Chapter 39 & Interlude: Sea of Spears / Ichor and Steel (Patreon)

Something strange had happened to Alex’s skill. It wasn’t broken. Well, maybe it was broken, corrupted. His entire class was. But it had become more twisted than before. His skill wasn’t broken in the way a blunted blade snapped at the hilt was broken; the useless kind of broken. No, It was a different kind of broken, of a more useful nature. Like a faulty ignition switch that would start a car too easily, or a sword that snapped vertically to create a sharper, more jagged and deadlier needle edge.

The air tingled, a sensation that prickled his skin and his passive sensing skills- which still worked somehow, although muted - fed him a myriad of information on how his corrupted duelling skill impacted the world around him. But his skill still felt wrong, somehow. It felt broken in the way paths could be. it felt like it had skipped some steps it had taken upon its first activation and now it ran with a freedom that exceeded his control, guided and enhanced by his advanced senses.

A shortcut for the skill had been carved by his senses, it seemed.

Inner, Outer, and Bestial. Skills that allowed him to view the world in more ways and channels than most could dream of and others could take years or centuries to master. Together, the three skills became greater than the sum of their parts. They gave him insight into the battle of energies that occurred around him, the corruption of his skill against the inhibiting structure of the system. But insight without understanding was like a boat without moors- and Alex’s boat could only wonder at what it was seeing.

The electric charge around Alex intensified making the hairs on his arm stand. Unseen Sparks of mana erupted around him then settled, the system's influence nowhere to be found.

Did the mana get… stronger? He wondered in awe. Within his sphere, the world's mana felt more potent, and richer. Wilder and thicker, it blazed and thrashed unconstrained. It pressed against his skin like a summer's breeze, and he felt it. He sensed and saw the system’s diluted mana at the edge of his corrupted sphere, fighting to regain control of its lost space. but it made no progress. rarely, it would trap and assimilate the richer mana of his sphere, shackling it to its strange indecipherably rigid structures, but it was a slow process, like a legion of wolves capturing lions. It would be minutes before his skill ended this time. he could vaguely sense the system's attempts to encroach on the space influenced by his Duel of Corruption and judged the limit based on the slow encroachment of the system's weaker mana. It wouldn't stop others from joining their battle uninhibited with their systems intact, as the corrupted debuff skill was not capable of removing the system-mana seeped into the bones and bodies of more than one target. But it would put him and the Queen on level ground, for a time. It felt like he had five minutes, maybe.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?”

The Queen roared and attacked Alex in panic- an erratic response to the unknown fuelled by both distant memories and a primal fear she did not understand.

I don’t actually know what I did, Alex thought as his world became doused in shadow. Eight tree-like limbs descended in a blur, all aimed at his stationary form. They blotted the light as they moved to engulf him from all sides. The quick motion of her strikes created whistling sounds and her limbs split the air, but thanks to the unholy duel his skill had initiated, Alex could track her attacks as easily as he followed the movements of his blade.

The sharpest of her strikes launched towards his heart with the swiftness of a striking serpent. A swiftness he now matched perfectly.

Alex responded.

He turned on his heel to pivot and evade the strike's path, a trace of his movement carving divots in the stone ground as he sidestepped.

The limb halted abruptly in the space where he had just been-

A shower of inhuman life fluids descended, painting the stone ground black. Digits fell to the ground, removed from the monstrous palm. Monstrous palm fell to stone, removed from an inhuman wrist.

Alex hacked off her limb as a woodman would hack through a tree. He pulled his blade in as he withdrew it from her wound to cause further injury, tucking his elbow inward as he pulled to slice her deeper. That was a trick taught to him by his grandfather and one he had never expected to have to use before his rebirth- but that trick should not have been enough to completely remove her thick appendages- after all, she shared his strength and endurance, not to mention that her chitin armoured limb was thicker than he was. Some other force had dramatically enhanced the damage he was capable of delivering;

His Dao.

He had touched upon the Dao as he struck- only a little, and the Dao had poured into and through him in a way he had not anticipated.

Meaning washed over him effortlessly, truths he had uncovered long before he’d set foot on this world's grass.

Where before it had felt like a single drop of water, it now felt like many more. Not a deluge, but several thicker, larger raindrops that swirled fell to him in excitement. The surge of meaning he’d gleaned during his time in the incursion dungeon rushed hungrily into his blade, eager to unleash itself upon the world.

What the- Alex felt tingly, the kind of feeling you felt right before a storm. And the Dao was suddenly unnaturally strong within his corrupted skills sphere. There was a metallic scent to the air- no, not a scent, he realised, it’s more of a feeling. It felt Like the air was heavier, like it was somehow more of itself: more air-like than it had been before. He vaguely sensed an electric charge in the air in a sphere around him and sensed it slightly further as it rushed into his body, altering and changing the energies within him. It looked as if microscopic explosions of mana were taking place, as if the mana within the sphere was being forcibly freed from the system's control. There was no time to investigate the sensation, but he suspected his Inner Sense skill wouldn’t even be capable of further discovery.

Ichor rained through the chamber. The queen recoiled.

“Luck and strange magic,” The Queen grunted In surprised confusion and pain. She retracted her spear-like limbs and cradled her broken limb. She seemed unconcerned with his achievement.

“What are you, Little thing?” She looked at him, really looked at him, reassessing his capabilities and potential as a threat. And still she was unimpressed.

Alex didn’t respond. Feeling the airwaves part in a rush behind him he leaned aside and tilted his head to let her limbs graze past his hair.

A surprise attack? She didn’t seem like the type. He had expected her to face him haughtily with nose held high until the end. If she can abandon her emotions and adapt so quickly, She might be smarter than I’d thought, Alex mused.

A single strand of his hair floated to the ground. A miscalculation, but an inconsequential one. He still had the advantage and his empowered connection to the Dao.

He sensed minute tremors in the ground beneath his feet and saw her next strike as one would see a city from above. Is this how they see the world? Alex was in awe as he twisted and jumped, his lost eye making no difference in his capabilities. Her limb shot beneath him to carve a path through stone. How have they not taken over every city yet? He wondered, as he stepped with back turned and legs coiled like springs to launch to the side. And if they all have these senses, how strong must the humans have been to keep them from taking over?

More questions. It felt as though this world had an ocean of secrets for him to uncover.

The queen's second appendage sliced through the air aiming at his previous position. It crashed into stone, causing the ground to shudder upon impact and cracks to radiate from where her limb narrowly missed.

His movement and the crashing limb sent a cloud of dust into the air briefly obscuring the battlefield. But the dust meant nothing to the combatants, both of them saw what lay within clearly.

She struck several times more.

Clouds of chipped earth and stone rose with each strike to obscure mundane vision. Alex felt a rush of air, chemicals, and sound as a limb shot to his head, he dodged it as an expert would dodge a novice. He sensed another limb, this one aiming lower, targeting his legs. He jumped, and The impact of her limb against the ground sent vibrations through the soles of Alex's boots.

Holy- He was in the air and he still felt it carving the ground as if his feet were planted firmly on stone. He felt it in intricate detail, deeply and intimately. The blow parted stone like a blade through water, small pebbles of marble stone and earth separated in a long line beneath him to scar the chamber's floor. The clear image he felt made him thankful for his skill choice once more.

Hive-mind was great but it would’ve been pretty useless right now, wouldn’t it? He thought absent-mindedly as the queen struck at him with careless abandon. He had observed a pattern in the queen's attacks and realization dawned. She only moved to position her limbs to strike but didn’t attack until he shifted. She’s reacting to movement, of course, he noted internally while adjusting his stance.

A feint left. A limb followed the bait. A miss.

A dash right. The next limb pursued, slamming into the ground again. Another miss.

Limbs converged in a mass of spears so thick a simple dodge would not suffice, and Alex’s visual sight became engulfed with death. A surging wave of finality.

The blow landed.

Alex dug his heel into the stone floor, pivoting and launching himself with strength many times that of a baseline human. The strike missed.

“Human filth!” The queen screeched in rage and indignation. “How do you see like us?”

She struck again. This time it was not in mindless rage or callous disregard, but a display of practised forms bred from contempt- Her martial discipline short forth and her art of war raced forward.

Her Sea of Spears fell upon him.

Chaos. A strange martial art erupted from the queen and engulfed Alex’s senses- her limbs surrounded him from all sides and crashed into him, eroding his wariness. It was an effortless wave of strikes and stabs from all angles- several would crash into his position and recede where several more took its place. It was a wave. Many waves. The flow of her strikes seemed to blend together, softening to a lull before crashing into his bank with a force that could erode mountains. The two combatants moved in blurs before the eyes of all present, their speeds unmatched by all others within the chamber. Luminous Arachne pressed themselves into the walls attempting to meld themselves to it, lest they be eviscerated by the fallout. The queen's limbs moved in a mirage of spears- deflecting, striking and eroding Alex’s 3-dimensional senses with their ubiquity.

Then there was a lull. The waves receded. Her ocean calmed.

Alex stilled, envisioning his surroundings in its full capacity. He saw every curve and contour of the chamber and felt every inch of the queen's form. But when he tried to grasp her limbs, he couldn’t. Where?-

The lull ended, the waves of her assault returned and fell.

He could see and sense her limbs now.

They were everywhere and crashed into his location.

An ocean of spears descended upon him.

Strikes crashed into where Alex was and where he would be, causing Chunks of debris to scatter and dust to billow wherever they landed. the queen retracted her limbs smoothly, an action that generated a gust, clearing the dust and creating a clearer visual view for the luminescent onlookers pressed against the walls in fear of their standoff.

The queen struck again, and Alex’s Dao surged in response to her offending waves.

One royal limb fell, bisected, and the ground quaked in its landing.

Enrage, the queen screamed, and lights dulled to dim as the luminous variants lost consciousness in the face of her fury.

From her sea of spears, a tsunami of limbs descended. It blotted the remaining light from Alex’s vision.

Madness. Alex darted beneath the Queen's mad assault. His blade sank into her chitin, unable to pierce completely. He wrenched at the sword, stuck fast. No choice but to let go. Another limb swooped down. He rolled clear, feeling the rush of air as it missed. Pain blossomed. It didn’t miss. it grazed his back, taking flesh. A instinctive flex. Without thought he summoned another blade. Why did his inventory work? No time. He swung hard. Blade bit into chitin, stuck, unmoving. She wrenched the blade free from his grasp. He downed another potion.

She was adapting, learning how to fight him. She had too many limbs and her martial art had made them illusionary, faster. Even to his senses.

He could still fight her like this, but it would take too long. He only had 5 minutes before her speed and strength would return and outstrip his. Alex was wondering what he should do, assessing his options and grasping for answers as the Queen grew more skilled with each evaded blow. She was close to fully adapting.

And it had only been the first minute.

***

John felt his body give a start. It was a strange feeling, to grow stronger with each fading breath.

John lay on the ground in a heap, having been struck by the queens opening blow and crashing into the wall. He was dying and yet he felt stronger than he’d ever thought possible. His heart beat in stutters as he made to rise, he felt himself stumble as he stood and yet his steps cracked the ground. But he was dying. He willed his blood to move through him, it guided his steps and kept him alive- kept him strong. But he felt his chest convulse and his heart aching in pain. This wouldn’t last long.

John was terrified of death. But now that he found himself facing it, it wasn’t so bad. He knew that was just the effect of his doomed class swaying him- to grow stronger with each injury and each drop of blood shed meant to feel better and greater the closer you came to the end- but it didn’t make it any less true. He felt strong.

Strong enough to hurt her.

And so he tried. Tried to slay a monster that could destroy countries with his blood sword. He tried to do something meaningful before he died. But he felt his steps begin to falter further and his grip on blood slip. His lungs burned, not with exhaustion, but with collapse. It seemed death had come sooner than he’d planned, and without a skill to keep it at bay, John braced for the inevitable end.

Then he heard a yell and saw a red glint flying towards him.

A lifeline. Alex had thrown him a healing potion, an expression of worry on his face. As John reached out and caught it, he looked forward and saw Alex smile.

John downed it in one.

Healing energy seeped through John and his strength returned and increased. Each of his steps were fueled by the chambers deluge of spilled life fluids. Relief filled the BloodBerserker as he gazed ahead and witnessed Alex battling the monstrosity. And then, just as suddenly, the relief turned to fury.

A creature beneath the shell of a human girl stood beside him, with hair so dark and thick it seemed to shine reflective—almost metallic. She lifted her sword. John’s eyes traced her features in a fraction of a second, it felt like forever. He was unsure how he was supposed to feel about her nature, all his life he had been taught that her kind’s existence was a blight. They were the enemy- she was the enemy. But without her he would surely die and with her he might die still. She met the town guard's eyes and held his gaze. He lifted his blade. She nodded to him and the unspoken meaning held within the action passed between them.

He and the inhuman girl besides him charged.

“Don’t let them trap you! Find the gaps!" John yelled as he swung at the nearest limb, digging his blade into the reflective carapace. The queen had eight limbs that spanned almost the entire length of the chamber. Most limbs shot like spears to fight Alex, several more aimed to kill John and the girl with swift blows. Limbs like massive spears struck out at them from all sides as they drew closer to the stationary queen’s throne in the hopes of aiding Alex. The girl charged left towards another limb. She raced forward and leapt, her blade swinging down in a wide and powerful-

The wind was knocked out of her. Gasping without air, she crashed to the ground as a spearing limb struck her down.

Red and black. That was all she saw next, her world became tinted in two colours. Gargantuan limbs failed to reach their target. They hammered down to end her, but didn’t reach her flesh. Her world was still covered in a thick pane of red and black, riddled with cracks that shattered and reformed constantly. They split, and black became red. What was she seeing? She closed her eyes and sensed the world, ignoring its colors.

It was John.

John had summoned a dome of life fluids to protect her, a layered structure of thick crystal that reformed the instant a strike would shatter it. Another strike, and red became black, the ground shuddered under the impact.

The dome returned to liquid. life-fluids flew through the air in a stream, returning to the call of its master. John reformed his blood-armor and covered his blade. His armament of crystallized blood. The girl rose and for a split second their gazes met, human and inhuman. Then she leapt and burst through the remnants of the dome.

Blood and Ichor. The first wave of the queens strikes had hemmed them together, boxing them in to make them easier targets. John used his most powerful skill to part the crushing limbs. A Sacrificial Blade. His dark greatsword swung in the widest of arcs, its width fit to match the queen's limbs. A crescent of his ichor and blood painted the chamber's floor on impact. He saw a huge shape blur past, he swung. His blood-crystal blade shattered against its carapace, but the limb recoiled. John leapt forward and swung again. A crack- a hole, small. Another limb lashed out but his shielding took the impact, hardened blood and ichor shattered, removing his defenses.

Fury and steel. The girl matched his pace, her own steel blade a wild whirlwind of furious destruction. She deflected an errant blow and crashed to her knees under its strain. She stabbed and hacked and slashed, chipping away sections of already damaged carapace. She saw John without his blood-armour stood there Like trapped fauna before a hunting party, gawking at spears of massive limbs shooting to skewer his defenceless form. She charged left, towards the gap between John and his doom. She pushed him and spun, crouching and pivoting on her heel like Alex had taught her to do, then she leapt while channeling her imitation of the forms she had seen him use since her their first encounter. She crashed into John and pushed him out of deaths path.

Three limbs large enough to carve tunnels crashed into the space behind her.

They dug deep into the ground and a web of cracks spread wide, stone jutted out at uneven angles. John looked stunned. For a split second the adrenal rush of death surged through him. It held relief, shock, confusion, and fear… and for the second time in his life, he felt something that felt like gratitude for a monster.

He recovered and raced forward, his broad sword growing as liquid swirled wildly around him. The town guard swung his bloody greatsword and the three limbs cracked. The girl swung her sword close behind, low, cutting a path that led to the exact spot John had impacted. She saw cracked and broken limbs rising in preparation for more swift strikes.

She swung harder.

The impact of her blade on damaged limbs sent small fragments of chitin scattering across the floor. Flesh pulsed, exposed and unprotected.

The Queen screeched and her longest limb raised a blade of pure bronze, its flesh still exposed. The girl looked up. John pointed.

“Sacrificial Blade.”

Johns body moved with surety that defied his exhaustion. His sword elongated and shot forward, extended by blood. It blurred and whizzed towards the Queen’s soft flesh. He stabbed.

The girl struck at the same instant. Her sword flashed, slicing off fingers as thick as she was. A bronze blade hit the dirt.

The Queen's blade. A blade of power.

John leapt out of the way and the girl dove to retrieve the weapon, just as limbs crashed down on her location in a current of desperation. Dust erupted, a plume hiding her from all views but Alex’s.

***

John lay on the ground, surrounded by dust and rubble. He couldn’t see a thing.

“She almost killed me!”

Did his voice quiver? No, of course it didn’t. He was incapable of feeling fear and as a result was not afraid. He cleared his throat. Yes it definitely wasn’t fear. His fingers trembled. Nope, they didn’t tremble, surely not. He was not afraid. He wasn’t!

“Blood’s Debt.” As the dust cleared he lifted his sword and spoke, and blood came to him in serpentine movements more under its own control than his.

Then he raced after the Girl who stood amidst the rubble holding a bronze blade, stolen from their adversary. He charged and spoke again.

“Sacrificial Blade.” His blade became deadlier with each step.

The girl awaited his charge with a faint smirk. There was no way either of them would miss out on what came next.