“What the hell is going on?” I get the thought off even as I do my best to deploy the rest of my Skills.
Aura of Chivalry turns on, its effects slowing my opponent by fractions of a millisecond. But it costs me nothing, so I let it run. Vanguard of the Apocalypse gives me speed and strength, boosting me, as does the Haste spell I’ve already laced myself with. Vanguard drains my Stamina, which will take a beating under the stress of fighting. For more speed, I use Unstoppable Force as well, boosting my damage output and attributes even further.
Domain engages after that. It takes a while to fully trigger as the System extends who and what I am over the space I’m in. The Champion slows down noticeably when Domain does kick in, and my Penetration Shield glows and firms up, shards of ice and frost noticeable along its shell. The damage per second effect hammers him and the few monsters we pass, flames erupting from trees and plants while reinforcing my Penetration Shield.
The sky spins and blurs around me as we battle. I keep blocking, conjuring and dispersing my swords as I block his attacks, forcing him to dodge or take the cuts. Pink and purple vegetation burns, trees shatter, and we keep adding Skills.
Disengage Safeties triggers next, overriding the Hod’s output regulators. It gives me greater strength, speed, reaction times. When I swing and attack, cutting at the Champion, he’s forced back now, with all the accumulated boosts I have. I’m stronger, faster than him—briefly.
Then he triggers his own Skills. Passive effects that build upon his strength, that grow stronger the longer we fight, Skills that have limited durations. My advantage disappears. We’re equal to one another for now, even as Kasva takes damage from my Domain.
Our fight takes us farther away from Mikito and the psychic. We move at such speed that hills are destroyed, trees and vegetation flattened. Everywhere we pass, monsters are hurt, injured, and killed. I attempt to guide the fight to the edges of the island, to where his people attempt to surround us, to deal damage to them as well. Kasva blocks my attempts, punching me down, throwing me aside and guiding the fight with contemptuous ease.
We’re equal in attributes, but not in skill. Or Skills. He has decades of combat experience over me, training by the finest masters in the Galaxy, and an unimaginably large Credit pool to draw from. His strength builds with each moment, his attributes increasing the longer we fight. The gap between the two of us constantly increases.
Funnily enough, neither of us are bothering to Zone or Dimension Lock another. Even the planetary lock is of little use, bypassed on a short-range basis by myself and removed for the Champion. But neither of us is bothering to run.
I need to finish this fast before all the on-going Skill use drains my Mana and Stamina pools. With so many Skills turned on and with the use of my damage-eliciting Skills, my Mana Pool is draining at an alarming rate. I’m losing nearly three hundred Mana per minute just for my current Skill use, never mind Stamina drain or damage to myself.
Worse, he’s wielding an affinity. One he has a Greater Affinity for. It’s cold, or frost, or something along those lines. It’s making me slower, freezing muscles and tendons, locking up my limbs and organs and forcing me to injure myself with each movement. Unstoppable Force bleeds the edge off his attacks a little, but not enough. Each time he hits, he’s slipping past my Evolved Penetration Shielding and hurting me. Not much, but enough that his affinity takes hold as it slips past even the physical containment of the Hod.
Perhaps I could fight it back, use my own affinity on it. But I don’t have time to experiment, not in the middle of the fight. Even as I block another attack, he’s shoving his arm right through my blades, shedding blood and skin in an attempt to grab me.
I pull back, dropping my sword and snatching it as it reappears in my other hand, shifting angles so that he’s forced to impale himself on it. Kasva does, the blade bending around his reinforced armor a little even as blood drips.
A surge of power shoots a Blade Strike out from the tip of the blade, firing from the point of the weapon into his open wound. It burns Kasva, crisping his flesh and muscle before tearing a new orifice in his body.
Then Kasva hits me, his hand wrapping around the edge of the Hod’s armor. Grey metal groans and tears as he twists, throwing me through the air before I impact the edge of a hill. The angle is sufficient that I tear a deep furrow before skipping off into the sky, legs aching and numb. As I crest above the hill, Kasva is chasing me on foot, already at the top, ready to punch me again.
Abyssal Chains trigger, forming from around the hill and reaching upward. He flinches a little, thinking the black chains are meant for him. But they’re too low-powered to slow him. Instead, I wrap myself in the chains, change the arc of my flight, and dodge him even as I conjure and layer the air between us with weapons.
Kasva turns, searching for me, scaled armor sparking as it batters aside my swords. Blade Strikes tear into his back as I angle myself over his body, and as I land and spin around, Beacon of the Angels strikes down on his charging form.
Another moment to focus as I trigger another Skill. I have him held, for a brief moment, as he hunkers down around the blast of Beacon of the Angels. It’s enough time for more swords to form, for me to use Army of One.
I swing my hand down, the enhanced Intelligence and my control of the System making the once-elongated process of casting faster than ever. I admit, I’m surprised to find that true, but only in a very small corner of my mind.
Army of One hammers into the Champion. He blocks it on his arm, expending one of his enchanted items to form a spherical green shield of energy to tank the attack. It’s insufficient, given the amount of damage I can do, especially with Penetration.
Bright cracks form, then the energy dome shatters. White light pierces his shield, catching him on the arms, mutilating skin and muscle. Bones the color of brick are revealed as my attack breaches his defenses.
Kasva lands in a heap farther away from me, body smoking, the air shrieking as overheated air forms around us. As he stands, I can literally see flesh and muscle forming around his flesh. Healbot nanites, Skills, and enchantments all work in tandem to keep him on his feet. But he’s dazed, recovering.
Another time, I might have said something. Taunted him. Here, now, I just call upon my next Skill—Grand Cross. I spin the Skill, the formula together without thought, taking the brief moment to finish it.
A bright light, a column of energy. Small, no larger than the man I target. It crashes down, gravity and electromagnetic force and Mana. So much System Mana, focused on one small area.
It glows, growing brighter with each second. The flapping cloak, the emerald chest plate burn and melt beneath my attack. Kasva collapses onto his knees, forced down by the attack. The ground compresses in a circle around him, showing orange clay beneath. Light grows even brighter, cauterizing and crushing at the same moment.
So bright I can no longer see him.
Wind rushes outward, kicking at the Hod, threatening to knock me off my feet. The few remaining trees are knocked over as the kinetic energy of the attack disperses. The ground itself heaves and tosses, disturbing my balance.
And then, no more light. No more sound. The Skill ends.
When it’s gone, it leaves a crater centered around the Champion, eight feet deep, orange clay edging the crater. The wind moans, but there are no screams, no howls of anger.
And Kasva, still standing, still alive, grins at me as he floats out of the crater, burnt and damaged but alive.
“That all?”
***
I drop the majority of my Mana-intensive Skills, letting my Mana regeneration pick back up. Using all my Mana-intensive Skills means I’m close to tapped out, having spent over half my pool on my last three attacks.