Coop’s feet were rooted in place in the instant that Inheritance of the Mists took effect. The skill’s buffs and debuffs were applied, and his mind raced through his updated status. Time seemingly froze in comparison. The Icon of Mana paused its rotation, anticipating an action from Coop with his sudden change in posture, but it would be left confused for the moment.
While the pair of combatants were dancing to the death, the piles of sand had continued to grow. They were scattered throughout the open cavern after the bottom of the valley collapsed and revealed their new underground arena. The sandstorm of stillness that engulfed the valley had fallen apart, letting gravity drag the particles back down to earth, but the Icon was prepared to fight on. It had adapted to more aggressively leverage its superior mobility in order to maintain its advantage. Its strategy hadn’t really changed with the change in arena, just the speed with which the Icon executed its plan had increased.
On the other hand, Coop was rolling the dice, committing to the fight after his failed retreat, but hoping for an adjustment that could help him turn the tide. The apparition that he summoned would make or break him. The spirit, if he wanted to call it that, was based on his original armor summoning skill, Salvation, but he believed the skill actually took his combination of arms into account before determining what would appear. He doubted that it was a coincidence for the first apparition to have wielded a spear when Coop was using his standard spear and shield set.
Coop squeezed the handle of his ethereal shortsword as Inheritance of the Mists possessed him, feeling the flex all the way up his forearm, into his triceps. His grip tightened as he tried to mentally fortify himself in order to withstand the apparition that would answer the call of his ability. He hadn’t had much opportunity to learn from the first encounter after using the skill, but it had been enough to encourage him to apply caution. If he wasn’t in a position where it was necessary to push himself beyond his limits to achieve a good result, he wouldn’t have accessed power that he wasn’t sure he could control.
Coop’s expertise was limited with this particular skill, given that his sample size was one, so any determination he made was more like conjecture than conclusion. The first apparition he summoned was the Lightning Lord. The ghost that haunted Coop on that occasion had an unbelievably arrogant personality, fully embracing the god-like designation that the system had bestowed upon it. Rather than allowing Coop to borrow its power, the apparition had possessed Coop like an empty vessel with the intention of establishing dominance. It declared that Coop was inadequate and had demonstrated its case by burning through his mana and his health while annihilating the monsters within the entire Mangrove Forest in a matter of seconds. It took Coop to the brink of death while laughing and threatening him all the while.
The Lightning Lord hadn’t bothered to provide any sort of guidance, mentorship, or instruction. If the Lord had given some goals to work towards, Coop would have been happy to diligently pursue them while he grinded out everything else that needed doing. That’s just who he was. Instead, Coop was left with the vague idea that he had to progress before Inheritance of the Mists would be something that he could truly rely on.
And yet, here he was, falling all the way to his final backup plan. In retrospect, calling Inheritance of the Mists the ace he kept up his sleeve was a mistake. It wasn’t an ace, it was a wild card. It was up his sleeve because he didn’t want it in his hand until he was properly prepared.
While Coop consciously worried about the impact the skill would have, whether or not it would provide him with deliverance or destruction, he subconsciously adjusted the grip he had on his sword, loosening it, moving his thumb a centimeter down. He released the fingertip of his pointer finger ever so slightly off the leathery handle, retreating his knuckle from the edge of the hilt as he suddenly understood a more appropriate way to handle the weapon. He adjusted the point of the sword down eight degrees, slightly off-center from the monster’s wing base to be closer to the ideal ready position, and he felt his left heel lift a millimeter off the sand glazed stone. The tension in his upper abs loosened a tiny bit and his breathing marginally slowed, providing him with deeper breaths as he filled his lungs. His head leaned forward a nominal amount, and his eyes partially lost focus on the monster’s feet, instead taking in its entire form without any particular concentration beneath his brows. His pupils dilated, subtly backlit with ghostly energy as the possession fully took place before he was completely aware it was happening.
Fifty stacks of the Haunted debuff reduced his maximum mana by 50% as they reserved half of his total, but he had already consumed nearly half of his mana anyway. Losing access to his complete mana pool wouldn’t have any immediate negative consequences. If the fight continued beyond the duration of Inheritance, he might have to deal with the reduction, but that was for a future version of himself that survived the encounter with the Icon of Mana to figure out. The Delusion debuff indicated that he wouldn’t be able to contact another apparition until its expiration, which was undeclared by the effect. He sardonically hoped that just one would be enough. Of course, zero would have been better.
The buffs he received were distinct from what he would expect given that they were meant to be beneficial. Instead, they aligned more closely with debuffs if he judged them by name or effect. Overburdened indicated that he was wielding power beyond his ability and would only benefit from a fraction of the potency. Spirit Burn warned him that he lacked the resources necessary to fund the skills he had been granted and would receive a severe penalty cost for casting them. Mental Transcendence alerted him to the fact that he was possessed by something considered beyond his capacity and risked losing his autonomy for the duration.
Nothing was unexpected. So far, so good. Coop was having an out of body experience, but at least the chips were falling.
A ghost was superimposed on his body, though he wasn’t sure if it was visible to just himself or to anyone. Thin wrists and slender fingers with well-manicured but short nails didn’t exactly replace his own, though they existed simultaneously in the same place. They tested his sword, judging it suitable after a single flick and a moment of contemplation. The Icon of Mana twitched at the first sign of movement since the possession, but it had been less than a second from the start of Coop’s skill. The monster hadn’t had time to react, even with its manipulative abilities.
“Your eagerness is commendable, child, but it must be tempered with humility.” A voice in his head sagely advised.
Coop merely thought to scoff, already feeling humbled to the point of needing to cast Inheritance of the Mists without the reminder. Who had he been saddled with this time?
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“I am the Battlemaiden.” The voice responded, echoing inside his head as the apparition apparently read his thoughts.
Coop worried that his lack of recognition might be offensive as the voice’s pronouncement merely sounded like a generic title.
“Consider yourself lucky to have been graced by an experienced combatant who has walked the long path of the warrior. I understand the journey is fraught with peril, and that it is one of constant learning and growth. Now is another chance for you to learn.”
Coop wondered if he would die instead, given that he was in the middle of a fight with an Icon of Mana that outmatched him in several ways. He wasn’t sure if it was a good time for a lesson. Rather than who would be teaching him, he wondered what it was that possessed him.
“An interesting but pointless question. I am the coalescence of spirit, once lost to the mists, but not to history, a woman who led armies, defeated thousands and saved millions that became billions. A peasant girl guided by the divine, a fierce rebel queen burning for righteous revenge, a courageous commander respected for her strategic brilliance, a skilled swordsman, inspirational freedom fighter, defiant, valiant, feared, loved, and admired…”
Coop thought it sounded like an impossibly impressive resume, but his concerns weren’t alleviated. Not even a second had gone by since he cast the Inheritance of the Mists ability, but it seemed like he had been trapped in his own head for ages. He tried to access the apparition’s skills before the Icon could react to his change.
The voice clicked her teeth before scolding him. “Know this, child: you walk with the mists, yet you are no Mistwalker.” She claimed full control over his limbs as she spoke, flinging his shield away as if it was trash, letting it clatter against the rocks. She gripped the shortsword with both hands as its length extended to be more akin to a proper longsword, losing its misty vapors in favor of a sharp steel shine. The hilt grew in length and she directed Coop one last time. “True mastery does not lie with brute strength or blind aggression, but in precise application of skill and an unyielding indomitable will.”
In the next moment, the fight resumed. The Icon of Mana must have realized something changed, but it had only taken a moment for the transformation to take place. Coop’s eyes filled with glowing mists, leaking raw power into the heavy air. A ghost stood in his place, overlayed on his body like a simulated warrior. He instinctively knew he needed to follow along.
When the apparition moved he imitated the motions exactly. His torso twisted, drawing the sword back around his hip in a smoothly controlled motion, like a perfectly bound wind-up toy. The sword was like an extension of his arms, flowing like liquid, building tension in his entire body, from the tips of his toes, up his legs, through his torso, arms, and all the way to his finger tips.
Coop held the position for a tiny moment. When the tension was released, the sword whipped forward. The sword sliced through the air, and Coop’s legs pushed off the sand-covered rock as if he was chasing the horizontal strike rather than projecting it.
Coop imagined that he could see where his feet would be placed before he placed them, like a tutorial to exacting footwork. Three steps, each landing on solid stone without touching a single grain of the scattered sand. His balance was perfect, utilizing all of his Strength, multiplied further by the Battlemaiden, but without forcing it beyond its precise limit. He was leaning into the blow as he covered the ground in bounding leaps. The strike was controlled, aimed with accuracy that he wouldn’t have believed possible. The Icon of Mana shifted in response, flickering backwards with impossible speed, but the dodge had been anticipated, the erratic speed perfectly predicted, and the edge of the sword landed perfectly between armored scales, slicing through the meaty torso of the monster.
The Battlemaiden kept Coop moving forward, pirouetting out of range of the Icon’s counter attacking tail, equidistant from their starting point. A single planted step and Coop was moving in the opposite direction, redirecting his momentum into the blade of the sword like he had bounced off of a springboard.
This time, there were only two steps before the edge of his sword severed the Icon’s wing from its body as Coop had picked up speed. The blade found no resistance as it had been aimed so perfectly where the limb articulated that it hadn’t had to cut through any natural armor. The cavern was a blur, and a trail of dust followed behind Coop as he blitzed the time-warping Siege Boss.
Coop was pirouetting again, sliding on a single toe when the wing thumped against the ground, kicking up a small cloud of debris when it scraped the rock. The monster started to roar, but Coop had taken a single step, long enough to close the same distance as the last two attacks. The edge of the blade gouged out the eye of the monster while it grew more frantic.
When Coop was done spinning back toward the monster, it was clear that the tables had turned. The craziest part was that he wasn’t actually moving faster than the monster had been when it was picking his own defense apart. He was just moving with incredible precision and foresight. There were no last minute adjustments that needed to be made, every motion was anticipated, every reaction expected, and every attack calculated. It was raw speed combined with perfect timing and confident decision-making based on untold experience.
Coop drew the sword back again, letting the tension build. The monster roared and faced him, bleeding from the side of its face and already drenched in brown ooze from the wounds in its body. The Battlemaiden didn’t immediately follow up. Instead, she was having him harness the momentum that had built in the flowing attacks, using an actual skill as if enough combo points had been generated by the initial strikes.
Coop’s skin cracked, and glowing energy leaked from the wounds. He clenched his jaw as his joints creaked and the cracks expanded from his arms to his body. His chest ached before a gaping wound crawled down his sternum. The pain caused him to growl, then scream, as he did everything he could to maintain the form that the Battlemaiden demanded. His mana drained in an instant, with a smooth decrease that was almost comical. Once it was empty, his health depleted as well and just as quickly.
“Spirit-Touched Blade.” The Battlemaiden announced without any urgency at all.
The tension was released, and the sword whipped forward, but his feet remained in place. He felt his arms break with a crack that was drowned out when the rocky wall of the cavern on the opposite side was scoured. A single line cut deep into the stone, causing boulders to fall and the entire wall to start caving in. The Icon of Mana blinked 20 yards backwards in a desperate attempt to dodge the instant he released the attack. The Icon stood still for a moment while stones from the wall fell to the ground. Then, the monster split in half, cleanly severed by an invisible blade.
Coop collapsed to the ground at the same time as the Icon’s upper half, chest heaving as if he had been on the verge of suffocation, and causing him pain every time he inhaled.
“Refine your blade and your spirit, young warrior. Never lose sight of your purpose.” The Battlemaiden concluded with what Coop hoped was a tiny hint of approval, before she returned to the mists and Coop’s vision went black.