61 (II)

Dragons (II)

“Still Water in position.”

“Grey Zone in position.”

“Liquid Serpent: My crossbows are loaded. Six shots. Six arms. More than enough to kill a Dragon-Knight.”

“Liquid, just say you’re in position next time,” Still Water grumbled.

“Ah, but where’s the fun in that?” Liquid replied with a sneering laugh.

“Shiv here, in position.” The Deathless stood atop a towering mushroom cap, staring in the direction Adam had indicated. He couldn’t really see the Lance with his own eyes, but with his mind connected to everyone else’s, he could still track the enemy. When Adam gave him the signal, he would find out just how hard a Dragon-Knight really was.

“Do you feel ready, Shiv?” Can Hu asked.

Shiv shrugged. “Sure. I don’t really think about that.”

“You don’t?” The Penitent sounded curious. “What do you think of?”

“Mostly… I don’t know… Cooking?”

“Cooking?” the automaton said, absolutely stunned. “You think of cooking before a fight?”

“Yeah, you know, I’m wondering what I can make with dragon flesh. I… You know. For the buffs.”

“I… that is… interesting.”

“Uh, I guess,” Shiv replied. “Listen, Can Hu, I don’t really fixate on the whole dying-danger-what-if-they’re-stronger-than-me crap. I like to think about how fights go beforehand. I like to prepare for them as best as I can. When the time comes, I just give myself to the violence. I go after the enemy however I can, whenever I can, whatever way I can. And until one of us drops, that’s the fight.”

“You are very determined. But I feel this method of thinking is somewhat simplistic.”

“Probably,” Shiv said. “That’s why I need to get in more fights, learn more. Probably need more training too, but hey. In the absence of having ample time, this is what we got.”

“I have some experience,” Can Hu replied. “Dragons—most primal dragons are reluctant predators despite being beasts of massive scale. Mana storms are their main source of food, and so they cling to their territory. As such, the best method against them is to hit them with a tungsten-tipped two-stage mini-nuclear munition launched out from a railcannon by someone with a Master-Tier Gun Proficiency Skill.”

“Sounds… impressive,” Shiv said. “Not sure what most of that meant, though.”

“I will explain to you the full spectrum of old world weapons in time. If we survive.”

“Alright,” Shiv said. “I think I’m gonna focus on breaking their necks if I can for now.”

“That will be difficult. Dragons have rather flexible necks. Their shoulders and chests, however, can suffer joint damage when exposed to sufficient strain.”

“Huh. I’ll keep that in mind. Anything else?”

“Control their bodies if you can. Their center mass affects their flight.”

“See, that’s great, Can Hu. I think we’re already working well together.”

“You may update this assessment once we are engaged in active combat.”

A whistling gust of wind rushed over Shiv. The air sang in shrill notes, and below the slightly glowing leaves, the surrounding vegetation waved. Somewhere in the vast darkness, the Shadow Cells were waiting. High above, Uva lingered with the Jealousy fully unleashed, with Adam not too far away. Everything was calm. Just for this moment.

The Abyss felt like a place of perpetual night, but also of a gentle peace at times. It wasn’t nearly the pit of nightmares the Republic portrayed it as. Sure, it was dangerous, but Shiv kind of liked looking into the dark. There was a meditative quality to it.

Can Hu hummed a murmur of satisfaction. “This is my favorite time, a final moment of calm before the fight. I wonder if it’s the System allowing one to savor a final sip of peace, a final inhale of air.”

“Or maybe the first,” Shiv said. “I don’t remember breathing very much before a fight, but I remember every heartbeat, every blow exchanged during.”

“Ah. I should be more like you in that sense. I suffer the past. You enjoy the present.”

“Nah,” Shiv replied. “I prefer you the way you are so far. I need people with perspective. Don’t think the world would survive a bunch of bastards like me just breaking shit.”

“Shiv,” Uva said, her voice echoing through the impenetrable darkness above. “Get ready.”

The wind suddenly stopped, and with it, the peace perished.

Adam’s call came a second thereafter. “Shiv! Now! They’re approaching! Discharge now!”

“A pity,” Can Hu said. “I didn’t quite manage to finish composing a poem. I wanted to make this moment… poignant.”

Shiv laughed as he slammed a fist into himself and drank one final sip of momentum. The world lurched to a near-halt. “You can finish the poem after we get out of this.”

“You are so certain there is an after,” Can Hu replied.

“Yeah, I am, and I’ll show you why I believe that.”

Shiv discharged his Momentum Core.

The top of the mushroom cap ceased to be. A pocket of destruction opened up within the fungal forest, and Shiv accelerated himself further using his gravitic field. The sound barrier shattered against him.

He felt Can Hu shuddering, but the automaton reassured him mid-flight: “No damage, just adjusting to the pressures.” And to his surprise, Can Hu laughed. “Flying again. Flying fast… I am… I am a chassis once more. Thank you…”

Shiv cut across the sky, moving faster than he ever had before, and faster still as he pulled ever harder on his gravitic field. Gravitic Wrestler was a wonderful skill when paired with Momentum Core. It was—

A shape tore out from an empty patch of space. The mirage hiding the rogue Lance vanished as twelve dragons of the same humanoid stature as Sir Marikos exploded into action. The first among them shot towards Shiv. It wasn’t nearly as big as the Jealousy—perhaps thirty to forty meters tall—but it was still a massive being next to an ordinary human.

It also closed on him faster than he closed on it.

Shiv’s eyes widened in surprise.

The dragon had higher Reflexes—not substantially higher, but higher nonetheless. He could see the weaponry it bore: a massive polehammer coated with a raging whirlwind. The dragon itself had long-flowing wind chimes connected to its pale-white armor, and its scales were the color of a stormy sky.

“Engaging,” Shiv declared.

“Intercepting!” the dragon bellowed at the same time.

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Then, they collided, and a cataclysm followed.

The dragon brought down its hammer. The force of a descending hurricane crashed against Shiv, only for him to catch it with his Gravitic Wrestler and wrench it aside. It took considerable effort, but he managed to divert the dragon’s blow. And just then, with that act alone, another one of his skills went into Adept-Tier.

Skill Evolution: Parry (Initiate) > Frictionless Vector (Adept)

Frictionless Vector > 51

Suddenly, Shiv felt the dragon’s blow jerk violently off course—as if the world lost all friction. The dragon twisted off to the side, but rather than being pulled along by the violent tug of its hammer, it released the weapon and spun in the air, lashing out with a bladed tail almost the length of its entire body to strike at Shiv. He caught the tail too—only for him to be impacted by a colossal blast of magical force from behind before he could do anything.

Shiv was knocked back momentarily before he drained momentum from the hit and stabilized himself with his gravitic field. He struck the spell with his Magebreaker, and a flash of brilliant multicolored mana broke.

A few hundred meters away, the other dragons were impacted by spells and attacks from all sides, drowning them in a maelstrom of chaos. But before they were swallowed, Shiv saw the dragon that had hit him with the spell—saw their radiant spear and how the knight held up a finger and summoned a protective dome around the rest of the Lance in the last moment.

“Dynamancer,” Can Hu said. It then revealed another benefit he possessed that most Master-Tier armors didn’t. Can Hu highlighted the new enemy and designated them, marking them based on their presumed role in the Lance.

Then, a flash of lightning called Shiv back to the blue-scaled dragon. It soared through the air, its wings like massive slabs of sapphire shrouded by raging wind. It summoned its hammer back to its hand with a crash of lightning and swung fast—almost faster than Shiv could react.

He barely managed to stop the hammer this time; the blow shook him, making him groan as his Gravitic Wrestler strained under the dragon’s might. His Adamantine Adaption triggered, and his bones withstood the impact without fracturing, albeit barely. The dragon groaned as it strained itself too, surprised that it was struggling against a foe so small.

“Master-Tier!” the dragon yelled. “Master-Tier! Ambush! Clear the zone!”

But though it resembled a monster with its draconic features, it was a knight. And knights fought with skill—and allies.

Instead of wrestling with Shiv, the dragon dismissed its hammer into a blast of lightning that blinded Shiv.

And that stopped him from seeing the other dragon, which scored a deep cut through his left rib. He barely stopped himself from being driven into the ground far below from the force of the strike with his gravitic field, but a stroke of pain tore through him as a blade so thin and fine it seemed to disappear at an angle slipped through his bone armor and bounced off his actual rib. Shiv roared in rage and pain as he clawed out blind—but caught nothing.

“Armor breached!” Can Hu yelled.

Shiv didn’t see who or what hit him. All he knew was that something slashed fast and strong enough to split adamantine. Valor wasn’t lying. These foes were of a different caliber altogether. And Shiv loved it.

“Come on,” Shiv said, slamming his hands together. His gravitic field magnified the force of his blow, and the shockwave made the hammer-wielding storm dragon flinch. Before the dragon could recover, Shiv launched himself into its chest and dented the large beast’s brigandine with a sky-shaking knee.

As they grappled against each other, the dragon struggled, and to Shiv’s delight, he discovered his adversary’s Physicality to be lacking. Shiv recalled Can Hu’s advice and took control of the dragon’s body. It pushed against him, but he drove a blow into its neck and twisted it off balance as it choked. Then, Shiv secured a lock around the dragon’s left shoulder. He twisted the joint. A pop sounded. The dragon cried out, but it managed to stop him from breaking the limb entirely.

It wasn’t that much weaker than him.

Just then, an arrow zipped by Shiv and hit something behind him. He heard a loud crash as a massive blade skidded off the projectile and barely missed his head. Adam, Shiv realized.

“Shiv! Momentum Core! Get into the Lance! Never mind that one! Uva will get him!” The Young Lord’s mind was stressed. He was firing as much as he could, but—Shiv caught a glance of the battlefield from Adam’s perspective, and he saw the full scope of the situation. The dragons were launching their own spells and skills back, and with every attack, entire kilometers of space vanished within tides of ruinous mana.

“Right! Got it!”

Shiv then pulled the dragon’s limb instead. He couldn’t break its limb in time, but he could dislocate it. A crack sounded through the air and the dragon howled in pain. Shiv slammed the hardest left hook he could muster across the dragon’s head and drank the momentum. His core filled. He prepared to—

“Incoming!” Can Hu warned.

Shiv reacted on instinct. He parried with his gravitic field, and his Momentum Core kept him ahead—only barely. A lightning-infused arrow slid off from his hand and tore a massive gouge through the rivers and plants behind him. It kept going for a few hundred meters, and by the end, more than a few trees were ablaze.

Momentum Core > 80

Frictionless Vector > 52

More attacks came. They crashed into Shiv, but he ignored them—choosing to slam his fists together. His core built. Time slowed. Shiv discharged into the hellstorm of suppressive spells keeping the dragons in place. His Biomancy reached out and crashed against three different bodies. He could feel them—their magical defenses weren’t as strong as the Jealousy, but there was a Biomancer with them. But where were the Aviary agents? And why were there only three—

A sudden pulse of pressure washed over Shiv from the right. Teleportation. He tried to turn—but he got hit by something faster than even he could perceive.

For the first time in his life, Shiv experienced what it was like to be on the receiving end of someone else’s Momentum Core—while he was mid-discharge, no less.

To call the hit hard didn’t do it justice. He felt one of his lungs pop and all of his ribs shatter. He tried holding himself in place with his gravitic field, but he wasn’t strong enough to stop himself. Not immediately. He crashed down through the earth, cleaving the land in twain, blasting through rivers and smashing through trees. He kept going, twisting and turning, over and over—the world spinning around him—until finally he found his bearings and forced himself to stop with a final burst of his gravity field.

As he finally came to a stop, Shiv tried to rise, only to rip his outer helmet off as he threw up a small ocean of blood. The world spun. The idea of collapsing onto the nice, soft mud and just lying there for a while seemed great. But he could hear Can Hu calling for him. He could hear Uva and Adam screaming across the link.

“DECOY! DECOY!” Adam was howling—flying fast as he was being pursued. “THE OPTICAL ILLUSION WAS A DECOY! THEY’RE ON ME! THEY’RE ON ME! I SEE—Aviary! I have eyes on them! Everyone—on me! On me! They—” Adam’s thoughts cut off as an incredible spike of pain rushed through Uva’s psionic link, and then the Young Lord was screaming.

“Adam! Hold on!” Uva cried. Shiv could feel her shaping a spell. The shadowy sky above him shifted and danced as columns of fire came crashing down all across the wilderness. Then, the Trapdoor Operatives started crying out as well, declaring casualties and positions compromised.

Valor was there too. He was fighting. But the details were coming too fast… “Steel yourselves! Hold together! Do not break!”

There was so much detail coming from everywhere, but Shiv couldn’t focus. He realized why a second later. Concussion. Then, as he looked down, Shiv blinked in surprise. There was another wound he hadn’t noticed: his intestines were hanging out, and most of his chest was in ruins.

“Good hit,” he chuckled deliriously.

And he fed his Woundeater. A rush of crimson mana swept through his wounds, and a second later, Shiv rose to the clear sound of discord and most of his allies crying out for support.

“Shiv?” Can Hu asked. “Are you alright?”

“I will be once I break the felling bastard that just punted me. Where—” He turned and gawked at the massive trail of devastation he left. “Holy shit.” It was like a giant had dragged a plow across the world for kilometers, utterly ruining the land and leaving the ground fractured deep.

Can Hu gave him hard numbers to go with the visuals. “We were launched four kilometers away from where we began. Four kilometers in 33.25 seconds.”

“Damn,” Shiv grunted.

Adamantine Adaption > 108

Gravitic Wrestler > 110

He pulled one of his old bodies out from his cloak and transferred his wounds, but just as he prepared to leave, a spatial bubble expanded before him, and a new dragon emerged.

This one’s body shimmered like brilliant silver, and a rush of frost began to mist the very air. The Dragon-Knights also wore little more than a tight-fitting leather vest. And to Shiv’s surprise, the knight didn’t charge. It glided over the ground with the grace of a dancer as it flared its four frozen wings.

It was small for a dragon, maybe ten meters at full height. But it still towered over Shiv substantially. The weapon it bore didn’t fit its towering form. It held a gleaming kukri knife, its hue the color of broken moonlight. The dragon angled its long, serpentine neck as it regarded him, its eyes the glow of snow beneath sunlight. “Hm. Still alive. Adamantine Adaption. Very rare skill for a human. Woundeater—vampire skill… Strange. Very unique build. Grappler too.”

Shiv spat the last bit of blood from his mouth and snapped his helmet back on. “Yeah. And you’re the one that hit me just now?”

“Yes,” the dragon said. “You have Momentum Core too. Not your highest-leveled skill. It is mine, though.” Her voice was quick and thin, like the hissing sound of a blade through air. “I am Sir Tarlow,” she said. “My strongest skill is Momentum Core. I am a Master. And you are a unique adversary.” She took on a fighting stance then, extending her blade high while bringing an open claw low. Behind, her wings spewed cold like none Shiv had ever felt before. “It will be an honor to claim your life in proper battle.”

Shiv sneered at her through bloodied teeth. “Yeah. Let’s see you start trying. And make it quick. I got a friend I need to save.”

She hummed. “Good. This will be memorable.”

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