(II) Master

25 (II)Master

As his weapon struck her body, he felt a bubble of energy press against him, trying to wrestle his blow off course. Her bubble didn’t pop, but it folded far in, and the tip of his drill cracked hard against her forehead before the bubble snapped back into form and flung him and his weapon drastically off his trajectory.

A string of incoherence left Shiv’s mouth as he blasted across the cavern. As he expended all his stored momentum, his reflexes returned to what they were at baseline—still far greater than what they used to be, but practically frozen compared to the speed he was capable of when his Momentum Core was full.

The world was a rolling blur around him for the briefest of moments before he slammed hard against a webbed wall. There was so much leftover energy in him that he just kept pressing for a while—and, to his astonishment, a few of the webs snapped outright trying to bear his weight before he remembered his Might of Mass.

Shiv drew on his strength and, with a brief struggle, blunted what remained of his kinetic charge as he landed on a knee. “” he surmised. Half of his body felt like it was bruised even with Diamond Shell. He guessed that was the consequence of using a Master-Tier Reflex Skill in tandem with an Adept-Tier Toughness Skill.

Spear Proficiency > 8

Before him was a scene of stunned carnage. Several Umbrals and Weaveresses had been thrown off their feet by his momentum discharge. The Young Lord was gawking at him while lying on the ground—but to his credit, his other two arms continued firing at Harkness. Shiv also caught sight of Uva on the second floor above. She and the mages had taken that position from their slain enemies and had been constantly lobbing spells down at the woman in white. Right now, she stared at Shiv. The spell was broken. He briefly offered her a thumbs up—and she went right back to trying to break the owl’s mind.

As for Harkness, about her had changed. For a few moments, Shiv thought he severely wounded her and that this fight was soon to end. To his satisfaction, each of her clones were also clutching at their faces, and they faded like mirages in the light, just as before. In an instant, only a single version of her remained, and a literal deluge of destructive spells splashed down on her. Yet, as the elements bathed her body, as dozens of magi tried to crack her immense Magical Resistance, as Adam launched larger and larger arrows at her, she simply pulled her cracked mask of white off her face, and

she mentally said to Shiv. She was laughing. Chaos furled around her, painting her in a backdrop of fire and devastation. As the room came alight, Shiv saw her face for the first time. Her straight hair was midnight black with a streak of white on her left, and it rested where her neck met her body. Her features were thin and elegant, with a slim nose, wide eyes, and lips painted dark red. There was a distance in her gaze, like she was lost in a moment of nostalgia—but Shiv saw in those eyes something that made him clench his drill tighter.

He was facing someone that fed from misery, from cruelty. He saw the same look in the lesser vampires when they attacked, when they smelled blood. She might be a human, but this one was more predator than even most monsters.

Too bad for her, Shiv had a hobby of killing predators.

He advanced on her, sharpening the deformed tip of his drill. He swung his weapon and reshaped his armor for battle. She mirrored his bold gesture, bringing her rapier in front of her eyes and swiping down. As Shiv moved, he discovered that he could drink in the momentum from the passing wind currents and friction—anything that moved in relation to him, really. And so he began to fill his core, and her blade flashed once, twice, and many times more. In seconds, her clones were back, walking out to battle the Arachnae Order. Only for their path to be interrupted by brilliant blue arrows that splashed over them as walls of water.

Then, the Young Lord was behind Shiv again, firing over his shoulder while using him as a shield.

“How’d the floor feel?” Shiv asked.

Adam’s hands were a ceaseless blur—but Shiv slowly found himself able to perceive each individual shot as his core filled. “Get tainted. What the hells was that?”

“Reflexes Evolution,” Shiv grunted.

The Young Lord turned to glare at him. “What?”

“Yeah. I got something called Momentum Core.”

“ Adam practically shrieked.

“It’s pretty useful—especially since I would be a sitting duck against a Master-Tier opponent without it.”

“M-m-master,” Adam sputtered before composing himself. “”

Shiv was about to say something before he heard Valor mumbling inside his armor. The Deathless winced. The dagger was pinned against his hip right now. “Sorry, Valor. I’ll get you out if she doesn’t kill us all. For good.”

Then, Shiv caught something moving in his periphery. It was so sudden and brief that he should have missed it—would have missed it without his Momentum Core. But he turned on instinct and swung his drill high. A resounding clash echoed through the room as diamond-layered bone turned away a gleaming rapier. The Young Lord’s eyes widened as Harkness’s blade sparked against the side of his helmet rather than punching through his open mouth.

Parry > 25

New Skill: Awareness 1 (Initiate)

And then both he and Shiv attacked at the same time. A stream of arrows exploded in Harkness’s face as Adam detonated them prematurely. He adapted to the fact of Harkness’s protective bubble by trying to hammer her with flat, concussive force. This didn’t phase the owl of New Albion at all, but it did allow Shiv to siphon some momentum out of the blasts.

The world around Shiv got slower as his momentum climbed. He swung his bone drill at Harkness like a club. Her arm blurred five times before he was even mid-swing. Every one of her cuts landed perfectly in the same place, turning a nick into a gap into a split. Shiv felt his drill part in half—and then she was rising just below him. Shiv inhaled and drained what he could from the oncoming blow with his Momentum Core. Her hand slowed substantially; time itself seemed to drag. But Shiv reacted too late. Her open palm cracked his helmet and sent his head snapping back. The secondary effects of her strike became a shockwave—one that launched Adam off his feet and into the air.

Between Diamond Shell, Might of Mass, and a considerable sip from his Momentum Core, Shiv managed to stay conscious—if only barely. His thoughts bounced around like broken teeth inside a can—much like the literal broken teeth inside his mouth—and Shiv felt himself slide meter after meter backward despite his increased mass. The damned golem hit like an insect compared to her—and this was after he drank a huge amount of her momentum away. Her Physicality had to be Master-Tier as well—at least.

Shiv realized. But he was going to make her regret that mistake.

Shiv stomped down with his rear leg and stopped his slide. He absorbed the final drip of momentum needed to fill his core. Once more, his chest felt like it was gripping an expanding bomb. The world around Shiv all but halted. He and Harkness were the only people that still seemed capable of moving—and despite this, she was still faster, driving her blade toward his head.

But once again, she wasn’t prepared for his counterattack. Shiv discharged every last bit of momentum stored in his core. His head snapped forward, and he practically rematerialized with his skull smashing against the owl’s nose. He felt her protective field curve around him, trying to redirect him. But he was going too fast, and this time, he remembered to use his Might of Mass and his Biomancy in tandem with his Momentum Core to achieve the mother of all headbutts.

Her rapier skipped off the side of his helmet. Her protective field flattened. An explosion of force and fire from air friction swallowed both of them as Shiv felt his helmet —and his forehead beneath fracture. He transferred every bit of force he had into her—and this time, instead of sliding off her person, Shiv launched the owl across the entire cavern with a deafening crack.

All her clones also went flying before vanishing in smears of light. Shiv managed to stop himself from falling over, but only barely. That hit left part of his skull in floating pieces. There was also the spiking headache that made his eyes fill with flashing colors. It felt like he was standing on a boat. Shiv tried taking a step forward, only to lurch over. The webbed ground came at him fast, but someone caught him—stopped him from falling all the way.

“Broken Moon, you’re bloody heavy,” Adam complained.

Shiv grunted. He doubted his weight was actually enough to strain the Young Lord's Physicality. “You’re… always complaining.”

Adam wrenched Shiv back on his feet and allowed the Deathless to lean on him. Only after pushing Shiv’s head the other way, though. “Point your face away from me. You’re bleeding all over my armor.”

Shiv laughed, despite all the pain he was in. He tried to stand properly, but the world kept spinning, and a groan escaped from him. Adam was leading him somewhere, and Valor was still speaking—the dagger’s voice sounding like a muffled mess from inside Shiv’s armor. “Maybe… I should have punched her instead,” Shiv muttered.

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“Yes, you idiot,” Adam snapped. “But if it’s any consolation, I don’t think you had much brain to lose.”

“Just jealous… of my Master-Tier… Reflexes.”

When Adam didn’t reply in offense and stopped walking, Shiv knew something was wrong. As he blinked a few more times, his vision cleared, and he saw members of the Arachnae Order pulling their wounded and… back through the tunnels. A mage called out in alarm from above, and Shiv soon noticed why.

As the dust and chaos settled, as the leftover friction-flame caused by Shiv’s died, what came into view was Lady Harkness strolling back through the haze with a most peculiar look on her face. As she stepped through the smog, Shiv saw that she wasn’t entirely uninjured. No. There was a slight, reddened patch lining the bridge of her nose, and a trickle of blood flowed beneath. She dabbed at her nostrils with her white glove, staining the tip red. She held it out for Shiv to see.

“Well ,” she whispered. She offered Shiv a genuine smile. “Where is Valor? I wish to declare to the old Legend my intent to you for my own.”

“Steal?” Shiv asked. The first spells came down on the enemy Pathbearer again, but she ignored them as usual.

“Oh, yes. You owe me an entire cell of good killers. Well. Good in a relative sense. You did manage to slaughter them, after all. Still. To give one’s life in service of the throne is not such a bad end. And besides, I have traded copper in them to discover gold in you.”

She switched to speaking telepathically when the spells got too loud. Shiv swallowed but pushed off Adam despite his still-spinning head. He glared at Harkness and ripped away the broken pieces of his ruined helmet.

“I think I’m going to say no,” Shiv muttered under his breath. He looked at the Young Lord—and then at the mana bomb. It just occurred to Shiv that the Quest wasn’t over. The interweaving magical fields inside the bomb were spilling out through the cracks and several of its cords had been ripped out of the surrounding webs… but its bulbous body still seemed operational to some extent. “Adam. The mana bomb is still active. The spell’s not done. I need you to destroy it completely. Break it wide open.”

Adam blinked and leaned closer to Shiv as Harkness stretched out her right arm. “I do that, might just fry us all. I know you’re not afraid of dying, but with all those spells running at the same time—”

“Then I’ll do it,” Shiv said. “I’m going to distract her. You get everyone out.” The Young Lord opened his mouth. “Take them by force if you have to. There’s nothing they can do against her.”

“There’s nothing can do against her. I know you technically have Master-Tier Skill, but she is fully in the Master-Threshold! And not only for that one skill. That means she has at least fifty more levels on you in terms of Reflexes—and far more than that everywhere else.”

“Yeah,” Shiv said, spitting out a mouthful of blood. “But I can die. Over and over and over.”

Harkness asked. Shiv looked at her again, and scowled. She smiled sweetly back at him, as if she knew everything he was thinking.

And then another force Harkness out of Shiv’s mind. A psychic scream sounded from Uva as Shiv felt a denseness form within his mind. she said, her breath tremoring with strain.

Shiv’s gut clenched. He wanted her to run—to get out of this place, but he asserted himself over his emotions. If she left, Harkness would grind his mind down to nothing in an instant. Uva was probably the only reason why all of them weren't drooling at the owl’s feet right now. But he could feel the strain she was under as the owl shifted her attention. Neither of them were going to last long.

He needed to make this fast.

“Shoot the damn bomb anyway,” Shiv said. “If it looks like we’re going to lose—”

This time, Harkness didn’t stroll, but at him.

He guessed her coming as a current of wind shivered next to his right ear.

Awareness > 2

It didn’t help.

She slipped under his guard, and her blade ignited like it was the sun itself. She slashed, and suddenly, Shiv couldn’t feel either of his arms. Not with his physical body, anyway. He launched his severed limbs at her using his Biomancy—and tried to hit her with the drill from behind. Instead of manifesting any clones, she simply parried them all at once—even as he drained her momentum; even as that single sequence of cuts, blocks, and stances flooded his Momentum Core to the max.

Even as the world ground to a halt again, he felt like a tortoise plodding through existence, while she was the wind, her blade slicing across the bridge of his nose as he barely flinched back in time. He discharged his momentum again and launched himself shoulder-first at his foe.

But this time, she learned—or was finally taking him seriously. Her protective field caught him before he could get close, and then curled his momentum back in on himself. Waves of web-shredding force tore through the world around them. Shiv was like a bomb unto himself, his kinetic energy launching everyone but him and Harkness off their feet. His organs burst. Ligaments tore. Bones snapped and dislocated. Shiv sank through her protective veil and got within a finger’s distance. But that was when all his momentum died.

And then he closed his diamond-hard teeth around her neck.

He bit at her, finding her actual skin nigh-impenetrable as well. Rather than counterattacking, she gave a laugh. Before jabbing him in the gut with her knuckles. Shiv endured the hit with his Might of Mass, but the cost he paid was colossal. His armor shattered. Parts of his spine folded out of alignment. Shiv gnashed his teeth harder—would have kneed her too, but he couldn’t feel anything beneath his chest anymore.

As spells crashed down on both of them, Shiv could hear Uva calling for the others to cease their fire, that he was at risk. The other members of her order didn’t hear her in time. Fire, lightning, ice, force, water, stone, acid, and so many more variations of magical attacks buried both him and Harkness. His flesh burned and froze and bled and melted and . The owl’s outfit was barely even smudged.

But Shiv kept biting her, and finally, he felt her react.

“I’m actually feeling a bit of a pinch here,” she whispered to him. “Ah. You remind me of He was my mastiff as a girl, you see—a real fearless warrior. Quite like you. Your teeth even somewhat feel the same.”

She hit him again. He drained most of the blow with his Momentum Core.

It still wasn’t enough.

. Dark. Then white. Then noise. And peace.

This time, Shiv did pass out. For a moment, everything was blissfully white and peaceful. Then, Uva wrenched his consciousnessback, and he surged back into awareness. He was flying through the air. So he used Might of Mass and Biomancy and Momentum Core to still himself. He slammed down on the ground. And promptly collapsed. The pain broke his focus, and with it, his spell. Without Biomancy, he was too broken to stand. There was little in him that wasn’t broken or torn. Blood and water was filling his lungs. But still, this was mostly a .

He handled the teleportation anchor. He could handle this. Wrenching himself off the ground, he turned an agonized howl into something more of a growl and spat blood at the owl’s direction. A gust of wind passed over him, and Shiv drank in a final drop of momentum for his core. She mockingly clapped for him—only for him to discharge his core and launch his ruined body at her once more.

Momentum Core > 60

This time as a distraction.

She brought her radiant rapier up, waiting for him to impale himself. Shiv didn’t stop. He just angled his body and accepted that he was going to die again. The blade passed between his ribs—but missed his heart, thanks to a last minute tug with his Biomancy. He crashed against her hilt—and then her protective bubble collapsed around him, stalling out his remaining momentum.

Shiv took this moment to attempt something. On the very edge of his mana field, some twenty meters away, he felt a fragment of bone that came free from his armor. A bone he shaped into a spike and launched at Harkness’s back. To his pleasure, it struck home—and failed to pierce her actual flesh. But he learned something: Her bubble was something that she actively had to wield, rather than a passive barrier.

Adam saw this too, apparently, as a tide of arrows blasted into her a half-second after.

That’s when Shiv learned another thing about the owl—she might be a Master-Tier, but her skills were far different from his. Harkness, split between Shiv’s charge and the sudden opening behind her, was flung off her feet. She almost caught herself before Shiv finished the rest of his discharge, bladed-shoulder first into her chest.

Her white suit tore, and his blood painted her in smears of crimson. She looked down at Shiv. And nodded. “Fine. You earned .”

She then drove her head against his, and his skull caved in completely.

Diamond Shell > 75

Might of Mass > 65

Momentum Core > 61

Parry > 29

Biomancy > 40

Awareness > 5

Spear Proficiency > 10

Shiv tried to keep on fighting after he died, but without a physical body to gather momentum, his Reflexes were slow. Far too slow to reach his enemy before the full might of her Psychomancy struck at his mind. His consciousness spun as if it was being shaken inside of a cage, and in the depths of his awareness, he heard Uva let out a scream of effort, trying to keep him whole.

“Well, you’re quite good, Psychomancer,” Harkness complimented. “I think I’m going to play with you for a while. Your shrouding is good. A rare evolution.” She looked upward and spotted Uva immediately. The Umbral was bleeding from all her orifices, and Shiv reached out, draining the owl to get back into the fight.

He couldn’t. He made it an impossibility in his thoughts.

Yet, even as an ocean of attacks crashed down around her, Harkness gave a huff. “Would you believe that my true talent does not lie in physical combat? I know I haven’t truly shown you yet—I was so focused on indulging in a bout of quaint savagery against you with my blade and fists. But I can show you now. I can show you the distance between a Psychomancy Adept and a .”

Shiv willed himself to drain Harkness faster. And she let him. Like all the times before. But, instead of attacking him, she lifted a hand up and cast her first true Psychomancy spell. “Let me assure you, dear boy, that nothing quite breaks like a mind.”