Chapter 76 - Static Overdrive
Jack charged the draugr elite with little in the way of a plan. The three draugr, however, had a practiced coordination that easily rebuffed his assault. The short round draugr with the bevy of swords sticking out of his body was the first to engage. It leapt ten feet into the air and turned into a literal cannonball of swords as it came crashing down on Jack’s position.
Jack was barely able to dodge as any sudden movement caused his burnt and broken legs to cry out in pain. His distraction caused him to jump into the waiting arms of the draugr with an angry stare and tree trunks for limbs. He watched as the draugr swung his massive arms forward in a dangerous clapping motion, intent on squishing him into a Jack pancake with his enormous palms. Jack dropped to the ground and a thunderous clapping sound rang out as the draugr narrowly missed squashing him. Jack could feel the pressure from the impact on his back as he lunged forward with his daggers aiming at the draugr’s ankles. From out of nowhere, a javelin appeared, slamming into the side of his dagger and deflecting his attack.
Jack quickly rolled out from under the two draugr, panting hard and wincing in pain as he tried to reset the battlefield. The elite draugr pressed their advantage, leaving him no opportunity or opening.
The elephant-armed draugr dashed in, slamming his fist into the ground in front of Jack, creating a rippling shockwave that had Jack stumbling backwards as he narrowly dodged the attack. With practiced precision, the round draugr covered in swords took advantage of Jack's retreat and launched himself in a terrifying rolling attack. Jack twisted awkwardly to avoid the charge, but his footing was off and he earned himself three off kilter slashes across his body as the draugr spun violently past him.
Jack scrambled off the ground, gritting his teeth in pain as he gave further ground to the deadly trio of draugr. He eyed the remaining mana drop and thought briefly about casting [Storm Step] to get the hell out of here. He had already killed Authun, so fleeing in retreat was a more than acceptable option in his mind, but he knew his legs wouldn’t survive the second impact. It would also likely wreck his channels all over again if he didn’t wait for them to heal up. Besides, the plan had already gone to shit, as normal, and things were moving fast, because duh, and he wasn’t sure he would have the luxury of recovering this time around. Not to mention he lacked the same resources that the hoard of Gurthok and Onem had provided him.
Jack stood there, bleeding out, body on fire and in pain all over, panting heavily as he stared down his three opponents, trying to come up with a plan.
It seemed like every fight in this cursed Tower was becoming more ridiculous the longer he was trapped here. There were so many variables, so many different types of fighting styles, not to mention the fucking magic death rays and nonsense items with absurd powers he had to continually deal with. It was insanity but with each fight Jack was slowly adapting, pushing himself harder.
With each fight he grew a little better, a little stronger. One day, he was going to use all his new found powers to burn the Tower to the fucking ground. That thought alone put a smile on his face. Jack stood up a little straighter as the draugr walked him down. Just a few more minutes and he could use another health potion. Well, probably, he still wasn't exactly sure when he was in the clear.
Survive a little longer. Then we can kill em. Jack heard a voice ring out in the back of his head.
“Ya know,” Jack found himself saying to the approaching draugr, “you guys are surprisingly well coordinated for being rage fueled, psycho killers… Are you sure you haven’t been faking it?” He asked. In response, the draugr with massive arms picked up his spiky round friend in one hand and hurled him at Jack like a baseball. Jack narrowly dodged the draugr turned sports equipment and sprinted straight past him. Despite his best efforts, the one controlling the pace of the fight was the draugr with the Javelins. Anytime Jack made an attack that seemed even remotely threatening, this asshole and his seemingly endless supply of Javelins would show up to the party trying to turn Jack into a human shish kebab.
Jack narrowly dodged another Javelin as he pushed in towards the draugr. The creature was ready to receive him, pulling his rusty trident free and thrusting it at Jack in a fluid movement
As the trident struck Jack noticed it had the same red glowing aura he had grown used to seeing from the draugr by now. Without warning it pulsed a dark red and out of that one thrust, four other glowing red tridents appeared, all flashing out at Jack in an erratic, unpredictable fashion. Jack reacted, dodging one, then two, but the third and fourth strikes left him with new holes and unpleasant rents in his body. He jumped back, deflecting the final thrust from the trident.
Bleeding heavily and panting hard, Jack was starting to go weak at the knees.
For the second time in as many seconds, Jack considered using Storm Step. It grated on him that he was losing a fight he knew he could win if he was in top condition, but he couldn’t exactly feed mana to his body to supplement himself until he could use another potion. Jack considered just risking it and taking the potion now, but his thoughts flashed back to Hannah and how she was incapacitated for days, and not in a fun way.
“Just a few more minutes,” Jack said to himself through gritted teeth, pleading with his body to hold out a little longer. He watched the three draugr regroup and bear down on his position once again. Jack pushed off the ground to charge them a third time. Whether from exhaustion, the blood leaking in his eyes, or he just plain missed it, Jack let loose a howl of pain as a javelin pierced through his thigh and buried itself into the ground, pinning him like a wounded animal caught in a trap.
Jacks’ eyes flashed panic as he ripped himself off the javelin and fell to one knee, growling in both pain and defiance as the draugr elite approached. That's when a wild idea struck him. He still had one option left. One untested, potentially very stupid option.
During his time at the Queens base camp, he’d been trying to recreate that weird cultivation thing he did while trapped in Onem’s mine. With some instruction from one of the Valkyries he would manipulate his mana drops by grinding them against each other. He was rarely successful with it, and whenever he was it was only for a few seconds, but the energy it produced made him feel alive in ways he couldn’t quite comprehend. He knew it was something, he just didn’t know what.
No time like the present, Jackie boy.
Jack looked at the mana drop in his core. It was dimmer than normal, his berserker channels actively draining it of mana as they worked to repair his damaged channels. Jack quickly focused and formed the second mana drop he always kept on the precipice of forming.
This next part was always the trickiest part of the entire exercise. He had to take the two drops of mana inside his core and grind them against each other in a circular fashion, creating an intense build up of friction. He had at one point spent hours in quiet concentration - a first for him - back at the camp trying to recreate the effect. Despite his best efforts, it never seemed to want to work or maintain itself for very long.
Here, on the battlefield, about to get killed by three dumb looking draugr, Jack realized what his problem was, what it was he was missing. He didn’t need an environment that promoted quiet concentration; he needed a battlefield. This here, this was his church, his temple. The knife's edge he walked between life and death. This was where his thoughts were clear. With his body broken and bleeding, his channels scorched and burned, his enemies bearing down on him, his focus had never been better. Rodeo had always insisted the best time for training was when you were staring down the barrel of a gun. He couldn’t ask for more ideal conditions.
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God, I fucking hate when that guy is right about something. Jack grimaced.
He bore down on the two drops of mana, bringing them under his complete control and grinding them against each other. He rotated the two drops, slowly applying more and more pressure as they spun around each other. They fought back, but in the heat of battle his will was unrivaled. They would obey his command.
A white static energy began to leak out from the point of contact where Jack was grinding the drops against each other. He pushed them harder, ignoring the dangerous jolts of lightning that sparked and bit at the walls of his core. Just. Keep. Grinding, he told himself as the world around him was drowned out by the sound of a white hot static.
The faster he ground the mana drops together, the harder he pushed them against each other, the more energy spilled out of them. The white static. He hungrily fed the electric energy to his burnt and broken channels, pumping it all throughout his body. He breathed deep into the energy, letting it shock every fiber of his muscles, letting it infect his cells and jolt them awake. The white static energy ran through every inch of his body, excess power bleeding out of his pores. Still in his trance Jack could smell burnt flesh and smoke and he glanced down at its source to see his wounds begin to cauterize themselves.
He stood up with ease feeling no pain. The static coursing through him burying the discomfort of his wounds till he could deal with them later. His senses felt sharper, his body stronger and more alert, ready for action. The overpowering static buzzing gave way to a gentle white noise in his ears, drowning out all distractions and giving him a razor-sharp focus.
[New Technique Created]
Static Overdrive - Lightning Variant
Technique - Rare
Static Overdrive draws on the static mana created by forcing two condensed sources of mana together. The lightning variant shocks the user’s system into a state of overdrive. Healing is accelerated and the users power and speed will be pushed beyond their maximum stats. In addition, the lighting variant sends the user into an extreme state of clarity, increasing mental processing speed, allowing the user to keep up with their enhanced body.
Jack grinned at the notification, only sparing half a thought for the fact that it was called a technique, and not an ability. He didn’t know what the difference was and didn’t have the time to worry about it; his new friends were seconds away from killing him. Jack fell into [Storm Stance] with a practiced ease, daggers at the ready to meet their assault.
The draugr turned volleyball came crashing down like a meteorite. Jack launched his daggers upwards, his arms nimbly weaving through the swords jutting out of the draugr and skewering him in mid air. Jack braced himself as the impact pushed him backwards. He held the draugr up in the air for a moment, before ripping his daggers out in two devastating slashes, black blood raining down on Jack as the draugr slumped to the ground. Jack followed up with a devastating strike, ripping through the draugr’s head like a bolt of lightning.
The remaining pair of draugr stopped their advance, taking in this new information. Jack felt his smile return. The two mana drops were now actively fighting back, trying to escape his control, which in turn forced him to grind them harder against each other. More white static energy radiated out from his core and into his body. It felt like he was wrapped in the embrace of a trillion tiny electric storms biting and popping at the surrounding air. The energy was delicious, but it was also dangerous, he could tell that much. The power was too good. He knew he would likely have to pay a price for using this new source of power, he just wasn’t sure what it was he was paying with.
He also wasn’t sure he cared.
Jack set his sights on the draugr with oversized arms, a smile on his face as newfound power radiated through his body. He meant to take a simple step, but the power inside launched him at the draugr in blinding speed. His supercharged reactions took control of his body and without any hesitation put his fist through the draugr’s skull, its head exploding. Both the draugrs and its enormous arms dropped to the ground in an earth shaking thud.
Only the javelin asshole left. Jack thought as he turned to look for the last of the elite draugr.
With his senses cranked up to eleven, Jack felt it in the air before he saw anything. The change in the winds, the subtle noise of the javelin being pulled from its leather wrappings from his back. He could even hear the tightly wound muscles and ancient bones of the draugr bending and creaking as it prepared to launch another attack.
Jack threw his dagger first.
He looked over at the final draugr, now missing its throwing arm, his dagger having ripped through at the monster’s elbow. He launched his second dagger in one fluid motion at the draugr again, ripping through its kneecap this time and dropping it to the ground. Jack took a step towards it, flashing before the monster in a burst of speed the same time it took to let loose a breath.
With the constant grinding of the mana in his core his body was running wild with the energy, and Jack knew exactly where to put it. He firmly grabbed the monster’s grotesque head in his hands and vented every ounce of the electrically charged mana he could muster into the draugr’s skull. He watched ardently as the draugr’s eyes went from glowing red to a white, fiery blue. It opened its mouth to scream, but lightning was the only thing that poured out. Within moments the draugr slumped to the ground with the other two.The third kill notification popped up in his vision.
You have slain a Draugr Berserker Elite.
+90,000 AP
Jack grinned. Whatever this new mana was, it was awesome. Then he ran out of gas.
Jack immediately fell to the ground, joining the three draugr he had just killed. His vision immediately began to fade to black as he fought for consciousness. Now was not the time to pass out. Jack tried to move his hand down to his void sack to grab a health potion, but realized there was a new problem. He couldn’t move his hand. Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t move anything. He was getting zero response from his body. Even worse, he had completely lost control of the two mana drops in his core.
The mana drops were bouncing around like coked out raccoons, throwing a protest against Jack and how he opted to use them. Jack braced himself as the two drops slammed into each other, creating a shockwave of lightning mana. He had expected it to hurt, instead; he felt nothing as the dangerous energy poured throughout his body. It slammed again and again, and Jack tried helplessly to bring at least one drop under control before it started doing real damage to his core. After a few moments of intense and exhausted focus, he let out a sigh of relief as the two drops began to slow down.
The panic of the drops destroying his core was immediately replaced by a new fear as he heard the slow lumbering footsteps of more draugr. Jack let out a silent curse to the Tower as the approaching draugr let out bloodthirsty, discordant screams as they spotted Jack.
Despite his mind screaming for him to get the fuck up and move you asshole, Jack lay deadly still. He couldn’t even turn his head to look at his new challengers. His body simply refused to move.
Maybe they’ll think I’m dead. Jack hoped as he stared helplessly up at the night sky. Another dozen footsteps, this time much closer than the last, was the only response he got. With his newfound power gone, he couldn't tell how many there were, but by the constant shuffling he estimated somewhere between a shitload and a fuckton.
Jack closed his eyes for a brief moment, his mind racing for a way out.
Maybe I can still cast storm step? Sure, I can't move my body, but certainly that isn’t a requirement to use the ability. Jack wondered, still trying to bring the mana drops back under his complete control. He prepared to feed one to the ability, when he sensed a new light through his focus. He shot open his eyes frantically looking for what he hoped he might see
A draugr was standing over him, red eyes burning, sword held at the ready to run him through. Jack ignored his would-be killer, looking beyond the creature into the sky above him. High in the distance he could see the burning orange and black orb that could only spell one thing. Absolute fucking destruction.
He watched as a large burning arrow flew across the night sky and crashed into the orb. It violently exploded in truly spectacular fashion, bringing down a rain of devastation and baptizing the draugr in fire. Jack let loose a smile as he heard their agonized screams fill the night air.
Hannah had arrived. Hell fucking yea.