Soul of Blades - Chapter 58: Chaos (Patreon)

[2 hour mana cooldown ended. Skills now available for use]

In less than a blink, Alex summoned the brood mothers red skill crystal, its facets nestling hidden within his clasped fingers.

“Assimilate Nexus.” He breathed. He had less than a tenth of a second to do this. He would have to be quick.

[Infernal Spawn: The user will become—]

He ignored the text, eyes racing to his options.

[- ̶̯͇̈́̈͛Error̶̯͇̈́̈͛—]

[Target Primary Class: ̷̷͎̠̠̖̳̮̿́̏̄͝͠Sys̵̞̈́͆̓̓te̸̪̟͇͕͂mic S—]

[System Message: Choose one of 2 Ski—]

[Sovereign Decree: Words of sovereignty are law, and all must follow regardless of creed or ethos or be punished…]

An AOE skill… Debuffs… but conditional… this won’t help me reach the crystal. Even dilated, his thoughts were a blur deprived of time. He couldn’t afford to waste the little he had. He skipped the rest. 

[Sovereign Clone: The sovereign sword is eternal, unfettered, and unbound. The eternal sovereign's only limit is the sword…]

Unfettered… unbound… clone... a clone skill. A distraction. Perfect.

[Class skill ‘Sovereign Clone’ gained!]

His consciousness returned to a precarious reality; surrounded, outnumbered, and outclassed. Without hesitation, he immediately activated his skills, one after the other until there were none left to call.

“Mana Blade. Boundless dodge. Phoenix leap. Sovereign Executioner. Sovereign Clone. Mana Burn.”

As Alex crouched, muttering the words, his grip tightened around the hilt of his sword. He felt his mana wrap around his legs, ready to launch him in a direction of his choosing. In a single breath, a surge of magic flowed through him, and his white sword, weightless, began to change. His eyes widened in astonishment as the metal rippled, transforming into a brilliant white-silver metallic replica of himself. A clone, born from the very essence of the enchanted sword, stood before him, holding its own shining blade that seemed welded to its palm, as if the blade was a part of its white-silver body, or had sprouted from it. It was still covered in the barely visible patterns of enchantment he'd seen on the white sword pulled from his chest.

He sensed that he could issue the clone orders, vague commands, and did so. He told it to do one thing.

“FIGHT!”

Alex exploded forward in a burst of motion, a spray of volcanic rock jetting outwards as he launched into a swift charge, pushing against the ground with a fierce surge of power. His clone charged at the nearest demon, the mass of enchanted metal blindly following his order without thought. Alex summoned the Flameblade from his inventory and plunged it into his chest, then drew for his limitless blade as the world around him blurred. It’s ability to steal energy could prove life-saving.

[Grade F Skill: WeightedBody (Active) removed!]

[Grade F Skill: FlameBody (Active) gained!]

In that moment, in the far corners of the armies edge where cooling magma met laid stone and infernal landscape met civilisation, a spray of demonic bodies erupted, showering the air with armoured rain.

Someone else had entered the battlefield’s edge, and It looked to be someone powerful.

Alex turned mid-flight, peering at a distant, barely visible figure attempting to battle their way past the army's backline. The figure was huge, a giant of a man, whose vaguely familiar visage stirred lost memories within him.

Wait… is that? Despite the desperate situation, Alex did a double-take while soaring through the air, the battlefield still whirring past at blinding speed.

He squinted.

“Is that FRED!?”

***

To Alex, the entire world was a blur.

The melee caused by Fred the cobbler, at the edges of the legion had split its forces, a valuable distraction that bought Alex precious time. I knew there was something weird about that guy!, Alex thought between dodges, before spears of flames streaking toward his path forced his mind to screech to a halt.

He didn’t even have time to process the glimpses of destruction he had just witnessed the mild mannered Cobbler unleash, and in the present moment he found that he could hardly care- that was the least of his worries. 

With eyes focused solely on the portal looming in the distance, and the crystals that lay within, Alex continually launched forward. He was a comet streaking across the battlefield, a beacon for all who wished him dead. The earth beneath Alex cracked and split as he surged, a plume of smoke and flame trailing in his wake, leaving a wake of molten rock and debris with every movement.

His next step hit the chest of a lesser demon, caving it in. Its howl cut short as A Mana Blade cleaved through it. But he was already gone, his form blurring in a frenzied display.

The world spun around him as Boundless Dodge snapped into effect. A huge demon lunged at him, its glaive aiming for his chest. But the space where he stood was instantly empty, replaced by a gust of wind as he was shifted aside by his mana.

An instant later, he reappeared, the wind rushing past him, as a Phoenix Leap propelled him through the air. His Mana Blade shone brightly in his hand, leaving streaks of blue light in its wake as it sliced through the demon, splitting it into pieces.

The melee at the edges had given Alex a chance, but he couldn't afford to stay still for a moment, any hesitation could be his last. Any unseen attack could be his end. He was surrounded. And he had to keep moving. The skill 'boundless dodge' lay on the tip of his tongue, he clung to it like it a parachute in free fall.

His Sovereign Executioner appeared and disappeared, its trajectory unpredictable as a meteor shower slicing through the fabric of space. The construct blinked in and out of reality around him like an orbiting star. Cutting, slashing, and blocking blows with its ephemeral form. 

Watching Alex with the mild disinterest of a hunter watching a fern, The Third Prince huffed lazily before disappearing from his perch atop his brood mother in a wisp of shadows.

Alex suddenly sensed a presence behind him. A shifting of air and sound that painted the image of a man, sprouting from his shadow. He whirled around in a panic, the light of his Mana Blade slashing through the air, right where the demon had been a moment ago. But the third of sloth was gone, and nothing but smoke remained.

The demonic Third prince reappeared some distance away, standing behind the First prince.

The lazy Third Prince observed Alex’s flight with continued disinterest. “It attempts to escape brother, perhaps it will fight us” He turned to regard the eldest.

In that moment, before the eldest could respond, Alex’s sovereign clone barrelled through demon guards, it's weight uncontested and unstoppable. Each turn and tilt of the clone revealed new depths, as if the very fabric of space clung to its enchanted edges. Its steps defied the pull of the earth, yet in motion, held a weight that anchored it firmly to the root of its path. It was unstoppable.

And it clashed with the eldest, the First prince. The First did not even deign to draw a weapon, and instead butted his head against the clone's swinging sword. Blade met horn in a spray of sparks. The force threw the clone backwards. It skidded across the battlefield, gouging the ground, its face a half-obliterated mask of some strange demonic metal. Still, it got up, the enchanted-metal twisting, repairing.

It met a wall of blades.

A laugh, as harsh as grinding stones, rumbled from the First Prince. “Fight?” he jerked his head towards Alex “It's only just begun to understand the meaning of the word.” He then stretched his arm towards the human's direction.

Far away, a burning sensation immediately engulfed Alex. From below him, volcanic rock shot out like a geyser, shaped into a grasping hand covering the battlefield in an attempt to drag him down. A Boundless dodge saved him from its grasp, but could not prevent his back from being completely scorched by the intense flames, his defensive gear immediately shattering on impact. As he dodged, the prince clasped his hand into a fist, and the giant volcanic hand beneath Alex exploded.

Alex went flying, briefly losing consciousness as his world became filled with fiery pain.

Far from the maddening rush of battle, his metallic clone moved through the demon horde in response. Each step of the clone felt like an earthquake, each strike resonating like a gong. Its being was made purely of a dense and heavy metal from the demons homeworld, duplicated and increased by the magic of Alex's skill. The metallic clone held its ground, a tower amidst the assaulting storm. The demons swarmed to the moving statue, their attacks as relentless as a tide, covering it in dents, scratches and erosion. But the clone was unyielding, relentless in the face of a storm of magic, claws, and blades. It sought only to fulfil its original's command, to 'fight. 'Its metallic form was suddenly punctured by the second princess, who leapt forwards head first in a devastating lunging bite.

Yet the clone still surged on, obeying the original's command and causing havoc among the demon ranks.

Desperation engulfed Alex as he gasped awake in free fall towards the mass of demonic Guards. The Royalty watched his decent with mild curioisty, wondering if 'the native' was still alive. Alex's pain and desperation pushed him to the brink, fueling his boundless dodge. In swift succession, he leapt, twisted, and sidestepped, his body blurring through the chaos.

Not all of his dodges were successful. An errant strike sent him off course and crashing to the ground, a large gash forming across his chest.

Alex gritted his teeth and Leapt through the pain.

He was breathless. He wanted to throw up, run away, and escape. But he wouldn’t. Everywhere he looked, a wall of night was charging at him. Metallic red armor. Obsidian red skin. Glowing red eyes. The demon royals army was racing, roaring, chasing. But he ran on. Because he couldn’t stop.

Alex Ironwood’s heart was in his throat.

Burns, cuts, bruises. Blood fell freely as he weaved through the carnage of attacks from the surrounding guards. He could die here, he realised. Each new wound, each close shave, was bringing him closer to death. In a desperate bid to survive, Alex reached for something greater than himself, and then he felt it. The ancient resonance within and around him, the Dao of true immortality, infused in everything. He felt how every heartbeat, every breath, every move connected him deeper to the universe. And he channelled those truths into and beyond his palm. Change. Destruction. Rebirth. His weapon hummed in response, its form warping, shifting, eager to wreak havoc.

As whispers of rebirth and oblivion twirled around the core of the blade, it shifted. The Dao flooded his blade. It was a stream of impermanence, and destruction. A cyclical storm infused into the metal, and an unfathomable energy of impermanence, change, destruction, and rebirth poured continuously into his blade from his surroundings. The weapon shivered and warped even further, light condensing and twisting around it as it thrummed with the promise of unfathomable destruction. Of change.

It was no longer just a blade, it was a connection, a bridge to a truth of the universe held within the grasp of a mortal.

Around him, the demon royals reacted. Their eyes widened in realization, their bodies freezing for a split second before they were all in motion, moving frantically to intercept him.

"Stop him!" the First prince bellowed. The command boomed in the open space, igniting the dormant chaos.

Lesser demons threw themselves in Alex's path, eyes full of twisted hunger. They were met with steel. His Boundless Dodge threw him from one target to the next, in a journey of death and destruction. His Mana Blade tore through flesh and bone, the guards feeble screams cutting through the cacophony of the battlefield.

Alex sped towards the pillar of light.

Again, he activated Boundless Dodge. His senses flared, his body moving on its own, evading a rain of magic and claws. They were fast, the royals, matching him step for step, gaining closer every second. Perhaps even faster. Each breath he drew brought him a hair's breadth away from death.

They were gaining ground.

Desperation coursed through Alex in waves as he activated boundless dodge, his body moving with unparalleled agility to dodge attacks from all directions. His senses strained to breaking, his construct blocked what could not be evaded, and his BladeBody sliced at those that came too close. Boundless Dodge, he mouthed without breath. He repeated the skill relentlessly, relying on it as his lifeline in the face of overwhelming odds as his mana plummeted. In that moment, the demon princes acted. A bulge of darkness erupted behind him as torrents of volcanic rock surged from in front. Another explosion was coming.

Phoenix Leap.

Alex accelerated and dodged. Up, then down, then up again. The battlefield was a blur. Then, he reached his target.

His trajectory ended at the center of the incursion. The pillar of light. The portal.

The crystal.

Alex crashed into it, his blade performing a deadly pirouette. His Dao, his stats, and his Mana Blades were all unleashed in a spinning slash, striking the crystal with a force that exploded in a wave of pressure.

The crystal shattered.