Macronomicon
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Chapter 120: Tricked
🕑 Added 2025-03-14 17:44:21 +0000 UTCHow the FUCK does he fight like that!?
- Orev Harti, level 57 Trickster Raven’s thoughts
Time to switch up the game of tag, Will thought, using the springy earth underneath him to propel himself out of the bloody woman’s reach, aiming for the feathered man.
The ranger’s eyes widened, and he vanished in a cloud of feathers long before Will even got close.
Will felt a surge of Charge attempting to link him to someone, so he interposed Phantom Hand and scattered the Ability before it could firmly link the two.
Will heard someone mutter ‘shit’ under their breath in the distance and sent Phantom Hand to keep pressure on him while he continued to dance away from the blood-soaked woman’s wild swings.
Some kind of berserker? Will thought.
She’d demonstrated an ability to fall back and approach him cautiously earlier, but her approach to combat was gradually becoming less methodical and more unhinged.
I think her stats are increasing over time as her tactics dwindle, Will thought. It wasn’t immediately obvious, because getting hit even at the beginning of the fight would’ve turned him inside out, and nothing had really changed about that, but her attacks and movements were slowly getting faster, and staying away from her was getting harder and harder.
If her whole build increases in power with more exposure to blood over time, it might no longer be a viable option to try and steal the rest of my set back. There was a possibility that her Focus was also being raised, or that her Build was able to substitute or bolster Focus with another stat.
Or she may simply be so fast that the momentary distraction of trying to pry a Relic away from her could get him killed.
There is a silver lining though…
It was common knowledge: Builds that puffed themselves up like this had a…downswing, where the berserker, or magic self-buffer, or drug abuser, or whatever, eventually ran out of their self-buff and suffered from a diminished amount of power.
The Tower did not allow infinite accumulation of power. Sooner or later something exploded.
In most cases, the downswing meant they had less power than they had before, for a period of time that could be a few minutes to a few days. Sometimes it was simply a return to their baseline.
In either case, that was a perfect time for Will to take advantage.
This can’t last forever.
The real trick was surviving until the downswing happened.
And that meant-
SSSSS
Will leaned out of the way as an arrow hissed past him, curving mid-flight to try and follow him before burying itself into the ground.
A second and third arrow angled towards him and Will could already see what was going to happen.
The second arrow was aimed at his lower midsection, and since he was already leaning the wrong way, he would be forced to use Aspect to shift his legs under him, putting him totally off balance at a roughly 45 degree angle to the ground.
The third arrow would explode into a feather-man with a raised weapon ready to stab him while he was off-balance.
Will moved his feet out of the way of the second arrow, and added an extra ripple to the ground, aiming at the area ahead of him.
POOF
Will heard the explosion of feathers behind him, from where the first arrow landed.
Damn.
Will leapt off the ground, his awkward angle causing his entire body to go horizontal four feet above the ground, legs flailing awkwardly up in the air.
He caught the third arrow with his toes and guided it down into the feather-wearing ranger’s shoulder, deflecting the brutal thrust from the man’s hooked spear with his handless arm, incurring a long thin wound as he did so.
Does he have backup spears or what?
The ranger pulled his spear back, gazing at the arrow sticking out of his shoulder with an alarmed expression.
Stop shooting yourself, Will thought smugly. Wait…That reaction…The oil on that spears smells... Poison? Poison on all of his weapons? Poison in me!?
The ranger POOF’d away just as a tingling began to manifest in Will’s wounded arm. Whatever it was it had to be mean to manifest any kind of effect on someone with over a hundred Resistance.
Will caught his balance and sprinted towards the bloody woman charging him.
Coiled Strike
48->43 Charge remaining.
Will arrived directly in front of her, but rather than attack or try to take any of his Set back, he leapt straight up and over. She swung ferally upward, and Will caught the haft on his bare feet, giving him a perfect springboard to launch himself a dozen feet in the air.
Coiled Strike
43->38
Will appeared another fourteen feet straight up, still rising, scanning the surroundings nearly thirty feet in the air.
There.
Far, far away, half a mountainside over and tucked behind a large rock, Will could see the ranger fumbling a vial of antidote out of his satchel.
Yoink.
Dimensional Storage
38->37
Phantom Hand shot forward at blazing speed, snagging the contents of the vial as the ranger raised it to his lips.
In another heartbeat, the Phantom Hand returned and Will dumped the contents into his mouth.
Kinda bitter.
Beneath him, the berserker lunged off the ground, blasting upward. He couldn’t see her expression under the mask, but he was pretty sure she was pissed.
Nobody likes being casually used as a springboard.
Will stood on the palm of Phantom Hand and lifted himself up further.
I should’ve done that to get the visibility I wanted, but I forgot about it.
Will mentally chastised the costly mistake as he raised his body another ten feet, lifting himself out of her reach. Will hung tantalizingly above as the berserker’s inertia dwindled, leaving her flailing against the air, trying to pull herself up further to grab him.
He watched in fascination as the blood scales covering her body flapped back and forth like oars, trying to squeeze a bit of extra speed out, but failing to significantly impact her jump.
As she fell, she corrected her posture and aimed to land feet-first.
Well that won’t do.
Will flung himself down to match her speed before sending the Phantom Hand down with her.
Rather than grab her directly with the hand and risk her damaging it again, Will decided to try out the first Set bonus: Using Aspect of the Serpent with Phantom Hand.
Mirroring his foot tricks, the Phantom Hand hovered behind her calf and summoned a pillar of stone diagonally towards itself.
Of course, there was a thin piece of bone between the pillar and the hand, but that didn’t matter to the Ability. In rapid succession, pillars of stone jutted out of the ground and slammed her legs out from under her just as she hit the ground.
Will straightened his legs and landed directly on the hand holding his tomahawk, transferring all the momentum in his body directly into her fingers while stabilizing the ground beneath, preventing her harder-than-stone fingers from simply squishing harmlessly through the ground beneath her.
“Gah!”
Will didn’t feel the telltale sensation of little bones breaking through his heel, but there was a cry of pain and there might be bruising to weaken her grip for when the time came to take his tomahawk back.
He bounced away, scanning the surrounding area for the other combatant.
POOF!
One of the many feathered weapons scattered around them disappeared in an explosion of feathers, revealing the ranger, bow slung over his shoulder, giving Will a victorious grin.
“I’ll be the first to admit it, You’ve got a knack for combat and you’re clever, but you’re too naive!” the ranger said with a throaty cackle.
Will glanced past him, noting that Jason had long since disappeared.
Loth would be back in a moment.
“What do you mean?” Will asked, giving himself some distance as the blood-covered woman levered herself back to her feet. He already knew what the man meant, but the longer he kept talking, the longer Will didn’t have to spend his stamina fighting.
“I tricked you! I tricked you into drinking a deadly poison, carefully concentrated over several months through complex alchemical processes, such that it could kill an entire town of Climbers your level!”
Will let out a belch that the other kids at the orphanage would be proud of.
“…So?”
“So, you’re as good as dead! You’re a walking corpse! Unless…”
Will plucked one of the ranger’s arrows out of the ground and studied it for a moment before eating it, smacking his lips thoughtfully.
“…” the feathered ranger watched Will with a critical eye, his expression souring.
“Sonofabitch,” The ranger muttered, unslinging his bow.
Will’s left arm was fully numb now, but he wasn’t using it for much anyway.
Will sent Phantom Hand at the ranger, making sure it was intangible so it didn’t cut through the air, aiming to sucker-punch the man in the back of the head while he played keepaway from the berserker.
The ranger ducked, seemingly able to detect the general position of the Phantom Hand..
Or maybe he’s reading my gaze…
Will did need to see what he wanted to send the Phantom hand at. If his opponent’s Acuity was high enough he could treat Will’s gaze as an analogue for where the Phantom Hand was directed.
Add a vague sense of approaching danger and it would be enough to make some sloppy dodges.
I need to tighten that up, Will mused.
Phantom Eye
37->36 Charge remaining.
Will mentally bound the two Abilities together, keeping the eye hovering just over the hand’s wrist so that he could see what the Phantom Hand was doing without looking, keeping his real eyes fixed on the berserker chasing him.
She leapt forward, forcing Will to duck and swerve.
He took that opportunity of apparent disorientation to direct the Phantom Hand to punch the ranger in the ankle, watching as if he were there, whipping straight towards the man’s ankle before impacting violently against it, jutting stone up from the other direction to hold it in place for maximum damage.
SNAP.
“AGH!”
POOF! Sounded in the distance as the ranger retreated.
Ssss-
A hastily released arrow went wide, curving towards Will with no hope of actually hitting him.
Will bounced off the earth and whipped his head back, inches away from the tomahawk.
Will spun the Phantom Eye, scanning the surroundings, spotting the feathered Ranger hovering silently in midair directly behind Will, using one of his Abilities to throw the sound of his teleportation somewhere distant, attempting to trick Will into thinking he was somewhere else.
He’d also seemingly learned about Will’s exceptional relationship with the earth, so he was going to spend the fraction of a second before he hit the ground stabbing Will in the heart.
Will slid out of the way of the thrust, whipping the Phantom Hand back to them.
The palm of the Phantom Hand caught the ranger center of mass and shoved him directly between Will and the berserker.
“GAH!”
POOF!
The ranger disappeared in a cloud of feathers before the berserker tore him in half, but it gave Will the cover he needed to gain some distance.
As Will was dancing backwards, the earth opened up and swallowed the berserker, her frustrated scream muffled as stone collapsed in around her.
“What do you need!?” Loth’s voice sounded from underground.
“Five seconds!” Will shouted.
“Got it!”
Will released the boots from his Dimensional Storage and began shoving the first one on.
Will heard the sound of an arrow flying towards him, followed by a shout of effort, the sound of crushing stone and twanging traps.
From his Phantom Eye hovering above, he could see Loth’s insects and traps warding off the ranger desperately trying to keep pressure on Will, teleporting from spot to spot trying to find a way to get to him.
Will ignored it all, shoving the second boot onto his foot, which magically resized itself to him in the space of a breath.
Electric Serpentine Stompers*
+6 Strength
+11 Kinesthetics
+13 resistance
+6 Focus
+6 Acuity
Increased movement speed, increased footing on all terrain. Scales with Resistance.
+20% Ranger Archetype Ability potency
Coiled Lightning:
5 Charges: Eidolons controlled by the User gain a short-range electric aura which may paralyze enemies. Duration and potency scale with Resistance.
Will suppressed a shudder as Phantom Hand’s fingers viscerally swelled and elongated, squirming forward, the palm unravelling into the tails of five snakes as each finger began swimming lazily through the air, spacing itself far away from each other finger.
Freaky, Will thought…But it’ll get shit done.
Wait, I’m only wearing three pieces of the set? Boots, cloak, and amulet in the hand…
Oh…these guys are screwed.
Comments
Phlinn
Anyone else wondering if there will be a hidden 8 piece set bonus that's only available because of phantom hand's multiplyer?
Spoolofwhool
It doesn't directly, but it synergizes with the aspect, allowing Will to stand on stuff with less "substance" like water without any debris in it.
Quazzy
the relic-boosting ability only applies to the number of items of the set a sacrificed item counts for- it doesn't buff itself. 51x is still a lot, though! That's some crazy strong regeneration and earth magic!
Cyrus McEnnis
I think another possibility is that Will sticks with the 4-set, and Loth equips the pants + stuff wot Bloody Boobs has to get her equivalent 4-set going for when the reinforcements arrive >.>
Quazzy
Whether or not that increased footing enhances Aspect, there's some *serious* earthbending in Will's future!
SunderGoldmane
Your MC is gonna need more enemies if you just gave him the power to eventually cycle between full sets by breaking a finger -_-. Any time I see big exponential power jumps like this in your writing I fear the shark is being jumped or we are about to go to space (anime reference; like Guren Lagan or darling in the franx). I guess it’s a power that’s always been there for soft sets but all that did was lead to % boosts. If I’m reading what you’ve done right then his amulet that’s being stored in the hand is counting for 2+ and has the potential to scale for counting as 3 items in the set? With soft sets, that’s fine, but with a true set there is already that big %bonus at the end. This now makes the drive to collect or build true sets all about giving them to will instead of his party members, or at least introduces an opportunity cost such as “who will use it better?” Or “how many pieces can we split between us for optimal spread of skill modifications?” I feel the tower would mark true set bonuses differently and actually require a true item count instead of one item scaling and counting as 2 or 3+ because true sets are themselves an opportunity cost against a characters current soft set of mutated items. When a character encounters a true set they ask themselves “do I keep these really specific items that jack up one or two of my skills that may not be my primary? Or do I trade it all in for this very curated upgrade path with a big % boon at the end for my primary?” All of this doesn’t matter if this is going to be the only true set encountered or maybe 1 or 2 others. Because then upgrading wills power lets him shed some set items to his party and directly upgrades the party. So I don’t know whether to panic or not.
Quazzy
awesome fight scene, TFTC!
Quazzy
Phantom hand means the amulet counts as multiple pieces of the set!
Macronomicon
WDYM?
Josh Cothran
Ah. My mistake. Iirc, I read it thinking the berserker’s power would ebb after a certain time period. Not even 100% where it was in the chapter lol
Cyrus McEnnis
I mean, the second makes sense, but the first would be _hilariously_ broken.
Macronomicon
on the first question: The set takes the two primaries and combines them in a way that makes sense, so Loth wearing the set would either let her breed traps, or make insects into traps more effectively. I would imagine it would imbue 5 bugs of her choice with the ability to lay traps directly?
Macronomicon
i think that's a misspelled 'be'
Flamedboy
If loth can get him the pants from Janson, then all he would need would be the Tomahawk to get the 6th set, unless the bonus acu from the gear can push the ring to 3x then he would just need the pants for 6
Redc05
I think most things that can create a loop, don't actullay loop, at least thats how the hand works, the stats from the hand's boosting effect don't count for the boosting
Mariposa
The berserker mentioned she came to get the set and become a Lord. So she and poof boy probably came early to steal the set.
Mariposa
Yes I did 😆
Cyrus McEnnis
While a good point, well made - once he hits that point he could fill up the rest of his slots with different set items, and / or make a better set. With Blackjack. And Bakers. The point being when he hits that point maintaining set integrity across multiple Phantom Hand load outs will be _trivial_
Cyrus McEnnis
Didn't Will arrange for the sacrifices using the Oiltons as the middlemen? Maybe I'm misremembering.
ioajfidsnmfomds77
I’m not sure the Oiltons have enough info to know which sacrifices to copy. They will have to wonder if his set building powers came from the super secret church facilities he raided and blew up. I don’t remember when/if Travis saw Will’s Sourdough ability prior to this. Either way there’s only so much guessing they can afford on their finances. By the time they figure it out, if the do, William will be OP.
Sam
Did you mean snacks instead of snakes? Because that puts a whole different twist on the game 🤣
BoadBoad
Isn't aspect of the immoral serpent a separate ability from phantom hand? IIRC it is the one that gives him regeneration and is letting him regrow his hand.
Nate Oppy
When u see William Oh smile… run.
Weaver
The problem will be if he use the amulet like thatvhe can't swap hands abilities without losing the set bonus
Mariposa
Her traps become the snakes and ladders game 😆 For real though it would probably make all her traps have complimentary snakes for the victims enjoyment.
Cyrus McEnnis
Also: the fact that Will could make a set effectively puts a huge target on his back to make them for other Climbers. I've been thinking about how cool it'll be for him to make sets for party members / followers, but once this gets out he will be targeted by everyone and their small fluffy wolf purely for his "crafting" abilities alone. His Sourdough build is going to be copied to _fuck_ if the details get out about it - and given that the Oiltons provided the sacrifices they might see either selling that info, or creating their own variant of Will, as being the best way to return them to glory
Mariposa
I didn't realize his ability could make it work like that! Thanks!
Cyrus McEnnis
Read Macro's comments last chapter. He explicitly says the sacrificed item counts for 2.8 items, rounding down.
Cyrus McEnnis
Is it wrong I'm trying to work out what the 4-Peice bonus would look like if Loth equipped the set? Trying to work out of it'd be trap setting snakes or insect breeding ones >.>
Cyrus McEnnis
7. He's sacrificed one, and according to Macros last chapter comments the sacrificed Amulet counts for 2.8 items rounding down. Theoretically, once his Hand scales up enough the Amulet sacrifice will trigger the 6-peice bonus on its own. By my reckoning - the Raging Tampon has 3 items (Tomahawk, Dagger, Mask). Will has 3 as well (Boots, Cloak, Amulet). And I believe Jase the Ace has the Pants still on. Which implies that Will will effectively have 3 "floating" slots available once his hand regrows - 2 x Ring + Amulet. He probably no longer needs a second Ring of the Edilion, but it'll be fun to see if he drops back to using some of his old synergies for a bit - Sting Ring + Amulet of Homefield Advantage FTW!
Macronomicon
I’ll try and add it to the next chapter.
Mariposa
How many pieces did he make for this set again? But for the set bonus he only needs 6?
Ethan Barrow
TFTC!! I wanna see more of this sooooo bad. Looking forward to the next chapter!
Ariel
This is so fucking fun
SunderGoldmane
MAC!!! WHAT DID YOU DO?! The tower needs an update for entity count on set items -_-
Ano Ano
Yeah, the fight and the doling out of the set piece by piece is great. In addition to what has been said, it is also good pacing. We want to know what every piece does, but seeing them all at once in one chapter would be overwhelming and unmemorable. One per chapter is perfect. Plus the pacing of going from losing to winning can be modulated, by getting pieces and also by the rest of the church party showing up. The mage and the paladin can't be that far behind.
Tom C
LOVE IT! TFTC
Pseudo
Not like Will needs it anyway…
Josh Cothran
ebb has 2 b’s
Mani
You thought you had me! But with this mask I'll become unstoppable!... Maybe it's more jojo part 2 actually
Uroš
But that's weeks away! Weeks! How am I going to make it that long?
Mani
This is a great buildup and payoff for the set. Getting it piece by piece like this gives a better sense of it's power. Also it's a fkun DBZ fight with repeated powerups and even more final final forms. It's great
CloudyBall
Is there a way to keep a pinned post with all of the abilities and their changes? It's honestly starting to be difficult to keep track of how everything functions. Add the multiple party members in Will's party and I am actually just lost xD
Mani
He's also quite slow as noted in earlier chapters. So probably on the way, but remember fights are fast, this chapter might nor have been more than 30 seconds
Bryce Oakes
That would cause a feedback loop, mathematicaly a circular reference so it most likely doesn't work that way
Pseudo
“Aspect of The Immortal Serpent’s Potency is boosted by 5000% (6 Items)” Is this boosted by phantom hand’s relic boosting ability? Would it be more then 5000%? If not, it might make sense for it to be, because of the amulet counting as 2.8 items. Other effects too possibly. Or maybe there could be another set boost. In addition to the others.
Kronos
Check last chapter’s comments
Andrew
Thank you!
A
That would mean that as he continues to increase his Acuity to the point where his absorbed relics are at 5x power, that the dimensional amulet effect will count as a full set on its own. And if he finds other Relics in a set to fill his other finger slots he'll have the ability to switch between sets in addition to the effects from a single Relic. Damn....
austin kutz
He's got tons of suppressed memories from his past lives
SirReality
I'm having difficulty keeping track of all the items and abilities. Anybody got a reference handy, specifically for Aspect of the Immortal Serpent?
Leobardis
That ocurred to me as well, but I think I'm with Bryce on this. Some cosmic entity forgot to mark the Set.IsEquipped.Count as private so its getting accessed and multiplied.
Quex
It's nice to see him make some progress on his set. It's been teased for many chapters now and looking forward to him finally getting to use it all!
JTP
Will is a certified kung fu badass even without training.
Bryce Oakes
His hands ability amplifies the magnitude of relics stored in it. Makes the amulet he added count as like 2.8 parts of the set on its own.
Enzo Elacqua
Wonder where the paladin is, you’d think the most paranoid guy would sprint in the direction of any fight that happens
Mondred
I am assuming William oh counts as part of the set.
Alias
Love the fight scene!
Macronomicon
Kinda short Chapter, but it marks a turning point in the fight. I liked the part where he stabbed the guy by catching an arrow with his toes, lol. High Kinesthetics does a lot of work behind the scenes. expect...1-3 more chapters of ass-kicking then we return to our regularly scheduled Tower Climbing.
