Dyani ignored the rows of hook shaped teeth biting into her dislocated arm, the traces of soporific venom leaking into her body, and the sounds of battle. She sank her perception into her spirit, which was tired and strained, but blessedly quiet.
She had an opportunity here, one she needed to make the most of. She ran metaphorical fingers over the structure of Feverchill Bloom, getting a good sense of its makeup and where it could be improved.
Pinching the skill’s output closed to prevent activation, she pushed a cloud of diffuse mana through the skill like a bellows, using the pressure to expand the mana conduits. It was a quick and dirty solution which would likely cause the conduits to give out after a single use, but Dyani didn’t have time to do it properly. She vented the mana back into her core, wincing at the minor backlash.
Next, she created a one-way valve at the end of the skill, which led into a ballooning chamber, then a gate she could open at will, right before the skill’s output. She’d tested similar designs for charging up mana while experimenting with skill design, but had dismissed them. Even when they worked, releasing the stored up mana inevitably caused massive backlash and destroyed the skill.
Neither of those issues concerned her at the moment. She’d trade some recovery time for the ability to charge up a larger attack.
Dyani knew there were plenty of skills that allowed the user to charge up mana or stamina before activating, like Shield Charge or Thunderbolt. Those skills didn’t destroy themselves every time they were used, but she'd never had the chance to examine any to see how their charging function worked, so she was forced to improvise.
Thermostat received less extensive modification, just a quick tweak to the input to allow the skill to pull more mana as needed. Hopefully that would be enough to protect herself from the fallout of her modified Feverchill Bloom.
As for Crystal Mana Bolt, those modifications were almost too easy.
***
Pikawon desperately clawed through hydra necks. With Nymin tethered by some strange skill he didn’t recognize, it was up to him to free Dyani before she was swallowed up and added to the Evolved False Hydra’s sea of heads.
He was burning through his mana like kindling. The Mana Filter Potion he’d taken was helping, but he doubted there was a potion on the planet that could keep up with his mana expenditure.
With the purple snake removed by one of the guard’s more discerning casters, the Tanglepillar neck bald from shooting out all its hairs, and the bulk of the False Hydra heads coiling around the head reeling in Dyani to empower and accelerate it, the majority of the heads attacking Pikawon were Fungal Rats.
A scattering of attacks from the guards around the chamber did minimal amounts of damage, but most of the ranged attackers seemed hesitant about attacking with full force when both he and Dyani were so close to the hydra.
Maybe they were worried that causing too much damage would cause it to drop Dyani. He wasn’t. Pikawon was confident that she could maneuver well enough with Mana Jump to avoid splattering or getting sucked up with the sewage.
He ignored the cluster of attacking rat heads for now, in favor of cutting any neck that coiled around the False Hydra head doing its best to eat Dyani. Its neck bulged as it swallowed the neck which it had used like a whip to catch his friend’s arm.
Mushrooms exploded around him, releasing poisonous gas, but he relied on Twin Fang Cauldron’s poison cleansing to absorb the worst of it. It was far less efficient at extracting poison from his lungs and bloodstream, compared to ingested poisons, but it still took the edge off.
He simply endured the bulk of the sensory dampening effect. It wasn’t like he needed the sharpest senses to claw at a monster right in front of him.
The sole remaining Turret Shroom sprayed him with acid. His instincts warned him, but in his weakened and half blind state, he only managed to dodge half the liquid. The rest sizzled and burned through the cloth armor on his left leg. The armor absorbed enough of the damage to save the limb, but several patches of his skin blistered and burst, leaking pus and blood down his leg.
“Saints!” he swore. Even through his dampened senses, that was painful, just not painful enough to stop him. He sprayed out the meager amount of poison Twin Fang Cauldron had extracted from his lungs towards the Turret Shroom.
Relying on the distraction more than the poison, Pikawon darted forward and cut a deep gouge into the side of its neck. He smiled in triumph, but his mouth fell open in shock and fear as his outstretched foot met nothing but empty air.
The price in poison he’d accepted in his desperate scramble to save Dyani was proving to be more dangerous than he’d assumed.
He twisted in the air, turning to face the gnarled root he was falling from.
His vision was murky, but the root was big and hard to miss. His stomach sailed up into his throat as he fell. His claws dug into wood, slowing his descent while his fingers screamed in pain. Like many melee skills, Sundering Claw provided a little reinforcement to the affected area of his body, but the effect was only enough to weather the strain of using the skill as intended, in short slashing attacks, not using it to slow and support his entire body as it fell.
Blood trickled from where claws connected to his fingers, but he still managed to save himself from the grisly fate below.
Pikawon was swimming too deep in his feral instincts and wild emotion to think of an appropriate prayer, so he did the next best thing.
He roared.
The sound was something between a dog’s howl and a falcon’s cry.
To his surprise, the various beasts the guard had with them replied, each raising their voices in a chorus.
***
Kuruk looked up from his desk and out the window. Something tickled at the very edges of his aura senses, but when he sought it out, there was nothing there.
“Sleep, I just need some sleep.” One way or another, he would have the time to sleep tonight.
He returned his attention to the continuous updates he was receiving from Sergeant Emberland. Those messages were readable, if slightly garbled by the presence of a new mana node’s disruptive magic.
That had been a real surprise. Kuruk had opted against a city wide, node detection array. It was simply too expensive to justify, especially when nodes rarely formed within the area of influence of other nodes. Perhaps that had been a mistake, but fate had given him the solution without having to lift a finger, so perhaps not.
The wraith was restrained, if not fully captured, the boy was weakened and wounded, easy prey. The same went for the girl, assuming she survived the next few minutes.
She was of little concern.
***
Pikawon felt energized by the chorus of beasts he’d initiated. He was still poisoned, still bleeding from his fingers, and still low on mana, though that was still recovering more quickly thanks to the potion he’d taken. Maybe it was just a trick of his mind, but whatever the source of his new energy, he was grateful for it.
He was ready to claw his way back up to the hydra and begin the fight anew when he received a message from Dyani.
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Dyani Farlight: Get clear.
Pikawon Billbrook: Are you crazy? You’re about to get eaten!
Dyani Farlight: I’ve got it right where I want it. Go help my mom. She needs it more than me.
Pikawon Billbrook: You. Are. Crazy. What are you planning?
Dyani didn’t answer.
Pikawon sighed in weary exasperation. The trouble was, he knew Dyani well enough to tell she wasn’t lying. She did have some sort of plan. He didn’t know whether it would work or be insane, but she believed in it.
Actually, that was wrong. He might not know if whatever she was planning would get her free, but he was sure it would be insane.
This was the same girl who decided fighting monsters in the sewer was the perfect way to advance, despite having a thousand safer options, who’d saved him from the first False Hydra by exploding a enchanted jug for making vinegar, and who’d soul bonded to an inherited interface, despite the risks it posed to her sanity.
Dyani regularly made choices he thought were crazy, but they also tended to work out for her. Killing sewer monsters had let her advance, exploding that jug had saved his life, and as for her interface’s effect on her sanity, she was still the same level of insane she’d been when they’d met.
Pikawon slid down the root, using just enough mana to let his claws slowly glide through the wood. He leapt from root to slanted stone floor, easily avoiding the pool of sewage. He started climbing up to assist Nymin. He glanced back at Dyani at regular intervals, not trusting his muffled ears to alert him to any changes in her situation.
He stopped his ascent when the False Hydra began swallowing the severed head that held Dyani’s arm, moments away from swallowing Dyani herself.
Pikawon Billbrook: Whatever you’re planning, you need to do it now!
***
When the severed neck was entirely consumed, the hydra’s mouth opened wider to accommodate its head, drawing Dyani ever closer. She pulled herself out of her spirit, no longer insulated from the pain in her arm and shoulder, but she couldn’t afford to miss her moment.
“Dyani!” Nymin cried, fear and desperation in her voice. Three mana bolts shot towards the hydra, but it paid them no attention.
Dyani had sent several messages to her mother, telling her not to worry, that she had a plan, but it did little to assuage her worry. It probably hadn’t helped that she refused to reveal what she’d planned, since it would do more to panic Nymin than comfort her.
She gritted her teeth as the pressure of the severed head being swallowed pressed its fangs deeper into her arm. Once her hand was inside the living head, she put her plan into action.
First, she activated her modified Crystal Mana Bolt. Instead of shooting out a diamond shaped projectile, it conjured a ring of mana crystal around her wrist, which rapidly expanded, forcing open the mouths of the nested snakes.
The moment her arm was free, Dyani peered inside her spirit at Feverchill Bloom.
The skill was trembling under the pressure of far more mana than it was built to withstand. With a feral grin that would make Pikawon proud, she performed her simplest piece of skill manipulation of the day.
She switched the output gate from closed to open. Mana flooded out and her skill shattered, subjecting Dyani to her most painful backlash to date.
A bolt of orange light, roughly as bright as the sun at noon, shot out of her hand and straight down the hydra’s throat.
Thermostat desperately drained her mana, but the bolt radiated so much uncontrolled heat mana that the puncture wounds along her arms instantly cauterized, and her exposed skin cracked and bubbled. She screamed. It was a relief when everything below her wrist went numb, nerves burned out.
It was all she could do to propel herself away with a Mana Jump that guttered out halfway through as her mana ran dry. She missed the knotted root she was aiming at, but before she fell more than a couple meters, a blue blur snatched her out of the air.
***
Nymin Farlight had never killed anyone before, but she was about to. The idea should bother her, but it didn’t.
Once again leashed, by the very same skill as before, with her daughter’s limp body dangling like bait on a fisherman’s line, there were only two possible solutions.
She could do as Hoss had, and sever the man’s arm, but she’d seen the result. Retributive damage had severed Hoss’s own arm. If the circumstances had been any less dire, and if she hadn’t seen the shopkeeper’s arm growing back at astonishing speed, she would’ve stopped to check on him. She didn’t know how she could repay that debt.
Nymin couldn’t afford to lose an arm, not when moments mattered, and if she was being honest with herself, she wasn’t willing to, not to save the life of some twice cursed man who had already tried to keep her from her daughter once. She’d already shown him more mercy than he deserved.
The retributive damage could still be a danger, assuming whatever had caused it was still in effect, but if she killed him quickly enough, she hoped it wouldn’t have time to trigger.
She followed the line between herself and the man who’d trapped her. Mana gathered in her two extended fingers as she phased through earth and stone with deadly intent. As soon as her fingers broke through into empty air, she conjured crystal. A thin spike extended from her fingers, with a wickedly sharp tip. She was aiming roughly towards where her target’s head should be, and she was able to correct her position as soon as her face phased out of the stone and she could see.
She surged forward, her improvised weapon perfectly positioned to drive right through the startled man’s eye and deep into his brain.
So fast that she could barely follow, a bladed ring of shining yellow-orange glass swung up and shattered her conjured crystal. Even the crystal shrapnel evaporated in a flash of heat before it could hit its target.
Her one-armed target fell backward in shock, though from his washed out skin, glazed over expression, and patina of sweat, it was a miracle he’d managed to stay on his feet until now. Clearly, using Throw Down the Gauntlet a second time in one day had pushed him past his limits.
He didn’t matter, not at the moment. Nymin turned towards the man who’d intercepted her attack.
He was tall, with a thin, but muscular build, with a pencil thin mustache and the stern air of a school teacher.
He had no armband to denote specialization, but a ring of embroidered vines around his left bicep marked him as a sergeant. More than any visible rank, his spirit radiated power, somewhere around level 6 or 7. He held his shining, ring blade in front of himself in a blocking position.
He gestured to the other guards in the corridor, who retreated from the confrontation and turned a corner until they were out of site. It was a good move, in this situation, unless they were veiling their levels, they were more of a liability than anything else. With her limited radius of movement from the restraining skill, only the one armed man and the sergeant were in reach.
“Lady Farlight,” the sergeant said, nodding towards her with respect, “My name is Sergeant Emberland. I don’t suppose I could convince you to come quietly.”
Instead of answering, Nymin tried once more to attack the one-armed man on the ground. She shrieked at the sergeant, pouring every spare bit of mana she had at him while she stabbed towards her captor with another spike of mana crystal.
With terrifying speed, the sergeant pushed through Banshee’s Wail positioning himself between Nymin and her target, barely slowed by the sonic pressure.
He sliced through her spike, this time slicing off the very tip of her finger.
Nymin winced and pulled back her hand, glancing at the cauterized wound. It was a minor injury, far less substantial than the attack she’d taken to her abdomen earlier, but it was still an effective message.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then don’t.” Nymin looked past him towards her daughter, still dangling, before meeting his eyes.
He gave her a sad smile.
“I have my orders.”
Nymin reached out towards the man, not with her hand, but with her spirit. If she could just drain some of his mana, she might be able to weaken him. She didn’t need to beat him in a fight, she just needed the chance to kill the guard he was protecting.
She managed to touch on his spirit, but the man was far more sensitive and capable than the other guard’s she’d drained today. With another slash of his blade ring, he severed the spiritual connection, before she could drain more than a drop of his mana.
“None of that.”
Nymin tried again and again, growing more frantic with every failure, her eyes filling with unwanted tears. She finally lunged forward, but froze, the ring blade a hair’s breadth from her throat.
Twin tears rolled down her cheeks, puffing away into mana when they fell from her face.
“Please,” Nymin hissed, eyes locked on her daughter, “You can have me. Just let me save her.”
Sergeant Emberland’s dignified mask cracked. He sighed, looking between Nymin and the one-armed guard.
“Howi, can you expand the radius of your skill?”
“Huh?”
“Your skill, can you expand it, make it longer, give Lady Farlight enough slack to save her daughter?”
“No, that’s stupid, we’re supposed to-”
“I wasn’t asking for your opinion. Do it!”
In no condition to argue, Howi relented, though he obviously wasn’t happy about it. Nymin felt the magical tether on her arm slacken.
Sergeant Emberland lowered his ring blade from her neck, and tilted his head towards the hydra.
“Make it quick.”