Chapter 362: Pinpoint Removal |
Liquid metal rose from between the cables underneath us, then gushed up to where we floated like a geyser had erupted. The main burst was easy enough to avoid, but the droplets spread out from the central torrent to assault us like a spray of bullets. It was beyond my ability to dodge physically, but I was quick enough with Shortcut to teleport us back the way we’d come.
Shog was already there. The c’thon moved so fast that I couldn’t track him without focusing, and my focus was elsewhere. While my teleport had bought me, Etja, and Grotto a momentary reprieve, the droplets of metal had become pellets that were bouncing off the irregular surface of the cable-covered tunnel walls. Each bounce increased their velocity until the air was filled with the deadly hiss of projectiles too fast to follow, even though I was focusing on them.
I put Gracorvus into hover mode by Etja to give the unconscious mage more cover and had Grotto do the same with his own shields. I hit the hallway with another Elemental Barrier, replacing fire with a frigid storm of whipping wind and ice. Some of the pellets shattered, becoming visible again as a glittering frozen spray. While that looked promising, it was ultimately proven a failure as Gracorvus was rattled by a rapid series of thunks, along with my armor. I looked down to see bursts of silver against my cuirass like I’d been hit by a paintball gun, but as soon as I saw it, the stuff swam off around my armor, disappearing into the gaps created by joints and articulation.
While my armor had very few gaps, it wasn’t hermetically sealed.
I felt the substance Mustachio had turned into as it squirmed around on my skin, surprisingly warm despite the blizzard I’d created. Between this experience and the whole situation with Charl, I was definitely roping Grotto into my next armor redesign. Guy could definitely make fully sealed armor from Zng tech. For the moment, Mustachio was taking advantage of my lack of foresight and the metal turned to razors that swept across my bare skin.
My Shielding fought to protect me, but the value began to plummet as it was forced to operate as my first, last, and only line of defense. I then quickly discovered that the blender that had snuck into my outfit posed larger problems than just damage. Although my skin remained whole and unblemished, the razors left a phantom sensation behind them like fingers tracing out a word on my back. That tingle sank down into my skin until I could feel Mustachio chuckling from inside what was left of my veins.
It was a very strange and specific sensation, the kind one might describe to a physician before receiving a hasty referral to a psychiatrist. The notifications that followed were on theme.
You have been Stupefied!
You have gained 102 Toxicity!
Toxicity reduced to 51!
Your Toxicity resistance has negated the long term effects of mercury poisoning!
You have been afflicted with Fear!
You are immune to Fear! The affliction has been negated.
You are Berserk!
Berserk has been negated by the Sacrament of Redemption! Half of your stacks of Blessed have been consumed.
The blender beneath my armor became a blender in my thoughts, tearing apart the concentration I needed to cast spells. The tingling following in the path of the razors rose and fell in waves as my body eradicated the toxins Mustachio was pouring into me. The potential of heavy metal poisoning was somehow more terrifying than the types of poisoning I normally dealt with, but I was glad to see that new anxiety immediately put to bed.
Stupefied kept me from using half my build, which sucked, but I hadn’t even felt the briefest urge to run away screaming since I was functionally immune to Fear. I say functionally since it was an aura buff that should have only affected my allies, but it got the Auradilato reach around to make me my own ally and came with some quirks because of it. Long story short: I wasn’t unconscious, so it didn’t matter.
One day a nightmare hag or something would come for me and I’d be fucked, but it was impossible for the waking world send me into a magically-induced state of overwhelming panic.
Anyway, unlike Fear, Berserk was something I couldn’t ignore. A moment of cold rage pricked at my chest like the tip of a railroad spike, but the incoming sledgehammer that would have driven it home got backhanded away by the Sacrament of Redemption. The blessing from Sumrann would consume half of my stacks of Blessed to negate any one of a slew of debuffs. That first trigger dropped me to 14. If I had less than 5, the Sacrament wouldn’t trigger.
Mezmerized has been negated by the Sacrament of Redemption! Half of your stacks of Blessed have been consumed.
That one dropped me to 7.
Mesmerized has been negated by the Sacrament of Redemption! Again!
And that one took me down to 3. I needed to come up with some alternatives.
While this was happening, I was hit by transfer damage from the Life Warden I had on Etja. Some part of the United had managed to get beneath the armor she was wrapped up in. Then Grotto took a hit that activated Shared Fate and stabbed me with the psychic equivalent of a needle in my third eye.
Shog was pushing back the rest of Mustachio’s liquid body with a constant barrage of shockwaves. Every swing of one of his blades released a ripple of force that abused the air and shredded more of the cabling along the tunnel. While my Elemental Barrier could knock people around, there was a timing to its pulses that could be avoided by something fast enough, whereas Shog’s attack cadence was so rapid it left no space for Mustachio to punch through it. The United had splattered me with his gunk, but was otherwise being held off by the c’thon.
Stupefy kept me from casting any spells, which meant most of my ideas for how to get rid of the part of Mustachio rampaging beneath our armor wouldn’t work.
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
That would have really sucked if my teleports weren’t Deific.
Shortcut was a blazing star within my soul that I could grab onto despite the chaos of my thoughts. I mana-shaped the teleport to grab Shog and took us all back down the hall. Mustachio was his own person–however much he was trying to role-play as a member of the periodic table–so the teleport wouldn’t accept him as an uninvited hanger-on, meaning the liquid razors got left behind. Shog’s assault never faltered. He immediately reoriented after the teleport so that his shockwaves came from a better angle to keep Mustachio at bay through brute force.
The Stupefied condition ended almost as soon as I was out of Mustachio’s grasp. I dropped yet another Elemental Barrier, choosing Lightning this time, but it wasn’t any more effective than Cold or Fire. If Explosion! hadn’t done the trick either, then a Sonic-type followup was also pointless. That meant my options were to throw hammers or try to orb his ass to oblivion, but given the sheer amount of liquid silver flying around, that solution might take a while.
“Grotto, thoughts?”
[I attempted to use Commandment and the mere thought of targeting him with a mind-affecting spell led to so much psychic feedback I was forced to shut down for a moment.]
“Damn.”
I checked Etja’s health, seeing that our various protections had kept her from taking much. Still, I felt a swell of anger at the United for going after her when she was helpless.
[His very thoughts are like a plague that spreads on contact, the madness he suffers from renders him invulnerable to Psychic attacks, he has displayed immunity to all Physical damage types we have available, his physiology makes Spatial attacks pointless, and Planar effects like Oblivion Orb will only harm the small part of him captured by the spell.]
“Right, so you're saying this guy is a perfect counter to all the shit any of the three of us bring to the table?”
“That is not true,”Shog said, still swinging his swords. His voice permeated our minds, leaving it audible despite the noise. “If I allow him to approach, I can eat his soul.”
I watched the huge c’thon constantly blasting the tunnel, muscles rippling as he performed the feat with casual nonchalance. The man had become an absolute terror.
“Are you immune to Berserk?” I thought to him. Shog considered that as he swung.
“No.”
“Then the mustache man will be staying well outside your soul-chomping range.”
[That seems wise.]
“So are we just–”
My thought was cut off early as the tangle of cables to my right erupted. Mustachio had dug through the wall to avoid Shog’s zoning. I reflexively cast Shortcut to avoid it, taking all my allies along for the ride again, but Shog’s pushback strategy was foiled. Even if I teleported us straight to the control center, this United had shown himself to be so fast he could meet us there in a matter of seconds.
Shockwaves pounded the tunnels, and my frustration grew as Mustachio reformed into enough of a throat and lungs to giggle. His voice started bouncing around my head like his liquid metal body bounced off the walls.
“I’m doing the right thing, he won’t stop unless I stop him, he’s killed everyone he’s come across, just keep myself here, all of me here, he hasn’t shown anything that can hurt me, but he hurts everyone he finds, I need to stay careful, but I’m doing the right thing, just stay here and keep myself here, it’s going to be okay, we just have to stop him.”
It was clear his self-pep talk was referencing me, but what he was saying made no sense. While Mustachio couldn’t reach me with his liquid body again, his accusations stabbed into me all the same. If I were so dangerous, why was he laughing at me? If I killed everyone I came across, why would he take the risk to stand in my way? How could he even expect to stop me? Why did he even dare?
A switch flipped, and I knew what I needed to do to end this sideshow.
Oblivion Orb was normally the size of a grapefruit, but it could go larger. That size was a sweet spot for damage, mana efficiency, and taking advantage of the dents my hammers made when hitting something. A grapefruit-sized attack didn’t help us here, since Mustachio was some kind of Looney Tunes rain shower made up of mercury-laced bouncy bullets. I needed an orb that was big.
I dumped mana into the spell. Mana shaping had a compounding cost the more one tried to change a spell from its default form, but I had evolutions that helped cover some of that cost. Even so, I went nuts. Once I had an absurd amount of mana wrapped up in Oblivion Orb, I slapped it onto my hammer like usual, which increased the cost another 50%.
I Shortcut to the center of Mustachio’s storm and activated Gravity Anchor, pulling every speck of the asshole to me. Stupefy immediately ruined my spellcasting, but General Oladl had died while learning how little that mattered to me. Putting the orb on my hammer meant the spell had already been cast, and that misplaced confidence would turn yet another enemy into a body. I swung the hammer down onto my chest as the flowing silver tried to slither deeper to touch my skin, activating a 600 mana Oblivion Orb.
The spell ate Mustachio, along with everything else for 40 feet in all directions. The walls were gone, cables and all, the floor and ceiling removed. I hovered in the center of a perfect sphere devoid of anything living or otherwise.
Except for me.
I looked around wildly, clenching and unclenching my empty left hand and adjusting my grip on Somncres with my right. It hadn’t been enough. There was something behind me, someone else down the hall. Another was bleeding and cradling their missing arm, spouting some kind of nonsense without end. The thought of these morons believing themselves capable of ambushing me of all people set my teeth gnashing in fury.
If Brae’ach’s indoctrinated army wanted to amass itself before me, I’d feed it into the slaughterhouse. If anyone tried to take what was mine I’d turn them into piles of meat like everyone else who’d come before them.
I reared back, ready to drop the rest of my mana into another attack, when a cool wind blew through my thoughts.
Heroism! Grotto has restored you from all detrimental mind-altering effects. Additionally, you receive a +50 bonus to your Spiritual and social defenses for the next 64 minutes.
You are no longer Berserk!
I blinked as the miasma of rage vacated my skull like a thick fog. I took a deep, shaking breath, then blew it out slowly, trying to exhale the lingering vestiges of the emotion. The anger clung stubbornly, leaving behind an irritating residue even after it had been thoroughly cleared out.
Grotto was on my back, but I noticed Etja was no longer on my shoulder. I twisted around in a panic, realizing I hadn’t shaped Oblivion Orb to avoid allies. For a terrible moment I thought she’d been caught up in the attack, but calmed when I saw Shog cradling her in his tentacles. They were just beyond the edge of my empty sphere. Realizing that Etja was safe made room in my head to understand I’d mistaken both Grotto and Shog for enemies right before my faculties had been restored.
I’d avoided falling prey to Berserk for a long time, and I was fortunate for that, but the way it had manifested was terrifying. I wouldn’t have even described the state I was in as being angry until the very end. In fact, even now I had no idea when the debuff had first taken effect. It was like I’d gradually become a person of absolute conviction, and my convictions had all been dangerously wrong.
Is this what Varrin was always bouncing back and forth between during fights? The aftermath was already hitting me with a brutal emotional hangover. I had no idea how anyone could tolerate having that experience on a regular basis.
I looked up again, my brief contemplation broken as I remembered something. There was one other person here, missing an arm and babbling. I locked onto the unfamiliar figure at the edge of my disaster. She was rocking back and forth, trying to put pressure on a stump and only managing to bleed all over the place.
It was a young Geulon woman, even younger than Nuralie had been when we’d first met. She might have been a teenager, and it sounded like she was talking to herself.
“Where the fuck did she come from?” I asked.