Book 5: Chapter 18 — Thornback (2) |
Metamorphosis time remaining: 118 seconds.
It felt strange having Tony flap his wings for him, having no direct feeling or control of where his limbs moved. The disconnect between physical reflex and innate draconic instinct was vaguely disorienting, but right now any movement was better than staying trapped on the ground.
Noah hovered just below the ceiling while he tried to think of a new plan and waited for the paralysis and venom to wear off.
Below, Noah’s Bloodwyrm and Vera’s viper were a writhing tangle of elongated bodies as each tried to gain an upper coil over the other.
Vera, face locked in a scowl, had her sword out but hesitated to attack lest she hit her own familiar.
So her weapon ignores the phase shift, Noah noted. He could do the same with Void Annihilation, so it was probably irrelevant, but he’d take every scrap of information he could get.
Korgan’s arm-blades withdrew back into his body as he hopped up onto his mantis’s back. “You had to go and make this complicated, eh boy? Last chance to resolve this and go our separate ways.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Noah called down, a little halting.
Tony is not used to doing everything, his symbiote said apologetically.
“Lying,” said the bored man on his beetle, not bothering to open his eyes.
Korgan shrugged. “Collective, take him down. Don't kill him unless you have to. Dead men can't tell us where they hid the good stuff." His mantis backed up a few steps, then with a quick runup launched itself into the air.
Heading directly toward Noah.
Noah, Tony needs help! It was all Tony could do to keep Noah hovering. Trying to actually fight in midair while holding back the paralysis for every movement would burn through their mana way too fast.
Judging by how little damage had been done despite throwing his best abilities at them pretty steadily, this fight was not going to be quick. Burning through mana ten times faster than necessary would only get him killed.
I’m on it.
Noah’s Bloodwyrm slipped through the Phasecoil Viper and lunged in a straight upward leap, slamming into the mantis’s underside and driving it and its rider into the ceiling. Thinking fast, Noah commanded his Runic Chains to bind to the rock as the place shuddered and small chips of stone clattered down. The chain binding the mantis’s right claw untwisted partway and locked to the stone, effectively handcuffing Korgan’s mount to the ceiling.
Then a wave of burning from within whited out everything else.
Constitution form, Noah instructed, just in time. He felt immediately lightheaded to go with the intense nausea and struggled even to read the notifications.
[Toxin XI] has activated.
Health: 10%
[Toxin XI] → [Toxin X]
Fear flashed through him for a moment, quickly replaced with anger. Depending on how fast that ticked down, he could be about to die prematurely. And this was with Abyssal Fusion at full Constitution mode. Without that, he’d have been instakilled on the spot.
Maybe he had to make this quick after all.
The snake had grabbed onto his Bloodwyrm’s tail while the Bloodwyrm clawed and bit at the mantis locked to the ceiling. Only the ceiling seemed to be taking any meaningful damage from the exchange.
Korgan climbed up his mantis’s arm to slice at Noah’s chains. Noah’s chains were significantly stronger than any mundane weapon, however. Korgan’s blade slid along them instead of cutting through, and sliced deep into the ceiling instead.
Down, Noah ordered his Bloodwyrm, and the creature dove for the ground without releasing the mantis.
The already unstable ceiling cracked. Runic links anchored into stone brought down a section of ancient masonry directly onto the serpent and rider below, dragging Korgan and his mantis along with it.
Vera's serpent phased through the debris, appearing directly in front of Noah with fangs bared. One of his spectres met it with Void Annihilation, the ability erupting from its palm and catching the creature mid-strike.
The serpent shrieked and reared back.
Noah’s spectre kept after it, summoning weapons and leaving them stabbed into the creature as it empowered each with Void Annihilation before teleporting away.
Korgan cursed as he heaved aside chunks of tumbled stone from the minor avalanche.
His mantis looked unhurt apart from one of its wings, crumpled and torn where it had taken a chunk of rock at just the wrong angle. The creature slashed out in all directions, aggressively clearing the stone in its vicinity.
Vera let out a shrieking hiss somewhere between a scream and a snarl that echoed out in visible cracks as space and reality tore apart. Noah didn’t even have time to think a warning to his spectres before the woman and her serpent both disappeared into a dimensional rift and reappeared well away from the collapsed ceiling.
Noah’s Bloodwyrm wasn’t so fortunate. Whatever ability Vera had used had depleted its health and shattered its cohesion, splitting it back into a couple dozen smaller bloodwyrms. Then even those started disappearing en masse as Vera lashed out.
Her ability looked something like Void Annihilation, only a lot less controlled. Instead of chain lightning echoing through everyone in the vicinity, hers was an aggressive splash that sent dimensional cracks flying everywhere instead of water droplets.
Those cracks of hers were still a whole lot more damaging than Noah’s summons could survive. Whenever a crack came into contact with a bloodwyrm or a spectre the creature collapsed into a puff of dispersed mana from the spectres or blood from the bloodwyrms.
Then the woman’s sword was suddenly tearing into Noah’s wing as she appeared above him, leaving an identical copy behind her.
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Is she just stealing my whole playbook? Noah wanted to call foul. Even if her abilities seemed smaller and simpler than his own, he was used to being the only person throwing around dimensional disruption and copying himself.
Tony wrenched them away, tearing Noah’s wing free of Vera’s sword.
The woman fell toward the ground. Her serpent caught her in its coil midway and slid her unharmed to the ground.
Tony rapidly knit Noah’s wing back together as they fell after her, then the combined boost from his Dragon’s Heart, Wyrmblood, and Abyssal Fusion’s Metamporphosis-boosted Constitution form finished the repair between one wingbeat and the next. At least paralysis and disruption and whatever other debuffs weren’t interfering with his internal healing, only when he tried to siphon from anyone else.
He could feel the strain as Tony forced Noah’s body through the movements against the phasecoil venom’s negative effects, but for the next hundred or so seconds Abyssal Fusion had the upper hand.
Noah was really getting tired of being a spectator in his own fight to the death.
The fact he had such exceedingly fast reflexes and perception now almost made it worse, every moment stretching out with so much time to watch and still no way to participate directly. He was used to acting, losing himself in movement and instinct. All this watching and thinking, trying to direct all his subordinates but never quite fast enough to make a difference? Infuriating.
There has to be a better way to get rid of this paralysis!
Hunger sparked at the thought, a quiet reminder in the back of his mind that he was never truly helpless. His puny draconic abilities could only consume a fraction of his current set of negative conditions, but he had something else that could take care of them all in an instant. All he had to do was let it out.
Puny draconic abilities? But the errant thought did remind him of something.
Not all resistances are passive. Annoyed with himself for the oversight, Noah activated another ability. He used it so rarely, he’d almost forgotten it existed.
[Wyrm’s Feast] has consumed [Toxin X]
Healing life energy blasted through Noah’s entire body with such strength he almost passed out, the direct inverse of the toxin’s damaging wave.
Health has surpassed maximum percentage. Overheal reduces ongoing debuffs.
[Stability XII] → [Stability X]
[Paralysis XI] → [Paralysis IX]
[Weakness XII] → [Weakness X]
[Dissonance X] → [Dissonance VIII]
Shouldn’t it have eaten all of them? Then again, given the impact from just Toxin, maybe more would have killed him outright.
No time to worry about that now.
Korgan’s mantis had recovered almost as quickly as Noah himself, its crumpled wing now back to its usual shape. It threw itself upward again, Korgan astride its back holding on with his legs and both arms raised with their extended scythe-claw transformations already active.
Noah tried Wyrm’s Feast again in the instant before they connected, but the ability didn’t touch the remaining debuffs.
He could almost hear the part of him that was the Devourer laughing at him, urging him to unleash it again instead. Wyrm’s Feast only consumed damaging conditions, not disruptive ones. But the Devourer wasn’t so limited. It would be so easy. Nothing would be able to chain them or hold them back. Not Korgan, not Vera, not Aurelia, not Zax…
No. Noah’s defiance flared, draconic and human natures combined to combat the allure of the inner hunger. Let it out too many times and he’d lose himself completely, whether or not he took the path with its name.
Then the time for thinking was over. Korgan was right in front of him.
Noah’s arms flicked, summoning his spear and chains back and launching both directly at the A-Rank hunter’s chest.
Korgan leaned aside to let the chains flail past him harmlessly while his left claw came up and caught the descending spear an inch away from his body. He spun the weapon, as if to run Noah through with his own spear. “Hah. You think this—”
Gotcha. Noah knew from painful experience that the spear didn’t need anything but contact.
[Spear of Crimson End] has inflicted [Crimson Rot] on [Mantis Lord].
“Gah!” Korgan dropped the spear.
But he was only half the danger.
Korgan’s Razorwing Mantis reached out and crunched Noah in two claws with irresistible force. One leg and one wing were gone before Noah even realized what was happening.
Health: 52%
Dismemberment inflicts [Bleed III]
Almost half his health in one hit, despite all his stacked transformations. Noah’s stats were being boosted by four different percentage multipliers and it hardly seemed to matter.
A-Rankers hit hard.
Noah had enough presence of mind to use the sudden injury to summon another Bloodwyrm Swarm. The creatures formed from all four locations as Noah’s blood ran freely in the brief moments before Tony’s reshaping began to replace the missing limbs.
Cosmic Wyrmblood + Abyssal Fusion have negated [Bleed III].
Health: 57%, +5% per second
Mana: 32%
Metamorphosis time remaining: 83 seconds.
It would only be a few seconds before Noah’s body was rebuilt, but there was one problem with that timeline. He was in midair and missing a wing.
Tony will protect! But Tony cannot sustain this for long!
Tony’s demonic wings grew out in a rush, catching Noah just before he hit the ground.
Vera’s snake caught him a split second later.
[Phasecoil Venom II] → [Phasecoil Venom III]
[Stability X] → [Stability XV]
[Paralysis IX] → [Paralysis XIV]
[Weakness X] → [Weakness XV]
You’ve been inflicted with [Toxin X].
[Dissonance VIII] → [Dissonance XIII]
The giant snake wasted no time in wrapping its body around him, doing its best to crush him into paste.
Not again!
His spectres were gone. His Bloodwyrms were forced to stay high to avoid the lingering disruptive ripples of Vera’s power that would instantly disperse them on contact. They were harassing the mantis, but could do nothing to rescue Noah.
Bun Bun was unconscious in Noah’s dimensional storage where one of his spectres had apparently stashed the familiar for safekeeping. Probably for the best, since the D-Rank dragonspawn would be less than useless in a fight of this level anyway.
At least Noah knew what to do about the toxin, but the heaviness in his body was starting to feel beyond physical now.
Tony was doing everything he could, but while being smacked back and forth between four A-Rankers there was only so much to be done. The Thornback Collective made the Menagerie look slow and clumsy by comparison.
[Wyrm’s Feast] has consumed [Toxin X]
Health has surpassed maximum percentage. Overheal reduces ongoing debuffs.
[Stability XV] → [Stability XIV]
[Paralysis XIV] → [Paralysis XIII]
[Weakness XV] → [Weakness XIII]
[Dissonance XIII] → [Dissonance XII]
And the overheal was less effective than last time. At this rate, he’d end up debuffed so much that even Wyrm’s Feast didn’t make a dent.
Tony struggled and reshaped Noah’s body in increasingly desperate attempts to break away or slip free of the serpent’s grip, but its fangs were deep in Noah’s side with no sign of letting up, and no amount of minute adjustments could negate that.
Seconds slid by as he tried to think of anything he hadn’t done yet.
[Dissonance] has negated Valkyrie’s Call.
[Stability] has disabled [Wayfarer’s Band].
[Wyrm’s Curse] has been resisted.
[Dissonance] has negated Life Siphon.
[Stability] has negated Cosmic Vault.
[Dissonance] has negated Arcane Spectre.
Dragon Shift flickered, the transformation threatening to collapse as his reserves bottomed out.
Health: 87%, cannot increase further.
Mana: 4%
Abyssal Inferno was barely singeing the snake’s scales. It wouldn’t be doing meaningful damage any time soon.
Tony is sorry, Tony said, voice strained. Tony cannot escape.
Metamorphosis time remaining: 71 seconds.
Stop trying, Noah ordered. Hide your presence. He let his Dragon Shift fade. Let them think I’m truly helpless. Maybe they’d underestimate him in the last minute of Metamorphosis they had remaining. As much as it burned his draconic pride to pretend weakness, it was the only thing he could think of. He had nothing else left. Tony was his only hope.
Well. Almost only.