Cataphron’s smile showed a row of black, sharpened teeth. The now ten-foot tall, one-ton monster was still bulking up. Muscle mass just kept piling on as time went on. Artorian realized it wasn’t just him who had been biding his time. The longer this went, the uglier it was going to be.
Infernal opposed celestial; that was a good indicator as to why his predictive sight saw a whole lot of nothing. With students dedicated to ‘blood’ and ‘despair’ he had a strong hunch on the thematic this muscle man was going for. His Aura abilities so far had failed to damage, or do more than tickle the Tower; who also seemed to have a non-celestial way of quickly healing.
The lack of external Aura blinded Cataphron to what Artorian was up to, but he had the luxury to not need to know with those ridiculous defenses and raw physical attributes. This was a real hard counter for Artorian; someone that didn’t care for all his fancy techniques and simply punched right through them. Honestly the man had swatted a fire column and killed it.
Wait. Couldn’t see his Aura. At all, perhaps? A clever plan formulated within Artorian, and in the hope it might actually work, he capitalized swiftly. “Oh, so what. You’re telling me that you’re so untouchable that it won’t matter what I do. You’ll blow right through me, and I’ll just tickle you?”
Another prideful laugh bellowed from the Headmaster, who posed just to make his pectorals bulge. “Realized your powerlessness in the face of the unstoppable? Everyone eventually does. It is as inevitable as my superiority, and that is why I stand supreme. You’ve killed my apprentices, and now I want the pound of flesh I’m… what are those ridiculous things on your face?”
“Hmm, oh these? I call them sunglasses. They’re designed to prevent party fatigue.” The old man struck a pose of his own, pointing at the darkened goggles on his face. “They’re made for dealing with party poopers.”
Cataphron raised a thick eyebrow, which also had muscles at this point. “Enough of this foolish- Argh! My eyes!”
Artorian set his Starlight Aura to full-blast, except he switched up the doors. Effects? None. He simply needed to brighten up! In fact: “Why don’t we add some sound? Let’s drop into full party mode!”
Cataphron screamed, blindly whipping his fists through the landscape of resplendent, eye-stabbing brightness. Just as the thought occurred that he should just keep his eyes shut and listen for his opponent, a set of deafening cavitation bubbles popped and exploded next to his head. Even though he was disoriented, the damage was minimal. There was no way that light and sound was going to do any real damage, but this time he couldn’t make it stop.
Without an external Aura to help influence his surroundings, his highly sensitive C-rank attuned body took in the burdensome vibrations and fluctuations. His sight couldn’t be harmed, but it could certainly be overwhelmed. His other senses were no different. Popping sounds beat at his hearing, endless streaming light stabbed him right in the eyes if he so much as peeked. Heat and sticky wetness rolled over his skin, and the smell wasn’t doing him any good.
Artorian grimaced; this was a complex set of techniques to uphold. But it was this or get pummeled. Even with the Essence costs not being as harsh as they should be thanks to his Presence, this was a significant Essence expenditure. Sure, this couldn’t defeat the current Headmaster, but he could inconvenience the mountain of muscle until he was nothing but a severe, endless migraine.
This complex network of distractions wasn’t the main attack. Only a way to buy some time. Since gravity couldn’t do the job, Artorian settled for an alternative. Cataphron should have never told Artorian his Essence combination, but since he had… it was time to go to work.
Beams of light connected between points in space where panels of hard-light appeared and smoothed to mirror finish. A single woven lance combining light, fire, and air bounced between the mirrors and struck the infernal, water, and earth cultivator specifically from an angle where Artorian wasn’t standing. These attacks shattered upon striking the thrashing giant, but that was acceptable.
Cataphron’s speed was as impressive as it was frightening, lashing out in the attack’s direction. Artorian’s Essence mirror was Essence dust a mere eyeblink after the lance struck. He considered using physical weaponry from his pack, but he already knew that even a Hawthorn arrow was just an inconvenient splinter here. Plus, through sunglasses sight he could deduce that the specific counter-combination most certainly found success. This was now a battle of attrition.
Either Cataphron was going down via a thousand cuts, or Artorian was going to drop from exhaustion and Essence loss. There was too much loss to pull it all back in, and the immediate surroundings became stuffed with the runoff from his incomplete and unfinished abilities. He was cobbling three different techniques together, for crying out loud!
If he saw Ember again, he was going to hug the living daylights out of her for making him infuse his brain. Artorian would have never had the calculating power for this complex mess otherwise. In fact, without it he would have certainly been powder-paste on the floor by now. Had they both been at the C-ranks, Cataphron would still have kicked him about.
*Crash*! Artorian winced and forced a calming breath. Cataphron was getting much better at smashing mirrors, reacting faster than Artorian could refine them. To make it all the more stressful, the twelve-foot man was still getting bigger. Artorian’s lances were doing more to damage him as a result, but he’d badly miscalculated some Essence math.
The basic theorem of Essence was that opposites cancel. Artorian wasn’t getting anything back from the lances at all. This meant that there was no way was he ever outpacing this hulking beast. He was just irritating the abyss out of it.
From the perspective of the other man, life wasn’t great right now. Cataphron had been having a decent day. Then some old guy showed up and threw his food-loving friends, students, and cultivation sources right off the roof of his house. This geezer then proceeded to inconvenience him with some papercuts. Honestly, that all was fine. None of that was unbearable. But this? This was an irreconcilable offense.
Every time he smashed something, it wasn’t the old man. Every time he tried uncovering a sense to determine where that annoying fly might be, he was stabbed by a sensation of pain. He’d been immune to pain for decades! What was this absolute nonsense? He wanted to get out, but couldn't even tell where the edge of the dratted mountain was! Chancing his vision was an agonizing mixture of staring into the sun while fireworks went off in his eye sockets. His highly adaptive hearing sickened him from the uneven, untuned, cohesion-lacking explosions that popped, screeched, and twisted his eardrums.
This was awful. No amount of being strong was getting him out of this unless he could get away. He just needed to get away and throw a rock at this fiend. End it all. Just end it all.
“Yield!”
Cataphron thought he was going crazy as the noise made sense for a moment. Was that a word? A real word in this collapsing castle of sound? “Yield and swear non-aggression!”
“Not unless you do the same!” Cataphron bellowed back, his voice roaring with the depth of an elephant’s lungs. The Headmaster kept his hands over his eyes and his arms to his ears, but Artorian knew exactly when there would be a lull in the sound.
Artorian was making them, after all; mostly to mask the steps he was taking as he danced around the battleground to stay out of deadly swipe range. “Deal! Swear to do no further harm to me!”
This was embarrassing, which was infuriating. Him, the invulnerable Cataphron was being made to yield by an annoyance well past his prime? He’d need to go into hiding after this, but was certain his head was going to explode if he didn't get out soon. Or worse, one of those strobing spears was going to get lucky. His head hurt too much to think about this. Nothing was worth this horror, so he bellowed, “If Artorian so sweareth in kind, I, Cataphron, shall harm Artorian nevermore!”
There was a moment of trepidation for the Headmaster; his exoskin protection was cracked internally.
That constant barrage was doing far more than he was willing to admit, even if there was no way that his attacker could see that. The next lance was going to skewer him.
“I so swear! I, Artorian, shall harm Cataphron nevermore.” Thunder cracked through the sky, the cacophony crescendoing into abrupt silence. Cataphron collapsed on the ground as his body contracted in on itself. His arms were still wrapped around his head, protecting it from the ceaseless blaring still ringing his skull. He twitched in distress, but was attacked no further.
Artorian was covered head to toe in sweat as he hit the deck, panting severely while his hands quaked. His body was shaking. Vision hazy as he squeezed his eyes shut, barely managing to pull his Aura back to only his physical form. Having so many effects out did a number on his consciousness, and he needed a very long rest. His tired eyes turned cautious as his swimming vision collected itself. Artorian found that his Essence wasn’t doing the best, but he lived; so he chalked it up as a win.
Both old men remained slumped on the ground long enough for the red-robed students to find the courage to be curious, recuperating in their own way as the sky around the mountain rumbled with the ambient Mana that always seemed to accumulate around the Skyspear. The land itself had taken notice of their oath, and would uphold it if they went against their word. It wasn’t at the level of a Mage’s oath, but the consequences of a vow—especially at certain locations—were not to be taken lightly.
Cultivator or not, natural forces tended to win. Artorian took a deep breath, pressing his back to the courtyard wall as he took his sunglasses off. “Now. Cataphron. Get off my mountain.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
“No,” Cataphron denied lethargically. “It’s not your mountain.”
The academic pushed himself up, an equally unpleasant groan leaving the man. “Yes, it is.”
Cataphron rumbled, “No, it’s not.”
Artorian shot back, “My good man, I claimed this mountain using your own rules. You admitted defeat by yielding, and the last I heard from a certain infernal cultivator, the strong decide how things are done here.”
A scoffing cough was the reply to the slumped old man. “Was it? I remember saying nothing of the sort. You must have hit your head too hard.”
The Headmaster hurt all over, and he despised the feeling. There was no way in the whole of the abyss that he was giving this party-grampa another finger’s worth of leeway. “I didn’t yield, we entered an armistice.”
Since he was keeping his Aura to himself, Artorian’s clarity returned. He got a grip on himself and the space he occupied. He was never going to throw that many effects around at the same time again; that mad party had eaten a chunk from his mental clarity. “I demanded you yield, and your retort was ‘only if’. Since your response were the terms and conditions, it doesn’t negate that it was still in response to your yielding. Otherwise, you would have said ‘no’.”
Cataphron felt doubly irritated. Once from having to deal with the physical headache of the encounter he’d just survived; twice from being locked in a debate with a nuisance that seemed skilled in twisting the truth around. Make that three ways of irritation. He could no longer punch the problem away, as much as he dearly wanted to. “I don’t yield to the terms of property ownership. We came to a ceasefire and can now no longer fight, but I am still the Headmaster.”
He didn’t like it when the old student laughed at him. “No, no. Not quite. ‘Headmaster’ is the term provided to the position within an institute, in this case one of learning such as an academy. From your own admission, there is neither an Academy here, nor do you have active students. You do not hold onto that title, and I hereby erect a new Academy on this unclaimed space of my own. I also make an open invitation for new students and faculty to attend and teach.”
The worldly ex-Headmaster groaned. “I want to throw you off the mountain.”
Artorian smiled back with bloody teeth, even as the smudges of red liquid were vanishing trace by trace as the starlight did its work. “If only you were able, right? Well, if you won’t go, then stay and teach at my new Academy.”
Cataphron threw some loose rocks in the direction of the old man. Had the old man had to stab him so often in the kidney with those Essence lances? “I deny your assumed claim. You left. I stayed. You still don’t seem to remember me, but I remember you. You’d never have the qualifications for a teacher, much less an administrator. Even in the old days you were a menace. You did everything on your own terms, shirked duties, and we had to drag you to classes. I was in the class above you, so it was my academic duty. Masters Sho-lin and Fen-que were soft-hearted fools; at least Master Diomedes had vision.”
He spat at the ground, the dark veins under his skin still trying to knit his flesh. The only positive was that the harm was on his exoskin rather than his actual body. Abyss those lances. “Then there was you. The entitled runt with the endless streak of bad luck. You, Headmaster? None would even be willing to call you Master.”
Artorian got to his feet and made a show of brushing himself off, causing Cataphron to glare. Half in shock and half in anger. Artorian was up? How was he up? Cataphron had personally broken half the bones in the old geezer’s body, and the uppercut that had flung him into the outer courtyard should have destroyed him. At worst, the longbeard was holding his arm. “Shall we bet on that, Cataphron?”
The infernal warrior wasn’t about to be outdone, madly shaking as he got to his feet. Cataphron’s legs were unsteady not from anything wrong with the body, but from the discombobulating discord still steadily ringing in his ears. “I’ll bet on nothing when it comes to a sly old man like you. You’ve always resorted to tricks. I shouldn’t be surprised your cultivation went the same direction.”
Artorian shrugged, he was taking his sweet time mending his shoulder and arm but making sure he was being loud enough for the hiding students to overhear him. He saw them peeking from barrels, lurking behind window corners, and keeping cover around large boulders. “Then how about this. Since I can’t make you leave this mountain, and you don’t want me to stay… we can decide by an old staple of the Academy.”
He eased into a tall pose. “Victory to the virtuous.”
The leer from the ex-Headmaster deepened. “There are none left to judge. No Masters remain to decide the claim.”
Artorian let loose some of his nature, and craftily smiled. “Yet, we do have judges! We don’t need a Master for the deciding party. This is an academy. We have the students. Over the span of the next five years, we will both rebuild the Academy to the glory it was, and better. We will propose our ideas to the student body, and they will decide which way they want it to go. The instructor between us who has the greatest popularity, or choices taken, becomes Headmaster of the new academy. In the interim… nobody will have the title. A true test of virtue, as it was chiseled on the wall.”
Cataphron averted his gaze, which were once again horrendously thin and spindly. “That’s drivel I’d expect Sho-lin to sermon on and on and on about. I would prefer to just crack your face in, but I know the rules. I so much as look at you too hard and the sky itself will split me in two. I can already guess that you’d throw yourself in front of the students if I threatened them.”
*Tsk*. Artorian mentally crossed one option off his list. Abyss. He was hoping the C-ranker wouldn’t have thought that through. It would have been clean and quick.
Cataphron snapped his vision to some sound, forcing a student to dive back into hiding. “That will only sort out the title. The loser must either go into seclusion, or leave. That way I never have to see your annoying face again when it’s time for you to get off my mountain.”
Artorian waddled over as the clothes he wore wilted, falling off him one leaf at a time. The life in the clothing had been expended from the fight, and even starlight wasn’t helping anymore. If anything, it removed the needed cleanup as he extended a hand. “It sounds like we have ourselves a test of virtue. Five years. Winner takes ownersh
ip of the mountain, with the title Headmaster of the academy. The student body is the judge.”
He held up his other hand with all five fingers outstretched. “Five points of contention and judgement. The students’ well-being and quality of life, the physical appearance of the Academy, quality of lessons taught and absorbed, rebuilding the information network this place used to be famous for, and quality of life for the people in Xi’an. The latest name, for the Oldwalls.”
Five points of contention meant there couldn’t be a tie. Three was generally too low for a test of virtue, but five was just fine. Cataphron slapped his hand into Artorian’s awaiting palm. The sky rumbled since both were hurt a little, and their oath was immediately tested as a bolt of lightning crashed down where their hands held together. Only the swiftest of releases let neither of them take the harm after being forewarned, but it cemented they couldn’t even do that much. Oaths of the land were not to be taken lightly.
Skyspear mountain could, and would, zap them.
“I so swear.” Cataphron was confident on the deal. As if he could lose this one with his local knowledge and superior years spent at the academy. Him, the best student the Academy had, versus a student that had flunked out and been chased away? Hah! All this would do was give him five years to think of other schemes.
“I so swear.” Artorian was all smiles. He was secretly starting with a huge advantage, and capitalized upon it posthaste. “Would all the students present please gather everyone else and meet us down in the outer courtyard? We’re going to cook the Moro and have a talk about the future while roasting it on a spit. If one of the students is good at skinning, please give them the tools to get that pelt off. We can likely do something with it!”
Artorian's Archives Omnibus Page 65