Zelsys could scarcely believe the deluge of power suddenly pouring out of her opponent… But she felt the Skinless One’s presence, and thus knew this to be a high-level sacrificial technique.
So it was that they clashed, and in their conflict shook the earth below and set the air ablaze. For the first time in this city, she met one who could meet the full brunt of her violence head-on.
Thunderclaps and explosions rang out, a maelstrom of lightning and flame. Friedrich set forth one explosive shockwave after the next, noticably weaker than the first, but so close together that it didn’t matter.
And with each clash, Zelsys unraveled him.
To say he was now a mindless berserk beast was inaccurate, but a certain nuance had been lost, replaced with an unwavering resolve. He was trying to kill her, but it right away became evident that was a secondary objective to preventing her from reaching the Cathedral Square.
More importantly, he had stopped learning. Before, it had been a fight as much as it had been a contest of who could be faster to analyze the other’s tactics and devise countermeasures. Friedrich had completely lost that. It was… Somewhat familiar to Von Wickten’s Entomodragon transformation, albeit far less revolting. Others soon joined in, swarming in as if called to this place all at once, several Blue and Red Robes, setting upon her with a sense of urgency that betrayed their panic. It was this same urgency that allowed her to slaughter them to a man within moments, slaying no less than four Blue Robes with a single lash of Carnifex. Smashing into a narrow apartment, the return-pull sent her fangs tearing through it, two more Blue Robes falling with its collapse. Fang Rippers cut them down before they could regain their bearings, and she turned one Red Robe into a fine mist with a shotshell. Despite not invoking Thundercannon, its effect was comparable to the very first time she had ever invoked that technique. With the same ease as throwing a punch, she called forth all six Thundergods and tore to shreds a pair of Red Robes that had gone around to flank her. Neither did they have time to attack nor to scream; the savage storm-gods struck with all the savagery of true lightning, and tore through their victims just as savagely - entering and exiting their bodies only once each. A liquid, boiling slurry of viscera burst out of the Red Robes’ wounds when Zel called them back, their smoking, convulsing forms toppling over.
Only two of Friedrich’s reinforcements stood out. Another Hemomancer, even stronger than the first, as well as an individual whom she could not identify, because they were completely surrounded by a swarm of knives. She mentally labeled him as the Knifedancer.
Friedrich completely ignored them, maintaining a single-minded focus on Zelsys. In turn, she had to focus on him whilst also defending from the pair. The Hemomancer’s attempts at directly affecting her, fortunately, lashed back before they could even take hold, but the Knifedancer’s blades did, in fact, dance, outmaneuvering her Fang Rippers. A small fraction of them - perhaps one-tenth, no more than three or four - would occasionally blaze with brilliant, azure flame, accelerating to a degree hard to keep track of even for her. If she could focus just on the Knifedancer, Zel was sure she would have no issue keeping up, but as she was, she was splitting herself two ways… And the Hemomancer continued to pile stones onto her back by shifting to a defensive role, somehow manipulating Friedrich’s blood-aura into shields.
For a short time, they got her on the defensive. Zelsys found it necessary to re-evaluate how she defended herself, growing increasingly aware of the fact she wasn’t properly incorporating all her new tools. Instead, she was merely using what she was already familiar with, merely adding Predator Aura on top. Her sense of urgency rose with each passing moment, keenly aware that she didn’t have time for a prolonged engagement, and with it, so did her anger. It bubbled and seethed, like water in a great steam engine’s boiler, empowering her with its explosive drive. Nonetheless, she retained her full faculties.
Absolute anger, yet absolute calm.
Absolute violence, directed with a scalpel’s precision.
Absolute control over her own movements and minimal dodges, motion enough only to make a strike miss, or to otherwise disarm the attack through deflection.
These were the foundations of her defense.
Skin as hard as metal, yet one which causes strikes to slip off or bounce away.
An aura of lightning that strikes at the enemy.
Fulgurmagnetism to twist foes’ blades aside.
Thundergods to act as extra limbs, whose loss would not harm her.
These were the floors, but when she had only possessed Rebound Pulse, that had been her ultimate defense, and had she not acquired all these other tools, she would have instead developed Rebound Pulse and her own physical defensive skills more than they were right now.
This was how she had explained it to the Newman Sect’s disciples, for their own sakes, so that they would understand how a layered defense compared to a monolithic one built on the total mastery of a few defensive tools.
It was just an analogy, of course.
Zelsys found the analogy of an ever-changing chimera to be more appropriate to her own martial arts, and it was high time for another metamorphosis into something yet greater and more terrible. There was a shift in the air. Her aura took hold of her immediate surroundings, reaching out, staking claim, insisting upon its supremacy. Its expansion ceased, for now, at the border of her fulguric sensory field.
Lightning struck out at anything entering it, yet did not merely impact as it had before, instead turning to a beast of serpentine form, a form of shimmering aura and lightning, made a touch more real by a gleaming skull of silvery metal. It was something akin to her Thundergods, yet quantifiably different, fleeting and without a consistent form, forced into shape by aura alone.
Akaso
If you’d like to read ahead, consider heading on over to the Patreon! You get up to 20 advance chapters for both Retribution Engine and Cherno Caster.
I’d also greatly appreciate it if you could rate my story, maybe even leave a review or advanced review!
For a link to the discord, check the synopsis.
Zelsys could scarcely believe the deluge of power suddenly pouring out of her opponent… But she felt the Skinless One’s presence, and thus knew this to be a high-level sacrificial technique.
So it was that they clashed, and in their conflict shook the earth below and set the air ablaze. For the first time in this city, she met one who could meet the full brunt of her violence head-on.
Thunderclaps and explosions rang out, a maelstrom of lightning and flame. Friedrich set forth one explosive shockwave after the next, noticably weaker than the first, but so close together that it didn’t matter.
And with each clash, Zelsys unraveled him.
To say he was now a mindless berserk beast was inaccurate, but a certain nuance had been lost, replaced with an unwavering resolve. He was trying to kill her, but it right away became evident that was a secondary objective to preventing her from reaching the Cathedral Square.
More importantly, he had stopped learning. Before, it had been a fight as much as it had been a contest of who could be faster to analyze the other’s tactics and devise countermeasures. Friedrich had completely lost that. It was… Somewhat familiar to Von Wickten’s Entomodragon transformation, albeit far less revolting. Others soon joined in, swarming in as if called to this place all at once, several Blue and Red Robes, setting upon her with a sense of urgency that betrayed their panic. It was this same urgency that allowed her to slaughter them to a man within moments, slaying no less than four Blue Robes with a single lash of Carnifex. Smashing into a narrow apartment, the return-pull sent her fangs tearing through it, two more Blue Robes falling with its collapse. Fang Rippers cut them down before they could regain their bearings, and she turned one Red Robe into a fine mist with a shotshell. Despite not invoking Thundercannon, its effect was comparable to the very first time she had ever invoked that technique. With the same ease as throwing a punch, she called forth all six Thundergods and tore to shreds a pair of Red Robes that had gone around to flank her. Neither did they have time to attack nor to scream; the savage storm-gods struck with all the savagery of true lightning, and tore through their victims just as savagely - entering and exiting their bodies only once each. A liquid, boiling slurry of viscera burst out of the Red Robes’ wounds when Zel called them back, their smoking, convulsing forms toppling over.
Only two of Friedrich’s reinforcements stood out. Another Hemomancer, even stronger than the first, as well as an individual whom she could not identify, because they were completely surrounded by a swarm of knives. She mentally labeled him as the Knifedancer.
Friedrich completely ignored them, maintaining a single-minded focus on Zelsys. In turn, she had to focus on him whilst also defending from the pair. The Hemomancer’s attempts at directly affecting her, fortunately, lashed back before they could even take hold, but the Knifedancer’s blades did, in fact, dance, outmaneuvering her Fang Rippers. A small fraction of them - perhaps one-tenth, no more than three or four - would occasionally blaze with brilliant, azure flame, accelerating to a degree hard to keep track of even for her. If she could focus just on the Knifedancer, Zel was sure she would have no issue keeping up, but as she was, she was splitting herself two ways… And the Hemomancer continued to pile stones onto her back by shifting to a defensive role, somehow manipulating Friedrich’s blood-aura into shields.
For a short time, they got her on the defensive. Zelsys found it necessary to re-evaluate how she defended herself, growing increasingly aware of the fact she wasn’t properly incorporating all her new tools. Instead, she was merely using what she was already familiar with, merely adding Predator Aura on top. Her sense of urgency rose with each passing moment, keenly aware that she didn’t have time for a prolonged engagement, and with it, so did her anger. It bubbled and seethed, like water in a great steam engine’s boiler, empowering her with its explosive drive. Nonetheless, she retained her full faculties.
Absolute anger, yet absolute calm.
Absolute violence, directed with a scalpel’s precision.
Absolute control over her own movements and minimal dodges, motion enough only to make a strike miss, or to otherwise disarm the attack through deflection.
These were the foundations of her defense.
Skin as hard as metal, yet one which causes strikes to slip off or bounce away.
An aura of lightning that strikes at the enemy.
Fulgurmagnetism to twist foes’ blades aside.
Thundergods to act as extra limbs, whose loss would not harm her.
These were the floors, but when she had only possessed Rebound Pulse, that had been her ultimate defense, and had she not acquired all these other tools, she would have instead developed Rebound Pulse and her own physical defensive skills more than they were right now.
This was how she had explained it to the Newman Sect’s disciples, for their own sakes, so that they would understand how a layered defense compared to a monolithic one built on the total mastery of a few defensive tools.
It was just an analogy, of course.
Zelsys found the analogy of an ever-changing chimera to be more appropriate to her own martial arts, and it was high time for another metamorphosis into something yet greater and more terrible. There was a shift in the air. Her aura took hold of her immediate surroundings, reaching out, staking claim, insisting upon its supremacy. Its expansion ceased, for now, at the border of her fulguric sensory field.
Lightning struck out at anything entering it, yet did not merely impact as it had before, instead turning to a beast of serpentine form, a form of shimmering aura and lightning, made a touch more real by a gleaming skull of silvery metal. It was something akin to her Thundergods, yet quantifiably different, fleeting and without a consistent form, forced into shape by aura alone.
Akaso
If you’d like to read ahead, consider heading on over to the Patreon! You get up to 20 advance chapters for both Retribution Engine and Cherno Caster.
I’d also greatly appreciate it if you could rate my story, maybe even leave a review or advanced review!
For a link to the discord, check the synopsis.
