Beyond Death ( Part 2 )
Carol had by now gotten a hold of herself and was leading the only three surviving soldiers through the tunnel away from the fight. They found an empty sedan which one of the soldiers swiftly hot wired to ignition.
“ Ma’am you have to get in. This tunnel may collapse at any time ,” they urged her when she tried to linger.
“ But Jack is still out there !” she protested.
“Ma’am we’ll die if we stay here. You saw him take out one of those hounds , he’s probably a mage and will make it out irregardless ,”
“ We will wait at the other end of the tunnel. If he’s not out in twenty minutes , we’ll go back to Parliament ,” she decided.
“Weren't we supposed to go to headquarters ma’am?”
“Headquarters have been breached by these monsters. Right now I have to ensure the safety of my subordinates above all else,” she said finally getting into the back seat of the car.
“ Move it dumbass!” she yelled at the soldier meant to drive . He had spaced out for a moment after hearing how much she cared about them.
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Though they were literally leaving him behind with a possessed first class mage to deal with , Jack felt better with the soldiers gone.
Now he could go all out without having to worry about feeble humans getting killed in his wake.
The warrior mage , now a slave for the unholy reaper , leapt and swung his axe at Jack.
The aim was to take him out in a single arc , or break all his ribs at the very least. Instead of dodging , something he could have easily done with the increased speed, he decided to conserve stamina and parry the attack instead.
A near fatal mistake.
He wondered how he had overlooked the vast disparity of strength between himself and the warrior .Even though the Excalibur sword never broke , the momentum of the axe swept Jack’s body whole and flew him across the tunnel's entire cross-section. The wall he crashed into slammed at his back resoundingly , threatening to shatter every bone in him.
He reckoned that the only thing holding him together at this point was the increased durability from the system. But even that attribute was already at its limits and he felt Rejuvenation try to automatically engage .
He stopped it , choosing to conserve the 4 rejuvenation bars he had for the harder injuries to come.
“Aiko , what happens if I activate two talents at the same time ?” he asked , wiping off the small trickle of blood from his nose.
“More stamina will be consumed , the second talent using fifty percent more than it normally would. This effect stacks up Bossman ,”
“ And the effective output ?”
“The damage will remain consistent,” she assured him.
That was good to hear. If he was to stand a chance against the warrior , then he’d need to use Constricted Surface to weaken him. To deal the finishing blow , Jack would need to be there inside the attack’s effective radius to deal the finishing blow.
But since Constricted Surface was indiscriminate when choosing targets , he would also be subject to the attack and thus needed a way to reduce the damage he took from it by simultaneously activating the other talent , Flowing Paradise.
That was easier said than done.
The Soul Reaper floated into the arena , starting a coordinated assault against Jack with the aid of its enslaved mage. The reaper’s attacks were more rapid than the mage’s , causing Jack to crank up his speed faster than he had budgeted for.
Though he was able to consistently keep evading the attack’s , the rate at which he was burning through stamina was very discomforting.
“ Flowing Paradise !” He chanted the activation of the first talent . It was of little use against physical attacks , but that was not the purpose it was intended for.
Sliding under the axe of the mage and barely dodging the swift Scythe that followed , he activated the second talent.
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“Constricted Furnace !”
Before the talent had even finished mapping out its effective radius , it was already lashing out with vengeful vents of blue flames at all of the individuals within it.
The Reaper tried flying higher , but with the tunnel’s ceiling coming to play , there was no escaping the attack. The mage tanked the first two flame bursts before falling to a knee on the third strike.
The attack was working , but sustaining it was coming at a heavy price to Jack. He was already pushing Flowing Paradise to its maximum to survive within Constricted Surface.
This was still not enough since after taking five hits from the flames , he had to use one rejuvenation bar to mitigate the accumulated damage.
[
System Warning
Stamina Residue < 60%
]
The Soul Reaper , frustrated by the perpetual attacks from Constricted Surface , gave out an ear splitting shriek that reverberated throughout the tunnel and rose to the surrounding streets above.
It was a call to all the Wailing Hounds whose souls it had enslaved as zombies , and it didn’t take too long for the hounds to come pouring through .
Jack at first thought that this move meant game over , but that was before Constricted Surface started showing its full potential.
Any hound that stepped into it was instantly vapourized and with each death Jack gained more points.
“ Aiko , can you upgrade the talents on my behalf ,” he asked her , moving to strike a hound that had managed to get too close to him.
“ Aiko can most certainly do that,” she said with her ever energetic aura. Jack could still not place a finger around her peculiar personality.
“ Alright , start using the incoming points to level up Stamina and Rejuvenation in that order of importance ,”
“ Yes sir ! Aiko will carry out Bossman’s orders right away ,”
Having sorted out his main weaknesses , Jack was now able to launch an actual offensive. The playing field had evened out and he was going to exploit that before Constricted Surface’s uptime expired.
The Soul Reaper , seeing that its forces were starting to lose , decided to fly down and risk the rapidly spurting fires.
If just one swipe of its scythe got Jack , it would win. It willed the Warrior mage to get up and press the fight so as to clear an opening.
The mage obeyed, now using two hands to wield the axe. He was definitely weakening.
Since he was still not sure he could parry his attack yet , Jack decided to dodge again. Landing behind the big man , he ran his Excalibur sword through the skin on his back . He was testing whether the mages durability had also gone down and was pleased to see that it had.
Now he could go for the kill.
The reaper tried going for another strike with Jack’s back turned towards it before running head first into a rising gale of blue fire courtesy of Constricted Surface.
It lost trajectory , ramming through more of the tunnel’s wall. It recovered its balance with rage , swinging its scythe again at Jack just before he could stab the warrior mage’s neck with his sword.
The scythe landed , but instead of phasing through as expected , it ended up chopping off Jack’s entire right hand. The mage took advantage and swiped against Jack with his free hand, flinging his lighter body a couple of metres away.
In the sudden shock , Jack momentarily lost control of Flowing Paradise and ended up tanking an unfiltered attack from Constricted Furnace.
Before more damage could be done , he rengaged it and promptly started Rejuvenation to work on his injuries.
He wasn’t sure that it could do so at first , but was relieved to see his hand completely regenerate . Three rejuvenation bars were spent ,however , leaving him with just one .
He pondered for a moment about why the scythe had cut off his hand instead of targeting his soul before Perception finally did its thing.
“The Soul Reaper has to mark the very soul then maintain concentration on its target till the scythe lands , otherwise it will just be a regular hit. I was lucky there , if my talent hadn’t disoriented it , I would be a mindless zombie by now ,” he smiled , then started looking around for his sword.
He saw it , just next to the mage with the cut off hand still gripping it.
“That golden crown on its head , it has a modified bond of Stipulatio. Just like the ruby on the Dread Ghost , it enables the reaper to control its victims once it has destroyed their souls ,” Perception was on a roll right now.
It was helpful , but still gave him no idea of how to kill the reaper.
It seemed that Perception was not a straight line talent that gave away his opponents at first glance. It rather took time to discern , dragging out proportionally with how powerful the opponent was compared to Jack.
Race also had to be taken into account , since he had been able to discern the Warrior mage at first glance even though he was far more powerful than Jack.
[
System Notification
Personal Attribute level up
Stamina ; Level 2 -> Level 3
]
The screen notification meant that Aiko was doing her job. Levelling up Stamina replenished it to a full hundred percent.
He wanted to smile , but then got a warning of his talent’s uptime about to expire.
[
System Warning
Constricted Surface remaining uptime - 00:02:00:00
]
Two minutes was all he had to end the job.