Wizardly Dude
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[TEA] 44. Death Itself
🕑 Added 2025-06-05 16:00:07 +0000 UTCAs usual, things weren’t going quite as planned.
Crush growled as his opponent’s hair struck against his hardened body yet again, squinting to keep the resulting sparks out of his eyes. Hairslay, a stupid moniker if you asked him, was doing everything in her power to keep him out of the main fight. While her sharpened hair capable of bisecting a regular man in moments couldn’t get through his iron-like skin, she was too nimble for his own powerful attacks to land, forcing them to remain locked in a one on one battle as chaos reigned around them. Normally, Crush wouldn’t mind such a state as he was used to winning fights out of sheer attrition, but they were on a timer. Draken had ordered him to push through the main entrance to Loratta’s compound and attack the slime woman from behind while she was busy dealing with Tombstone and The Mole.
Crush clicked his tongue as Hairslay nimbly dodged yet another one of his powerful haymakers, using her hair like dozens of tiny limbs to yank her body around like a puppet. He tried to use the opportunity to rush past her, but found she’d managed to tangle up his legs with her hair once more, keeping him locked in place.
“What’s the matter, Crush?” Loratta’s elite teased, blowing him a kiss as she continued yanking herself out of the way of his punches, all the while throwing the occasional slash against his skin in a futile attempt to break through his defenses. “Why so eager to go rescue your poor little underlings? Don’t you want to play some more?”
Why do so many people feel the need to talk during battle? Crush thought, gritting his teeth as he continued trying to hit the woman. While Hairslay bobbed and weaved around his attacks, Crush looked past her and took in the battlefield, wincing at the number of dead on their side.
Battles between rival gangs were an interesting thing. Generally, a battle would start with just standard members. Regular people with nothing but their origin element, allowed by those more powerful than themselves to show off their skills and gain some experience. Skirmishes like these were beneficial for all involved, and the death toll was usually kept to a minimum.
If whatever was being fought over was of actual importance however, such as territory or a gang leader’s pride, things got more serious. After allowing the underlings to skirmish for a little, the elites would then step in. That was the cue for the more fragile gang member to get the hell away, lest they wanted to die as collateral damage. Though even then, one rarely saw more than a small handful of elites locked in combat with one another. Often no more than one or two from each side at a time.
And this current battle was an excellent example of why that was the case.
Crush’s heart sank as he watched another three men from Draken’s gang ignore the order to stay back as they dropped down the ladder and attempted to join the fray in a desperate attempt to push past the entrance, only to get pounced on by Feral, one of Loratta’s elites with the Rage, Dog, and Claw elements. The man was currently in his battle form, meaning Crush had to witness an unholy beast that was half man, half dog, tear out his younger members’ throats with his own teeth and claws in a whirlwind of blood and screams. Francis, in his own preferred battle form looking like a bear made from grass, took advantage of Feral’s momentary distraction to ram the man into the dirt wall, but Crush knew from experience it would take a lot more than that to put the wild dog down.
Frowning, Crush ignored Hairslay entirely for a moment, barely feeling the sharpened hair striking against his Iron Skin as he tried to come up with a plan.
Draken’s coalition had far more elites than Loratta’s crew, but they weren’t able to bring their full strength to bear fighting in this tiny chokepoint. Rather than overwhelm Loratta with their numbers, they were slowly being whittled down themselves as her weaker members took advantage of their positioning to support her elites from behind. Only members of the coalition with impressive defensive skills could survive dropping down the ladder into this slaughterhouse, meaning their elites that were known for their powerful offensive abilities were stuck waiting for the all clear before they could come down.
If only Draken wasn’t bound by the rules put in place by those idiotic truthseekers… Their leader could have killed all these fools with a single thought. Instead, the last time Crush saw him the boss was still trying to get in touch with his handler. Figures the truthseekers picked now of all times to be impossible to reach.
Crush growled, anger flaring through his body at the reminder that his boss was all but chained to his base of operations. The fact that he wasn’t even able to leave his own home without notifying the truthseekers and still managed to lead the second largest gang in all of Whikoga was a true testament to his power.
“Why the mean looking face, Crushy?” Hairslay taunted, lightly tapping him in the face with her hair, yanking the artificial limbs away just before he could grab them. She’d made the mistake of trying to shove her flexible strands of hair up his nose and into his brain earlier, and she’d nearly died for it when he’d managed to finally grab her hair and yank her in close. “You afraid of having to go back and tell that big, scary boss of yours how badly you failed to carry out his plan? Think Draken will let you live after messing up so terribly?”
“Don’t say his name,” Crush rumbled, swinging at the woman’s grinning face as she narrowly dodged his fist. He swore right then and there that his third element was going to be something that would improve his speed, like Lightning or Air. His defense and offense were both quite powerful, but that did him little good when he couldn’t actually hit what he was fighting.
“Would you look at that, it can speak,” she laughed, twirling a loose strand of hair around her finger. “Oh my, someone has some daddy issues now, don’t they?”
Great, you engaged with her. There goes any chance of her slipping up due to boredom. This is why you don’t talk while fighting. Gritting his teeth, Crush decided to switch tactics. He wasn’t getting anywhere in his desperate attempts to crush her skull in, so he may as well try shifting the battlefield to somewhere he may have more success.
Even if it was one he rarely stepped onto.
“Loratta is going to fall, Hairslay,” he said bluntly, catching the woman off guard at his sudden willingness to speak and almost managing to land a blow on her before she jerked herself away. Come on, just one lucky hit! “Draken will be here soon, and it won’t matter how much of a fight you’ve put up. Loratta and anyone still with her will die all the same.”
“Bullcrap,” Hairslay said, her laughter long gone as she stared at him. “Your boss hasn’t left his base in over a year. If he was planning to leave now, why send so many of his men to die right before taking care of this himself?”
That, is an excellent question. Crush tried to keep his agreement off his face as he kicked out at Hairslay’s legs, frowning as she drove her hair into the ceiling and pulled her body upwards away from his attack, a few errant strands of her hair striking out to kill another two impatient members that dropped down the ladder.
Crush had no idea why Draken had bothered to form the coalition, or why he sent them out ahead of himself. He could only assume the boss had some sort of plan he was working towards.
Crush knew he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, and he was fine with that. He was happy being Draken’s muscle, and he trusted the man had their best interests in mind. He’d never steered Crush wrong in all the years he’d known him after all.
Most people saw death as something scary, but now, thanks to Draken, Crush saw it as something reassuring. Death was inevitable. It would come to all of them sooner or later. If it was going to come regardless of what one did, why not embrace it? Why live in fear of death when you could follow it and borrow just a fragment of power from one of the strongest aspects of the universe? Death was inevitable. Death was unstoppable. Death was…
Here?
Crush blinked at the sudden commotion from the far end of the room where Loratta’s regular members were huddled as they supported her elites from afar. The nearly two dozen members that had been throwing out long ranged skills or attacking with ranged weapons were suddenly crying out and panicking as they began dropping one after another. It was all happening so fast Crush could barely make out what was going on.
A shadow manifested for a fraction of a second behind a woman holding a spear, making a quick motion toward the back of the woman’s head before vanishing once more. Before her corpse could even hit the ground, the darkness appeared a second time a few feet away and struck again, this time killing the man that had been controlling that cloud of acid. Three people tried stabbing at the living shadow, but their blades merely collided with one another, the darkness already gone. It wasn’t until the fifth body hit the ground that Crush finally realized what he was looking at.
It’s a man, he realized with a start, unable to take his eyes off the flickering black blur that seemed to take a life every time it reappeared. Even knowing what he was looking at, Crush watched as the man flickered in and out of existence so quickly Crush was barely able to make out his features with his black cloak fluttering around him. While he couldn’t tell who it was, a glint of blue light flashing off the assassin’s dagger as he killed a Fire element user told him all he needed to know.
Hairslay spun toward him as Crush let out a deep, rumbling laugh, tearing her confused face from the scene of slaughter.
“I knew I made the right call not challenging that guy,” he said, grinning at Loratta’s elite for the first time since they began fighting.
“Who is he?” Hairslay frowned, the faintest sliver of worry in her voice as she threw another quick look over her shoulder. No doubt she knew the moment she stopped guarding the entrance to help her weaker members Crush would call for their heavy hitters to finally join the fray.
“Who is he?” Crush repeated, unable to keep the grin off his face as he realized the opportunity he’d been handed. “Why, that’s not a he at all. Would you believe Draken finally evolved his Death Aura to the third tier? That’s the newest effect his skill was granted.”
“Impossible,” Hairslay said, her face paling despite the conviction in her voice. “The sheer number of shards you’d need for that…” Yet even as she said it, her eyes widened as the flickering shade of death continued culling through their forces like a scythe through wheat.
Crush had seen far more brutal and quicker ways of killing, but none quite as unnerving as the scene before them. The nearly two dozen fighters were dying one after the other, completely and utterly unable to do a damn thing. Weapons struck nothing but air. Skills couldn’t land in time. It was as if they were fighting the manifestation of death itself, and there was a single truth that nobody could deny.
Death could not be stopped.
“I’d get out of here if I were you,” Crush said, carefully watching the fear spreading across Hairslay’s face as the remains of her backup quickly fell in a silent flicker of darkness and death. “Once Draken’s done with them, The Reaper is gonna be looking for new targets. And if you’re the only one left…”
He left his sentence unfinished, hoping to push her off her game enough to allow him to turn the tide and take her down. But there was one thing that had slipped his mind after all his years of working under Draken. Yes, death was inevitable. Yes, death was unstoppable. But it had one other trait he’d completely forgotten about.
Death was terrifying.
Before he could take another swing at Hairslay’s unsteady form, the woman shot into action, her hair yanking her away from the grisly scene of slaughter fast enough that her body slammed heavily against the wall. Crush didn’t even have time to shout a warning before Hairslay shot up the very ladder she’d been defending against all this time, no doubt catching the coalition members off guard based on the cries of surprise and various skills he heard activating up above.
Shaking his head, Crush turned back to the scene of death, blinking as he realized it was already over. Francis had finally managed to lock down Feral, and the dead elite had what looked like a blood soaked tree growing out of his chest of all things. The backup had all been taken care of by the newcomer, and standing before him was a familiar face.
Blazing blue eyes that matched the metal of his bloody dagger stared up at him from within the hood of his black cloak as the man stood before him, barely a few feet away.
In that moment, despite how comfortable he’d become with death, Crush couldn’t help but feel his heart skip a beat as he imagined that same flickering shade dancing around him, taking his own life as easily as he’d taken the lives of those few dozen men and women. Before he could thank him for his efforts, The Reaper spoke.
“Where’s Loratta?”
Comments
Tom C
Oooh I hope he grabbed their shards! Gotta unlock the two final skills! 👍🥳
Hoobs2
LFG
