(II) Capture

143 (II)Capture

The rider continued her warnings as she approached. Her dragon was moving so fast that it left a jetstream of flame in its wake while its scales burned bright hot.

Shiv finished infusing his Chronomancy Skill into the Vitae Golem, but the Hero Inquisitor wasn't lying. That dragon was damn fast, faster than Shiv by a substantial margin. he thought to himself.

He had maybe a hundred meters and half a second before she closed. He sent a telepathic command to the golem and decided against giving it a vitality drain skill. It shot off immediately, and Shiv accelerated toward the incoming dragon a moment thereafter.

He magnified his Skysplitter and slashed out with his blade. He tried to strike the side of the rider’s lance, intending to parry it. But as soon as he made contact, her weapon trembled violently.

Shiv felt his blade bounce off at first.

At the same moment, the dragon and the rider turned ethereal and suddenly grew impossibly faster. They blinked across 500 meters, and they washed through Shiv like a river blasting a stone. Though they passed through him as if intangible, he was wrenched back and pulled off course.

It wasn't like he was being overwhelmed by a greater force. Rather, it was like someone changed his accelerating vector entirely. Shiv was just suddenly pointing the other way. Behind him, the rider materialized. She thrust out with her lance, and a narrow beam of flame pierced the underside of his abdomen. The beam tore through the exterior armor, but his bone adamantium immediately began to heal thanks to the basilisk flesh.

Shiv cast himself back a second in time to reset his position. He slashed out at the rider again. At the same time, he triggered Minor Illusion, Chameleon, and Creeping Void.

A splash of blackness swallowed 200 meters of space. Once again, the rider and her dragon turned ethereal. She rushed through the minor illusion, but the moment she felt no resistance, she tore off skyward, resetting her own position as well.

Shiv frowned. He remembered Tran telling him about Calvary Pathbearers who just focused on charging down dangerous foes. He guessed this rider was one of the Inquisition’s special weapons, meant to guard and slay Chronomancers specifically.

Shiv felt cracks spread across his temporal shell, and a half second later, the first lines of damage formed upon the dragon's Chronomancy field as well. They were almost evenly matched as Chronomancers—neither was going to outlast the other.

Shiv shot up in the air after her. He adapted his strategy. She could move fast. Well, he could be in two places at once. He flung a bone drill at her. It shot forward, and he used his vitae strands to guide it, adding additional dexterity to supplement his lacking aim. The bone drill zipped across the distance and hammered into the underside of the dragon. A splash of sparks lit the time-frozen midnight sky as the bone drill bounced off at a sharp angle.

Shiv scowled.

He noted the attack had been dead on, yet it slipped off like the dragon's body was slippery.

Marksmanship 12 > 13

Once more, she went ethereal, but this time Shiv threw his Skysplitter. The blade sailed high into the air, but its path was hidden by the Creeping Void that seeped out from his body. Both dragon and rider climbed higher, but they were unaware of Shiv teleporting to his blade. As soon as they rematerialized, Shiv reached out for them. He slashed at out, using both his Vitaemancy and Biomancy as magical weapons.

Strands of red and white crashed over the rider, while a mana hydra wound itself around the form of her dragon. At the same time, Shiv materialized the venom gland he had stored within his Biomancy. As soon as it manifested, he burst the venom gland over her, directing the corrosive liquid through her faceplate and into the orifices of her dragon.

Aegis of Assimilation 104 > 105

The rider spasmed. The dragon curled in on itself. Blossoming mana explosions detonated, and Shiv's Skysplitter descended to slay both targets at once. Yet the dragon flared bright with Chronomancy, and suddenly it projected itself back in time, and the rider went with it. They blinked to where they were a second ago, and more of their temporal shell burst away.

Shiv gritted his teeth and cast himself back in time as well. He arrived about three hundred meters away from the dragon, and he spiked his field a few more times before he detonated in her vicinity. As he discharged his inertial sheath, the rider lifted her lance high, and an oval shield of opalescent mana expanded around her and her dragon. Shiv's detonation impacted her, but it splashed over the shroud as if a wave parting around a stone. Shiv felt his temporal armor break apart entirely, and somewhere in the chaos, the dragon lost its armor as well.

The world suddenly started moving, and he brought his Skysplitter back to parry his own discharge as best he could. His body was damaged. He fed the wounds into his Biomancy, and the crystallized chain of spells materialized within his Biokinetic hydras.

At the same time, a second discharge exploded outward from below. That was his Vitaemancy golem trying to crack through the protections guarding the expeditionary force. Shiv directed one discharge against another, and two clashing waves of fire and force splashed together, sparing him the turbulence.

But at the same time, the golden dragon tore up through the air and suddenly went ethereal once more. She twisted hard and then banked left before plunging like a falling spear. Shiv tried to track her, but she vanished into a sea of expanding Pyromancy spells. Shiv cursed.

she said while trying not to vomit.

Shiv pulled down on his gravitic field as well. As he fell, he pointed his Skysplitter at the slightly cracked prismatic shroud guarding the expeditionary force. Spells burst out from the shroud, attacking the encroaching orcs with shockwaves and more. A few hundred orcs were briefly repelled, but more pushed through the Inquisition's hasty defense, slamming against that prismatic barrier with might and spell.

More cracks began to spread, and the outermost layer broke like a glass cage as Shiv slammed blade-first upon it. As it parted, Shiv felt his blade suddenly halt as it struck another layer of wards beneath. As soon as he made contact, lightning surged up through his body. The Deathless spasmed within his biological armor. Whatever the magic sustaining the inner wards, it allowed them to electrocute Shiv, even through non-conductive structures. Despite this, Shiv's Adamantine Adaption learned to resist the electricity, and he regained control of himself, pushing through the flood of lightning.

Adamantine Adaption 170 > 171

He lashed down with Vitaemancy and Biomancy. His mana hydra hammered the inner shield; a smokescreen for the vitae strands that followed. The crimson mana missile slammed against the protective dome, enveloping it.

At the same time, Shiv impacted it again and discharged his inertial sheath once more. More cracks spread through. However, the lightning flooding through his body was growing more intense with every passing second as well. He powered through, and his Vitaemancy slipped through the second layer and the third and the fourth and finally splashed past the inner thresholds of the Inquisition's defenses.

He slashed blindly using his vitae as he made contact with bodies. He sapped their vitality from them. He crushed and pulped the weak and struck and pinned the strong. Life force flooded him briefly, and then someone shattered his Vitaemancy strands. Shiv growled to himself. His Vitaemancy was adamantine-hard as well. For someone to break his mana so easily indicated that he was about to run into a Hero.

Just then, Shiv felt himself get pried off the protective wards. An impossibly strong force ripped his body off the protective onion shielding the expeditionary force. Shiv struggled against the crushing pressure, using his gravitic field to stabilize himself, but halted as he saw a massive gravitational vortex descending upon him.

It was 500 meters wide and shaped like a sphere. It had chunks of landscape orbiting it, and more than that, it had orcs revolving around it as well, cheering, laughing, using the massive Dynamancy spell to hitch a ride straight into the main fight. Shiv couldn't help but laugh.

He stopped fighting the gravity spell; instead, he let it take him. He let himself spin around its massive length, joining the orcs as they prepared to crash down upon the Inquisition's protections. Shiv suddenly went still as he rammed into something hard, that felt like an unbreakable wall. As he turned, he saw Bonk right behind him, holding him in place. "Glad to see you've joined us."

"What do you mean, joined you?" Shiv shouted. "I was practically the first guy here. I even got into a fight already.”

"Were you? I couldn't tell. I lost track of you for a moment."

"Yeah, that's because you don't have Chronomancy. They got a golden dragon by the way."

"That's good, that's good. Dragons make things interesting. They never die easy—ah, BRACE! BRACE!”

“BRACE!” The orcs let out a collective shout.

The vortex crashed down against the layers of prismatic shielding protecting the expeditionary force from harm. For a moment there was a clash, two sets of magic grinding against each other. A series of mana detonations blasted outward as the swirling sphere of gravity ground against the many-layered defenses erected by the inquisitors.

Blasts of lightning cleaved through the gravitational sphere—but the orcs’ spell had both mass and mana behind it. The Inquisition’s protections began to shatter one after another, even as the gravitational sphere burned away, its size pushing through the barriers.

Bonk turned and glared into the gravitational spell. "Dynamancers, put your backs into it!" he barked. And just then, Shiv caught sight of orcs within the spell as part of the vortex collapsed. Those were orc magi. They weren't just casting a spell. They were literally piloting it into the fight from within the vortex. The orc magi thrust their hands out. The Dynamancy spell blasted outward, flinging Shiv and all the orcs against the flagging protections like artillery shells.

This time, Shiv smashed clean through the Inquisitor's wards, and as he blasted in, he felt soft bodies splatter against his armor, weak armor bursting and shattering before his brutal momentum. At the same time, his mana hydra lashed out. It swept through the enemies, shattering magical resistances and ripping bodies apart, bodies he assimilated into his Biomancy.

Chaos swept through the Inquisition’s ranks, but even so, they fought to maintain discipline. As Shiv tore through the outer vanguard, magical bolts cut through the air, coming right at him. He swatted them aside with his Magebreaker and pulled his field in the direction of his attackers.

Frictionless Vector 65 > 66

Yet, just as Shiv charged forth, he was intercepted by one of the Inquisition's vanguards. They slammed their shield against his person, and Shiv suddenly felt all the momentum get torn out of his body. His sheath went silent for a moment, and then three more Inquisitors slammed their shields in place right beside the first. The three shields trembled with kinetic energy, and they unleashed a blast of concussive energy—that did nothing because Shiv threw his knife behind them. He teleported and swung his blade wide, magnifying it to its maximum size.

Bodies blasted through the air, launched back by his blow. Shiv spiked his field again, looking for the center of the expeditionary force. Meanwhile, his mana hydras began to move around him in a churning spiral, crashing against Magical Resistances and assimilating every bit of biomass he could seize.

The shield-bearers behind tried to respond to Shiv, but the orcs were upon them a moment later. Bonk struck them. His first blow bounced off hopelessly, but the orc shifted his stance and swung twice more.

The sound of shattering shields sang out to Shiv, but he didn't wait to behold the final fate of the three vanguards; he had his own victims to claim. The cloud beneath his feet felt soft but solid, and with every step, a fog of static lashed at his flesh, trying to electrocute him. Orcs flooded in from all directions, and Shiv felt several inquisitors cast spells of Portomancy and Dimensionality.

Squeezing pressures washed over his body, but no one managed to teleport out. True to Helix's words, they pulsed in place but were then rebuffed. The orcs had anchored the expeditionary force using a colossal amount of Dimensionality to effectively weigh down the Jump Mages.

If the Inquisitors wanted to escape, if they wanted to survive, then they would have to fight their way out. They would have to create their own breakthrough, and somehow, Shiv didn't think they were going to be capable of that.

He swung his blade from side to side, yet before he could get far, he found it held in place by the towering automaton he'd seen earlier. Its drill-like head roared as it spun, and the mechanical Pathbearer tried to pry the Skysplitter out of Shiv's hands. Shiv pulled back, but to his surprise, he was actually struggling. The automaton was strong. Their Physicality was a match for his own at the very least, perhaps more.

Worse yet, as the bot gripped Shiv’s Skysplitter, keeping it from scything through the rest of the expeditionary force, Shiv could feel the weapon cracking, taking damage. He shrank his blade and charged the enemy. He made it a meter through the air before he was suddenly knocked aside by someone tackling him.

Shiv spiked his field against the new adversary and, after a brief struggle, halted himself and brought an elbow down on the head of the offending inquisitor. A resounding clash sounded as the inquisitor's body went stiff. They were wearing a full set of adamantine armor. Shiv wanted to see if their Toughness matched. He slashed down using his Deepest Edge, and where the armor only bore a deep gash on the outside, flesh parted within, and Shiv swept through the slain Pathbearer's body, stealing their biomass for his own.

He could feel the beginnings of mana strain build within his Biomancy. Just then, Shiv had an amusing idea, an upgrade to his corpse flail. He fused all the recent biomass he'd stolen, but also fed a spare set of armor into the spell pattern as well. Just like before, the spell patterns didn't mix. They shattered and warped, but that was fine with Shiv. Bone adamantine cancer was still more than acceptable.

Immediately, he projected his new creation and began to shape it. He didn't hold the flail physically anymore. Instead, he wrapped it within a mana hydra and spun it around himself in a swirling orbit. A mess of mangled teratoma hammered into bodies and shattered formations. At the same time, Shiv swung his blade and discharged his Inertial Overdrive. The Inquisitors were blasted aside. Shiv tried to push forward and rip into them—only to be driven back himself by a chain of gravitational bolts. He countered the Dynamancy spells using his field, but ultimately found himself plodding forward rather than blasting ahead.

He kept cutting, slashing, fighting. He attacked anything that wasn't an orc while trying to keep an eye out for the bald Master-Inquisitor. But the expeditionary force didn't die easily. Every single one was clad in high-quality armor. And though he swatted many aside, they fought their way back to their feet and held to their formations, each person trying to keep the ones beside them alive.

A telepathic tsunami exploded out from the center of the expeditionary force. a baritone voice proclaimed.

And at once, inquisitors began to adjust their formations. The surviving members began to collapse inward. New inquisitors stepped out from the others, holding massive tower shields in their hands. Shiv charged them, swinging his new cancer flail down upon a still-adjusting group of soldiers. But he felt his mana hydra stopped dead as a Biomancer among the inquisitors matched their power against his. Shiv thought to himself, licking his lips.

Then something exploded from beneath his feet and drove him high into the air. A searing pain slipped through his gut, and Shiv found himself being carried higher and higher. As he looked down, he found himself impaled on the end of a lance a hundred meters long.

Shiv grinned through bloody teeth. "There you are. I was wondering where you went.”