left a deep wound in his shin, ripping through the skin, flesh, and even a bit of the bone. But he counted himself lucky it ended there.

His head felt light, and it hurt like hell, but stopping the bleeding was the priority. Gritting his teeth hard, he wiped the sweat from his forehead and Observed the gash on his shin under the lens of stability.

A thin black line of instability in his otherwise gray leg.

Stabilize.

"AHHHH"

Clutching his wounded leg tightly, he unleashed a bloodcurdling scream. The Vision realized his imagination by stretching the skin around the wound to seal it. His sight blurred, and pain threatened to overwhelm him, yet he persevered through the agony.

When the bleeding stopped, he smacked the wall and stood back up. He couldn't rest. Not yet. In the pain, he had lost control of the walls, and a couple of golden stars managed to cut through them, whizzing past his head and coming out the opposite wall.

But that wasn't the end. There was a whole wave of projectiles right behind it.

This cabin was compromised already, so stability wasn't an option, but he had another solution. Heat wouldn't have worked so well on the fanatics because of their broken regeneration, but these stars were constructs of finite energy.

Switching the vapor blaster's mode to the heat wave, he aimed in their general direction and let it rip. And like ice melting under the hot sun, the energy lost its shape and burst before dispersing uselessly.

This gave him a breather from the assault. Not missing the opening, he escaped the room and ran in the direction with most obstacles. His wound was closed, but it was as if his leg was on fire. The bone chafed against his skin, and sprinting felt like someone was peeling his flesh.

Nevertheless, enduring pain was preferable to facing death. A death that seemed inevitable if he allowed both enemies to attack him simultaneously. He needed to isolate and confront them one by one.

So he glanced at the network of tubes running overhead and made up his mind. It was a risky idea, but it was the only good one he had.

The reason he was hesitating was that the tubes were connected to each other a little too well. A single instability in the network would cause the whole thing to come crashing down.

Under the theory of cascading changes, it will cause an instantaneous immense strain on his eyes and Thought Space. But he would have to risk it. There was no other choice.

Instability Inducement.

BAMMM

CRUNCH

"AGHHH!! MOTHER, HELP!!!"

The whole room shook when sections of pneumatic tubes all around the basement fell and shattered. One of them crashed right on the head of the zealot who was kneeling with his hands clasped—splitting it open with all its weight, staining the tube's glass red.

Vern's eyes flared with as much pain as his leg, but he simply pressed his palm against his eyes and kept running.

"Ye shan't escape preservation!" shouted the melee zealot, sidestepping the falling hazards as he tailed Vern at an alarming pace.

Vern himself dodged and weaved through the final wave of stars until they lost their source, and soon, he was free from the annoying scrapshit.

And that's when the words he'd been desperately waiting for tolled in his ears, "Vern, I am ready!"

Finally! At last, Ambrose was done with his preparations.

Vern turned around, switched his gun to concussion mode, and fired in the general direction of the melee guy. The man dodged it and rushed towards him like a ferocious beast. And that was the plan.

Vern had always been inching closer to that hole in the roof, and now that it was time, he gritted his teeth, ignored the pain, and accelerated.

Two daggers of pure light appeared in the man's hands as he took a golden step toward Vern. Vern didn't have a pillar as cover this time, so he induced an Instability within a generator in the man's path.

It was supposed to simply send another jet of steam in the man's face, but maybe luck was finally in his favor. Because the odd component he destabilized actually caused the tanker to explode.

BOOM

The man slammed into the wall beside the generator, hitting it with such force that Vern heard bones crack. Yet, the violent impact seemed to have no effect on him—he stood back up, grin unwavering.

But everything was now in place, and Vern wasn't going to fuck it up. He slowed down, limping with each step before turning to face the man. Vern's expression was a vivid display of fear, alarm, and despair, his arms trembling as he aimed the gun.

"The hour of preservation is nigh! May the mother of all preserve ye, oh heathen."

One second, the zealot was leaning against the wall, his skin undulating as protruding bones realigned themselves. In the next, he had covered half the distance between them, moving with startling speed.

Another blink, and he was right upon Vern, but Vern simply looked on, terrified and shaken to the core.

The Zealot lunged at Vern, his hands crossed, each clutching a dagger of light, poised for a lethal swipe aimed to decapitate Vern in a single, swift strike.

"PRESERVE!" He bellowed, his face bursting with an unsettling amount of glee.

Vern fired his shot, but his trembling hand sent the bullet off course, missing its target. This misfire only served to broaden the man's sinister smile.

However, in spite of his missed shots, injured leg, and expression marred by terror, Vern's gaze never wavered from the man. Unflinching and steadfast, he locked eyes with his adversary, peering into what he knew were the eyes of a soon-to-be corpse.

For he was certain this was the last light those eyes would ever reflect.

WHIRRRRL

An overwhelming cascade of golden light flooded the basement, heralding the sudden appearance of a spiral drill right above the man's head. A look of shock swept across his face. He attempted to adjust his stance, desperate to evade, but he was caught mid-air, his movements proving futile.

"May you find peace in the embrace of Fundamentals," whispered Vern, a common saying amongst the Fundamentalists for the departed. He stood taller, that terrified expression and quivering demeanor nowhere to be seen. In its place was his usual solemn and calm self.

It started with the man's neck, drilling through it in a mere second. The sinews of his muscles came alive and wriggled towards each other to reattach themselves, but they didn't stand a chance against the might of that radiant drill.

Next was his tilted head, the chest, the ribcage, the waist. Nothing mattered, for the drill impaled him into the floor and grounded him down until nothing was left. Neither the man nor the spiral.

Blood spilled all over Vern's outfit, his half-sliced shoe, his face, and his conscience. But he turned around, wiped away the stains, and limped towards Ambrose. The pain in his leg was no act.

It was time to end this.

One final plan.