Chapter 104 – Bird Problems

Gideon charged the feathered bird monsters, and all chaos broke loose. They stood tall and had the wide body of a tank, with hulking arms that swung hard and fast as Gideon approached. He ducked and weaved and came in with flaming claws of his own that ripped through the feathered monstrosities. The birds broke apart with ease, reforming the second his claws ripped through their chest and baring down on him with attacks of their own.

Gideon erupted in a cloak of flames and let loose a torrent of golden flames as he roared at the bird. The bird crossed its arms to deflect its attack, and Gideon’s flames pushed it back halfway across the throne room, but that was it. Gideon wore a confused look on his face as he battled it out with the birds, creating what distance he could by slamming into the ground and sending golden flames erupting up from the ground. The birds simply backed away, waiting for the flames to die out.

“This is why I don’t like to participate.” Gideon said, an almost annoyed look on his face.

“Why? Because we get to see you're not as strong as you claim?” Jack grinned, focusing on one of his mana drops.

“Because the Tower has clearly made these enemies stronger due to my presence. Tell me, have you seen anything that my flames couldn’t disintegrate?” Gideon said matter of fact.

Jack glanced back at the bird, which had just completely deflected a direct flame blast from Gideon. The dragon had a point. That was cause for alarm.

“So you’re telling me this job is twice as difficult because you’re here?” Rodeo asked from behind Jack.

Gideon only nodded in response.

“I fucking told them to let me do this by myself, but noooooo…” Jack groaned. He fed his drop of mana into [Chain lightning] and sent a lightning bolt the size of a tree trunk out of his left hand towards one of the birds. The windows shattered, and the world flashed white as his lightning crashed through the room. Jack grinned as one of the bird monsters came crashing to the ground in a pile of feathers.

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“Looks like your flames are just a bit too weak.” Jack taunted. He stared at the other five birds that still remained. He had expected more of them to be dead, but they either blocked or deflected the chaining effect. How, Jack had no idea. He felt his berserker channels flair to life, and he pulled in another drop of mana into his core. His left arm was in rough shape and his channels were more or less destroyed in that arm now until he could heal it. Storm step was his only option now. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he used lightning centipedes bite with one of his mana channels wrecked -would only one fang appear?

Jack threw a glance at the king, still sitting unmoving on his throne. He couldn’t waste all his mana drops on the birds. He needed to save what he could for what would undoubtedly be a much tougher fight.

“Shit,” Rodeo growled to his left, drawing Jack out of his thoughts. He watched as the feathers of the bird he just blew up slowly floated up in the air. They didn’t reform. Instead, they joined the five remaining birds, adding to their mass, and undoubtedly making them stronger.

Gideon’s golden flames still created a barrier between them, but they were slowly dying down.

“Focus on their mana cores. They aren’t static and constantly shifting position, but if you inject enough of your mana into it, you can destroy it and destroy them.” Gideon said.

Jack let his eyes shift focus as he stared at the mana coursing through the birds. He watched what he thought was the mana core, a deep purple orb ping pong throughout their makeshift bodies, constantly moving out of harm’s way.

“You thinking what I’m thinking Jackie-boy?” Rodeo asked.

Jack gripped his daggers in frustration. He didn’t exactly have spare mana he could inject into their cores. Sure, he could vent a mana drop, but that was one less he would have to use against the king, much less the remaining birds.

“Just try to keep up.” Jack said, his grip tightening on his daggers.

A chuckle from Rodeo was his only response.

Gideon’s flames died out, and Jack launched himself across the throne room into the middle of the sentinels.

Hulking arms made of feathers came at him from every direction, but there wasn’t a single thing on this floor that could catch Jack. He fell deep into his element as he moved like a dark cloud through the sentinels. He dodged swing after swing from at least four of the creatures, which pressed down hard on him. He wasn’t sure what Gideon was doing, hopefully distracting the fifth one, but he couldn’t spare the second it would take to look over and find out.

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Jack’s breathing grew frantic and his body a little more tired as he kept dodging dangerous blows. It wasn’t enough to just dodge, though. He had to create an opening, and to do that, he had to be a storm.

Jack grinned as he let himself fall even deeper into storm stance. He ignored his tired body and labored breath and just struck. His daggers lashed out like lightning at the first crow sentinel. He didn’t aim for the mana core, instead; he aimed his attacks at everywhere the mana core was moving towards. If it looked like it was moving towards an arm. He lashed out at the arm, towards the head, he attacked the head, towards the leg, and so on and so forth. His job wasn’t to land a killing blow, it was to create an opening.

He lashed out so fast and hard with his attacks that the only spot the mana core was safe was center mass. A spike that looked like tarnished silver ripped past Jack’s shoulder and slammed straight into the sentinel’s core, flooding it with mana until Jack watched the bird explode in a poof of feathers falling to the ground. He launched himself backwards, panting heavily as the feathers picked themselves up off the ground and rejoined the now 4 remaining birds.

“No time to rest,” Rodeo said, “we still got four more to go.” He said to a heavily panting Jack.

“Make that three.” Gideon added. Jack glanced over to see the dragon wielding his giant scimitar again, standing atop a pile of feathers which quickly pulled themselves off the ground and added themselves to the mass of the remaining three. “You know, since you two teamed up, that’s technically cheating, you said two apiece. I think that makes me the victor by default.”

Jack rolled his eyes in annoyance and pushed himself up off the ground and back towards the three remaining crow sentinels. They had gained about two more feet in height and had gotten much faster. Attacks that Jack was easily dodging before were now almost catching him. There was technically less to dodge but their attacks were now coming at a much faster and greater frequency, so much so that he couldn’t even get an attack in of his own without another sentinel swinging in with a deadly punch.

In addition, their feathers were razor sharp, and Jack was finding himself riddled with dozens of small cuts all over his body as the attacks barely missed, but were still close enough to leave him bleeding.

After dodging another punch, he dropped low and came up from below. The crow sentinel revealed a new trick at that point, opening its pitch-black beak and letting loose a screech that made Jack’s ear bleed and his knees wobble. He fell to one knee, and the bird came down hard with its fists.

Luckily, Jack wasn’t alone this time.

Gideon intercepted the blow, blocking it with the flat of his blade. He clenched his teeth as the attack pushed him back and then erupted in golden flames as he shoved off the attack. Gideon swung his sword in a whirlwind, ripping through feathers like a tornado of fire. The sentinels simply broke apart and dodged the attack, but Gideon had made space for Jack.

Jack was on top of a sentinel before it had time to fully reform. Gideon kept two of the sentinels distracted, leaving the third for Jack and Rodeo to clean up. Just like before, Jack came in like a storm, lashing out his daggers in a flurry of strikes. He didn’t need to land a killing blow, he just needed to create an opportunity.

Another spike of tarnished silver came ripping through the air, slamming into the mana core that Jack had managed to pin down in the bird’s arm. Feathers poured to the ground and quickly shot back up to join the other two birds.

The king finally stood up from his throne, but he wasn’t fast enough to stop what happened next.

Gideon seemed as though he had taken personal offense to not being able to burn something. Two giant flaming claws pinned one of the sentinels to the wall, and Gideon unleashed an unending torrent of his dragon’s breath on the bird. The feathers resisted at first, but Gideon didn’t stop. His flames grew hotter and more intense. Jack had no idea how deep Gideon’s mana wells ran as he watched the dragon spit out more and more fire until he finally managed to burn the sentinel to ash.

Even still, the ashes rose from the ground and swam through the air. Every feather from every crow sentinel killed join together, clumping around the last bird until it was the size of a giant. It let loose a screech that shook the castle and dropped the three men to their knees.

“Good. You’re kneeling now.” The king said, stepping up from behind the giant crow sentinel.

“I must admit, it always is a treat to see the sentinels in action, and while I am truly curious to see if you have what it takes to kill it, I’m afraid I must stop you here.”

Six feathered wings erupted from the king’s back, and he took to air above, hovering just below the ceiling. The giant sentinel slammed down hard on Jack’s position. It was slower, but far more powerful, cracking the marbled floors and sending debris flying in every direction. Just as Jack landed, a barrage of razor sharp feathers came raining down on him with the speed and precision of a machine gun, ripping through him like paper.

Three swords came flying through the air and deflected what they could while Jack ran behind one of the pillars, pulling out a health potion and chugging it. He glanced over at Rodeo, who gave him a small nod.

Now that the king had come into play, it was time to end this. Jack focused on the two remaining drops, bringing them under his complete control. He slowly began to grind them against each other harder and faster until [Static Overdrive] activated. He felt a calm wash over him as he fell into a pool of white noise. Smoke poured off his body as his wounds cauterized in seconds. The static mana ran rampant through his remaining mana channels and sent jolts of electricity to every single one of his muscle fibers.

Jack stepped out from behind the pillar with a grin. The technique had restored him, and he was now brimming with an unstoppable energy. The king fixed him with a curious look from above, and Jack took one step forward, ready to launch himself at the man.

Then Jack’s vision went black, and he stumbled forward, falling to his knees and dropping both of his daggers. He lost control of the technique and felt the energy leave his body, leaving him weak and tired. His head swam as he got to his knees and turned around, expecting Rodeo.

Gideon stood there instead, an angry look on his face.