A smile crept at the corner of my mouth as I felt another clump of water mana rippling through my mana strings that extended out the other side of my small little droplet. I'd spent the majority of my time since Derrick and Lonni were blipped away for their Objective trying to create a new mana string entirely in an attempt to replicate Phanthu's. The goal was simple; make the water droplet I made from the passive water mana in the air larger. The thing is, I can only create two mana strings, both of which were needed in order to support the droplet.
It only occurred to me after a painful failure to create a third mana string knocked me out of meditation. My eyes shot open as I lunged forward, catching a glimpse of Lonni's flail extending over 8 feet up and bashing the skull of some little horned flying demon. His chain simply fed more links until it connected, then immediately retracted to its normal length. As I clutched my stomach, the pain dissolved, feeling an idea formulate.
See, if Lonni used his flail as I did my mana strings, he'd have to somehow create a second spiked ball and magical chain on the fly. Something that simply wouldn't be practical for a number of absurd reasons, with the absurd waste of mana that would require being one that stuck out to me. Creating a third mana string was just entirely too demanding for me right now, no doubt due in part to my relatively low Intelligence stat. But what if I just added to one already summoned and in use?
After taking a few minutes to accumulate enough mana to generate a water droplet, my mind relaxed as I focused on absorbing the passive mana circulating within my water droplet. As my thoughts settled, the little amount of energy absorbed within the droplet began twisting and rippling throughout my arms. Behind it, passive mana filled in the energy flowing into my body, creating a tight spiraling stream that orbited in the shape of my droplet.
The feeling was subtle, but isolated enough by sheer focus not to notice. Like I'd been given a small shot of caffeine directly into my bloodstream, only with a gentle, warming embrace accompanying it. A rush of excitement flooded my thoughts with ideas of actually implementing mana manipulation into my fighting style. Fantasies of creating water platforms to glide upon of my own flashed through my mind, knowing I'd be damn sure to utilize that mobility better than Phanthu's younger simulation had. As confidence in myself amplified, my focus on maintaining the spiraling stringy mana droplet quietly waned.
*bloop*
"Fuck!" I yelled, frustrated at my own goldfish-like memory.
"Agreed, they're not going to last long fighting spread so thin." Korbin replied, standing at the center of our cold, metallic waiting area and staring up at the projection of Lonni and Derrick playing on the window wall. Cassi glanced back as I began clambering to my feet in the back corner of the room, her concerned face dropping into a disapproving nod. No doubt she knew I hadn't been watching those two competing in the King Of The Pillars objective. It didn't start well, having spotted Derrick bolt ahead of Lonni as I settled down to practice mana manipulation. In truth, it hadn't been more than 15 minutes of prodding at my own abilities. Which makes Korbin's uncharacteristically dire tone all the more concerning.
"What? How the hell did they manage that?!" I said, pacing over to Korbin and Cassi. Looking up, Derrick was weakly fighting off some massive lipless demon that seriously needed to get some sun. Lonni, on the other hand, was surrounded by smaller, winged devils blasting him with fireballs. All the while, yet another huking pale demon was thrashing its insanely thick claws across Lonni's shield.
"Derrick decided he was going to create a choke point between their Pillar and the portal." Korbin replied, sounding more exasperated than annoyed.
"All by himself?! Did he forget when I tried to take on an entire army by myself in that Perunious-forsaken desert?" I asked, feeling an entirely new flavor of disappointment in Derrick's actions; recklessness.
"He wasn't even there. We still had him leveling his profession back in Elysium at that time." Cassi answered, tilting her head toward me without taking her eyes off the projection.
"Oh, right.." I said, recalling his absence that day. Come to think of it, Derrick missed most of our conquest thus far, though his ability to carry his weight had made his addition to our little captain squad rather seamless. Yet, he'd been fucking up left and right the past few days, and much moreso during this Quarterly Event…right?
"Why the fuck did Derrick start off so fucking hot? Sure, his toughness rises as his mana falls, but this objective is certainly going to last longer than one round. There's no reason to burn through all those resources right now." Cassi hissed through a furrowed brow.
"If memory serves me, he and Tom took especially long to get here-" Korbin replied, turning his head and body towards me before continuing.
"-you wouldn't have happened to give our favorite lithomancer some Tom-grade advice, did you?" Korbin asked, a knowing grin forming at the edges of his mouth. I sighed, realizing I might actually have something to do with this.
"Yeah, yeah I did. Told him he showed no effort, nor discipline." I regretfully answered, rubbing my forehead putting Derrick's newfound urgency into perspective.
"You told him to do this? Are you just tired of winning, or do you enjoy watching your friends die?" Cassi snapped, her angry contorted face immediately relaxing into a deep breath to recompose herself after.
"I never told him to abandon his teammate for the sake of winning the team objective. I just wanted him to give a shit a litt-" a bright flash momentarily consumed the screen, revealing Lonni's badly burned face and hands covered in wriggling flames.
"We'll discuss your objectively terrible advice later, because at least one of them aren't going to last longer. There's no way I'm letting them lose both lives and risk needing their skill set later either. We need their substitutes at the ready." Korbin exclaimed, pointing up at the projection.
"Send me, this kind of looks my speed." I said, touching my toes and pulling up my leg to limber up. Frankly, all I've seen in the few moments I've caught was a lot of killing and protecting. Both of which I'd spent the entire Tutorial doing, albeit outside of more traditional definitions of 'defense'.
"You realize if you lose a life, I'm sending someone with two into the last Objective in your place right?" Korbin warned, raising his eyebrows as he spoke. I froze in place for a beat, realizing I'd become a closer at best for not having an extra life as a safety net. Shrugging, my hand opened as I made a point of summoning my soulbound twinblade to me, rather than just walking back to the corner of the room and grabbing it.
"I'm not getting any quality mana manipulation training in with you two panicking over this shit anyways. To be honest, it's annoying." I replied through a grin. Korbin's face contorted into sheer fury as his lips began forming what I could only imagine to be a barrage of insults, when Cassi's loud gasp brought both our attention toward the projection. Lonni's facial features were severely warped by the thick, cone shaped claw protruding far out the back of his head. The hulking, pale skinned demon the claw belonged to lay beside him, with Derrick down on both knees beside him.
"Korbin, I'm going." I exclaimed, wincing my eyes and repeating the will to replace Lonni in my mind. After a few repetitions, a prompt popped up in my notifications titled 'Substitute Request'. I clicked onto the message immediately, finding a mere confirmation screen explaining the nature of a fucking substitution followed by a 'yes' or 'no' option.
Un-fucking-real Derrick just ACTUALLY got him killed.
As my anger and will's burning intensity aligned and I selected the 'yes' option, Korbin began to speak.
"Don't d-"
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"He's not moving! Go claim the Pillar, I got this!" A man's voice yelled, sprinting across the canyon from another pillar. Realizing he had to be speaking to someone, I peered over to my side spotting another fellow in thin white and grey cloth robes clutching a bow tightly as they beelined towards our pillar.
Doesn't matter, I need to wait for Lonni.
Closing my eyes, the image of Lonni's impaled face stained my eyelids, making me shudder. Of all people, Lonni has been the closest thing to a true friend I have left since the Integration. While our methods wildly differed from one another, his skill in his craft had always amazed me. Enough in fact to turn the rarity of our products into a competition. Something we'd started only a few days after he arrived at Elysium, when I stopped into his shop hoping to make a customer out of him.
See, crafting runes meant I could offer specialized products to further imbue whatever it's designed to attune with. An example would be Terra, who commissioned our shop to design a rune that would lower her cauldrons mana cost. Something we very much struggled with, however I managed to craft a rune from a myriad of stones and a LOT of time that reduced mana drain by 2%. A feat and rune type I'd later improve on, amidst Lonni and I's competition.
Yet, regardless of the progress I could attribute to Lonni, I managed to leave him behind in the heat of battle. To the point he was overwhelmed, fighting alone for his life. For what? To prove I'm willing to give a shit to…fucking Tom of all morally warped people? No, as much as I respect what he does and his uncomfortably refined skill set in killing, his opinion of my ethics mean little to me. The issue was, he wasn't wrong.
I hate shit I don't find myself picking up immediately. Fighting, defending, training, I've enjoyed none of it my entire life. I never had fun having to defend myself, and lifting weights sucked since gym class. Yet for some reason, I decided I'd carry Lonni and I across the finish line, and got him killed no more than 15 minutes in.
"I'm sorry buddy, please tell me you're almost b-"
*ZAP*
A blindingly bright blue flash ripped over my shoulder, blasting through the man charging across the canyon's thin metal chest plate. I sighed knowing that jagged bolt of lightning was unmistakable.
"Get up." Tom said from behind me, sprinting towards the pillar before I could get a word in. Peering up, the man adorning a mixture of metal armor and cloth rolled over onto his stomach, clutching at his chest. I must have zoned out for a while, because he was no more 12 feet away from me when Tom hit him. Slamming the pommel of my Halberd on the ground, I took a side-eyed glance down at Lonni's body, instead finding tan dirt and small rocks where he once lay.
"I owe you, big time." I said to the air, shakily pushing myself up to my feet. I'd depleted my stamina pretty badly fighting all those demons, and my mana nearly ran down to 0 finishing off that last Belpheili. Still, it was either I figured it out now or lose a life and risk pissing off Korbin more than I probably already have.
Before I could begin staggering over toward the mixed armored fighter who clambered to their feet as well, a chain wrapped around his neck from behind. The fighter flipped back onto his head, revealing Tom's cloaked figure standing over him before piercing both his blades into the prone fighter. He quickly ran back over to me, glancing at his sides apparently making sure he didn't get blindsided.
"Tom…I'm sor-" as I attempted apologizing for my brain dead plan to push the demons back before they could reach our Pillar, Tom's foot flew up from his long strides and froze right next to my ear. A gust of wind blew against my face, making my eye water before I flinched. Looking up, Tom stood there glaring at me, breathing heavily slowly while lowering his leg. Walking over to me, his twinblade dropped to the dirt before his hands clasped on both my shoulder plates. His nostrils twitched with rage, slowly fading alongside his breathing.
"…that's not what I meant." He said, in a shockingly calm tone. His palm slapped against my shoulder as he took a step back.
"Can you fight?" He asked, grabbing his twinblade from the ground sending a surge of lightning through its chains connecting the blades at the hilt.
"Maybe. I just need some time to build back my stamina, but I'm already feeling better." I said, realizing my legs weren't trembling so badly anymore.
"Okay, then we'll defend this pillar until you're fit to take a second one. Come on, before those guys come back." Tom replied, turning heels and jogging toward our pillar radiating through webbed cracks and etched designs with its foreign red energy. The same energy that continuously beamed into the crimson portal those fucking demons crawled out of. I laboriously paced behind Tom, slowly picking up pace as I felt my stamina regenerating.
As I turned the corner around the pillar, blood splattered from the mouth of a stranger as Tom smashed his head into the stone. His skull let out a dull crack, before Tom released his chains taut around his neck and allowed the stranger to drop to the ground with their spear and shield in hand.
"Watch our flank-" Tom began, stabbing both his blades into the prone stranger's neck and spine. A flash of static blue energy pulsated from the man's wounds before Tom continued.
"-no one came here alone." Realizing we may still have a chance at winning this Objective, even after letting my comrade die, my head whipped behind me in search of another challenger. If my efforts can't win us this objective, well, at this point I don't want to fucking hear it anymore. Tom might have the edge on me in terms of physical effort output, spending most of his free time training to be the best killing machine he can be.
Me? I'm the most talented and highly sought after Lithomancer in all of Elysium, equipped with the fucking Suspended Divination formula actively on my person. One who's still talented enough of a combatant to be assigned to the factions, and arguably earth's, most powerful individuals along their global conquest. Tom's Profession? He pets oversized fish using skills his god and buddy just threw at him. Who was he to tell me shit about effort?! About earning something?
A towering brute equipped with two fiery axes in each hand wearing only a dark metallic mask, leather pants and boots appeared at the corner of my vision. Apparently he's never heard of peripheral vision, currently attempting to blindside me from around the pillar. Taking a deep breath, I pretended not to notice the brute's slow, heavy steps creeping my way. My status had just appeared before my eyes when a sudden twitch of movement indicated he'd decided to finally strike.
Mana: 33/190
Colors bled away from reality itself, replaced by dark shapes amidst blinding bright violet lights. The towering dark outline of the brute flew through my body before the full spectrum of color and detail washed over my vision. The brute stumbled forward, whipping around for a reckless leaping attack.
*THUNK*
My pommel smashed into the brutes masked skull, momentarily stunning my towering opponent as he stumbled back a step. A moment was all the time I needed to steal Tom's little shuffle step technique beside the brute, piercing my axehead deep into his bare stomach. As I glanced up in search of Tom for a brief second, a high pitched whirring began to crescendo from my rear. Ripping my axe free with a renewed sense of urgency, I spun around to finish off the brute with a slash to the back of the neck in one fluid motion. Just before my blade slid into his spine however, a violent shaking underfoot knocked me off balance. The flat side of my axehead smashed into the back of the brutes head as I struggled to maintain balance.
My vision rattled in unison with the rapid quaking that knocked me off balance. My back slammed into our stone pillar, sending far more intense vibrations up my spinal cord rattling every limb. Looking up, the red stream of energy constantly beaming into the crimson door magnified in size twofold since I'd last checked it. The massive tower at the center of the tan, circular canyon shook visibly as the crimson gate as well as a few neighboring ones it held at its base pulsed their respective tints, creating a blinding white flash of light.
As the ground settled and the light dimmed, I pierced my halberd through the skull of the brute staggering to his feet at my side. Immediately, a cacophony of differing roars, inhuman screeches and battle cries filled the hollow canyon. Dozens of demons began pouring out of the much brighter crimson gate, adorning sharp, heavy black armor and glowing red weapons this time around.
Okay, let's try this again. My way.
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