Funatic
patreon
The Gamer Chapter 1629 – Raid and Adventures 24 – Jade Bend
🕑 Added 2024-02-23 17:57:32 +0000 UTCIt was the ninth day of the grinding session.
Lu Zhi stood alone on her side of the divide.
Eliana stood alone on the other side. Nathalia was a few paces beside her outside the ring.
They had pushed Lu Zhi quite far along already in their numerous attempts the last day and John was confident enough that they would beat her on this day. The numbers required had since reached ten, so there was no point to hold anything back for the purpose of the additional experience.
So, they threw the cataclysmic duo at the problem or, rather, the problem requested the cataclysmic duo was thrown at her. Crushing her with sheer numbers just wasn’t as interesting to anyone involved as the kind of fight that needed either a High Fateweaver, a team of Fateweavers or the supreme deity to guarantee no one would die.
The two short, bottom-heavy women smiled at each other across the divide. One put a thin veneer of grace over her tomboyish glee, the other was audibly cackling.
“Bloodburn.”
The word announced the beginning of the battle. Not a moment later, the two met in Lu Zhi’s quarter of the arena. The failed goddess’ fist slammed into a shield of jade, created by its very own impact and the magic of the Heavenly Jade Empress. Delayed, the shockwave came only when the force was turned back on its origin.
Eliana let the back blast turn her entire body and brought her leg up in the same motion. The kick was stopped by Lu Zhi’s tail wrapping around the blood mage’s ankle. It should have been stopped by that. Instead, Eliana kept on turning.
The leg came off at the knee with the same ease as a reptile’s tail. A new one regenerated in its place within the span of the motion. Raised up high, it was ready to descend on Lu Zhi with the force of ignited Aura and Eliana’s absurd Strength.
It was their first fight, but Eliana had the advantage of having watched the past few days of spars and fights already. She knew how Lu Zhi’s ability functioned and its weakness. The creation of new jade was largely limited to her hands, as most magic was in its direct or at least most efficient application. Beyond that, the empress did suffer from the typical mana constraints.
Beyond the application of any lasting damage effects or hindrances, like the Black Ice, the two best ways to defeat the Heavenly Jade Empress was to outlast or outspeed her. For all the fancy force absorption and ability copying, the most brutish strategies still worked.
Brutish strategies that Eliana put into effect, pulling her leg down with enough force that the Heavenly Jade Empress’ entire upper body was pulled along the descending heel. A victorious cacophony began to rise from the blood mage’s throat, then a jade dragon’s jaws enveloped Eliana.
Lu Zhi’s head snapped back up. Blood soaked into her hair, the heel having split the skin of the top of her head. Scarlet ran down her gorgeous features, nearly meeting the corners of her green lips. Then, the flow reversed course. The wound closed up. Lu Zhi opened her maw wide and blasted a breath of pure force at her opponent.
Eliana was stuck between the jaws of the spiralling dragon. With a loud scream, she ripped the jaws of the dragon so wide open they broke. A raised hand was all that was between Lu Zhi’s attack and her own head. The limb was obliterated, scattered into a million drops of blood, blood fragments, and tissue chunks. The force still continued on, ripping the skin off Eliana’s face.
On three limbs, the blood mage landed. “Alright then,” she spoke in a wolfish tone. “Let’s get serious.”
“Yes, please,” Lu Zhi encouraged. For the brief moment that Eliana’s smile was visible, formed by fresh skin, the two looked quite alike. Then, the mask of bone layered on top, hiding the failed goddess’ features. Bones jutted out and formed the carapace of the blood-winged woman.
John half-expected wings of soul and bone to follow. As serious as this bout could be, however, the two halves of the goddess were not in unison enough to bring forth the entirety of their power. Not that it needed everything for her to be a threat.
As the missing arm formed itself, the removed leg and the pieces of the previous limb turned to streams of blood. They returned to Eliana, unusually, at the shoulder, fuelling the development of an asymmetrical spike that further pushed out of her neck. As soon as the grip was fully formed, Eliana dragged the rest of the creation, segment for segment, out of her body, revealing a sword that was as much sharpened bone as it was blood and cartilage.
Lu Zhi trembled visibly with excitement. Excitement that could no longer be contained. The imperial tomboy rushed across the space dividing them, leaping on the back of a new jade dragon halfway. Eliana met the attack with an upwards swing. Aura ignited, the extension of her body was as effective a conduit for Martial Arts as her very own hand. The slice was boosted in range and power, cleaving the descending dragon in two.
Heel first, the Heavenly Jade Empress came down, catching Eliana in the shoulder. The skin of her foot was torn open, but the very same regeneration that let the blood mage sustain the blow knit the sole back together.
Eliana was thrown on her back. She rolled to the side, escaping a stone-pulverizing stomp by her opponent. Swiftly, she was back on her feet. A swing of her sword was stopped by a single jade fan. The other hand of the Heavenly Jade Empress turned from a green-scaled, lightly clawed limb into a heavily plated display of jade and bone.
The slash tore through the chest carapace. The retaliating kick was blown away by the released force of the sword swing. Eliana went on the offensive regardless, taking another swipe willingly just to get proper footing to keep on attacking.
The sheer aggression Eliana put on display caught Lu Zhi off guard. The mask cracked open. Screams accompanied the relentless forward motion of the failed goddess. Again and again, her sword and claws swung. Again and again, they missed their mark narrowly or had their impacts turned back on her. Eliana was unperturbed. She kept driving forwards, ever forwards.
Lu Zhi kept sustaining small wounds, which swiftly closed. Eliana kept sustaining small wounds, which swiftly closed. The two appeared evenly matched, just that the Heavenly Jade Empress kept ceding ground.
The edge of the platform seemed to catch Lu Zhi by surprise. Just as Eliana leapt after her, the empress did a backflip. As she landed, she brought down her heel. The earthquake everyone would have expected from the Seismic Step instead manifested as a jade dragon, crackling invisibly with power. Imbued with the power to level a landscape, it ripped upwards. Eliana dodged the bite of its jaws, but not the grip of its claws.
Eliana was carried high up into the heavens, before she managed to pry open the claws around her. She fell and the dragon exploded with all of the energy of the Seismic Step. Everyone watching the fight had to hold their ears from the sudden shift in air pressure that washed over them.
The failed goddess was sent flying down at an enormous speed, creating a small crater where she landed. Lu Zhi was right on top of her, green lips peeled back, revealing carnivorous teeth. A terrible, invisible force was gathering within, about to unleash.
With the force of a falling star, Nathalia slammed down between them. It would have been on top of Lu Zhi, had she not retreated at the very last second. One attack avoided left her open for the wave of molten rock heading towards her. The already charged breath attack would have been too concentrated to disperse the wall, like blowing a hole through a tsunami with a tank gun.
Instead, the Heavenly Jade Empress blew the attack into her own hand. It turned into an intricate shield, swiftly raised to withstand the first impact, then turning the concentrated force into a scattershot release that blew the wave back the way it came, separated into a myriad of glowing dots.
Through the gap stormed Nathalia, no longer in her human form, but the half-draconic beast of volcanic heat and obsidian. Claws of black glass swiped, ending suddenly in their motion where they met with Lu Zhi’s fan. As always, the sight of motion just stopping without any cascading effect was odd.
A fresh wave of lava followed the swipe, like an echo of the original attack. Lu Zhi’s jade eyes glowed an incandescent orange. The stream of lava stopped. “KNOW YOUR PLACE!” Nathalia’s bellowing voice thundered like the explosion of a mountaintop. The molten rock resumed its flight, slowed but on clear trajectory.
Power could be copied, experience and talent at wielding it could not.
The goddess of volcanoes in hot pursuit, the Heavenly Jade Empress, for the first time, seemed to be in genuine retreat. Nathalia’s form was not so cumbersome to be easily outmanoeuvred, not so focused on sheer, apocalyptic destruction that a singular target could escape her grasp. For the wide scale destruction that the rearrangement of her true form may have cost her, for the sheer awe that a kilometre-sized dragon did incur, the practicality of this new appearance was undeniable.
The semi-humanoid dragoness followed each of her swings up with flows of lava. Where she went, the green landscape changed to ash and rivers of molten rock. The earth cracked and eroded from the heat of her presence and Lu Zhi kept backing away.
Every strike, every bite, every stomp was followed by waves, streams, and explosions of magma. Lu Zhi was a dancing dot of jade in an ocean of molten rock, too multitude in its facets and sheer weight to be counteracted with a simple swing of her fan. Only by using the dragoness’ magic to slow the flow and through usage of Martial Arts did she manage to keep the attacks at bay.
Then, suddenly, Lu Zhi caught Nathalia’s claw in one hand. She twisted her hand around. The entirety of the dragon turned upside down.
“I HAVE to learn that,” Rave mumbled.
Nathalia screamed like a living volcano that suddenly got rotated would scream. Frustrated, angry, embarrassed, and simultaneously still dangerous enough to rend a hill apart. Her slamming tail caused an actual earthquake. An earthquake that Lu Zhi ripped out of the ground as a spear. Leaping, she aimed to exploit her floored opponent.
Like electrically distorted violins, the wings of blood screamed. Mid-air, Eliana clashed with Lu Zhi. Both slammed their feet back, kicking the air with a Martial Art that allowed them to treat it as solid ground. Supernatural bone and jade sparked magical energies from the sheer force of the contact.
Nathalia swiped at the hovering combatants. The attack was so swift that it caught the engaged empress off-guard. Eliana fell, while Lu Zhi was dragged along the swipe and slammed into the ground. A jade dragon ripped upwards tearing through the hand, tearing a hole in the magma limb.
While the two dragon gods engaged one another, Eliana stormed down the hand. Lu Zhi was on her back, burned, trying her best to regenerate with the powers of the failed goddess, but too unaccustomed to them to do so fast enough before she plunged her weapon into the ground where the Heavenly Jade Empress’ head had been.
Gaia clapped her hands. “CONGRATULATIONS!”
The victory was so sudden, so unceremonious, that it took John a moment to realize it had happened. Nathalia collapsed back into her every-day form, while the carapace was absorbed back into Eliana’s skin. Both were breathing heavily and exchanged a fist bump.
“Yes, be very proud of yourselves,” Gaia congratulated them with a very sarcastic undertone. “Just took one of the most destructive goddesses in existence to team up with whatever Eliana is to beat one little girl.” The supreme deity snapped her fingers and Lu Zhi appeared next to her on the dais. The landscape was fixed in the same magical moment,
“One little girl, my ass!” Eliana complained. “Also, what the fuck happened to serious? There was no Babel Phrase!”
“Maybe I don’t have one – she doesn’t,” Lu Zhi gestured at Nathalia.
“Liar!” John backed up his pretty little psycho. “You’re being too much of a tease about it for that to be true.”
“And I am beginning to believe that my lack of incantation may have to do with… stunted mental development,” the goddess of volcanoes added. “So, spill it.”
“Truth of the matter is that my incantation would be of no use in this kind of combat.” Lu Zhi sat down at the foot of the hovering dais, crossed her legs, and smiled. “In times of need, the Mandate of Heaven can appoint four supreme generals and I uplift those four generals to be my near equals in power for that time.”
“Let me guess, the black tortoise, the azure dragon, the white tiger, and the red phoenix?” John asked.
“Why yes, yes indeed. Thank you for taking an interest in my culture our huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu------” Lulu stretched the word indefinitely under Rave’s warning glare, “uuuuuuuu---” she was clearly trying to find a different word, even if her grace period for getting away with it had long since passed, “uuuuuooney? Honey?”
“…Imma let ya get away with it, ‘cause you’re cute,” Rave stated.
“You’re the best.”
“Nah, I’m not Aclysia, but I am best girl.”
John took the implication of her words. “Is there a price attached to this Babel Phrase or why are you not employing it at all times?”
“My suitor, my Gamer, my very naïve man…” Lu Zhi hopped off the dais and stopped only when she was in range to put her fan on his chin. “You have the luxury of binding those you’d call yourself to you by love that’s not just felt but confirmed. We have no such guarantees. Empowering four, and it must be four, to have the might to stand up against us could put the realm in peril. We only employ this measure in times of great stress for our nation.”
John pushed the fan aside. “You could have said that without calling me naïve.”
“You’ll survive.” Lulu leaned up for kisses, but was blocked by two fingers. “Are you that angry?” she asked.”
“No, it’s just that winners get kisses first.” John turned to Nathalia and Eliana, to give them all the rewards they had earned.
“Alright, before I barf from all of this sweetness in the air…” Gaia clapped her hands.
Before John could express his gratitude, the supreme deity had kicked them out.
Comments
Funatic
The "per level" Perks are tied to Class Levels, which he gets every 5 actual Levels, so
gordianTangle
John keeps overvaluing levels imo. The more side rewards he can squeeze out of each level, the better. Actually, since not every "per level" reward is retroactive, from purely a munchkin standpoint, leveling as slowly as possible would be prudent. Obviously, there are other concerns, like both economic development, external threats, and power projection, but truly, free levels aren't worth what they used to be and prioritizing them feels silly.
Askance
excellent fight
){kind=link}
){kind=link}