Chapter 49: EnSath |
As soon as Left exited the shadows provided by the forest, the Touch of Night combination faded, reverting back to the base Touch of the Primal effect. That still left him with a shimmering overlay of energy across his already glowing body, with a beast-like mask of energy superimposed over his face. Dark lines like ink continued to run through the primarily blue daggers and wings, but that was a result of Hiral’s pseudo-aspect anyway. Even the streams following the two weapons through the air – and the ice-like particles trailing the wings – held hints of that darkness.
Likely not caring at all about the small details of Left’s appearance, the watery giant spun as soon as it felt Left bolting in its direction. And, apparently, the Infested hadn’t really learned his lesson after fighting Right, with a haymaker of the punch swinging around to swat the comparative insect out of the air. Or, maybe it had learned, with the blow coming across at almost twice the speed of anything it had thrown in the previous trial.
Traded power for speed, huh? Will it be enough?
The answer to that question was a resounding no, but for reasons entirely different than in the fight against Right. Left had never been focused on direct power, and instead used the versatility of his tattoos to overcome obstacles and support his party. Thinking his tattoos were his only advantage, though, was vastly underestimating the double.
Left had watched the battle between this Infested and Right – along with all the other battles – very closely. And if there was one person in the party who could analyze an opponent and their weaknesses, it was the man flying straight at the city-block-sized fist.
Almost sluggishly – compared to everything else – a pulse of solar energy shot down the giant’s arm to reinforce the limb as it swung at Left. Considering the Left and Right looked nearly identical to a casual inspection, it was no surprise the Infested was trying to counter Left like it should’ve tried to counter Right.
Again, the two doubles were not the same, and Left proved it with his next action. He dodged the fist. A twist at the waist and a bend of his wings whipped him up and to the side just in time to zip around the pinky knuckle. Then, using the split-second where he was hidden from the giant’s view by its own arm, Left didn’t bolt away from his opponent. No, he twisted in the air while staying in tight to the watery arm, and dipped the tip of his left wing into it.
Ice formed and spread in a line immediately as Left flexed his lower back and then corkscrewed his way up the arm. Easily twice as fast as he had been when he’d approached the giant – clearly, he’d been holding back – Left’s passage infected the limb with a rapidly spreading frost. By the time he reached the shoulder barely a heartbeat later, the giant’s forearm had already hardened on the outside like it was wearing armor, and the elbow was locking in place.
Even as the Infested registered what was going on there, Left finished he circuit up the arm, swooping from out to in across the shoulder and toward the side of the giant’s head. Dagger’s of En and Sath leading, Left punched into the face of the massive creature just as it turned a surprised look in his direction.
Ice spread from the inside out like wildfire, the route along Left’s flight transforming the entire, huge head into a solid block within seconds. Then the trailing stream – built up over the miles Left had traveled to get there and up the arm – caught up with explosive results. Water on water, maybe the effect wouldn’t have been quite as dramatic.
Against a massive ice cube though?
Left blew the entire head off the giant’s watery shoulders in a shower of slush and frozen chunks that trailed behind him as his flight angled into the sky. Behind and below him, the lake-size opponent staggered to the side from the impact, frost now spreading from its shoulder and into its chest. Its still-liquid arm came down hard on the shore of the lake to brace the thing, as it managed to stay upright even without its head.
Even as it did that, though, Left spun in the air while combining his two Daggers into their twin-bladed-spear form. As soon as the weapons merged into what some Shapers argued was their true form, the streams of liquid that had continued to trail Left since he’d exited the head pulsed with renewed power. A second pulse of power, and Left stopped his rapid flight, pausing in the air to lift the two-bladed weapon above him.
There, his two hands began to rotate the weapon around and around, the twin stream trailing behind the blades building as the weapon’s speed increased. A third pulse of rampant solar energy accompanied the streams visibly forming a ring above Left’s head, crackling blue streaked with ink-like black within.
Below him, the Infested had to feel the building power, its good arm pushing it upright even as the frost continued to spread through the other half of it. From its neck, small rivulets of water tried to reform the head, but they were too close to the frozen shoulder, each freezing in turn before they could do much.
As if realizing it couldn’t do anything with the constant infection of frost invading it from one side, the Infested made a drastic move. A sudden and volatile eruption split the giant in two, jettisoning the infected side from the rest of the liquid body. The decisive move had reduced the giant’s volume by at least half of what was left, but fresh water quickly began to move up from the lake to replace what had been lost.
Until the frozen limb splashed down below, and the frosty virus began to spread even there. From the huge limb that’d landed in the lake, an icy web snaked outward, faster even than when it’d been in the giant’s body. Of course, without the Infested’s solar energy to impede it, the infection ran rampant.
“Huh,” Hiral said, having watched the different stages of how the giant’s solar energy had flowed since the beginning of the fight. While the Infested had a nearly limitless reserve of solar energy, when it was spread over the entirety of the giant’s body, he had less control over it. Left must’ve noticed that when Right was punching arms off the thing in the previous trial. Thinking about it, Hiral realized the giant had reformed the limbs the same way every time. Like it was a preset pattern, with no variation. The energy the Infested had infused into the arm at the beginning of this fight – the slow energy – just confirmed it. The Infested wasn’t practiced with controlling parts of this massive ability on the fly, leaving Left the opportunity to surgically tear it apart.
Effective as it was – the frost having already spread through most of the lake and now creeping into the giant’s base – Hiral had a sneaking suspicion that wasn’t all there was to Left’s plan.
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Rime assaulting it from all sides, the now-predictably-reforming head tilted to look at what Left was doing. As dangerous as the frost was, solar energy pulsed outward from around the stomach of the giant, pushing back directly against the frosty invasion. The Infested was fighting back, which left whatever the double was doing as the main threat.
The Infested knew if it could counter whatever was building in the sky above it, it could…
A streak of blue and black came out of nowhere to pierce through the back of the watery giant and straight out of the chest like a ballista bolt. The explosive shower of geyser-like, lake water resolved into twelve-foot wings sheathed in the Wings of Anellaand the Daggers of En and Sath. The Bond of the Hidden Prince let loose a shrieking cry of dominance as it swooped out of its sneak attack, familiar, wide streamers hanging behind it.
No sooner had the cry ended, than every eye in the spectator seating went to the giant, where a new invasion of creeping cold froze the upper back and shoulders solid. Veins of icy death spread their way like fingers through the chest, the solar energy that’d been fighting back the frost stuttering in the belly of the giant.
And since they’d all seen this before, everybody knew to expect what came next.
It did not disappoint.
While the Bond of the Hidden Prince’s capacity to share its senses with its Shaper was one of its most used for scouting, that wasn’t enough to make it an S-Rank tattoo. No, it was S-Rank because of its unique ability to allow the Shaper to use other tattoos through it. Over any distance. As it had streaked off after Left had summoned it, he must’ve also shaped the Wings of Anella and the Daggers of En and Sath onto it. Then, it had flown for dozens of miles, leaving streams of water in the air almost the entire width of its impressive wingspan.
A dramatic two seconds after the Bond had punched through the giant, those combined streamers arrived like a lit fuse. The explosion shook the entire arena, blocks of ice the size of buildings flying in all directions – mainly forward – as the entire top half of the Infested’s ability simply ceased to exist.
What was left of it staggered forward, if it could even said to be doing that. Now less than a fifth of its original volume, it was basically little more than an abdomen sticking up from the lake. Ice encroached on it from below, while chunks of it still fell from above. And through all this, Left had accomplished something Right had not been able to, no matter how many times he’d punched holes in the giant.
Left had isolated the Infested.
There was no doubt, now, where the controller hid.
High above, the twin-bladed spear of EnSath had twirled over Left’s head a hundred times while the scene played out below. Now, he stepped forward – planes of pink energy from the Path of Butterflies solidifying under his feet – twisted at his waist, and hurled the weapon at what was left of the giant below.
Round and round the weapon spun as it flew, a twisting ribbon of liquid trailing behind it in a straight line like a broken horizon directly for where its target hid.
Not content to simply sit and take it, solar energy flooded out of the Infested to try and directly intervene, new hands emerging from the belly of the beast to catch the spear as it reached him. Too bad it had likely never read the legend of the EnSath river, where the daggers got their name.
The story told of a small stream that had been unhappy with its path. Of the day it had decided to change that path, and had begun its journey. Through mountains and deserts, even the stone and heat couldn’t slow its determination, and it grew into a river. When it met a lake, did it slow? Was it satisfied with that ending? No, it would not be lesser to some stationary body of water. To flow was to be free, and nothing would contain this river.
And so it continued, cutting through the lakes, seas, and oceans it faced, parting cliffs and continents, until finally it circled the entire world. Even when it found its own beginnings, the river didn’t stop. Didn’t slow. It sped up. Running again the track it had laid, over and over, around and around, the EnSath continued.
To flow was to be free.
That was the true embodiment of the Daggers of En and Sath when combined into their two-blade form. Something that could only be done by those who had the power to command the singular weapon. To stop the weapons at their pinnacle would take a tremendous amount of power.
Power the Infested did not have. Or, at least did not bring to bare in that moment.
As the watery hands closed with perfect timing around the spinning weapon, they did absolutely nothing to slow it. Instead, like they’d been caught in a whirlpool, their power joined the streamers behind the spear, imploding in a line that followed it. A line that struck the Infested with a force that shot it out the back of the giant.
Like a meteor of blue and black, the Infested struck the shoreline, digging a divot five-hundred feet long before the massive streamers caught up. A dome of energy eighty-feet tall rose on the horizon, more of the black and blue swirling within, while the expanding edges threw up a tidal wave of dirt and rock.
Hiral’s eyes went to the portrait of the Infested hanging over the trial, half expecting the display to send him straight to his respawn point. Unfortunately, the trial didn’t consider the attack powerful enough to outright kill the monster, and as the dome of destructive energy faded, the bearded Infested pulled himself out of the crater he’d been imbedded in.
Robes in shambles, his previously perfectly straight beard half hung in a frazzled tangle, with the rest of it thrown over his shoulder. Energy pulsed along the visible tentacles as he activated his buffing ability, and he launched himself back toward the lake. The land cracking beneath his feet from the launch, he arrived back where he’d started full of power and fury, ready for round two.
Except, Left wasn’t there anymore.
The sky where’d he’d been standing lay empty, while the lake below was completely frozen. Not a single drop of liquid water remained.
The Infested’s head twisted as he searched for his opponent, the energy pulsing along the tentacles growing in intensity with his anger. More waves of energy rippled out of the furious monster, clearly some kind of ability to search for his target. What did he find?
Nothing.
According to the window hanging above the trial – the one the Infested inside the trial couldn’t see – Left was already back in the jungle. Touch of Night hiding him, he’d gone back to searching for treasure, along with The Pack and the Bond of the Hidden Prince. And, thanks to the power of his tattoos, the probing waves of solar energy the Infested released passed over him as easily as they would a shadow. The Bond had the same benefit hiding it, while the wolves of The Pack intrinsically had a similar benefit. And, given the similarity between the wolves’ eyes and the Touch of Night’s – coal red – maybe there was a deeper connection?
A query for later, as even better than Left and his summons being able to hide, Hiral smiled as he looked at the middle window. The one holding the ongoing tally of treasure collection. By the score, everything in the lake the Infested had previously claimed – that was currently within a glacial amount of ice – now belonged to Left.
Not only had the double trounced the Infested in the limited encounter, he’d also stolen every point his opponent had collected, before retreating to a far more favorable terrain. Now, with The Pack and the Bond of the Hidden Prince at his side, he was working on increasing his lead, hunting down even more treasure. If the Infested thought it could catch up to Left – or even find him – in the rest of the arena…
A bellowing scream of pure anger and frustration echoed across the trial, and the Infested didn’t even bother giving chase. It knew it wouldn’t catch him. It didn’t even try.
Just under ten minutes later, a notification window popped up.
Tower of Dynamic Trials – Eighth Floor
Challenge – X Doesn’t Always Mark the Spot!
Victory!
Note: Reward will be announced on the twelfth floor prior to commencement of the death match.