by Ivan Kal
On the other hand, he could also adapt better than others to different opponents. The Úlfriir were most definitely some kind of rogue class, and if they had any kind of stealth ability, his Life Sense would give him an edge. Any poisons they tried to use could be neutralized by Klyn easily, too. The elf, Orhem, might be a problem if he had far more abilities than he showed, but Morgan thought he could deal with him.
And then there was Emily—she was like Ves, a tank, but he didn’t know any of her offensive abilities, if she had them, even. The unknown was a problem, but a part of him wanted to go and have them pick her, just so he could have the opportunity to fight her.
In the end, he was the only choice. “Me, then,” he said, and started pulling his gear out of his inventory. They hadn’t carried anything on them in the lounge so they did not give away anything about themselves nor their styles. He put on his garments and armor, the shoulder plate and the gauntlet—which Morgan had Artos modify, so that they could now be fitted to his right hand since he put Klyn into his left. Then he mounted his crossbow and loaded a magazine with exploding arrows. On his belt he put three iron orbs—to replace the purely wooden ones, since iron was far more durable—and three grenades.
On the other side of his belt he had another two orbs, both filled with compressed smoke. His throwing daggers went into the slots in his chest, and on hooks on his back went three closed woven pouches with plants inside of them. They were a bit modified strains of his vines that should be able to grow without roots, but they wouldn’t have nearly the same strength, not without a strong foundation. Still, they could be useful. Finally, he took off his Ring of Broken Promises, since he had no need for it at the moment. With everything ready and double checked, Morgan and the others waited in the silence for the guard to let them know that it was time.
Once the guard came, the others wished him good luck and he followed him into the arena. The tunnel was long and narrow, which only served to make Morgan even more nervous; he didn’t like small and dark places, but soon he saw the light at the end of the tunnel.
The guard stopped at the entrance and gestured for him to walk out.
“Good luck, ascended.”
Morgan took a step into the light and his mind nearly froze. He was assaulted from every side by sound, by cheering. He could see the countless faces staring down at him, the tall stands touching the sky surrounding him from every side. And then there were the white orbs floating above, moving like fireflies, recording everything. In a moment he forgot about his fears and nervousness, and took everything in. He took a deep breath, feeling the energy of the arena. It filled him; he could feel their anticipation, and so he partook in it as well, feeling himself get impatient for the fight to start.
He looked across the arena, and found Emily’s golden eyes looking at him. She wore dark red armor, with a long cape behind her and a round helmet on her head. She had a wicked grin on her face, and as he walked to his position near the center she spoke.
“I knew that you would choose yourself,” she said.
Morgan saw her true face, then—he remembered seeing it before, on the day when she had left him to die. He remembered her laugh at the looks on their faces, and he remembered feeling the rage and anger consume him, then the desperation that followed. He looked at her now and wondered how he had ever believed that she could be trusted, how he believed that he could put what she had done into the past. But this time, he did not allow his feelings to rule him; instead, he swallowed it all down and thought about everything logically.
Her words, telling him that she knew he would pick himself for the fight, told him plenty. She had wanted to fight him, she was eager. She hadn’t chosen herself because she thought that she was the best pick, she had allowed her feelings to cloud her judgment. That was her first mistake. She didn’t know much about him or his abilities, and Morgan had seen her in combat twice now—perhaps not when she fully let loose, but he knew how she moved, knew the flow of her body as she attacked and defended. It was an advantage that he had over her, even though she was higher level than him.
She frowned when he didn’t respond to her words, then looked as she wanted to speak again, but Ragnor’s voice cut through the arena, asking if they were ready.
Morgan glanced at the man and nodded, before turning his eyes to his opponent immediately. Emily nodded, and Ragnor’s voice boomed.
“Begin!”
Morgan’s hands flashed to his sides, and he grabbed two orbs from his belt, one from each side. He threw the one in his left hand, then raised his right and fired his crossbow. The exploding bolt flew faster than the orb he had thrown, and he saw Emily raise her two-handed mace as her spectral shield snapped into place. His bolt exploded against it, doing zero damage—then his orb hit, and the thin wood cracked open, releasing thick black smoke. Morgan lit his grenade and threw it in the center of the smoke. Before it even reached her, he jumped to the side and phased, floating above the ground. He unphased a few moments before the grenade exploded, and immediately knelt down and had his hand pressed against the floor as his other hand grabbed one of his iron orbs.
He used Mass Transfer, pulling from the ground and stuffing everything into his orb. The entire arena was one big slab of stone, or at least it had been merged into one, and when he pulled mass it was pulled from everywhere at once, on a grand scale. What he pulled was too little to affect the ground, but the orb became much heavier in his hand. Then, when he could barely keep it in his fist, he phased it—and by then the grenade had exploded, its force clearing the smoke and pushing Emily slightly back.
Emily recovered from the explosion quickly, her eyes looking at his former location, then, trying to find him, but he had already stood up and pulled his hand back. His arm snapped forward, and in his mind he yelled, Phase Shot! The orb unphased at the right moment and continued forward with the same momentum it had gathered in phased space. The whine of it traveling through the air announced its coming. Emily snapped to look at it inhumanly fast, telling Morgan that she had extremely quick reflexes.
She saw the projectile coming and raised her spectral shield to block. Morgan didn’t know if she had thought that it was another grenade or a smoke bomb, but she clearly hadn’t expected what he had given her.
An iron ball weighing at least a few dozen kilograms smashed into her spectral shield. Morgan saw her eyes widen and then the rock beneath her feet twisted, slanting her backward. The iron orb cracked and shattered against her spectral shield, but so did her shield, which disappeared. The shrapnel continued forward, but the ground was still twisting, forcing her body to fall back at an angle. She turned her head as shrapnel rained down on her armor; with the angle, most of it ricocheted off her, but some embedded itself into her armor, and he saw at least one piece catch her cheek even though her helmet’s plate was close by.
Then she fell and rolled backward to get to her knees. Morgan was stunned for a moment—she had reacted so fast, limited the damage to her body so expertly. But he quickly snapped to it, and raised his crossbow, firing his bolts as fast as possible. She didn’t create another shield, favoring instead to jump to the side and keep rolling, evading his bolts. Morgan grabbed another grenade and lit the fuse, throwing it at her as she was coming up from her roll. He had shortened all his fuses in preparation, as he hadn’t thought that he would need long ones for these kind of fights.
Emily came out of her roll and, seeing the grenade flying toward her, whirled her hammer and slapped the grenade away to the side, leaving it to explode a few meters away from her.
Morgan pulled out another magazine and was reloading while she recovered, finishing just as she got up to her feet.
He looked at her for a long minute. He had gone all out from the start, had clouded her vision, distracted her, and used his most powerful abilities to send an attack that could end nearly anything, and she had managed to divert most of it away from her, then managed to recover so fast that he couldn’t really believe it. She
was good, he realized—very good. As he tried to come up with his next plan of attack, she gave him a sideways stance, with her hammer pulled back and pointed at the ground behind her.
“My turn,” she said with an evil grin on her face.
And then she charged.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Emily leapt forward, faster than the eye could follow. A gap-closer ability of some kind, Morgan thought. Her movements were too smooth, a tell that all physical abilities had. Morgan didn’t have much time to react, but his mind moved fast, thinking of all the options that he had at his disposal. She was bringing her mace from the side, aiming for his center mass. He could do only one thing if he wanted to avoid the strike, and he was fairly certain that trying to block it would shatter his bones. He hadn’t wanted to use his trump card in such an obvious way so early, but he had no choice. He pushed his body forward straight at her and used Phase Shift. She had been close when he did so, and the last thing he saw before his sensations cut off was the narrowing of her eyes.
Then he felt nothing. He didn’t spend much time phased, as he knew that he would’ve passed through her by now, so he unphased, and felt the pushing sensation which came when he tried to unphase inside something with more mass than him. He was pushed slightly forward, but his feet touched the ground and his hands came to his chest, pulling two throwing knives as he used his front leg to spring even further forward and into the air.
He rolled mid-air and turned, seeing that Emily had stumbled forward. He had probably tried to unphase inside of her, or had at the very least caught the edge of her body. Because their mass was close enough, each had been pushed away from the other. He threw his knives at her back, his aim going only slightly off because of his jump. His Throwing Weapons and Sharpshooter skills both gave him skill at throwing things, but they were relatively small levels, meaning his throws weren’t perfect.
Emily was turning when she noticed the knives. One was headed straight for her head, but she tilted just enough so that her helmet was in the way, such that the knife hit it at an angle that made it skid off of it. The other she tried to block with her mace, but she was too slow, and it punched between her armor plates into the shoulder. It wasn’t deep, nor was it probably a serious wound, but he had drawn the first blood.
As he landed on his feet, Emily remained where she was, glaring at him. She pulled out the knife out of her shoulder and spoke.
“I knew that you could phase. That is how you avoided the explosion, yes?” she asked.
Morgan grimaced, he had known that there was a chance that she had seen something during the fight with the elemental, but hadn’t been certain.
“Maybe,” Morgan said vaguely, confirming nothing, and she grimaced when he failed to rise to her provocations. He was thankful for the time she allowed him to think. He needed to get near her—her heavy armor made it hard for him to do damage, and her defensive skills, coupled with her overall skill, were far ahead of him. As he felt like he was close to an idea, he felt a slight tremor beneath his feet.
He didn’t comprehend what he had felt, but he acted nevertheless. A sharp spike of stone snapped upward from where he had been standing just a moment before, and then more started snapping out of the ground, all aimed at him. Morgan danced among them, jumping, rolling, and flipping through the air. Then, as he back-flipped in a long backward jump, the spikes stopped.
As he landed he realized that she hadn’t been giving him time but instead had been using her earth alignment to prepare an attack. If not for his reaction time, it might’ve even worked. He turned his eyes to her last position, but saw that she was gone. Then he ducked and a mace flashed above his head. On someone else her attacked might’ve worked, but Morgan had a Life Sense skill that was always active; he could suppress it somewhat, but not shut it down. His eyes saw life energy, and if he focused he could get more detail, but his mind felt every life form around him in a small sphere. There was no surprising Morgan in that manner.
As her attack missed, Morgan snapped out with his leg, striking her knee and barely moving it. He grimaced and jumped back, his hand going to his back and one of the pouches there. Emily reversed her attack, coming back for another swipe. Morgan threw the small pouch at her and activated Accelerated Growth, causing the vines inside to explode forth in all directions. Emily blinked as they went for her body, and started growing all over her, restricting her movements. She was stronger than them, of course, her body ripping them apart through sheer force. But her attack did slow, and Morgan managed to jump back to avoid it. He threw another knife at her, but she raised her shoulder and smacked it away with her pauldron before stomping. The ground cracked around her, catching Morgan off guard and sending him tumbling to the ground.
Before he could react, she was above him, her mace coming down at his chest. He rolled away and it hit the ground, smashing a small crater into it. She pulled the mace over the ground, scraping the rock as she followed him. Morgan reached out with his hand and touched the mace as he tried to evade, activating Momentum Shift. The mace wrenched in her hands as its vector changed, and instead of going toward Morgan, it sprang in the opposite direction. She managed to keep her hold on it, but her entire body was pulled away from Morgan, and he tried to take advantage by lighting another grenade and throwing it at her feet.
A dome of spectral light appeared around her as it exploded and Morgan put several crossbow bolts into it. The explosions rocked it, but didn’t break through.
Suddenly, another earth spike sprang from the ground, and he was forced to evade. The dome broke and she flew out of it, using the same gap-closing skill she had used earlier. Her mace came at him fast, but he managed to duck beneath it again. Then, as her swing took her a step away from him, her form shimmered. As her mace moved away, another appeared in the air, spectral, and quickly around it formed arms and then another body that was an exact replica of Emily. It was peeking out of her side, with only the upper half materialized. Morgan was too stunned to react in time as the spectral mace came at him. He knew that he could phase, but he didn’t have any momentum—he would remain in the same place near her. That probably wasn’t a good idea, and he couldn’t afford to spend all his energy, given that Phase Shift was a power-hungry ability. Instead, he crossed his arms in front of his body to block and activated Iron Skin. The mace smashed into his arms, crushing his crossbow in the process and sending him flying away. His iron skin protected him somewhat, but the attack still hurt. And it wasn’t just the blunt force, but something burned in his arms. He fell to the ground and then rolled to absorb the impact. When he came to his knees, his right hand was burned, but his left was not. Klyn didn’t seem to be affected by whatever that attack had been.
He didn’t have the time to figure out what it was as he jumped away, evading a stone pike. He reached behind his back and pulled a pouch out, only to have it slip from his fingers. He frowned and looked at his arm only to realize that it had gone numb. Cursing, he used his left arm and pulled the last pouch he had as he evaded more pikes. Then he threw it at Emily. She was ready to move away, but Morgan triggered Accelerated Growth, and then Root Wall.
His last pouch had been a simple plant with large and strong roots. He had to supply his own energy for it to grow since there was no soil save for the tiny amount he had been keeping it in, and in doing so he dropped below half of his remaining energy. The roots exploded in all directions and twined into a wall—but they had no foundation in the ground, no purchase, as they were in the air. The wide wall simply fell on top of Emily. He doubted that it would hurt her much, but he ran forward, closing the distance. His right hand was still somewhat numb, but he could move it, so he used it to activate his Energy Blade.
Emily burst out of the roots, and set her eyes on him. Morgan wished he had the will to used Phytokinesis to force the roots to at least try to entangle themselves with her, but there was no way he could concentrate on so many things in one moment. His Energy Blade sang through the ai
r toward her collarbone, but Emily conjured her spectral shape, its top half rising from her hip and blocking with its mace. His blade stopped when it encountered the spectral mace, and Morgan’s eyes widened as she swung her corporeal mace at his side. Morgan had no choice but to phase, spending even more energy to evade the strike, waiting for a few quick moments before unphasing. Her mace had swung through him, and the strike made her take a step to his right.
He saw her turn for the back stroke, but he was close to her now and had a slight opening.
The slit on his left hand opened and four thin tendrils slithered out. Dark green in color with a rough surface texture, they looked more like wires than anything that had come from a plant, although Klyn was no longer a plant nor a fungi. Three of them had the sharp blossomed leaves at their peaks, looking vaguely like pines—the razor-sharp leaves were dark green, with black lines and edges. The fourth tendril had a small bud on top of it, and it was the one that attacked first. The bud contracted, and a small stream of liquid flew out of it, aiming at Emily’s face. She noticed the tendrils and the attack coming and she changed her attack into a block, her spectral shield coming up over her mace. But she hadn’t been fast enough, and a tiny bit of the acid splashed on her shoulder plate, eating away at it. He had made Klyn consume every plant that he had, storing all of those forms for future use. He had even consumed a few animal corpses, simply because he could, but he didn’t think that he would need to use any of their parts. There was not much acid, as Klyn couldn’t store much poison at the moment, and the small burst was all that he had stored. Klyn could make more, but Morgan didn’t waste his time on that.