Azura nearly gagged as the giant fist slammed into the ground where he had been standing a split second before. The ground shook as if an earthquake was going off. Worse than the strength of the blow was the putrid smell it released. It was a waste of magic, but he made a quick enchantment to purify the air around his head so he wouldn’t have to smell the terrible creature. He wouldn’t have used such a wasteful spell not too long ago, but with his new core he had the mana to burn. Well technically the core wasn’t new, he supposed unsealed core would be the better phrase.
He fell backwards to slip under the arm swipe made by the creature. Planting his hands on the ground he quickly did a kip up to get back to standing. The creature was surprisingly slow, but its body mass wass enough to seal off the way forward, and it was perfectly clear to him that it wouldn’t be as easy to kill as the experiments he had been dealing with before. Also luring it away from the door didn’t seem to work. He was out of the monster's attack range now, and the beast simply glared at him. He sighed, if slipping past wasn’t going to work he’d have to take it out fast. Thankfully the copy rerunning the circle had finished, and found no other tunnels, so he re-made the copy.
They both crouched preparing to pounce. This thing was slow, but terrifyingly strong, and probably hard to finish off, but they didn’t have to kill it, just clear the doorway, they’d have to come back to finish it later, after they had dealt with the monster responsible for all this. He and his copy lept simultaneously, both of their swords cut a gouge out of the monster's side, and they quickly flipped to put their feet on the wall and jump back in time to avoid the monster's counter attack. After they landed they dashed forward again he leapt over the monster’s swing as his copy slid under it. He did a spin to gather force and cut a gouge out of the monster's shoulder before creating a circle to blink him back in front of the beast, His copy had managed to cut off its legs though, and had ended up behind it. “Trade you!” This was a new variation on his blink. He could teleport somewhere he couldn’t see so long as he was trading places with something he could sense. The range was actually worse in most scenarios, but it had its uses.
He found himself in the entrance, and dashed down it leaving the monster that was clearly regenerating. He made a silent promise to himself that he’d be back to end the creature's misery. His copy wouldn’t be able to kill it on his own though so it quickly dispelled. He dashed down the tunnel until he came upon a sealed wall. He didn’t bother trying to find the proper way to open it and instead Kicked it, releasing a burst of mana from his foot to blow the wall apart.
He dashed through the opening he had created, and now found himself in an opulently decorated home. He idly wondered how everyone else was doing, but didn’t have much time to think on it as a pillar of fire erupted from the floor right in front of him forcing him to jump backwards. “I’m afraid this is private property owned by lord Pearl. As such I must kindly ask you to leave.” He seized up his opponent. The man stood on the upper floor looking down at him from a gated area. About 15 ft behind the man were a set of stairs that went outward before meeting down on the ground floor.
“Private property doesn’t mean you can do illegal experiments, so I believe you’ll find I do have the jurisdiction to be here.” As much as he’d like to just blitz past the aging butler, his opponent appeared to be With his hair and beard both being completely grayed, but obviously well kept,and a perfectly crisp suit.. It was abundantly clear that the man wasn’t a novice. That fire spell had been near instant, he had barely even had a chance to react before the pillar had erupted.
“Very well, allow me to see your warrant to search the premises and I shall let you through.” Of course the man would let him through, he doubted there was anything incriminating in the house itself. At least the fact the butler didn’t bat an eye at the experiment accusation meant the man was in on it.
“Why would I need a warrant? I’ve already seen the experiments, I didn’t even know the tunnel was attached to lord Pearl’s house. I just got a tip about a dungeon with dead bodies and followed it here.” He was probably a little young to pull this off convincingly, but he didn’t need to, he just needed the man to switch into damage control rather than aggression. If the man took him to Pearl to give some speal about not knowing about the tunnels he’d be able to finish the job.
“I see, then I have to apologize, but leaving is no longer an option.” He created a sphere of ice around himself just as a tsunami of fir washed over the entire lower floor. Well that had certainly backfired. On the bright side if they were in kill the witnesses mode then that probably meant Corelius himself had no intention of running away. He cursed as he had to keep reinforcing the ice as more and more ice sublimated into steam. That butler was hiding some serious mana reserves if he could make such a wide scale attack for so long.
His eyes widened as he put his shield out in front of him. The Lightning bolt he had barely blocked shattered his ice dome and shot him into the back wall hard enough to send him through it and skidding down another hallway. At least he hadn’t been in the fire long enough to receive any burns. Despite its blazing hot temperature. “I’m impressed. Not many can survive my opening salvo, and I know all the members of the police force that have that capability, so who are you really?”
“Someone who will outlast you if you keep throwing magic around all willy nilly like that.” Not to say he was currently in a very good situation. Outlasting wasn’t exactly the ideal way to deal with someone when you’re on a time crunch. By now the alarm would have been raised. He doubted they had more than a minute before a ton of adventurers showed up to deal with the intruders.
“Quite right, I’ll make sure to consider my use more carefully from here on.” That at least gave him some breathing room. While his opponent being more cautious went there was a chance for the fight to be even longer, it also meant he wouldn’t have to put all of his focus in it just to survive.He dodged a spear made of flame and conjured an ice wall between its landing point and him, which proved to be the right decision as the flaming lance exploded on impact. Unfortunately not requiring all his focus by no means meant an easy fight.
His opponent still stood on the 2nd floor seemingly unconcerned with the damage caused to the building. “Why work for Pearl anyway? You seem strong enough to have your pick of employer. Plus given the location of this place I can’t imagine he pays you very much.” As much as he hated to admit it, he didn’t really like his odds in this fight. The butler was clearly not going all out, and that meant going for the win would leave him exhausted if he won at all, better to see if he couldn’t find a way to get this guy to leave.
Of all the reactions, he wasn’t expecting the man to laugh. “I would never lower myself to work for someone as pathetic as Pearl. My master has ordered me to aid him though, so aid him I shall.” He frowned, but didn’t have time for another response as He deflected a bullet of flame with his sword. Quickly followed by frantically switching between blocking and dodging ass dozens of them continued shooting at him. He could tell right away that these were made as piercing weapons. His enchanted stuff would hold up, but any barrier he tried to put up would be pierced like paper. Much more efficient than his earlier magic, both in mana use and ability to kill.
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His only saving grace was how small the bullets were. He was able to dodge most of them, but the ones he couldn’t he was able to block or deflect. He realized a second too late that he had allowed himself to get complacent in his rhythm, and as such blocked a bullet that was different from the rest and exploded shooting him back once more. He grit his teeth. The butler wasn’t the only one with surprises in store. He created a blink circle to send him flying at the man from behind. He corrected his body and came out the other side using all of his momentum to throw a punch at the man, but to his surprise the butler effortlessly caught his punch. “You have some potential, If you surrender I might just introduce you to my master instead of killing you.”
“Maybe next time, but I have something important to do at the moment.” The spell he had cast to weaken the floor kicked in, and it collapsed under them. The man released his hand to try and attack again, but he had already blinked back to the solid part of the floor. He didn’t stick around long enough for his opponent to regain his bearings and dashed down the hallway the man had been guarding. He frowned, Katy was right, he had made a habit of running away from big threats. Well he wasn’t particularly proud of that realization, he wasn’t so naive as to say he should try and change that habit, he knew when a fight couldn’t be won, and more importantly, when a fight wasn’t worth fighting in the first place.
***
Gerard sat on the collapsed pile of rubble the kid had left him in. He was of course unharmed, except for perhaps his pride. He could no doubt catch up to the boy, but most likely not in time to save the lord. Moreover people would be swarming this place soon. Their fight had taken almost 40 seconds, and he very much doubted it would take much longer for Adventurers to flood in. Still the boy was quite talented, especially if he was as young as he looked. His master would definitely be interested in a mage who was that skilled in enchantment too.
He pulled out a gleaming black crystal from his pocket. It was about the size of an apple, maybe a little smaller. He crushed it to pieces and a pitch black circle opened up in front of him. He stepped through it disappearing from the mansion, leaving not a single trace that he had been there. Save the destruction he caused, not that it could be traced to him.
***
Jackson was not having a good time. He had been fighting a giant colossus made of corpses of all things for almost a full minute by now. A minute probably didn’t sound long to normal people, but for mages who could enhance themselves far beyond human level it was practical hours. Well that was probably an exaggeration, this fight just felt longer than normal because of how terrible the match up was. They both had insane regeneration capabilities, so it basically ended u[ being a war of attrition. He would definitely win since he was able to deal more damage than the beast, and any time he did get hit the monstrosity did too, but that didn’t mean he had any clue how long the fight would go on for. His own regeneration could go for quite a while, so he had a feeling he was in it for the long haul.
Hopefully 1 of the other 2 would be able to finish pearl, because he wasn’t going to get past this anytime soon. He casually dodged the swing of the monster and dashed in close, punching the things face and causing it to pop, splashing rotten blood in an area that he had already vacated. He had made the mistake of letting some of the blood get on his arm before, and had needed to cut it off, as the blood tried to spread to the rest of his body. He didn’t know what it would do once it got there, but he wasn’t willing to find out.
As expected less than a second later the head had completely reformed, and its blood red eyes glared at him hatefully. He wondered where the eyes came from. They were the only part of the monstrosity that didn’t appear to be human, or well humans he supposed. He supposed they could just be modified human eyes, but he found it unlikely that Pearl had taken the time to learn how to grow a pair of eyes to be proportional to the monster. At first he thought the eyes were what maintained whatever spell was keeping that thing together, but he had destroyed them several times by now to no effect.
He jumped over a wide swing by the monster, and flipped to get his feet on the ceiling before leaping towards the monster. He punched the left side of the torso causing the monster's entire left side to be blown apart, but he once more was able to clear out before the blood started spraying. After watching it heal for the umpteempth time he began to regret complaining about how tough the monsters he and Marcus had ran into were. He’d take a hide so tough he couldn’t dent it over one that regenerated instantly like this. It was a lot less disgusting.
Perhaps Azura was right, he should look into getting a sword or something. His particular branch of magic made punching much more effective than a weapon, but there were definitely times where the loss in damage would be well worth using a blade. Especially as the force didn’t need to be as much given the nature of the blade as a cutting instrument rather than a blunt one. At least the monster wasn’t exceptionally fast, and since it seemed unwilling to move, dodging was pretty simple. He stepped back in order to dodge another wild swing.
Honestly this fight wasn’t difficult in any way, but he really wanted it to be over, that awful stench was starting to get to him. Maybe he should take a page out of the kids book. He wasn’t really great with elemental magic, and he didn’t have the kind of control to blow up a shard without hurting himself, but what he did have was the ability to heal after hurting himself. As such he pulled a fire shard from his pocket. He normally kept one on hand to start campfires in the cold, and to cook food in the wilds, thankfully that habit was about to save him a lot of time, or he hoped it would anyway. He leapt sideways as the monstrosity’s arm slammed into the ground he had been occupying.
He started pouring mana into the crystal hidden in his closed fist. He began to feel his palm heat up as he closed in on the beast. He slid under the swing of the monster's other hand, and pushed himself back up with his free hand, then he slammed his hand forward with less force than before, so instead of blowing up a section of the beast he had merely embedded his fist into its stomach. “Let’s see how you deal with continuous damage.” The shard exploded in a fiery inferno much stronger than he had expected, and flung him into the back wall of the space causing it to crack and dent inwards. He groaned. Less from hitting the wall and more because of his horrifically burnt arm.
It was healing, but the healing was incredibly painful, because the nerves were being healed first, which means he got to feel the burned arm. Unsurprisingly, it was much more painful than regenerating an arm from scratch, but it also took less mana, so he accepted the pain with nothing more than a grimace. His opponent fared much worse than he did. For the first time since he got there it was making a sound, screaming with what felt like dozens of concurrent voices. The hole in its stomach was trying to reform, but the fire kept burning it, not only that, but the fire was spreading cauterizing wounds which stopped them from healing, and burning away more and more of the tissue.
Despite the raging fire the creature did not move from its spot at the door, and it would probably take hours for the thing to fully burn alive. He wasn’t cruel enough to leave it be for that long even if he could slide past it. So he punched the creature all over its body causing chunks to burst and fire preventing any healing from really mattering. Even with all of that it took several hits before the damn thing finally stopped regenerating. After the grueling fight the tunnel was finally open to him, although the entrance was still engulfed in flame.
“You lot didn’t deserve to turn into a monster, you didn’t deserve to burn. I couldn’t help you, but at the very least I promise you vengeance, be it by my hand or another’s.” He raced down the tunnel leaving behind the carnage he had caused. Pearl would pay, a quick death was too good for a man like that. If he got to Pearl first the man would burn, and much slower than the monsters he created. He swore to himself that if he got to Cornelius before the man died, he’d make him wish he was never born.