Little Celah, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Sixthmonth, 1634 PTS
Despite his injuries, Keitel was like a punching bag, soaking up all the damage I could deal while being unable to land a single blow on me. I was left to be a restless wave, crashing time and time again into the seawall, in hopes of slowly eroding its defences.
Keitel had not, I realized, practiced the flagship technique of the Hadal Clan. Instead, he practiced a technique that greatly enhanced his ability to amplify his body, rendering him far stronger and faster than even the other Hadal spirit refiners, and vastly more resistant to damage. His pale skin was tinged a slight green, a clear indication that his technique infused miasma into it. As he moved, thin trails of green mist shifted behind his motions. However, he was not faster than me.
He charged, baring his fists as he closed the distance between us. I raised my sword in return, my feet instinctively returning into the neutral first stance of my sword art. I had yet to find the time to adjust it to my new physique, yet another item on my list that I had found impossible to fit into my tight schedule. That was a process that would take years, perhaps decades to complete, and yet, abnormally for a martial artist of my level, I was forced to consider only the immediate future.
Keitel lunged, and I stepped into his guard, slashing upwards into his ribs, but only managing to push half an inch into his skin before my blade became stuck. I cursed, ripping it out as Keitel went for a headbutt. The world swam around me as I stepped backwards in a daze, desperately attempting to recoup my senses.
I wished I had my sword. I found myself needing to treat the weapon gingerly. The sword I was holding was actually much sharper than my relic weapon, but the difference in durability between the two was utterly incomparable. I felt as if just a single poor hit might shatter the blade’s alloy. Moreover, even at its best, this blade was nothing compared to the sword I had lost back on Canvas.
Keitel pressed the attack, not letting up as he delivered a relentless flurry of blows that left me entirely on the backfoot. I gritted my teeth, ducking and weaving his blows, but unable to prevent him from getting a grip on my right arm and yanking me towards him.
From his movements, and how natural he seemed to be in fighting with his fists, I got the impression that this man might have been a pugilist, one of those madmen who disdained the use of weapons altogether. I understood that training to be able to fight without weapons was an excellent idea, but in the end a martial artist’s power was greatly boosted by the addition of a good weapon. I wondered whether he had gauntlets that were destroyed in the building’s collapse, or whether he was simply a fool. I supposed it didn’t matter.
Keitel’s knee dug into my chest, driving the breath from my chest. No matter how much a martial artist developed, the limitations of a humanoid body would always remain, I thought. On instinct, I lashed out with my sword, catching his thigh with the blade and drawing a long line of blood into his leathery flesh. As he staggered, the flesh of my wrist and hand shivered, contorting to squirm out of his grip as I staggered backwards myself, both of us nearly snarling with anger.
This was a man who understood what it meant to fight, to kill, I thought. One who truly understood both the rush and the fear, the primal sensations of combat. It was said he was a coward, but even a coward, when pressured into the right situation, I thought, could have as much valor as anyone else.
I had already learned a lesson from this fight. My flesh should never remain stable during a battle. From this point forward. I would allow no opportunities to grapple me, no matter what.
Suddenly, as I backed away, a multitude of figures appeared around us in an instant. Each of them was that of a dusky-skinned man with golden hair and eyes, wearing sets of red-and-black robes. It did not take me long to guess the source of these figures. They were illusions, what Rachel liked to refer to as ‘holograms’.
Rachel had not helped me in this manner before, but it could be quite effective, I realized. Keitel was a martial artist. Rather than a Celan machine with advanced sensors, or the Staiven and their own odd senses, most martial artists had to largely rely on the senses they were born with. All of a martial artist’s senses except for those of the soul could be fooled by an illusion.
“Trickery!” cursed Keitel, swinging desperately at the decoys surrounding him. His hand coursed through them, but he had already lost track of my position amongst the shifting bodies.
“We’re not here to fight fair,” sneered Rachel, her voice coming from the crowd of duplicates themselves. “You know, I didn’t previously care about you Ceirrans or your racist conflicts, but after meeting the Reth, I have to say that I feel rather inclined to them. Perhaps you and your goddess should reconsider outdated views? You’re from the same planet, after all. Even the Celans were able to unite.”
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I crashed into Keitel from behind before he could reply, and he choked as my knee slammed into his back and my sword grazed the side of his skull, tearing a huge chunk of flesh from his scalp. My movement technique had no way to mitigate my momentum, so though I wished to stay and continue the assault, I was launched through and past the staggering practitioner, landing several feet on his other side.
“Shit!” yelled Rachel suddenly, surprising me. “Cyrus, watch out!”
It took me a moment to realize what she meant, and I turned to see Keitel facing me once more, one half of his face covered in blood and ignoring the many decoys surrounding us. Behind him stood the barrels of a gun nearly as wide as I was tall, framed by the orange light of the titan it was attached to.
With a direct line of fire on the both of us, the multitude of heavy barrels fired, pumping the miasmically, enhanced scraps of metal towards us as quickly as possible. I cursed, dodging out of the way with a powerful step as the injured Keitel was eviscerated by the weapons fire. I glanced back, checking to make sure he was dead before I returned my attention to the titan. During the entirety of our fight, the man had only spoken a single word.
“Damn it. I thought you were going to interfere with what it could see!” I shouted, carefully keeping out of the line of fire. Rachel grumbled in response.
“She’s interfering, obviously. But there’s good news! I’ve found her location!”
“Good,” I replied, speaking tersely as I dodged another sweeping hail of bullets. “Send the others, and make sure she dies.” Behind the projectiles, I could see the swift approach of one of the machine’s limbs, and my skin involuntarily paled as my mind raced to come up with a solution. I fueled the storm in my heart, feeling it expand, raging harder and harder as my body filled to its limit and beyond with formless miasma, a blue mist beginning to emanate from my body’s pores.
“Well, they’re currently dealing with a… situation of their own,” said Rachel. The way she spoke implied that there was something humorous about the ‘situation’,
I didn’t bother to respond, as I had my own problems to deal with. I eyed the gap, deciding that it was well within my capabilities, and leapt upwards, planting one foot across the railing as I strode further, clearing the yards with a practiced motion and diving into the pungent orange fog that roiled above the titan’s metal skin. For a long moment I was suspended in midair, an abyss beneath me and an untrustworthy shifting machine in front, but I swiftly collided with the surface of the machine’s limb, regaining my footing and swiftly returning to a sprint.
“…I suppose Karie might be able to handle it,” said Rachel, her words barely registering to my distracted senses. “I’ll send Irid. Try not to die, Cyrus.”
With that said, she left me alone, grasping for purchase on the rutted surface of the slick metal plates that composed the titan’s appendage. I had trained in my movement for decades, and could easily preserve my balance while sprinting over slick mud. Compared to the trials my master had put me through, the shifting mass of bronze and steel was only a bit more difficult. I sprinted up the limb, still having to dodge the shifting paths of the bullets as they traced lines across the sky, and placed fist sized divots in the metal edges of the stack.
The bullets of the titan were much larger than those of an enforcer, and I knew that if they could tear someone like Keitel apart, I could have no chance to survive if I were hit. But due to its size, its angles of fire were limited, and perhaps its greatest weapon was the pressure of the thick flickering clouds which burned away at my robes and hair, searing my flesh with boils and tumors. Of all the miasmas, flickering felt the most like the powers of chaos, and I couldn’t help but imagine how horrid the Celan homeworld must have been, to be filled with such toxic energy. It was no wonder they had needed to adapt in such a manner.
I wondered whether anyone had ever scaled a titan in this manner before. The footing was poor, and I needed to move with great speed and agility to avoid the sweeping fields of fire, all while the energies raged upon me. I felt like a small insect biting at a grazing animal, unable to achieve anything of importance. Perhaps, had I a better weapon, but this sword of mine was already showing wear from its few collisions with Keitel’s genesis infused body. As a spirit refiner, I had more than enough strength to tear into the powerful armor of the titan, but I did not believe my sword would be able to handle it, not when shrouded in this entropic mist. Given the enormous size of the machine, I imagined little would result from the attempt before I started needing to use my fists.
So this was what they called the immortal level, I thought. Truly, it was a step beyond. I finally crested the rise where the titan’s limbs met its central body, where I found nothing except guns and exhaust ports for torrents of miasma. If I didn’t know better, I would have assumed the machine must have been fueled by a lesion to produce this much miasma.
In the moment where I stood atop the vast metallic beast, I saw a flash of purple in the distance, and all of a sudden the structure within me shuddered, emitting pained groans and tilting to the side, much of the metallic structure warped. I did not need to guess as to what had happened, as a vibrant field of purple pushed against the orange smoke, and an enormous steel lotus began to blossom from the titan’s side. Standing on the flower’s stamen was an old sei with a long, thin beard, a gnarled wooden staff held in one hand. He wore finely crafted green robes with golden trim, indicative of a very high position in the Hadal Clan. I knew who this was, having seen his image in the information I had looked over from the last war between the two factions. This was the Hadal Clan’s Supreme Elder and strongest member, Earthly Immortal Du Qin Hadal. His golden eyes glanced over to me and met my gaze. Involuntarily, I felt a shiver of fear ripple down my spine.
Pugilists: [Pugilists, historically, have often been considered as fools or idiots. The entrance of the Seiyal into the galactic era only exacerbated this idea, as great innovations in weapons technology have resulted, leaving many to feel that the pugilist is the way of the past. Several of the stronger pugilist forces have finally moved on to the use of gauntlets for their arts. There are few techniques uniquely for pugilists, and in the modern era, the discipline is in most cases a matter of those who prefer their own fists to a separate weapon, and for that reason simply temper their bodies. It is said that the self proclaimed Martial God, one of the very few martial artists to successfully ascend to immortality, was once a practitioner of fist arts. His legend still inspires a great many to pursue this path, despite its downsides.]