Book 5: Chapter 17 — Thornback (1) |
Noah had never wished so desperately to be able to look inside someone else’s advancement. What did it mean, what would her options look like? Either way, he didn’t have to think about the choice for long. The biggest challenge so far was keeping everyone alive, so the more party members who could benefit from his healing bloodline, the better.
He selected Yes, then waited in case there was another selection for him to make, but that seemed to be the only thing it needed his authorization for.
Minutes slipped past. His rapid healing finished its work and then some before going dormant again. Behind him, the golden light from Aurelia's advancement continually intensified.
The last of his depleted mana returned, leaving him twitchy with the urge to move. He paced quietly, doing his best not to disturb her.
Then he picked up someone new approaching. Someone strong. No… several someones. Noah's blood ran cold.
Eight. Four members of the Thornback Collective, along with their beasts. Noah had only just recovered from their previous boss fight, and that had only been a single A-Ranked monster.
The reasonable option would be to retreat, but that would mean abandoning Aurelia. An interruption to her advancement at a critical moment could easily kill her or cripple her paths permanently even if she survived.
Retreat wasn't an option.
Scavengers who think they are hunters, Bun Bun growled, scales bristling. They come for our kill. Our spoils. Bun Bun will teach them the cost of such arrogance.
Noah scanned them again in case he was high enough level to learn anything more about them this time, but received the same ??? as before.
"Well, well," Korgan said, his filed teeth gleaming in a predatory grin. "Look what we found. The little newbies actually killed the Menagerie." His eyes swept past Noah to the chamber beyond, where golden light pulsed with Aurelia's advancement. "And one of them is... indisposed. How convenient."
Vera laughed, urging her serpent forward. "Which means all that lovely loot is sitting in there, waiting for someone strong enough to claim it."
"We claimed it," Noah said, his voice cold. "We killed it. The spoils are ours."
"You claimed it for now," Korgan corrected. "But possession is the entirety of the law out here, and right now, you're one B-Ranker against all of us." He spread his hands in mock sympathy. "No matter how impressive you are, the math doesn't favor you, boy."
Noah's mind raced. Aurelia needed time. He had no way of knowing how long her upgrade would take, he’d never actually watched one of these from the outside before. At least as long as they were talking he could buy time. Every second he bought her was a second closer to completion. Two against eight wasn’t his preferred odds, but it was a little better than one against eight.
It is already two, Bun Bun declared. Bun Bun would rather die than let this thieving pack take what we earned.
Noah appreciated the sentiment, but put a hand on his draconic familiar’s back. Not yet. It’s just a bunch of crafting materials, it’s not worth more than Aurelia’s life.
Bun Bun bristled, body tense and still ready to spring, but he didn’t attack.
“I understand,” Noah told Korgan evenly. “Bigger monster, bigger tribute for free passage, yeah?”
“Exactly. There must be something good in there.”
“There wasn’t much.” Noah reached into his astral storage space, trying to think of anything he could offer that would satisfy them. The only thing he could think of was the core, which Aurelia was using to fuel her evolution, and the last thing he wanted was to draw more of their attention to her. “I don’t think anyone’s actually challenged it in years.”
“Don’t give me that,” Vera snapped, her mount slithering forward to tower over Noah. “Something that old wouldn’t be destitute.”
“It was a monster, not an aging noble,” Noah argued.
“Quit stalling,” Korgan ordered. “Hand it over or we’ll take it from your corpse.”
I see we’re doing away with subtlety, Noah thought. He took out half the crystals and metal panels they’d obtained from harvesting the monster and laid them out one at a time.
One of the others in the back, the only serpent-rider aside from Vera, stepped forward with a look of curiosity, but most of the others only seemed more and more irritated as Noah went on slowly depositing the crafting materials.
“You expect us to believe this is all you got?” Vera’s mount hissed in agreement as she slid down to walk right up in Noah’s face, kicking aside the careful row of materials with disdain. “Where’s the real loot?”
This close, the presence of someone a full rank higher and twice his level was stifling. The Menagerie had also been A-Rank, but it was a wild, undirected sort of power. Vera’s attention was blade-sharp and focused directly on Noah with an intensity that demanded he submit.
Even without his recent draconic evolution, such a pressure would have made Noah more defiant, not less. With the combination of his own pride with his Dragon’s Will bolstering his sense of self, he’d have already attacked if not for Aurelia behind him being at her most vulnerable and defenceless.
It burned at him to even imagine letting them think him lesser, but some things were more important than pride, even draconic pride.
Hurry up, Aurelia! If she were mobile, they could try to escape. It’d be a whole lot harder for them to catch him in the open sky once they got out of this enclosed space, even if two of them had giant bugs to fly on. But if he exited the lair right now, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to re-enter, and that really limited his options.
Ironically, it was more of a struggle to look away as if cowed. He couldn’t think of anything else to bribe them with that they’d accept. He could offer the Wayfarer Band, but something told him that would go over no better than the rare and epic grade materials they so disdained.
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“There’s this,” he offered, pulling out one of the two Astral Wing Membranes. While it was only graded as Rare, its draconic nature was enough to make him visibly reluctant to part with it. Instead of putting it down like the rest, he only held it out instead.
As he’d feared, they didn’t seem interested. Vera’s phase-serpent subtly bunched itself up ready to attack, out of sight but not out of the domain of Noah’s Abyssal awareness.
“You’re holding out on us,” Korgan said, disappointed. “Guess it’s true what they say. Only blood never lies.”
“I’ve never heard that before.” Behind cover of the oversized wing-section, Noah’s first few Arcane Spectres slid out into the space behind him and blinked away, taking up positions around the area.
Korgan snorted. “Should have been paying more attention.”
Vera’s serpent struck, its neck darting forward at practically supersonic speed. Noah leaped back, but even with forewarning he wasn’t fast enough to get clear. Its fangs dug into his leg instead of his chest, but still pierced right through his scales like they weren’t there and dragged him down. In the same instant, it twisted and rolled, crushing him in its coils before he could hit the ground.
[Phasecoil Viper has inflicted [Phasecoil Venom] on you.
You’ve been inflicted with [Stability X].
You’ve been inflicted with [Paralysis X].
You’ve been inflicted with [Weakness X].
You’ve been inflicted with [Toxin X].
You’ve been inflicted with [Dissonance X].
[Phasecoil Venom] negates General Affliction Resistance.
Cosmic Wyrmblood bypasses [Phasecoil Venom].
[Dissonance X] → [Dissonance VIII]
[Toxin X] → [Toxin VI]
[Paralysis X] → [Paralysis VI]
[Weakness X] → [Weakness VII]
Arcane Body resists [Stability]
[Stability X] → [Stability VII]
He couldn’t move, but at least Abyssal Inferno was still active, so his abilities weren’t being fully blocked.
Arcane Step.
[Stability] negates Arcane Step
Only some of them.
Bun Bun bit down on the snake’s tail, only to be swatted away and slammed into the far wall with enough force his health dropped to critical and he passed out on the spot.
Welp.
It’d been less than a second since the fight started, and Noah was already more thoroughly incapacitated than he’d ever been in his life. He lashed out with everything he had. Or… tried to, at least.
You’ve inflicted [Wyrm’s Curse] on Phasecoil Viper.
[Wyrm’s Curse] has been resisted.
[Dissonance] has negated Life Siphon.
[Stability] has negated Void Annihilation
“Looks like there was no reason to get everyone out of bed for this one,” Vera scoffed, patting her snake’s side. “Could’ve just sent Slither to handle it alone.”
But Noah wasn’t so sure. The pressure around him had disappeared, just for a moment, as he activated his curse. The snake could phase in and out of corporeality, but it also relied on that phasing to resist his afflictions. If he weren’t paralyzed, he could probably have slipped out during that brief flicker.
Noah shifted to his dragon form, despite being compressed into the snake’s grip. He was gambling that the transformation would force some more space rather than crushing him further, and he was right. His wings flared out behind him, slicing right through the snake’s midsection as if it wasn’t even there.
Dragon Shift bypasses [Phasecoil Venom]
Dragon Shift resists [Weakness]
[Weakness VII] → [Weakness IV]
Dragon’s Will resists [Dissonance]
[Dissonance VIII] → [Dissonance V]
In his mind, he was already breaking free and throwing himself upward, wings snapping out to carry him up and out of reach, but in reality he was still paralyzed.
Still, motionless didn’t mean helpless. Dragon Fear rolled through the tunnel in a wave of primal terror. Abyssal Inferno flared up around him stronger than ever.
The bonded beasts hesitated. Even A-rank creatures had instincts, and those instincts screamed that a dragon stood before them. The beasts shied back for all of three seconds before their strength disparity overwhelmed the fear effect.
A lot could be done in three seconds. Noah still had five Arcane Spectres out there, just waiting on an opening. He may be paralyzed and trapped, but they weren’t.
Now!
All five Arcane Stepped into the fray, weapons up and sparking with Void Annihilation that only started to falter once they came within a few steps of Noah and his captor. The storm of power that erupted from all five attacking at once was unprecedented, each instance jumping through every enemy in turn and building on itself, while they all echoed with one another and rose in a split second to a sparking crescendo.
Noah was almost deafened by the blast.
Korgan’s hair stuck straight on end and the mantis flailed wildly at nothing as though trying to grab the chain lightning.
Vera dropped her sword with a yelp, and the man on the beetle continued to sit serenely despite his mount going all glaze-eyed and unmoving.
“Guess it’s a good thing I came after all.” The bones in Korgan’s forearms stretched out into curved blades that matched those of his mount, hinged for free movement and slashing independently.
Korgan lashed out at two of his Spectres. One escaped, the other did not.
Noah pushed all he could into Abyssal Inferno, the only ability he could really depend on right now. Dark fire poured off him, turning the area around him into a shadowed hellscape.
His spectres followed suit, and for almost two seconds Noah thought they were making headway.
Then the brief hesitation from Dragon’s Fear was shaken off. The mantis snatched two Arcane Spectres and crushed them in its powerful claws, though one did manage to wrap its claw in Noah’s runic chains before it was dispelled. Noah compressed the chains with a thought, locking that claw closed. Not as good as immobilizing it fully, but against this group, he’d take whatever advantage he could get.
That left two more spectres, both of whom had escaped in the aftermath of the brief clash and gone back to hiding among the shelves and tumbled rock around the edges. He could feel how desperately they wanted to attack, but held them back.
Vera’s snake refocused on him angrily. It reared up above him as it returned to full corporeality, then bit down on Noah’s head before wrapping him up again wings and all.
[Phasecoil Venom I] → [Phasecoil Venom II]
[Stability VII] → [Stability XII]
[Paralysis VI] → [Paralysis XI]
[Weakness VII] → [Weakness XII]
[Toxin VI] → [Toxin XI]
[Dissonance V] → [Dissonance X]
He couldn’t see, with his head engulfed, but he hadn’t relied on normal vision for a long time now. He mentally searched his abilities for anything useful. Inferno was running already, and his other attacks or escape abilities were negated by the serpent’s venom.
Wait.
He’d been bitten twice, once on the leg, once on the face, either of which should give his blood an exit point. One of which was inside his enemy’s mouth at the moment. He activated Bloodwyrm Swarm, letting one tiny wyrm escape his neck, holding his breath in expectation of a message negating the ability.
The wyrm booped the side of his neck gently, as if to say it worked!
If he could have smiled, he would have been grinning. Focusing on forming his single massive Bloodwyrm, he pushed the ability as far as he’d ever done.
His tiny Bloodwyrm grew as his blood flowed out, directly down the snake’s throat, expanding and clawing as it did.
The snake flickered out of phase again, but this time it wasn’t enough to save it. The still-growing Bloodwyrm coiled around Noah protectively, perfectly matching the oversized snake’s shape, so if it came back into phase it would immediately be torn apart from the inside.
Vera let out a very serpent-like hiss of anger as the friendly scales under her hand changed in an instant into a hungry Bloodwyrm who was most definitely not her friend.
Void Annihilation crackled along the creature’s back, tearing rifts in reality itself that bypassed the Phasecoil Viper’s incorporeality to slice into it directly.
Noah allowed himself a brief swell of pride at his Bloodwyrm’s capabilities, then focused.
Alright, Tony, you’re up.
Abyssal Fusion rippled through his body, enhancing everything about him as Tony fully integrated into Noah. He may be paralyzed, but his symbiote wasn’t.
Noah burst upward as he’d been imagining a second earlier. Five quick flaps of his draconic wings carried him up and out of reach.
Tony is slightly concerned.
You and me both. Noah had bought a few seconds and was safe for the moment, but now he had to figure out how to win. This is going to be a bit of a challenge.