This man was big. Or rather, tall. Unnaturally so. Unnervingly so.
Kali was frightfully large, but to someone willing to overlook the sheer discrepancy in size—or someone seeing him at quite a distance—he looked still looked normal. His proportions were natural, just writ large.
The same could not be said for the creature in front of Alarion. It wasn’t human, nor Steelborn or Godborn. Thoughtborn, perhaps. Or Systemborn. He’d have bet on the latter.
Dressed in a well-appointed three-piece suit, the man was seven feet tall but with shoulders just as Alarion’s. His arms and legs were long, reedy things that flopped with each movement a little too much for Alarion’s liking. Even the man’s head was too thin. It was as though someone had crafted bodyout of putty and then squeezed every bit until it was too long and too thin.
“Does my appear-ance bother you, Mar-tyr?” the creature asked. Its cadence and pronunciation were all wrong, with an unnatural emphasis on the wrong syllables. It moved its head in a swayback pattern, like a snake dancing to some unseen rhythm.
“Among other things,” Alarion admitted. “By order of the Auxilia, all of you are to surrender for questioning.”
He looked past the twisted man to the three cowering behind him. Middle-aged, balding, overweight, and forgettable. One of them had to be Centre, which made the creature in front of him the tall bodyguard.
At least they’d gotten that much right.
“I am af-raid-“
Alarion might have died then and there if he hadn’t had the foresight to activate his [Foresight] the second he saw the results of his [Observation] skill.
[Human (?) - UCL ???]
Strongest Equipped Item: Rank III. Ancient.
Expected Loot: Rank III. Ancient.
A weighted chain raced past Alarion’s shoulder, just ahead of its own sonic boom. The creature’s head tilted with annoyance, and it snapped a spindly finger against the chain to send the weight whipping to the right in a second, equally futile attempt to catch Alarion.
Weighted chains were an uncommon weapon, but they were part of the Vitrian military canon. ZEKE was no master, but he’d shown Alarion the basics during his training, and taught him the pitfals to avoid. That knowledge came in useful as Alarion parried the feeble counterattack and rushed in to punish his opponent for the clumsy follow-up.
Which was when the weighted chain abruptly reversed momentum in midair and struck him in the right shoulder.
“Clever Mar-tyr. Quick Mar-tyr,” the monster said with far too much glee as the weight slammed down into the ground three times in a row, always just one step behind Alarion. “This one is Or’Valde. Now, dead Mar-tyr.”
It made a dramatic motion with its arms as Alarion regained his footing, yanking the chain in its hands in two directions to send it spiraling around Alarion. Then, with a quick pull inward, the chain contracted, its bladed edges shrieking as the circle spun together at waist level.
The attack found only air as Alarion inverted his body with a teleport, spun in midair, and launched his Echo into the surprised creature’s right shoulder.
Its tangled chain retracted in an instant, then lashed out again, whirling around the knife in its shoulder, hoping to catch Alarion teleporting. This gave Alarion more than enough time to land properly in place and mockingly waggle Echo in front of its befuddled gaze.
The faux teleport trick was an old one, but the miniature copies were Kali’s contribution. Any old knife would do at a distance, but against a good opponent up close? Alarion couldn’t afford to be caught bluffing. The replicas—complete with an enchantment that duplicated Echo’s mana signature—made sure that he never would.
Granted, Alarion didn’t expect he’d actually hit the monster. He’d have thrown his fully loaded [Spell Storing Dagger] and ended the fight then and there if he thought Or’Valde wasn’t going to dodge.
How could something that fast fail to dodge a thrown knife? All offense, no defense?
“You really thought I would be that obvious?” Alarion asked.
The taunts were one of ZEKE’s suggestions. They were petty, even childish, but Alarion remembered ZEKE’s first lesson well enough to abuse it against such a strong foe. An angry opponent was a sloppy opponent.
“Pet-ee trick.“
“Fooled you.”
The snarl on its face was as much a warning as Alarion’s [Foresight] as the creature launched its next barrage.
This time, Alarion was ready.
The chain was a curious weapon for a bodyguard. While certainly competitive in a stand-up fight, its greatest strength lay in its opening salvos. It was fast, yes, and unpredictable too, but it was a poor weapon to block or parry with. Exactly what Alarion thought—all offense, no defense. An assassin’s weapon.
Alarion smacked the incoming chain out of the air as it raced for his head, then swatted it into the dirt as it tried to circle around him. He slammed his mace down toward it, but missed as the weapon skittered along the ground back toward its owner. The thin man caught it and spun the chain idly in one hand as he paced back and forth, sharp green eyes searching for an opening.
The whole exchange had taken only seconds, but it had confirmed some of Alarion’s critical assumptions.
Or’Valde’s chain was not a mundane weapon; that much was obvious. At first, his opponent had played it off as if it were, mimicking the physical motions required for his attacks, but later strikes had demonstrated its total disrespect for the laws of physics. It was more akin to the shards the Duke had used in its ‘all-range attack’, the weighted head able to move freely in three dimensions. But unlike those it was not fully independent.
The thin man’s movements weren’t entirely misdirection. They were somatic components; he wasn’t swinging the chain, but he did have to direct it.
Speed also seemed to be a factor. The weighted head could move quickly when in motion—even when abruptly changing direction—but Or’Valde had to fully retract it each time it came to a stop. If the tool could only redirect existing momentum, then the counter was to slow it down or stop it.
The question was, how.
Catching it was out of the question. Though his opponent could somehow manipulate it without injury, the chain had left jagged gaps in the stone when Or’Valde recovered it, and it had done much worse to Alarion’s subordinates. Tangling it around Echo’s blade or pinning it to the ground with Isha were better strategies, but they were ones that the bodyguard would expect.
It would be better to force an opening.
Alarion waited for the next wave of attacks, then slid in among them. He parried some and weaved around others. He surprised Or’Valde with the particle shield from his [Blackstone Bracer] and nearly ended the fight entirely after smashing Or’Valde’s chain through a nearby wall in a way that nearly trapped it.
Through all of it, Alarion kept pushing, forcing his opponent to retreat to his preferred distance.
Soon enough, Or’Valde ran out of ground to give. He could still escape, either by upping his pressure or circling around Alarion during their clashes. But he could do neither while protecting the men behind him.
When two fighters were so evenly matched, self-imposed handicaps were the first things to go. Alarion had already given up on the idea of intentionally taking Or’Valde alive. If it happened, splendid, but he was not holding out hope. He wasn’t even sure the cuffs or collar he carried could properly fit the creature.
For Or’Valde to keep pace, he had to abandon those under his protection. Or rather, the pretense that he was protecting them at all.
Alarion lunged, and Or’Valde leapt. His chain wrapped around a stone chimney on a nearby building and utterly shredded the stone as he pulled himself up and out of danger, leaving his comrades behind.
Alarion looked at the three men with disgust. One had collapsed in terror, another had soiled himself. All three fully expected to die in the next few seconds.
“Stay put,” he told them, turning to block Or’Valde’s next attack.
The three were dead before Alarion realized Or’Valde hadn’t aimed at him.
“Petty trick,” Alarion growled. “Those men didn’t have to die.”
“Fo-oled you,” the strange man mimicked.
Rather than risk moving his arms out of place, Alarion pulled mana to activate his Simu and said, “I have the bodyguard, but Centre is not here. It was a feint.”
“A ruse,” Or’Valde confirmed, dragging out the second word as he hopped back down to the street.
“I am going to kill you now,” Alarion said flatly, ignoring the quest notification for [Orphan’s Vow] as he threw Echo straight at Or’Valde’s head.
“Such Con-fi,” Or’Valde’s smug reply died in his throat as Alarion appeared in front of him. He wasn’t surprised that Alarion could do so, merely that the boy would be so suicidal, given that the weighted chain already poised to intercept the threat.
The weighted chain that missed.
It came close, to be sure. Close enough to have given Alarion a proper shave if he’d needed one, but a miss was a miss. Or’Valde twisted his arm to send the chain spiraling and Alarion moved with it, spinning like an acrobat before he flickered again, evading the trap and bringing Echo down on the bodyguard’s shoulder—the greatsword shearing through his right arm in an instant.
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The skill circuit Alarion had discovered between [Orphan’s Vow] and [Unraveller’s Sense] was absurdly powerful. Even though the sympathetic connection between Or’Valde and his weapon was far weaker than the uniformity between Kali and his fists, the circuit had still given him an almost omniscient insight into how Or’Valde would attack him. It had been a close call, closer than Alarion would have liked, but he’d threaded the needle and ended the fight in a single moment of clarity..
“Surrender,” Alarion told him as the seconds of precognition granted by the skill combination faded.
A moment later, Alarion was face down in the dirt and not quite certain how he’d gotten there.
You have been stunned for five seconds.
New Condition! Stunned — Moderate.
[Orphan’s Fortitude] has taken effect. The secondary effect of [Orphan’s Fortitude] has taken effect. The Tertiary effect of [Orphan’s Fortitude] has taken effect.
[Stunned — Moderate] has been resisted due to user’s VIT score. Condition has been fully resisted.
You are no longer stunned.
New Condition! Concussion – Major.
[Orphan’s Fortitude] has taken effect. The secondary effect of [Orphan’s Fortitude] has taken effect. The Tertiary effect of [Orphan’s Fortitude has taken effect.]
[Concussion — Major] has been resisted due to user’s VIT score. Condition reduced to [Concussion – Slight]
Alarion flickered in a random direction, [Dimensional Evasion] reconstructing the dent in the right side of his skull as it healed hundreds of HP in the blink of an eye. The rush of vital energy helped dull the pain, though the fact that he could even notice it spoke to how severe the injury was.
Fortunately, Or’Valde had made the same mistake as Alarion when he failed to finish the job. Alarion scampered out from a new wave of attacks and beat the monster’s chain into the dirt to buy space between them. Only once he was well outside of the other man’s effective reach did he spare a glance at his Status.
You have suffered major bludgeoning damage. HP -2137.
The critical strike had taken over half his HP. Even after accounting for the healing from [Dimensional Evasion] it was far and away the most damage he’d ever taken in a single hit in terms of total HP lost. And Or’Valde had done it with a sneak attack. And he’d done it without so much as a twitch of his hand.
So much for the idea that he needed to direct the chain.
Alarion’s only saving grace was that Or’Valde looked just as unnerved at Alarion’s survival. Understandably so. The Systemborn had done more damage, but Alarion could heal, while a missing limb was permanent.
“Empowered Mend Body,” Alarion said, supplementing the spell with a healing potion from the back of his bracer. He kept his eyes on Or’Valde, but the bodyguard seemed to be in no rush to resume the fight. Instead, he made the odd choice to stoop and retrieve his lost arm.
Which was when Alarion realized the severed arm was moving.
These weren’t the mindless twitches of a dying body with which Alarion was sadly familiar. Instead, the arm appeared to be worming along the ground and grasping for something. To his horror, Alarion saw the chain twitching as well, moving as best it could to follow the commands of the severed limb.
That was how it hit him. Alarion had been watching the wrong arm.
Or’Valde plucked his arm from the ground like it rabid animal. He fought with it, shaking it a few times until it stopped resisting him, then pressed it against the stump of his shoulder. There was a wet, slurping sound, then a shiver ran through the slim man’s body, and he seemed… more himself. Like there was light and sentience behind his eyes where it had been vacant moments earlier.
Sentience. And rage.
The chain streaked along the cobblestone as Or’Valde recovered it, then flew to meet Alarion as the young Auxilia tried and failed to close the gap. They clashed, the weighted head bouncing off Alarion’s weapons three times in quick succession as he intercepted it. It was moving faster than before, and at stranger angles. There was a System skill behind it on the next throw, the weight emitting a high-pitched whine as it tore through stone, wood, and metal with each deflection and near miss.
Or’Valde’s prowess was almost admirable. Quick, long-range, omnidirectional attacks were brutal enough by themselves. Pairing them with a boosting ability to massively increase their damage felt almost unfair. If he’d been able to sneak attack with the skill active, Alarion might not have survived.
Then again, if Or’Valde were human, he’d have bled out by now.
Alarion knew little of Systemborn, though not from lack of interest. While some legendary species, such as dragons, had their characteristics well documented, most Systemborn were rare and poorly studied. The thing before him might be part of a population of thousands, or it might be the only one of its kind.
Either way, its strengths and weaknesses were a mystery. It might have been born as such a creature, with its healing as a natural part of its biology, or it might have ranked up into this new form and gained skills atypical of its new kind. The only thing Alarion could count on was that the System was fair. Even unique skills that altered HP’s function could never make their users truly immortal.
Besides, Alarion had skills of his own left to use.
“Near and Far!” Alarion cried out, redoubling his defenses and neutering his opponent’s offense with a single phrase.
He should have used it earlier, but both Kali and ZEKE had cautioned him against going all out too early against anything but a truly overwhelming opponent. Not only did he risk wasting resources without understanding his opponent, but the System was replete with skills that could punish a fighter who attacked without thinking. A redirect skill, such as the one Dimov had struggled against, was dangerous by itself; going all out against one was just asking to die.
The only problem with their wisdom was that it was common.
“Haunt the Dah-rk,” Or’Valde countered.
Cold sweat blossomed on Alarion’s skin as the skill activated, and he felt a sudden spiritual lurch toward Or’Valde. Then darkness came with it—a wall of shadow almost as oppressive as the [Blackout Shrouds]—cut his visibility down to a few feet in any direction.
Alarion didn’t hesitate. He threw Echo as high as he could and dove to the side in the same moment, narrowly avoiding what had been intended as a kill shot. He flickered, threw his sword, and flickered again, timing his teleports just as randomly as his sightless throws in the hopes of buying time for a solution.
The Systemborn’s skill was sympathetic in nature, but the bond it had created was thicker and more complex than Alarion would have thought possible; nearly rivalling his connection with Nessa. Thankfully, it didn’t take long to get to the bottom of that mystery. Or’Valde had piggybacked on the bond created by [Near and Far], using Alarion’s own skill against him to strengthen the line of attack. Ending [Near and Far] wouldn’t break the link, nor could he sever it in any reasonable length of time using [Sympathetic Manipulation].
“Fatebound Curse!” Alarion shouted, strengthening the bond further as he tried to wrest control of it away from his opponent. A good idea in theory, a bad one in practice. Of the two of them, Or’Valde was the stronger sympathetic sorcerer and the one with the more specialized skill. Even with two skills and an advantage in Attributes working against him, Or’Valde retained control.
Alarion had only blinded himself further.
At least the damage went both ways. With Or’Valde embracing the link, the effects of both [Fatebound Curse] and [Near and Far] would be massively enhanced. It was cold comfort, but Or’Valde might now be the unluckiest man to ever live.
“This is Orphan. I am several blocks outside the Ikeda. South-east, I think. I need support. UCL 150 or above, anything else is fodder.” Alarion gasped as the weighted chain broke several of his ribs just as he teleported again. It was the fourth hit the bodyguard had landed, and his aim was getting better. “ZEKE, he blinded me.”
“Fully?” his tutor asked quickly before adding, “Can you flee?”
“I can barely tell which way is down.”
Alarion wasn’t above retreat—certainly not in a situation as dire as this—but Or’Valde would easily catch him on foot, while blindly throwing Echo ran the risk of slamming himself into the ground, or into a wall, if he aimed anywhere but nebulously ‘up’.
“ZEKE?”
“I’m thinking!” ZEKE complained. “Go down!”
Rather than try to figure out which way was down, Alarion dropped Echo and flickered. When he reappeared, he drew his remaining fake, swapped the two against his body, and let them fall again from opposite hands. He teleported and heard the satisfying ‘clang’ of Or’Valde’s wrong guess nearby.
Then he smashed through someone’s roof.
“Up,” ZEKE ordered. “Leave the mace, you don’t need it. First Rite, Full guard.”
“What?”
“Now!”
Alarion did as instructed, coughing through his own blood and a haze of plaster. Broken roof tiles and bits of furniture cracked underfoot as he sought a stable footing and brought Echo up in front of him, guard level with his navel, tip tilted slightly to the left.
“Okay. Now what?” he asked.
“Wait.”
“For wh-“
A wicked crack of wood answered his question as the weighted chain ripped through the side of the building, accompanied by ZEKE’s voice. “Three!”
The word was a trigger built into his body by hundreds of hours of repetition. It dated back to his very first lessons in the Vitrian Rite of Ambrosia, the style ZEKE had taught him before he’d decided one slab of steel wasn’t enough. The blade stroked upward and to the left, catching the incoming chain with a tremendous clang.
“Reverse!” ZEKE instructed, and Alarion obeyed, bringing the Greatsword down and driving the weight into a broken mess of floor tiles.
Alarion heard the weapon screech as it retracted, sawing a long, thin line through floor and wall before it burst through at a new angle.
“Six! Eight. Flourish! Advance! One!”
Though it lay at the heart of his [Pathforger’s Mastery], Alarion had long ago diverged from the Rite of Ambrosia. His fighting style was loose and free-flowing, focused on the needs of the here and now, rather than dogmatic adherence. He’d thought it an improvement, but it was more of a side-grade. What he’d gained in flexibility, he’d given up in sheer muscle memory. There had to be a middle ground, didn’t there?
“Four! Retreat! Hold.”
“What is he doing?”
“He is confused, I think,” ZEKE whispered. “A sympathetic skill that strong is going to be bleeding him dry. His MP will run out before your—Two!”
Alarion was too slow this time, or the skill was too fast. His blade caught the chain, sending it off course at the last moment, but even then, it shredded through the flesh and muscle of his right hip as it passed.
“Five! Three! It’s retreating.”
“He is going to throw every skill he has at me.” Alarion winced. “That last one was a drilling attack, right? The sort that’d pierce clean through me, right?”
“Alarion,” ZEKE warned, understanding at once.
“Do it. I just need one hit.”
For a moment, there was silence. Alarion twitched into motion when part of the wall fell away. Or’Valde was waiting for something. A cooldown, maybe. Or an opening. Alarion would have been happy to let him wait forever, but he heard the rattle of the chain an instant before ZEKE’s voice. “One!”
Alarion swept the blade down with every bit of speed he could, and missed completely.
Just as expected.
The spinning chain struck Alarion in the shoulder, just where ZEKE knew it would. It pierced clean through, just like Alarion knew it would.
And it ended the fight, just not quite how Or’Valde thought it would.
“Indomidable!” Alarion shouted, activating the new effect of his recently upgraded [Indomitable Resilience].
Once per day during a combat where HP has been reduced to negative values, user may activate this skill to become Indomitable for five seconds. Reduce all incoming damage by 95% while Indomitable.
Alarion dropped Echo and looped his arm and fist around the chain, gripping it tight. The razor-sharp chain carved through skin and muscle, then snapped taut as Or’Valde foolishly tried to retrieve it. The blades should have shredded his arm in an instant, but they strugled to dig throug supernaturally tough flesh.
Or’Valde had the stronger sympathetic skill; he might even have the higher UCL, but in terms of pure Attributes, particularly STR, Alarion heavily outclassed him. In a literal tug of war, he was as easy to throw around as Echo.
Or in this case, to pull.
“Now,” ZEKE said.
“Vahr-Syl!” Alarion shouted as he drove his fist into… something rather goopy, actually.
You have slain [??? – UCL 142]
Alarion’s vision snapped clear as the bond between the two of them severed—along with Or’Valde’s consciousness, right arm, and the upper and lower halves of its body.
[Orphan’s Fated Strike] had proven too dangerous for them to test after his first attempt, and Kali had warned him against using it until he could practice it against a few fiends, but the results spoke for themselves. Gore was splattered across the far side of the street, Or’Valde’s torso was embedded in the wall and non-existent from the ribcage down, his lower body nowhere in sight. If anything, it felt… excessive.
That was, until he checked his Status.
LUK: 509
He had invested roughly 500 points of luck when he’d used the attack on Kali. But had spent well over 3000 against Or’Valde. It was a wonder the body was in as good a condition as it was.
“That was… suitably gruesome,” ZEKE whispered.
“Mm,” Alarion agreed, in more ways than one. Just looking at the state of his arm was making him queasy. He mentally called up his Status, then frowned.
HP -602/4389
How was he still at negative HP? The damage should have shifted over to-
There was a loud crack, and the wall behind Alarion exploded in fire as a shot narrowly missed his head, though not by any action on his part.
Across the street, Or’Valde’s eyes were locked on Alarion, wide and deranged. Its remaining arm was extended, the palm blown away, revealing a bloody steel barrel. But it was the man who had stabbed Or’Valde that caught Alarion’s eye. Short, blonde, and clad in an impeccably pressed dress uniform, Alarion would have recognized Dimov even without the hand-shaped scar burned across his face.
“That makes two, I think.”