Congratulations! Your Skill Cutting Tide of Amenonuhoko (T) has grown to Level 555!
Congratulations! Your Skill (Domain) The Resonant Fangs of Extinction (M) has grown to Level 349!
The two fighters bounced backward, both of their feet carving small ditches in the dirt ground as they steadily dispersed the force from their collision. Due to the restrictions he placed on himself, Randidly ended up losing out in the final clash, but both of them knew that his improvement speed meant that wouldn’t be the case for long. His three fangs were smoking as they returned and reattached themselves to his left arm.
He raised his head and looked at the panting Helen, feeling quite a bit chagrined. A sizzling black mark remained on his chest from where Helen’s attack had landed. A good reminder not to rely too much on the impact reduction ability of the fangs. They will knock away all the force for a single strike, yes, but powerful images pretty constantly reinforce attacks. So in truth, it only provides a momentary stall in an assault.
Although if I do ever run into someone else who uses the image physicalization method, I have a pretty hard counter to them.
“Bah, fighting you is so aggravating,” Helen muttered. Then she aimed another glare at Randidly. “Alright, you made a shitty copy of my Domain. It even has some interesting parts that I have no doubt will grow fucking strong. The foundation is solid. Happy now?”
Randidly shook his head helplessly. “No, not really. But I do want to say thank you. I would never- well, Sulfur and I would never have been able to accomplish this is not for you. So anything that I manage has your hand on it. You will always be a part of me. I hope you know that”
“Of course,” Helen snorted. “You aren’t alone in this, you know. Besides, why are you being so emotional? You don’t need to pour so much of yourself into protecting us. We manage quite well without your fussing.”
Randidly’s smile grew strained. Helen’s eyes narrowed with suspicion and for a second and he understood that she might realize something. So he pulled himself out of the Dreamcatcher of the Long Night. The sunlight waiting for him on the mountain was blinding. He blinked several times while letting out a hissing breath between his teeth.
He allowed himself a few minutes of melancholy musings, staring out over the shifting mists. Then he patted his legs and straightened.
“Stayed in there longer than I thought. Almost time to move forward,” Randidly said to himself. He raised his new arm and flexed the fingers. Then he nodded. “Alright. Alright. Let’s get to the summit. For all the people that have helped me get here.”
*****
The group moved quickly through the dark underbelly of the Nexus. All of them possessed plenty of methods to move extremely fast, so they ghosted through locations so quickly that even if a group was warned of their coming, they would miss them. The Patron of the Sun led the way, blazing forward with Velio Dunn right on his heels. In the middle was the Patron of Blades and the Patron of Blooms, who craned their necks during the journey like they wanted nothing more than a vacation after being stuck in the Sanctum for so long.
They didn’t comment on the sights, but a few of the Aether pipelines they passed earned meaningful glances from them.
Edraine and the Patron of the Abyss brought of the rear of the column, her because her instincts were tingling with the hint of danger and the amorphous body of the quiet Patron because it seemed to be a loner. It seemed profoundly less interested in the surroundings and only moved with the group due to a hidden reason.
They had a single exchange, right after they left the Nexus Ways and started to travel quickly through space. The Patron of the Abyss paused in its movements and examined her. “You use your body efficiently. Sublime.”
That was that. The rest of the journey was almost completely silent.
However, soon the Patron of the Sun raised a hand and the rest of them slowed behind him. They floated at the edge of an asteroid belt, far from any other celestial bodies. “The trace from the Patron of Feathers is emerging from up there, but…” His words trailed off. Edraine didn’t need him to continue. She felt her lip curling up from the ominous darkness in front of him.
Whatever had happened to the Patron of Feathers was still ongoing.
A strange power obstructed them from seeing more. Part of it was a powerful image born of dark feathers, a vast emptiness, and patient death. However, there was another part that felt unnatural, even beyond some of the sick and sadistic images Edraine had encountered in the Nexus. Like some strange force lurked at the core, perverting the natural order of the universe and obscuring the senses.
“Is she dead?” The Patron of Blossoms asked.
The Patron of the Sun Shook his head. “Impossible. She perhaps might be wounded, or sealed in a different manner. We will need to unravel this in order to obtain the energy we need.”
Velio Dunn surged forward and clenched his fists. “I’m willing to head for alone to check out this strange force-”
“There is no need.” The Patron of Blades drifted forward and then clicked his tongue. His eyes were sharp. “Heh, we were duped.”
Edraine frowned in confusion at the direction of the Patron of Blade’s gaze, but then the fabric of space around them began to seethe and roil. Some of the close asteroids began to splinter and disintegrate. There was a constant, grinding vibration to the energy that started to aggregate even Edraine’s body. Her pupils dilated as she realized that her internal organs were beginning to sputter and fail underneath that pressure.
As she mobilized her image to protect herself, a voice spoke and chilled her to the bone. “A happy accident.”
Light sparked in the abyss of space next to the Patron of Feathers and a blurry figure steadily formed. His limbs were light blue and luminous. Through the strange haze that shrouded him, Edraine could only see his smile. His presence seemed to billow outward, filling everything.
He pressed down against them all just by looking at them. The Aether around him was ominous and dense.
“Elhume,” The Patron of the Sun’s eyes blazed. “After all this time, you dare stand in front of us, after what you did to the others?!? And now, what the hell did you do to Feathers!”
Meanwhile, a pulse came from the Patron of the Abyss next to Edraine. A sweeping emptiness submerged her, leaving her gasping and turning to look at this sudden development; to think that even the silent caboose of their group could mobilize such an overwhelming image. As soon as she laid eyes on the Patron of Abyss’s true form, she realized looking at it was a mistake.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
An insubstantial maw ground existence to nothing, shredding the fabric of the world into progressively tinier pieces. In its absence, the space between all things slowly rose and consumed. The Abyss rendered Edraine dizzy from a single glance, even as it mobilize itself and rushed forward.
The Abyss was an inky tide that devoured everything, sweeping forward and rushing toward Elhume and his lofty influence.
Elhume moved with consideration, his body sluggishly responding to his commands. “Six Absolute Fists. The First Fist: Dominance.”
The Abyss tightened into a dense torrent, but a single brilliant punch rushed out from the figure. The roiling space was flattened by that attack. When she looked at the fist, Edraine suddenly understood punching in such a profound manner that she knew that if she incorporated those truths, the punches she could throw would leave her previous capability in the dust.
She hastily tore her gaze away from that brilliant fist, unwilling to abandon her own image. Her body throbbed painfully, barely able to withstand the ambient force Elhume released. However, out of the corner of her eye, she still observed the way that the fist dominated everything. Even the Abyss was destroyed, annihilated silently as the fist slid forward.
Then a gleaming blast of golden light ripped up from below that first fist and aimed for Elhume’s body. The blurry figure swayed bringing a palm down toward the powerful blast of sunlight. The blow was almost casual.
BOOOOOOOM!
Space crunched and crumbled, briefly revealing a gaping hole in the universe that closed up quickly. Edraine coughed up blood and scrambled backward as the impact hit her in the chest and shredded the edges of her image. Already a verdant garden seemed to form in space as the Patron of Blooms gathered her strength. Opposite her, glints of light reflected off in the space around the Patron of Blades as he accelerated, although he had no visible weapons on his person.
She had no idea where Velio Dunn had gone.
Elhume’s first punch disintegrated and reformed above him. He thrust that same strike down at the tumbling Patron of the Sun, who was still trying to recover from the first clash. The Patron of the Abyss spun itself upward like a pizza pie of absence being tossed into the air, even as the Patron of Blades first arrived before Elhume.
“Cut,” The man hissed while giving substance to the demand with a sharp diagonal slash with his hand. A huge amount of sparks were thrown off Elhume’s luminous form as the invisible attack landed, but Elhume didn’t respond. He just watched his fist pursue the Patron of the Sun.
The Patron of Blade’s snarled and raised both of his hands above his head. “Finale.”
The Patron’s arms blurred. Edraine’s vision split in the wake of something gleaming and pure. One side of everything leaned and tumbled away, leaving half of the universe unmoored from itself. The division quickly righted itself and space snapped back together, but Elhume’s form flickered. Lightning crackled from a deep wound that had been inflicted on his body. The details of his features became clearer, revealing a malicious grin.
Elhume raised his hands again and another fist condensed. “The Second Fist: Vengeance.”
The Patron of Blades began to spin, rapidly becoming a whirlwind of glinting blades that ground against the bright fist of Elhume’s image. Waves of force were thrown off from the collision and spun into nearby star systems. Edraine sensed one such attack slamming into a planet and annihilating the core. The planet crumbled in on itself, an unintended and quickly forgotten casualty of these peak fighters.
The knuckles of the giant fist continually pressured the Patron of Blades. The light released from the skidding friction was quite eye-catching. Again, Edraine was struck by the temptation to toss everything aside and imitate that perfect punch and again she had to tear her eyes away with a shuddering breath.
And we believed that we could change the Nexus, Edraine felt a tingle of dread in her heart. By stealing the sealed body of this being…
That was when she noticed that a change came from the darkness that supposedly was the Patron of Feathers. The Patron of Blade’s powerful Finale had split open the shroud that blocked her, revealing a desiccated and fleshless body. Bones and feathers, that was all that remained of the Patron of Feathers. Her skin was parchment, stretched over uneven stone. A breath of wind would fold her. Any reverberations reaching her would reduce her to dust. Only the slightest hint of life remained in her body.
Yet Edraine found her gaze pulled by the small, bone charm that the Patron of Feathers cradled. The small item rolled lazily through the space above the Patron’s palm. Even from this distance, Edraine could sense that this small object was the source of the wrongness she had sensed earlier. It was also probably the item that reduced a Patron to such a horrifying state.
And, likely due to the Patron of Blade’s attack, the slightest crack snaked its way out from the edges of the bone charm. It had been damaged.
Crack!
That small noise changed the whole battlefield because it dragged Elhume’s attention away. “You wretches! Do you know-”
The Patron of the Sun managed to escape around the first punch finally, gasping and trying to stem a flow of blood from his side. The Patron of Blades directly sliced the Second Punch in half, but didn’t advance; the glinting blade lights around him had dimmed a lot even in that brief conflict.
Meanwhile, the Patron of Blooms raised her hands with a flourish. The garden around her swelled and bloomed, petals unfolding and roots worming their way through space. “Restrict!”
The Patron of the Abyss coordinated perfectly with her, swooping down toward Elhume’s face as he turned. The absence spread out and tried to strangle him. But Elhume just raised his hands.
“The Third Fist: Boundless.”
“Keh!” Edraine spat out a breath as an immense force bent her over. Her spine shattered and her consciousness was scrambled for several seconds. Whatever attack that Elhume had unleashed had hit all of them.
No, it had impacted everything in the surrounding area. Her swimming gaze wasn’t able to locate even the slightest hint of the asteroid belt.
By the time she had stabilized herself, most of the shredded bits of plant matter that tumbled through space had disintegrated. The Patron of the Abyss had once more been knocked away and the Patron of the Sun sported another deep wound on his side.
However, everyone’s attention now fixated on a new figure.
He was bruised and bleeding, clearly as pushed beyond the limits as Edraine had been. But Velio Dunn had somehow made it to within the opening the Patron of Blades created in the wings guarding that horrifying bone charm. He hefted his sword, the edge glowing with a slight light that bore the faintest hint of the power these Patrons wielded.
He was, after all, a man who had made an attempt at the Pinnacle.
“Elhume!” Velio Dunn bellowed. His eyes were red with madness. “You! You and your greed! This is all because of you! You want this item? Ha. If you don’t retreat immediately, I’ll destroy it. Even if I die, as long as I spite you-”
Elhume didn’t even seem to hear Velio. The expression on his blurry face had turned into a frown, but he still moved into a punching stance. His attack slid forward with that dreadful perfection. “The Fourth Fist-”
“Fine!” Velio howled as he cut down toward the bone charm. “Have it your way!”
“- Timeless.”
As Edraine watched, Elhume’s attack shot forward. Velio cut down, but then his attack paused. When that fist reached the halfway point between Elhume and him, his sword began to creep back upward, as though everything was being rewound. He looked down in horror at his arm and sword. Even from the distance, she could see Velio’s grip on the weapon trembling. “This… is impossible!”
Crunch.
The punch obliterated his chest cavity. His head tumbled through space through a cloud of blended viscera, disbelief and unwillingness etched onto his features. Velio Dunn died with his weapon held above his head, without ever having been able to unleash his attack.