Aries Floor 5, The Emperor’s Ascent - 11:06 AM

  “Boneshatter,” I cast before flying forward.

  The spell was meant to completely break a single bone that I could see. It had a relatively low Mental Point cost to activate since most of the targets for it were inside a living body and thus out of sight. Being a skeletal creature, It stood to reason that the Soul Shearer should have been susceptible to such a spell.

  When I tried to shatter the metacarpal bone in the thumb of his dominant hand as a test, however, it only managed to shake it and deal a small amount of damage. A thin crack appeared. It seemed as though I needed to damage it more first. Against skeletons and undead, it was a fine tool. Against a Reaper, it seemed my level only made it good for a distraction.

  His eyes flickered to the thumb in confusion, but he still managed to parry the thrust I leveled at his head. Instead of Constructing more hammers, I changed up my tactic and created boards instead. They were roughly the size of my upper torso and took up position behind him and to the sides. My aim was to deny him room to swing his shears, making it so his attacks would come at more predictable angles while I could hide my telekinetic attacks.

  Staying at the maximum range my weapon allowed, I threw the Golden Bowling Ball and set it ablaze once more. He decided to trade blows with me, stepping forward in the same instance. His Strength easily allowed his shears to push the Staff of Raphael, snaking around it to clip my arm through my armor. I managed to keep it from doing much more than slicing through the skin, but that was, unfortunately, enough to trigger one of his most threatening skills.

  <<<>>>

  [[Warning!]]

  Your soul is being sheared.

  Your maximum hit points and Mental Points have been lowered. They will return to normal over time.

  <<<>>>

  The pain spreading through my body felt far more visceral than a cut like that should have, and I grit my teeth. At the moment it didn’t do anything as I was still afflicted with the Mark of the Reaper, but it was going to be a pain in the ass after I won.

  Soul damage was an absolute terror. It could only be healed with time, and it made you feel weak until it was gone. A cut on this level wasn’t going to bring me down more than a few points, but this phase of the fight had only just started.

  My Golden Bowling Ball impacted with the Soul Shearer’s rib cage. Two of them fractured and scorched, and I doubled down by delivering a Push-powered strike with the Staff of Raphael when he tried to move back to a neutral position. The sound of the collision loudly cracked through the fields.

  The Soul Shearer attempted to move out of the way, but his options were limited by my Constructs and weapons. Even slowed, they were great for area denial. My Golden Bowling Ball flew in again from below, slamming into his ribs and cracking more of them.

  “Boneshatter,” I tried again. Casting without calling out the spell was always possible, but I wanted him to be wary whenever I opened my mouth to say something. Really get inside his head.

  This time, the most damaged one exploded into fine dust. The Soul Shearer recoiled, but planted his feet and lunged. My Constructed boards did hinder his movements, but he worked around them with expertise. The shears, which he wielded like a glaive, spun quickly around him in tight arcs.

  The damn boss started bouncing it off of my boards to get his weapon into the positions he wanted, showing a level of skill and creativity that I wasn’t used to fighting. I was forced onto the defensive as I took a couple more shallow cuts before settling into the new tempo.

  While I trusted the Staff of Raphael to hold up as an Archangel’s item, I didn’t block any blows head on. The moment our weapons stopped, I knew we would end up trading blows again and that could only end poorly for me. So I instead parried the shears, angling them away from me.

  The countdown in my head told me that my Force Field was back up and Shield should be as well. My skull was pounding, but I couldn’t tell if that was because of the state of my soul or my Mental Points having run out. Probably both, but it was pushed aside so I could focus on the fight.

  One of his cuts quickly transitioned into a thrust, and I spun away in an attempt to get behind one of the boards. His thrust changed into a cut, and I flew backwards a step as my Construct was sliced in half. The act made him overextend, and I brought the other two boards around to sandwich his blade as I swung. He could strike me with the butt of the shafts, but that was it.

  Two strikes connected with his skull in quick succession before his weapon changed to black flame. It rematerialized with the blades on my side. That was something I hadn’t seen a Soul Shearer do before, but in hindsight it made sense.

  My wings flapped in unison. I went soaring straight up, trying to avoid the thrust, but he caught my leg. A long strip of armor, rosewood gold, and flesh fell to the ground, causing me to grit my teeth in pain from the attack. The damn shears were too sharp. Ostwriter’s Plot Armor was hard like steel despite being paper, and it was still being cut like it didn’t matter.

  <<<>>>

  [[Warning!]]

  Your soul is being sheared.

  Your maximum hit points and Mental Points have been lowered. They will return to normal over time.

  <<<>>>

  There was no time to stop as blood ran freely from my leg. I couldn’t heal it, so I wrapped it with a sock-like Construct. It wasn’t as good as actual skin, but it would stem the bleeding.

  Vermon’s Smash Stick smacked into the Soul Shearer’s leg while the khopesh hit his arm, but he barely registered either attack. His black flame aura slowed them down enough that they hardly qualified as annoyances now. Getting some more air so I was right over him, I Pulled them back to me along with the Vague Stick and returned them to my inventory.

  Then I dove, Pulling the Golden Bowling Ball that rested at his feet. He stepped backwards, raising his chin out of the way, and I snatched it out of the air. With my hand halfway down the Staff of Raphael’s shaft, I began thrusting.

  The Soul Shearer weaved back and forth, moving only steps at a time to avoid my strikes. My attacks would miss by an inch, and I’d use Orbit to shift it and tap him on the side of the head. These weren’t powerful enough to do any damage, there wasn’t enough time to build up force, but they made me feel better.

  Suddenly, the Reaper raised his shears straight up. I managed to interpose my Golden Bowling Ball, but I was forced higher into the air by the blow. He took a step like he was climbing stairs, and his foot didn’t fall back down to the ground. Being something as absurd as one of the personifications of death gave the creature many perks, and the ability to disregard gravity was one I had been waiting for him to decide to use.

  I Constructed a pair of boards in front of him again and used the cover to eject the Cable Conglomerate. A quick slash cut through them as though they were nothing more than flimsy pieces of cardboard, as I intended. His eyes widened in surprise when the wire rope caught his weapon, but he recovered quickly and tried to overextend the swing to get it away from me.

  His reaction came too late, however. It weaved its way between the shear’s twin shafts and started tying them together. While the Reaper hadn’t used his most powerful skill, I knew it was only a matter of time. This was my attempt to cut off his trump card before he became annoyed or desperate enough to use it. If he couldn’t open the shears, then it couldn’t be activated.

  Tying the Cable Conglomerate off, I snipped it before the Soul Shearer could use it to pull me down. He attempted to open his weapon, but could not. While he was distracted, I threw my Golden Bowling Ball again with Drop to speed it up.

  “Boneshake,” I said as he started dodging without looking.

  While not as destructive as Boneshatter, this spell caused the entire skeletal being of the Soul Shearer to vibrate uncontrollably. It lasted for a split second, but it was still enough time for me to course correct.

  My flaming bowling ball struck the side of the Reaper’s head, denting its skull and scorching the parts of it that it hit before glancing off. I gave it a critical eye for a moment, wondering if I should spend what was certainly my hard earned points on a Boneshatter, but decided against it. The rest of the skull was still mostly intact, with the only other cracks being from my first attack.

  For the first time in the fight, I got a malicious feeling from the way the Soul Shearer was looking at me. Like things had gone too far now, and that needed to be corrected. Without having to step in the air, he lunged upwards towards me.

  His speed increased, and I barely managed to push his shears away. He spun instead, catching me in the side with his foot. Bony toes pierced my armor, but I managed to put up Shield just in time. I focused completely on the Reaper as his attacks came more recklessly.

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  In no time, Shield was destroyed and back on cooldown. The sound of metal on wood sang through the scattered groves as I was pushed higher and higher into the sky, doing all I could to block with my staff. I Pulled my Golden Bowling Ball back up to me with the intent to catch him in the back again, but he avoided it easily.

  I didn’t allow any large cuts like the one he managed to get on my leg, but the small ones were adding up. My attacks were connecting more solidly, but he allowed big blows in exchange for the tiniest of cuts.

  <<<>>>

  [[Warning!]]

  Your soul is being sheared.

  Your soul is being sheared.

  Your soul is being sheared.

  <<<>>>

  Cracks were beginning to form all over the Soul Shearer’s body, but despite his recklessness he wasn’t getting struck in the same place over and over again. I would have loved to do so, and even aimed for it. My Staff of Raphael lashed out at his arms, legs, and especially his hands, in the hopes that they could be Boneshattered into dust.

  I aimed for the ribs, looking to break another one off from where I damaged him before, when I was caught off guard. The Soul Shearer shifted, his stance changing by inches, and the staff went through the hole with the missing rib. It knocked free another in the back, and it was suddenly through him.

  His hand was already in motion like he had planned the whole thing, and I knew he had. The Soul Shearer reached behind him and grabbed the end of the Staff of Raphael. When I attempted to pull it free, he prevented it.

  The shears came at me from the side, and I let go of my weapon to fly higher into the air. I maneuvered my Golden Bowling Ball in the way of the blow. The black flames reappeared, passing through my spherical shield. I was prepared for it this time, but the way the Soul Shearer jerked forward unnaturally meant that he still caught me.

  I was cut through the chest from one side to another. If I hadn’t anticipated something like that, then it certainly would have cut me in two. The wound was deep, but it wasn’t enough to kill me.

  It was, I intuited, enough to get me close to death, which was exactly where I wanted to be.

  “One minute,” I coughed.

  The Soul Shearer tilted his head. He looked especially menacing with my blood splattered all over his white bones. “You expect me to give you a time out?”

  I didn’t dignify that with an answer as I activated two of my skills in tandem, Cheetah Sprint and Overclocked Body.

  <<<>>>

  [[Skill]]

  Cheetah Sprint

  For up to 60 seconds, double the speed of any forms of movement that you have. This skill has a cooldown of 12 hours.

  [[Skill]]

  Overclocked Body

  Remove the limitations of your body. When you activate this skill, double your Strength and Dexterity stats and lower your Constitution by half. This skill can be activated once per day for the same number of seconds as your altered Constitution stat. You gain the Extreme Dehydration debuff, taking 50% more fire damage, for the duration and for a number of minutes equal to the number of seconds Overclocked Body was in use afterwards.

  <<<>>>

  It wasn’t just my breath that I could see anymore. Steam started rising from my body thanks to the unnatural cold the Reaper had plunged the area into. I didn’t feel the Constitution hit from Overclocked Body nearly as bad as it wasn’t affecting my maximum hit points anymore. The strain I was feeling was immense, however. It felt like every move was tearing my body apart from the inside, sped up and enhanced as they were.

  I ignored that. My window was small, and there was work to be done.

  Thrusting my Golden Bowling Ball forward with all my might, the oversized sphere broke through the ribs of the Soul Shearer, and I started flying downwards. His flaming eyes widened in surprise as we crashed into the ground. I avoided the Staff of Raphael as it passed back through his ribcage, preventing it from striking me.

  He tried to rise up, but found that he couldn’t move the ball. Not being one of its authorized wielders already screwed him over once, and even as he twisted and turned, his ribs kept it over him. So he did the only reasonable thing he could.

  The Soul Shearer grabbed one side of his rib cage and, with his bones creaking in protest, broke off enough so that the ball had space to roll onto the ground.

  Then I was on him, and he was mounted and pinned. I ignored the staff beside me to Construct spiked knuckles around my armored hands. While he tried to remove my Golden Bowling Ball, I started laying into him.

  His skull was beaten up and cracked, but he didn’t try to block. Not at first. So long as he got free of the impossibly heavy, wretched gold orb, he’d get the chance to kill me. I could almost sense the wavering thoughts in his flaming eyes as his head was knocked left and right and then pounded into the ground.

  All the while, I was charging up my other trump card. I knew the Soul Shearer still had tricks up his sleeve, so I had to make this moment of vulnerability count. My next haymaker was delivered with so much power that I broke through my own Construct.

  “Fuck it,” I spat, Constructing another one.

  That got the Reaper’s attention, and he raised his arms to protect his face. I heard something snap behind me, and I could see through my aura that he broke off his own tibia, leaving it with a sharp point. With all the dexterity of some kind of monkey, the toes on the foot still attached to him wrapped around the new weapon and speared me.

  It didn’t go through my heart, but it got close and I Pushed it out of my body so it couldn’t deal more damage. I managed to react in a timely manner, but the damage was done.

  <<<>>>

  [[Warning!]]

  Your once-a-day passive, Heavenly Hero, has activated. You are invulnerable for 5 seconds, except from damage caused by Demonic sources, and you will regain 4% of your hit points per second during this time.

  <<<>>>

  One hit point. After these five seconds were up, I would only have one hit point. No more hits, no more healing. My own body would tear itself apart if I kept up with Overclocked and Cheetah Sprint.

  My skin regenerated so I wasn’t bleeding out anymore, but that was only a small mercy. Not something to rely on.

  So I opened my mouth, and the laser I was charging sprang forth like the judgment of God.

  <<<>>>

  [[Skill]]

  Dragon’s Breath

  Gather energy in your mouth and open it to unleash your fury. This skill allows you to convert Mental Points into pure elemental damage based on your stat total. As a Half-Angel, your breath weapon is infused with the Holy property. You may concentrate the beam of energy or cause it to widen, altering the damage output accordingly.

  Activating Dragon’s Breath takes 2 seconds and costs 180 Mental Points. Extended use of this skill drains 18 Mental Points per second.

  Notice: the Heavenly Hero passive decreases the cost of this skill by 10%. This deduction has already been factored into the description.

  <<<>>>

  The beam was narrowed and focused, only as large as the Soul Shearer’s head to deal as much damage as possible. For the first time, the boss screamed as its bony arms didn’t afford much protection. It threw its hands out, flexed his fingers like he was grasping something, and pulled them back in.

  All around, the black flame aura retracted to cover only us. Frost appeared all over the Soul Shearer, but I was burning too hot for the cold to freeze me. It was painful, sure, but not anymore than anything else I was going through right now.

  I placed my hands on the Reaper’s arms and my wings against his legs, pinning them down as I leaned in close. He was trapped, at least for the time being. My mouth was only a few inches from the tip of his snout, and he was beginning to disintegrate. Time moved in slow motion for me, partially because of my focus, partially because of the pain, and I watched and waited for the energy to erode it enough.

  2 seconds left. It was now or never. Without closing my mouth, I mentally activated the spell again.

  Boneshatter.

  The Soul Shearer’s skull, cracked and battered as it had become in these last few moments, exploded. Shards of it went flying everywhere, but Heavenly Hero kept me from taking the damage. Reapers certainly weren’t Demonic by any meaning of the word.

  I dropped Cheetah Sprint and Overclocked Body the moment the Mark of the Reaper disappeared. There wasn't much time, and I was left breathing heavily from everything I had gone through. The Reaper had one more trick up his sleeve. One more obstacle to overcome.

  Summoning one of Bethany's healing teas from my inventory, I drank it as quickly as I could, barely tasting it. My mouth was dry, and it soothed me. I wasn't sure how many hit points my maximum was at after being sheared so much, but I was out of time to check.

  The disembodied voice came from everywhere and nowhere all at once, ringing out through the Plains of Aries. “I pronounce your death, Anthony Franklin.”

  As it spoke, I activated Peacekeeper’s Will using Mental Points from the Medallion of the Warmind Uuska. Normally, I never included myself in my auras. There wasn’t really a need to. I didn’t need to feel despair on a whim, for instance, but I certainly needed to make myself calm.

  Fear suddenly permeated every inch of my body, and I felt my heartbeat speed up to dangerous levels. Closing my eyes tight, I wrapped my wings around me and focused on keeping Peacekeeper’s Will active to thwart the final act of a Reaper.

  The Proclamation of Death. A skill so powerful, it made you feel a fear of mortality so potent that it caused your heart to beat so fast that it ruptured, instantly killing its victim. The calming effect of Peacekeeper's Will and my own mental fortitude fought against the terror of the Proclamation. All I could hear was my heartbeat as it pounded like a drum far faster than a normal person could ever endure.

  But I wasn’t normal. I wasn’t some random guy from off the streets.

  I was Anthony Fucking Franklin.

  Death could not take me. He didn’t have the balls.

  My body, curled up into a protective ball and as stiff as a board, slowly started to relax. My heartbeat slowed. Not by much, but enough that I could tell that I had survived.

  The Soul Shearer had been thoroughly thwarted.

  I didn’t bother opening my eyes as I felt my body start to stitch itself back together. Without the boss, the Mark of the Reaper had left me, and I took a long, shuddering breath before losing consciousness.

  What to do with me after that was a Glaraphel problem, as far as I was concerned. I earned this rest.