I felt like I was in a twilight zone, seeing my after image move in waves of sound and light.
This is what Batto must have felt like, I said to myself, basking in the surrealness of moving so fast that it felt like I was splitting soul from body.
This speed was nothing I’d experienced before, but I couldn't let it get to my head. Clave was right there standing pretty for the kill. So I swung my bonesaw at his neck, determined to end his reign for good.
Killing a terrorizer with a huge bounty on his head was a lot easier than murdering those forest nymphs. Maybe I just had a soft spot for women, or maybe it was the fact that Clave was one strong SOB that could seriously dent our mission. Whatever the reason, the Deo Guild was done without its leader, or at least that was what I thought when I’d slashed through the head of a fucking shadowmancer…
What I’d decapitated was a shadow dummy…
The figure dispersed into the air as soon as I slashed at it, the real Clave nowhere to be found. Unfortunately the longer I kept the Tap active, the more mana it drained. I also noticed it had a god damn cool down like Rufian and Jezz’s teleportation skill. For balance purposes, I couldn’t use it for a while, which sucked, especially seeing as Clave finally decided to show himself as he was standing on the balcony railing across from me on the second floor.
“You fucking coward,” I growled.
Clave laughed. “Why fight fair when I can win? Like I said, I know Senterrian gear. It was only a matter of time before you used Speed Tap to save your ass. But now that you’re on a cool down, I’m going to really whip you into shape. Let’s see how fast you can dodge these in the infinity of darkness!”
Just as he said that, the room grew incredibly dark. I couldn’t see a damn thing, not even my own hand in front of me. To compensate, I revved up my blaster in the center of my palm and fired a shot. Maybe I could eat away at the walls of black, and sure enough it had worked, however the wall of shadows regenerated just as fast as my blaster fed a hole through it, and it stitched itself up in a second’s time.
So much for that.
There was no point in wasting time or resources trying to clear this thing, so I was forced to manage with it for now, using the light from my blaster in my hand to see.
Limited with light, I relied on my sense of hearing. I was going to put these long ears to work, focusing all of my attention on the space around me. My bots were here somewhere, I could hear them buzz and whistle. But then those reassuring noises from them began to tank my chest, the sound of them being obliterated in the darkness tempting me to search for them.
“We can’t have you evening the odds, Senterrian,” Clave’s voice echoed. For some reason it sounded like he was far, which meant that he was portaling in reinforcements to deal with my bots.
I just thought of an idea…
I downed a mana restoration vial and summoned more bots, another round of four. After instructing them to scatter and find Clave, they began to throw small missiles while I protected myself with my reflector dome. As they chewed through the black wall swallowing the nave, I began to see bits and pieces of the area before the wall fixed itself up again. But a second was literally all I needed to see which bot Clave was after.
There!
The one on the far right!
Again, I used Speed Tap. The real Clave was above us, and that portal was going to lead me right to him. So when I ran across the nave and hitched a ride on the shadow blade that pierced my bot, I dropped my specialty so I could pipeline across the portal and jump scare the fucker for real this time with my bone saw.
Sure enough, he hadn’t expected me to do something so insane. And honestly, I was only half sure it would work. The expression on his face needed to be framed and put up on my wall the way he looked so terrified as my saw came for his neck. Unfortunately, a level 150 warrior would have higher stats in the agility department, so he managed to block my attack with his arm.
But there was no way I was about to let this opportunity slide!
Enrage for the rescue—I curled up my fist and rammed it into his stomach, punching a hole clean through.
Clave bucked down in pain, his blood caked all over my cyber arm. With my fist still hanging underneath his ribs, the shadows around the nave began to fade, just like the light in his eyes.
He coughed, but there was a nerving smile creeping on his face before he said, “Strong punch, kudos to you. But that was no regular melee attack, so you get to feel the sting of it as well.”
His statement numbed me. I must have been juiced up on adrenaline before I noticed the excruciating pain radiating from my stomach. When I looked down I noticed that I had a hole in me, also…
“What the… fu—” I choked, coughing up blood before I dropped on my knees.
“Man oh, man, you’re right! You are no regular Senterrian. I almost admire you. But I’m not ready to die here. You punch like a high leveled orc, and since I value my organs, this is where I quit playing around with you.” Clave downed a healing potion, but his wound took time to heal. In that time he still had enough energy to fashion a sword from shadows, and he positioned it to decapitate me.
“I had fun! You were an amazing guest. But you’ve overstayed your welcome, and I’ll have the pleasure of putting you to sleep, permanently.” When he swung, I acted. Another reflector shield dome, Clave unable to reach me as long as I was trapped inside. But I’d left him a present before I triggered my shield, dropping a grenade underneath him.
When he looked down between his legs, he was ready to escape, but fate had other plans for him, and Clave was suddenly embodied in a hard layer of ice.
“Thanks for grounding the real one for me,” Rufian said behind him, and then the mage leaped from the balcony on a saucer of ice, avoiding the grenade blast.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Chunks of Clave ice cubes showered down my reflector shield. Once the explosion was over, I released the dome and took a healing potion, feeling its effects kicking in already.
“Shit, that was too close,” I whispered to myself, a part of me not thinking it’d work. Thank Alzera-Kar for the abundance of healing potions from cyber loot!
As far as using my two new skills for the first time, I’d say it went better than expected.
“Yoohoo!” Rufian’s voice carried from below. I looked between the balcony rails to see the mage waving at me with a smug smile on his smug face.
“Got the location of Pixie, hero?”
“Seriously?! That’s what you ask me right after you left me here to fight this guy by myself?!” I barked at him while I continued to hold my guts together.
He smiled. “I knew you could handle him on your own, hero. You’re smart like that.”
“I have a hole in my stomach!”
“And you are recovering well. Oh, the marvelous power of healing potions!”
“Rufian, I swear, I—”
