Something strange had happened to Alex’s skill. It wasn’t broken. Well, maybe it was broken, corrupted. His entire class was. But it had become more twisted than before. His skill wasn’t broken in the way a blunted blade snapped at the hilt was broken; the useless kind of broken. No, It was a different kind of broken, of a more useful nature. Like a faulty ignition switch that would start a car too easily, or a sword that snapped vertically to create a sharper, more jagged and deadlier needle edge.
The air tingled, a sensation that prickled his skin and his passive sensing skills- which still worked somehow, although muted - fed him a myriad of information on how his corrupted duelling skill impacted the world around him. But his skill still felt wrong, somehow. It felt broken in the way paths could be. it felt like it had skipped some steps it had taken upon its first activation and now it ran with a freedom that exceeded his control, guided and enhanced by his advanced senses.
A shortcut for the skill had been carved by his senses, it seemed.
Inner, Outer, and Bestial. Skills that allowed him to view the world in more ways and channels than most could dream of and others could take years or centuries to master. Together, the three skills became greater than the sum of their parts. They gave him insight into the battle of energies that occurred around him, the corruption of his skill against the inhibiting structure of the system. But insight without understanding was like a boat without moors- and Alex’s boat could only wonder at what it was seeing.
The electric charge around Alex intensified making the hairs on his arm stand. Unseen Sparks of mana erupted around him then settled, the system's influence nowhere to be found.
Did the mana get… stronger? He wondered in awe. Within his sphere, the world's mana felt more potent, and richer. Wilder and thicker, it blazed and thrashed unconstrained. It pressed against his skin like a summer's breeze, and he felt it. He sensed and saw the system’s diluted mana at the edge of his corrupted sphere, fighting to regain control of its lost space. but it made no progress. rarely, it would trap and assimilate the richer mana of his sphere, shackling it to its strange indecipherably rigid structures, but it was a slow process, like a legion of wolves capturing lions. It would be minutes before his skill ended this time. he could vaguely sense the system's attempts to encroach on the space influenced by his Duel of Corruption and judged the limit based on the slow encroachment of the system's weaker mana. It wouldn't stop others from joining their battle uninhibited with their systems intact, as the corrupted debuff skill was not capable of removing the system-mana seeped into the bones and bodies of more than one target. But it would put him and the Queen on level ground, for a time. It felt like he had five minutes, maybe.
“WHAT DID YOU DO?”
The Queen roared and attacked Alex in panic- an erratic response to the unknown fuelled by both distant memories and a primal fear she did not understand.
I don’t actually know what I did, Alex thought as his world became doused in shadow. Eight tree-like limbs descended in a blur, all aimed at his stationary form. They blotted the light as they moved to engulf him from all sides. The quick motion of her strikes created whistling sounds and her limbs split the air, but thanks to the unholy duel his skill had initiated, Alex could track her attacks as easily as he followed the movements of his blade.
The sharpest of her strikes launched towards his heart with the swiftness of a striking serpent. A swiftness he now matched perfectly.
Alex responded.
He turned on his heel to pivot and evade the strike's path, a trace of his movement carving divots in the stone ground as he sidestepped.
The limb halted abruptly in the space where he had just been-
A shower of inhuman life fluids descended, painting the stone ground black. Digits fell to the ground, removed from the monstrous palm. Monstrous palm fell to stone, removed from an inhuman wrist.
Alex hacked off her limb as a woodman would hack through a tree. He pulled his blade in as he withdrew it from her wound to cause further injury, tucking his elbow inward as he pulled to slice her deeper. That was a trick taught to him by his grandfather and one he had never expected to have to use before his rebirth- but that trick should not have been enough to completely remove her thick appendages- after all, she shared his strength and endurance, not to mention that her chitin armoured limb was thicker than he was. Some other force had dramatically enhanced the damage he was capable of delivering;
His Dao.
He had touched upon the Dao as he struck- only a little, and the Dao had poured into and through him in a way he had not anticipated.
Meaning washed over him effortlessly, truths he had uncovered long before he’d set foot on this world's grass.
Where before it had felt like a single drop of water, it now felt like many more. Not a deluge, but several thicker, larger raindrops that swirled fell to him in excitement. The surge of meaning he’d gleaned during his time in the incursion dungeon rushed hungrily into his blade, eager to unleash itself upon the world.
What the- Alex felt tingly, the kind of feeling you felt right before a storm. And the Dao was suddenly unnaturally strong within his corrupted skills sphere. There was a metallic scent to the air- no, not a scent, he realised, it’s more of a feeling. It felt Like the air was heavier, like it was somehow more of itself: more air-like than it had been before. He vaguely sensed an electric charge in the air in a sphere around him and sensed it slightly further as it rushed into his body, altering and changing the energies within him. It looked as if microscopic explosions of mana were taking place, as if the mana within the sphere was being forcibly freed from the system's control. There was no time to investigate the sensation, but he suspected his Inner Sense skill wouldn’t even be capable of further discovery.
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Ichor rained through the chamber. The queen recoiled.
“Luck and strange magic,” The Queen grunted In surprised confusion and pain. She retracted her spear-like limbs and cradled her broken limb. She seemed unconcerned with his achievement.
“What are you, Little thing?” She looked at him, really looked at him, reassessing his capabilities and potential as a threat. And still she was unimpressed.
Alex didn’t respond. Feeling the airwaves part in a rush behind him he leaned aside and tilted his head to let her limbs graze past his hair.
A surprise attack? She didn’t seem like the type. He had expected her to face him haughtily with nose held high until the end. If she can abandon her emotions and adapt so quickly, She might be smarter than I’d thought, Alex mused.
A single strand of his hair floated to the ground. A miscalculation, but an inconsequential one. He still had the advantage and his empowered connection to the Dao.
He sensed minute tremors in the ground beneath his feet and saw her next strike as one would see a city from above. Is this how they see the world? Alex was in awe as he twisted and jumped, his lost eye making no difference in his capabilities. Her limb shot beneath him to carve a path through stone. How have they not taken over every city yet? He wondered, as he stepped with back turned and legs coiled like springs to launch to the side. And if they all have these senses, how strong must the humans have been to keep them from taking over?
More questions. It felt as though this world had an ocean of secrets for him to uncover.
The queen's second appendage sliced through the air aiming at his previous position. It crashed into stone, causing the ground to shudder upon impact and cracks to radiate from where her limb narrowly missed.
His movement and the crashing limb sent a cloud of dust into the air briefly obscuring the battlefield. But the dust meant nothing to the combatants, both of them saw what lay within clearly.
She struck several times more.
Clouds of chipped earth and stone rose with each strike to obscure mundane vision. Alex felt a rush of air, chemicals, and sound as a limb shot to his head, he dodged it as an expert would dodge a novice. He sensed another limb, this one aiming lower, targeting his legs. He jumped, and The impact of her limb against the ground sent vibrations through the soles of Alex's boots.
Holy- He was in the air and he still felt it carving the ground as if his feet were planted firmly on stone. He felt it in intricate detail, deeply and intimately. The blow parted stone like a blade through water, small pebbles of marble stone and earth separated in a long line beneath him to scar the chamber's floor. The clear image he felt made him thankful for his skill choice once more.
Hive-mind was great but it would’ve been pretty useless right now, wouldn’t it? He thought absent-mindedly as the queen struck at him with careless abandon. He had observed a pattern in the queen's attacks and realization dawned. She only moved to position her limbs to strike but didn’t attack until he shifted. She’s reacting to movement, of course, he noted internally while adjusting his stance.
A feint left. A limb followed the bait. A miss.
A dash right. The next limb pursued, slamming into the ground again. Another miss.
Limbs converged in a mass of spears so thick a simple dodge would not suffice, and Alex’s visual sight became engulfed with death. A surging wave of finality.
The blow landed.
Alex dug his heel into the stone floor, pivoting and launching himself with strength many times that of a baseline human. The strike missed.
“Human filth!” The queen screeched in rage and indignation. “How do you see like us?”
She struck again. This time it was not in mindless rage or callous disregard, but a display of practised forms bred from contempt- Her martial discipline short forth and her art of war raced forward.
Her Sea of Spears fell upon him.
Chaos. A strange martial art erupted from the queen and engulfed Alex’s senses- her limbs surrounded him from all sides and crashed into him, eroding his wariness. It was an effortless wave of strikes and stabs from all angles- several would crash into his position and recede where several more took its place. It was a wave. Many waves. The flow of her strikes seemed to blend together, softening to a lull before crashing into his bank with a force that could erode mountains. The two combatants moved in blurs before the eyes of all present, their speeds unmatched by all others within the chamber. Luminous Arachne pressed themselves into the walls attempting to meld themselves to it, lest they be eviscerated by the fallout. The queen's limbs moved in a mirage of spears- deflecting, striking and eroding Alex’s 3-dimensional senses with their ubiquity.
Then there was a lull. The waves receded. Her ocean calmed.
Alex stilled, envisioning his surroundings in its full capacity. He saw every curve and contour of the chamber and felt every inch of the queen's form. But when he tried to grasp her limbs, he couldn’t. Where?-
The lull ended, the waves of her assault returned and fell.
He could see and sense her limbs now.
They were everywhere and crashed into his location.
An ocean of spears descended upon him.
Strikes crashed into where Alex was and where he would be, causing Chunks of debris to scatter and dust to billow wherever they landed. the queen retracted her limbs smoothly, an action that generated a gust, clearing the dust and creating a clearer visual view for the luminescent onlookers pressed against the walls in fear of their standoff.
The queen struck again, and Alex’s Dao surged in response to her offending waves.
One royal limb fell, bisected, and the ground quaked in its landing.
Enraged, the queen screamed, and lights dulled to dim as the luminous variants lost consciousness in the face of her fury.
From her sea of spears, a tsunami of limbs descended. It blotted the remaining light from Alex’s vision.
Madness. Alex darted beneath the Queen's mad assault. His blade sank into her chitin, unable to pierce completely. He wrenched at the sword, stuck fast. No choice but to let go. Another limb swooped down. He rolled clear, feeling the rush of air as it missed. Pain blossomed. It didn’t miss. it grazed his back, taking flesh. A instinctive flex. Without thought he summoned another blade. Why did his inventory work? No time. He swung hard. Blade bit into chitin, stuck, unmoving. She wrenched the blade free from his grasp. He downed another potion.
She was adapting, learning how to fight him. She had too many limbs and her martial art had made them illusionary, faster. Even to his senses.
He could still fight her like this, but it would take too long. He only had 5 minutes before her speed and strength would return and outstrip his. Alex was wondering what he should do, assessing his options and grasping for answers as the Queen grew more skilled with each evaded blow. She was close to fully adapting.
And it had only been the first minute.