Standing shoulder to shoulder with their weapons drawn, Sen and Josh walked out onto a shallow hill facing the Naga. If necessary, Josh was ready to trash-talk the Naga into attacking them.
It wasn’t.
Nagal charged them at what must have been over 200 mph, leaving a trail of heat-crystalized sand behind him. When he’d first seen them, Nagal had started to slither slowly, like he was being drawn to them almost by some unseen force. Then, as if accepting some unheard command, he accelerated at speeds that made Josh and Sen glad they came with their swords drawn.
Cycling Essence to their legs, they split up. Josh charged straight at Nagal and activated the acceleration function of his sword with two hundred free Essence. Sen stepped back.
The Naga’s chest scales gleamed like a halogen searchlight that sent waves of heat so powerful they preceded his racing body. Josh was glad there was no time for him to develop second thoughts as he closed in on the terrifying eleven-foot juggernaut.
A twitch of Nagal’s lower body showed Josh that a pull back of his upper-arms into an attack position were a feint. The Naga’s primary attack was going to be a tail-slash bodycheck, intended to send Josh flying and shatter him in the process.
A small smile of gratitude curved the left side of Josh’s mouth. Despite being thrown into the Clan’s combat shark-tank for the last six weeks, he would have missed Nagal’s battle tells if Sen hadn’t prepared him to expect this exact tactic.
“Not just the Naga, but any initial charge of a serpentine enemy tends to open up combat with a tail swipe.” Sen had warned.
Thanks, brother was the only thought Josh had time for before he and Nagal collided.
For an eternal instant, Nagal loomed over Josh as the heat from his Fire Attunement singed Josh’s clothing and blistered the skin on his hands. For the briefest of instances, Josh could see the evil smile on the reptile’s face deepen in satisfaction, then his view was obstructed by its winding abdomen and tail that caused an ear-splitting pop when it broke the sound barrier, displacing itself through the space Josh was occupying.
At the last moment, Josh stopped the Essence he was cycling into his lower body and rerouted all his Essence into his upper body and arms. Without a missed beat, his Essence cycled there with the force of an atom smasher. At the same time he also released the Acceleration function of his sword. Holding nothing back to strengthen this strike.
More than just applying speed and strength to his attack, the visualization of his goals was a practice Josh considered necessary for success, particularly in the realm of Cultivation where such Intent was more than simply a base desire and actually contributed toward a result that humanity would have considered supernatural in his previous life. But he had used visualization even before his experience with Cultivation. Starting as a kid while training in the gym, and later as an adult practicing law in the courtroom. A person needed to picture all the steps necessary to achieve their goal and the desired ultimate outcome in as vivid detail as possible. This was particularly true if they were trying to perform a task they might need to do a few times before they expected to succeed. Something like skewering a deadly eleven-foot snake monster that wanted to crush them like a grape definitely qualified.
As Nagal’s rigid abdominal wall eclipsed the Naga’s leering face, Josh’s visualization skills had never had so much Intent behind them. Solely focused on thrusting the business end of his bastard sword into Nagal’s flank like an ice pick through a rotten tomato. Old-timey movies depicting the slow motion imagery of armor-piercing rounds that exploded red delicious apples into sauce went through Josh’s mind. He was going to gut the snake bastard like a fish and leave him flopping on the ground in a pool of lizard blood as his sword continued like a cruise missile out the other side.
Josh had one-thousand percent confidence in his success. Time slowed as the razor-sharp, thrusting tip of his bastard sword struck dead center on one of Nagal’s white belly scales—
And then his sword was ripped from his Essence-enhanced hands like an open umbrella in a hurricane. The high-pitched pinging of its densely-packed ferrous molecules rang nearly simultaneously through the entire chromatic scale and out of Josh’s audible perception as it disappeared into the distance. Sent pinwheeling into the sky.
Josh had thrown everything he had at the Naga. Even using the serpent’s own momentum against him. The result was little more than a scratch on the single scale he had struck. Time’s flow returned to true, and Josh had less than a millisecond to appreciate his failed effort.
Because it was Nagal’s turn.
Josh’s frame was crushed by Nagal’s sliding abdominal wall, and Josh’s body followed a similar trajectory that his sword had an instant before. His vision was filled with the rapidly spinning images of the amber sun and the pink and orange striations of the gas giant as his body was accelerated into an end-over-end- over-end spin an unknown number of times. To his addled brain, he was still accelerating when he hit the ground a kilometer away. A tidal wave of sand and gravel was sent up from a freshly formed oblong crater that Josh’s shattered body punctuated at its oblique end.
*****
The literal and figurative impact of that initial confrontation was so dramatic every onlooker was struck silent. Even Nagal stood still and took a moment to admire the rising of a mushroom-shaped dust cloud. Pebbles and larger rocks started to rain down from above as the Naga continued to arrogantly gawk at the show of his own power.
And it was this arrogance that foolishly gave Senyak the opening he was waiting for.
Sen had initially been opposed to Josh’s plan. Insisting that, as the better warrior, he should be the one to first confront the Naga.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Then Josh explained his reasoning and Sen had grudgingly accepted. “I’m better with the shields, Sen. It’s just a fact. This is going to come down to one of us playing the chew toy for this rabid dog. I’m the tasty one, brother—”
“But I’m better—”
“Yes! You are better. Better with weapons, defense, melee tactics, and surprise attacks. Which is why you need to be the one to slide in, get behind him, chop him into itsy bitsy pieces and bury him alive! And you better be quick about it. Even with the efficiency skill I won’t last more than twelve or fifteen seconds off the ground with my full shield activated if that’s how Nagal wants it to play it out. After that, I will have to start eating into the Essence already in my Core.”
~Nothing will stop me.~
~I know... That’s why this is the way it needs to be.~
Through their Bond, Sen knew Josh had gotten his full earth shield raised an instant before he was sent flying. Josh had then deactivated and reactivated it just before impact. Presently, Josh was still alive, but he was much less than lucid from all his fractures, ruptures, and concussed brain lobes. Silently, Sen sent a wave of gratitude for his brother’s skill and sacrifice. The exquisitely precise control Josh had affected had been essential to fooling the Naga. Such Attunement skill was, without question—beyond Sen’s and most likely any other singly or even doubly Attuned Cultivator’s abilities. If Nagal had seen Josh activate a shield skill, he would most likely have stayed alert and followed up after Josh impacted to smash through it... ultimately expunging him. But, by deceiving Nagal into thinking Josh was taken out like any singly Attuned Cultivator would have been, Josh’s charge had served as the distraction they hoped it would be.
Sen wasn’t totally detached from the emotional effect of what had just occurred, however. Seeing his Karmic brother savagely discarded and sent cartwheeling through the air had angered him more than he thought it would. Sen was more than ready to do some damage to this shit stain as Josh had titled him when they’d approached. Even so, it was not an emotionally compromised combatant that flashed behind the distracted Naga, but a warrior with the cold composure of an Immortal Combat Specialist. He would only get one chance to start this fight. To succeed, there could be no errors.
Nagal was truly a fearsome opponent, of that, there was no question. Fire Attunement was almost universally feared as a peak offensive weapon and finding an enemy with it so early in Spherical Cultivation was daunting. Nagal’s opponents would have invariably lacked the ability to protect themselves from his attacks. Because of its destructive capability and the general lack of an effective counter so early upon the Path, outcomes would likely have always been heavily slanted in his favor. This was further complicated by Nagas as a species having renowned innate superior defensive capabilities predicated on the strength and resilience of their scales to slashing and piercing weapons. Once Earth Attunement was added to that already considerable defensive capability, a Naga’s scales effectively encased them in a flexible armor that rivaled any defensive plating or skills up to two Attunements higher in Spherical Cultivation. In Nagal’s case, it was adding the benefits of a second Attunement on top of that. Defeating the creature through his scales was an insurmountable problem. The defense was so good that many Naga had no need to learn to express their Earthen shield until close to their Tetrahedral advancement. This was likely the case for Nagal, given his early double-Attunement. He simply had no need of such a capability. Even without the shield, there was little hope of getting through Nagal’s scales. Sen had no more hope of cutting or piercing Nagal’s scales than Josh had...
But... and this was a big but...
Going between the scales... that was another matter entirely. You just had to know where.
Less than a tenth of a second after Josh made first contact with Nagal, Sen had moved from his position behind the low hill and gotten behind the pride-gawking Naga, still basking in the devastation of removing Josh from the field. Sen had no trouble spotting the joining of two intersecting gaps in Nagal’s scales. Very subtle, but obvious enough if you knew what you were looking for. Just as linked armor had to leave tiny gaps at limb joints in order to enable its wearers adequate freedom of movement, so too did a Naga’s scales where they grew together from different directions. For instance, the small area between the crest of his upper-left shoulder and arm.
Absolutely committed to his attack, Sen activated the Acceleration skill of his sword and struck true with complete enhancement to his upper body. Acceleration made the sword feel weightless, generating a high-pitched whistling as it sliced through molecules in the air, creating a vacuum that pulled it to Nagal faster than Sen could move it on his own.
It would be wrong to say that Nagal hadn’t sensed Senyak’s appearance and attack until it was entirely over, but by the time the distracted Naga became aware and pivoted with his two right arms swinging simultaneously high and low—it was far too late to make a difference.
Sen’s sword had already sliced through flesh and cartilage.
Nagal’s top left arm was falling to the ground, blue-green arterial spray pumped, and Sen back-flipped and rotated between the serpent’s arms to land downhill and away.
Seeing his blood spraying in a synchronous rhythm in time with his accelerated heart rate, a look of shock overcame Nagal’s reptilian features as he followed the stream of blood down toward his amputated arm still spasming on the ground and flexing its fist. A moment passed before he even had the presence of mind to start circulating Essence and stop the bleeding.
Sen grinned maliciously. Looking up from his three-point landing, he took advantage of this second gap that the Naga was kind enough to give him.
The combat specialist yelled up the hill, “Rollover and bite the pillow hard, you ugly bastard. . . we’re coming in dry!”
The insult’s colorful nature had come from Josh’s twisted childhood. Though it had been Sen who knew that an insult after such a grievous wound would give him a significant chance of multiplying his initial intimidation advantage for the following exchanges. Before being sent to the Mortal Realms, he would not have even considered needing such an advantage. But without a doubt, things had diverted greatly from his previous experiences as an Immortal.
The Clan’s runners, including Josh and Sen, stood no chance in a flat-out confrontation against Nagal’s increased strength, speed, resilience, and power. As they advanced alongside each other, however, Sen was learning and relearning the most important lessons of his early Immortal training.
The value of intimidation had been taught to Sen by his first battle instructors. And it was as lethal a weapon as any sword:
“One should appear weak when they are strong and strong when they are weak.”
Yet Sen had never listened to it, never meaningfully understood it until now. When he had the greatest of needs.
To be truthful, Sen was not sure Josh’s insinuation of forced anal sodomy would translate appropriately for the naga into galactic common. Even if it did, the naga might not be insulted... but the fury that took root on Nagal’s face showed it had worked... and very well at that!
Nagal cocked his head back and his chest scales amplified in luminescence to the point that Sen’s retinas would have been scarred blind if he had stared at them. Less than half a second later, a swath of land 120 degrees and one kilometer in depth from Nagal was covered in a smothering blanket of roiling red flames. Everything they touched was incinerated. The remaining trees and vegetation ignited, rapidly burnt to ash that was instantly carried away by the push of an enlarging gas cloud. Rocks burst into shrapnel as air pockets inside them superheated and exploded. Large shards melted to liquid, while smaller pieces combusted to their constituent gasses. The sandy ground under the flames melted into a glowing orange-glass slurry.
No singularly Attuned Cultivator could have survived Nagal’s opening conflagration. Even with an earth shield, it was questionable whether it would absorb the heat necessary for the user to endure the attack. Sen agreed with this line of thinking, which was why he hadn’t been standing where the flames erupted. As a singly Attuned warrior, Sen had no chance to dominate the naga with speed or strength. But... he could anticipate, with relative accuracy, especially the actions of a wounded and enraged opponent.
Part and parcel of using intimidation as a weapon was why one intimidated combatants. Angry, arrogant, and foolish opponents were inefficient fighters. In many cases, they were more predictable than skilled and well-controlled fighters. In all cases, they were more upfront in their attacks and less likely to hold back in reserve.
After Nagal had been wounded and insulted, Sen had predicted he would move to his ultimate weapon out of rage. In truth, he had thought it would take the Naga longer to propagate his skill. However, Sen was still able to get into motion before the naga released his flames by launching himself above Nagal’s head in a forward flip. He grazed Nagal’s left shoulder, landing behind him.
The Naga finished his flame attack and spun to face Sen with his three arms raised... instantly getting his left eye pierced through. A gout of blue-black blood and clear ichor splashed across his serpentine face as Sen flipped back out of melee range again.
Landing, Sen cocked one eye and looked quizzically up at the furious Naga. “You’re not very good at this, are you?”