Shin faced Karla for the duel that was promised. In the 19 days since the end of the trials, she had maxed Greater Agile and Greater Barbarism, but along with Meld he had maxed Pulse and Truestrike. With his mana now 2,500 and the twelvefold recovery rate, even mythic tier skills didn’t take long to level. Most of Chariot were in attendance to observed the fight, and intervene if necessary, for good reason. Neither of them intended to hold back.
The two blurred without warning. Two blades of white and black slashing at the amazon’s neck stopped short on her arms, eating through her coat of bastion and halfway into her mythic tier bones. Her foot slammed into Shin’s chest at the same time, the flare of Dynamic breaking his mystic protection and bursting open the front of his torso as he shot back.
Karla charged after, twisting around two spiraling green orbs flaring with duality into Shin’s flurry. Shin was faster and stronger but her lightning reflexes allowed her to keep up and her martial skill countered his own. Glare would have no effect, so Shin channelled mindfray and mindfray alone but the smiling fighter powered through by brute force.
Blood painted the ground as Shin sliced away, but it was only minor. She blocked and evaded any serious woulds and without duality his blades merely clanged against her bones. Her wounds regenerated instantly and no injury slowed her movements in the slightest.
A rapid jab snapped through the flurry knocking his shoulder off balance. The damage minimal but Shin felt mana pull from his body as she drew her hand back. The Mana Devourer trait affected even his invoke. A dynamic kick struck his side, but it caught on the layer of pulse he formed over.
The two orbs crashed into her, one burrowing into her gut, the other shaving away at her head. Without hesitation, she pierced an arm into her own body, grabbing the orb with her bare hand. Flash sheared away in an instant and even her bones started to wear but mana siphoned away in droves, the two orbs absorbed entirely before they could land the killing blow, and her wounds healed.
Karla swayed her arm to deflect away the sword thrust at her in the opening. But the sword vanished and in his palm, pulse swirled. A thunderous force sent Karla crashing away through the open meadow. He focused pulse on the soles of his feet and blitzed forth, his hand reaching for her head in an instant. But Karla twisted from her flailing crash in an instant, surging dynamic fist about to connect before his own attack.
And Shin blinked behind, prismatic fist of white and black striking her back. Prismatic cracks spread out from the strike, and a backhand shattered his head. Karla spun into a kick seamlessly and struck through the armor of pulse with the power of barbarism, sending the invoker crashing over the meadow this time.
Shin rose, his head reforming as Karla closed in. Glare did nothing. Mindfray did little. Gyro and Foxfire would just be devoured. Slash and Haymaker wouldn’t get past the iron defense of her bones. Pulse was effective, but costly and her reflexes prevented him from reaching her brain. Truestrike would destroyed her soul if he struck again, he knew. But so did she, without question, and she wouldn’t let that land again.
Staffswords found his hands as he met her in bloody exchange. Shin held the advantage in energy by a wide margin. Every bit of damage inflicted cost mana to heal. Once her mana dried up, she would lose Swiftness, and without that he would win in an instant.
Shin darted all around, viscous and ruthless slices at her arteries drawing as much blood as possible. She was not unfettered. She could still force her body to move with none at all, but not for long. Shin dodged and deflected as he slashed, and a rapid snap bruised flesh and splintered bone, siphoning a bit of mana away. But that was fine too. Rapid consumed aura and her resources were draining faster than his.
Karla’s smile remained unchanged in this battle to the death as her life shaved away, but her ice blue eyes blazed deep. Light shattered off her as she stepped through Shin’s swords perfectly, the impact of a punch rupturing his insides. A dagger replaced one of his swords as he tore it down her arm, slipping a punch that led straight into a dynamic kick he was forced to shield with pulse, and a snap rocked his head back.
Shin sliced and stabbed without pause but vicious strikes landed in return in gradually increasing frequency. Slowly but surely, the amazon started to overwhelm him. A slash to the neck traded for a jab that cracked his mask. A thrust deep through the side for a kick that broke ribs. Again and again they clashed, neither letting up an inch, neither hesitating their lethal blows.
Shin glided beneath a kick and thrust his blade up through her lungs. But the leg snapped back, sweeping him off his feet. A surging fist cratered down on him. He kicked away from the air but it clipped his side, blasting a chunk out of his lower torso. Shin slid across the ground on his feet, wounds regenerating but the invoke that draped him fell away and the sword through Karla’s side disappeared.
The amazon charged, much slower than before and aura absent from her strikes, but she was in control. An estoc and buckler found his hands and Shin slipped and stabbed, drawing lines of blood at the sides of her eyes, but a punch knocked him back fiercely and a flying knee cracked his jaw.
With both of them depleted, Karla held the advantage. Faster and three times stronger. Her bones like mythic armor, her reflexes like lightning, her stamina endless, and her martial skill superior. Another punch rocked Shin. He’d lose if this went on, he knew. Shin could survive and fight through any wound but he could not punch with an arm that wasn’t there, and she was chipping away at him.
A kick sent him sliding back. The problem was her skill, the joints in Shin’s shoulders and arms dislocated as he thought, lengthening them disturbingly with a dagger in each hand. Shin let his mind drift erratically. His arms swayed as his body twisted unnaturally, detrimentally. He needed to get past her intuition. He needed to go beyond what she could feel.
A jab knocked Shin’s head back, and streaks of blood bloomed from Karla’s arm. He sprung, more beast than man, slinging a dagger at her eyes. But the amazon blocked and broke his knee in with a stomp. Shin’s hand grabbed her arm, dagger nowhere to be seen and pulled himself in without pause.
His second dagger pierced at her eye again, but she swatted it away and struck with her head and he struck his. His skull cracked, even without the full extension of the strike, but Shin didn’t stop. His head slide down to her neck and tore out a chunk of her flesh with his teeth like a wild animal. Two hands grabbed his savage head and pulled him into a knee, shattering open the right side of his skull. And in return two fingers plunged into her eye.
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Karla kicked him back and shot a second towards his head, but Shin rolled in slicing deep into her inner thigh. Monster and martial artist clashed like madmen, Shin brutal beyond words. A goblin’s dance. Body Supremacy rendered most wounds irrelevant on both sides. Broken bones and joints could be snapped back together. Air could flow through punctured lungs.
But she was not unfettered. Shin hunted like a beast. Hunted for blood. Hunted for the kill. He slashed and tore away at the muscles and ligaments in her neck as blows broke his body further. He sprawled through her strikes into a headlock. She reached after him but he twisted faster, spinning and spinning through the complex grapple until her head twisted off by the joints.
[Supreme Martial Combat has upgraded to mythic tier Grand Martial Combat.]
Shards of light fell from him with the amazon’s head in his hands and her body slumped to the ground. Shin darted over in an instant to hold her head in place as a golden light enveloped her, reconnected her spine and weaved flesh together. Karla’s eyes flickered and she sat up before her wounds fully healed and turned to Shin.
“Fight again?”
“Later.”
“You’re both insane…” Yen said as she projected mana for Karla to absorb.
It came at a shock for some of the others to witness such unrestrained ruthlessness against comrades but the trials had done its fair share to desensitize its survivors quite a bit, though some needed far less than others. Only two of them had watched the fight to learn. Donny laidback in his quiet assessment but Mujin looked far more serious and troubled.
“Hey.” An Basem hounded Shin now that the fight was over. “I want the gear you promised.”
“Don’t get your hopes up. Nothing but goons around us.” Yen bluntly responded. “It’d be better if we found a legendary dungeon, if those even spawn yet.”
“Then do that.” Basem’s already limited patience had run even lower these last uneventful days.
“I’ll get Jean.”
Shin passed through the dungeon portal in the blink of an eye. Jean had taken to working on the dungeon traps and his puppets within the safety and quiet of their base, but he had the same problem Shin did. A lack of any material or knowledge for their craft above rare tier.
It was less serious for Shin as he could perform just fine without his talismans, but Jean’s ability was directly tied to his puppets. Along with a new bow for Basem, Shin thought it’d be best if they found that information, whether someone in this world had it or perhaps a crafting dungeon as in the first stage. Either, way, the pursuit of strength for Chariot was endless and Shin was as eager as the others.
---
Flutter sat on her throne of flowers, seething so hard she had looped around to being near solemn. One might have mistaken her for being catatonic were it not for the unchanging quiet animosity in her eyes.
Her fairy handmaidens buzzed around, fullying her commands worse than they did when they were pixies, which irritated her to no end. Pumpkin laid fast asleep among the flowerbed, too lazy and slow to do her duties even when she was awake.
“Your drink!” Beans cheered as she handed her a flower bud cup. Flutter stared for a moment then took a sip, unsurprised at the result.
“This is lilynectar…”
“I like it better!”
Flutter stared barely restrained death at the little idiot as Mash diligently put a wooden cup in her other hand. Honeydew, this time, just as she asked for from the start. Mash was the only suitable one. If he weren’t for her, Flutter would have banished them all to the depths of whatever darkness the core allowed.
“Big master!” Beans shot off on her own, soaring around the hollow eyed boy that appeared, singing cheers of nonsense. Pumpkin hovered over, stirred from the commotion, but only enough to fall asleep again on the top of his head.
“Good morning, big master. There hasn’t been any trouble lately. The new traps have been fitted, they should be most deadly. The green human has barely killed any of the dungeon monsters. Um, also…” Mash flew over, the only one to properly report to him. In her lull as she paused to think of what else needed to be said, Shin lifted a hand under her feet for her to stand on.
“The honeydew plants give a lot of honeydew. The flowers are growing well. I like the blue ones. But I like the purple ones too.” The little fairy reverted to a more innocent demeanor and focus in his hand, like a child telling her parents about her day.
Flutter slammed into Shin, knocking the fairy trio away. “Change me now!”
“Can’t.”
“Why?!”
“Didn’t find anything with shapeshifting.”
Tears started to well in Flutter’s eyes, half angry half upset. “Stupid human! Why can’t you do anything?! I hope you stay big forever! Ugly!”
“We’re going looking again. I’ll find one soon.”
“...promise?” Flutter sniffed her runny nose, the childishly upset look in her eyes still present. Not a shred of dignity of a dungeon boss present.
“Yeah.”
“Town raiding again?” Jean asked as he entered the boss room, gleaning the situation from what little he heard.
“Looking for dungeons.”
“You said you would would look for smallness! You promised!”
“Doing both.” Shin said as flickered out of the dungeon with Jean following after, leaving the shaking sidhe on the verge of a tantrum.
---
Shin sprinted through the forest with Basem close behind. The party had split into three teams to make the search faster, centered around their three reliable powerhouses of himself, Karla and Ashley, who had reclaimed her place as the fastest member by far.
Basem put arrows in a pack of centaurs before any could even react. A troll lunged large fanged mouth first and Shin cleaved off its head, leaving a blanket of foxfire on its body without even stopping to check. The two tore through the forest Chariot had claimed as its own with ease. Epic tier monsters now roamed but even if they were greater monarchs, they wouldn’t be much of a threat, and most weren’t.
“You’re good at moving.” Shin said.
“Hah?”
“Like an assassin.” Shin clarified. “Land more on the center of your heel, push off with just the front.”
“I don’t need advice.”
“Copy me.” Shin sped off a bit faster and Basem followed. Despite his words, he started to observe how the invoker moved and imitating on his own. But that didn’t last long as the strider’s attention was drawn to the side.
“Dungeon.” The two flickered over to the portal at the end of a short damp cavern in the ground. in an instant, but what they found wasn’t what they expected.
[Raid (epic) - Greater Monarch]
---
[Human Invoker (legendary) - Greater Lord]
Strength - 200 (420)
Agility - 600 (1260)
Constitution - 50 (105)
Vitality - 152 [228] (479)
Dexterity - 33 (69)
Perception - 300 (630)
Force - 24 (50)
Spirit - 793 [1190] (2499)
Control - 150 [225] (472)
Willpower - 100 [150] (315)
Skills:
Heal lvl. 10, Greater Mystic Protection lvl. 10, Summon Skyward Kitsune Throneguard lvl. 10, Grand Martial Combat lvl. 1, Greater Rapid lvl. 10, Spirit Communion lvl. 10, Greater Mana Meditation lvl. 10, Invigoration lvl. 10, Greater Harvest Soul lvl. 5, Greater Invoke lvl. 10, Pulse lvl. 10, Greater Channelling lvl. 10, Greater Spirit Gyro lvl. 10, Greater Ward lvl. 10, Greater Soul Fusion lvl. 10, Truestrike lvl. 10, Sense Through Spirits lvl. 10, Invoke Skill lvl. 10, Overshadow lvl. 10, Mana Absorption lvl. 10, Meld lvl. 10,
Traits:
Body Supremacy, Eyes of the Spirit King, Ethereal Soul, Vessel of Spirits, Unfettered, Instant Regeneration, Martial Eye, Third Eye, Summon Master, Great Control, Great Spirit, Great Willpower, Poison Immunity, Disease Immunity, Curse Immunity, Golden Body, Golden Mind, Golden Soul, Great Vitality, Vestiger,