Spellheart 9: Chapter 44 (Patreon)

[Left! He’s going left!] Mac yelled.

I turned, changing directions. “You contact Dean yet?”

[I’m guiding him too. Go! He’s getting away!]

I raced through the forest, desperate to catch my doppelganger before he made his escape. I traveled through the Hearthwood in the blink of an eye, but the new patches of dead trees from the Devilbeast Wilds scattered throughout the woods were less familiar.

The ley lines running through the ground twisted unnaturally like they were a patchwork of terrain cut and pasted like a game board. That wasn’t too inaccurate, considering what had just happened with the dissolution of Dean’s pocket world.

In the heart of the glade, my evil twin awaited us. He had been running moments ago, making haste outside the Hearthwood to avoid me. He might have been a Demigod, but I was still the next best thing, and I had a greater variety of powers at my disposal.

While he might have been able to defeat me in the Devilbeast Wilds, now he was in the heart of my realm. The Hearthwood was only moments away, and thanks to the defenses of The Wanderer, even Demigods who attacked me there could lose their lives. This time, I planned to use every advantage I had to win.

I could practically sense the calculations flashing across his bronze and adamantium face. He didn’t want to fight me here and now on my terms. Not with Dean and my matriarchs close behind me.

Which only served to bolster my resolve to end things here and now.

I wasted no time launching my attack as soon as we arrived. A Stone Obelisk as large as a building rose from the ground at my feet, and I flung it forward with all my might.

As it flew, I reached out with my concept of Gravity, lighting the load as I threw it in the air, only to increase its weight dramatically after the stone reached its apex. Already, I could feel the strain on my mind, but the Stone Obelisk hurtled toward the ground with terrifying force.

It looked unnatural the way it fell. As I shifted its weight, it went from a smooth and steady arc to a plummet straight downward, right on top of my doppelganger’s head.

Meanwhile, I unleashed two hundred Sword Storm blades from my Dimensional Storage. They circled my doppelganger, and I flung them toward him all at once, corralling him toward where the conceptually enhanced Obelisk would land.

My evil twin was supernaturally strong, but getting hit with a one-ton block of metal repeatedly was still enough to make him move. As long as I could deny him leverage, I figured I could pin him right where I wanted him.

“Eat this!” I shouted as both my attacks landed at once. When the Stone Obelisk touched the ground, the forest floor shook with as much force as it had when I’d reintroduced it to the Devilbeast Wilds. Many of my Sword Storm blades would have to be melted down and reforged as the force and friction of the collision liquefied their edges and blunted their tips.

Dirt and debris flew in all directions, and for a second, I thought I’d won.

Then, the pile of bent and melted metal and stone shifted. By the time a familiar beam of crimson energy shot toward me, I was already diving into the ley line I’d strategically positioned myself over for when my opening attack failed to finish things.

I emerged on the other side of the clearing, flanking my doppelganger as my matriarchs emerged from the forest where they’d been following close behind me.

“Keep your distance! Support one another, and don’t let him get up close! Wizards, you’re backup! We’ll wear him down!” I shouted to my companions.

We’d prepared for this fight and came ready for a battle. I saw the derisive look on my doppelganger’s face as he heard me shouting orders, but we’d prepared for that, too.

The orders made sense, but they were entirely misleading. I hadn’t said them for my companions. I’d said them for him.

He prepared to go on the offensive and fight his way to freedom before we exhausted him with numbers and firepower. Bad move.

We planned to end things by throwing everything we had at him all at once.

Tivana took the lead in the assault while Illiel attacked my doppelganger’s mind directly. Whatever shred of my mind magic he had was minimal at best. After fighting him a few times, it didn’t seem to be something he was actively cultivating. That meant his greatest defense was his own alien psychology. But now that Illiel had some time to look his mind over again, her next round of mental attacks would be that much more effective.

We opted for illusions. We figured we’d let him fall for our trap as long as we could keep it active. He didn’t see Tivana rushing toward him with a sword in one hand and spatial magic brewing in the other. Melise would be on healing and supporting the rest of us with her Sorcerer-level fate cultivation.

The others followed close behind Tivana. It was important to attack two at a time, at the very least. A demigod like my evil twin could kill a sorcerer in the blink of an eye if given half a chance. Though the ginger way my evil twin had treated Sava made me suspect there was still something in him that didn’t want to hurt them. That would also be to our advantage.

Illiel, Yorik, and Tivana attacked, giving me time to prepare more Sword Storm blades. I pulled what remained of the bent and broken ones off the battlefield to clear the area. I knew my doppelganger would use them as obstacles to dodge my women, and he even tried to tug them free from my grip to take control of them.

But with Yorik and Tivana on top of him and Illiel blinding his senses, he could only spare me so much attention. I retrieved my Sword Storm blades and began a second assault. Meanwhile, Minerva created some of the most powerful skeletons she could manage and hurled them at my doppelganger.

They were the same skeletal bruisers she’d made before when fighting the Soul Eaters, and their job now would be the same as back then. They were to tie up my doppelganger, sacrificing their lives to give the rest of us the chance to deal a few good hits.

One dove for him and didn’t last more than a heartbeat in battle as my doppleganger twisted from blocking Tivana’s blade with Spell Eater’s shaft to shattering the skeleton’s head with the spear’s butt.

But the other skeleton dove for him and wrapped arms around his legs, limiting his mobility as it held on.

Tivana pressed her advantage. She could maneuver, but he couldn’t. Despite her advantage, my doppelganger was more than her match. He was faster than her and many, many times stronger. When Tivana locked swords with his spear, he shoved and sent her flying.

Yorik swung her axe right for his head, only for him to sweep her legs out from under her with a swing of his leg.

Then he opened his mouth, and from it emerged a beam of crimson energy right toward Illiel. She was forced to drop whatever illusions she’d been crafting to distract our enemy so she could defend herself.

Illiel winced and took a step back, and as she did so, a wall of frozen red blood rose up between her and the incoming beam of energy. I knew Illiel had retained some of the Witch of Frozen Blood’s powers, but it seemed she was gaining greater control over them as of late.

Assyrus and Eltiana attacked, and I moved in to cover them. Though the two of them were about as strong as wizards could get, they couldn’t face a Demigod. But they could get some good hits in while I distracted one.

Whatever mercy my evil twin had for my women, he had none for me. The moment I showed my face, he struck me across the jaw with a vicious punch that had even more force behind it than the shove that had sent Tivana flying.

I just barely recovered my senses in time to dodge the head, but that followed it. I really didn’t want to test my skull’s durability against that of an adamantium robot.

I ended up taking the bulk of the abuse with few opportunities to retaliate. But that was alright because I didn’t need to land hits as long as I kept my doppelganger occupied. The more time he spent throwing punches at me, the more times Assyrus and Eltiana could chip away at his armor.

His enchanted bronze plates flared one after another, reminding me of the jade armor I could call up with a thought. But I’d since outgrown the armor’s ability to protect me. Unlike the bronze plates lining my evil twin’s body, it would shatter from a single blow in this fight. After he was defeated, I’d have to study those things to see if I couldn't bring my Jade Armor back.

My doppelganger continued hammering away at me while I stood there and did my best to defend. He seemed single-minded in his fury, so I worried I had some unresolved issues. I could beat myself up now and again over past mistakes, but the process had never been quite this physical before.

Tivana wove around us, her steps precise and elusive. She wielded her sword in both hands now and channeled her spatial zeal along its length. The weapon’s had an edge that came to an impossibly fine point. Something that could only come from spatial magic. I'd seen her cut apart tree trunks and solid granite with a single swing with that thing. But my doppelganger's armor wasn't so easily pierced.

Yorik was less precise and more unyielding. She battered the same spot Tivana was attacking with her axe, and the two of them made a racket loud enough to wake the forest.

As Tivana swung her sword, she tore tiny gaps in the fabric of reality. Had the Devilbeast Wilds still been hovering just outside the Hearthwood in another dimension, the tears might have led there. But the real world was made of sterner stuff, and any tears she might have cut to elsewhere sealed themselves before anything otherworldly could claw its way through.

But those slices were just enough to nip away at the enchanted metal plates protecting my evil twin’s back. The force zeal they emanated acted like a force field around him, preventing damage to the actual enchantments themselves. But bit by bit, Tivana was closer to getting through. And when she finally got close enough...

“Now, Eltiana!” Tivana shouted as she channeled spatial magic. She’d done just enough to disable my evil twin’s wards against short-range teleportation so he couldn't get away with through the usual tricks and talismans. Eltiana was on top of my evil twin in a flash and stabbed right where Tivana pointed.

My purple-haired ninja plunged her dagger through a portal created by Tivana no wider than a fingernail. That was just enough for her stiletto dagger to jam into an adamantium plate and unleash its payload.

I felt a smile crawling up the sides of my face. I worked with adamantium enchantments often enough to know how to break them. Eltiana was loaded up with the same etching solution Argona, and I used to make our own enchantments. Meaning it was just perfect for breaking existing defenses.

“Arrgh!” My evil twin let out a harsh cry as his defenses collapsed.

I grinned. “Now’s our chance! Press the assault!”

Assyrus dove in, hoping to catch another of those titanic punches and redirect the force back at my evil twin. Nela shot beams of golden light from the rear lines, and I felt Melise’s fate magic around us. The scrapes, bruises, and broken bones I’d picked up in the last few moments of intense fighting faded as she reversed the flow of time on them.

We were winning! Victory was so close I could almost taste it.

Then things all went wrong.

He must have been working on new tricks just as I’d been. While my work on my Sword Storm blades eventually ended as I pursued more mundane projects, my doppelganger had never stopped chasing it that path.

The crimson glow from his eyes intensified, and the same crimson shade sprouted from the cracks along the enchanted bronze plates lining his back. The damaged plates couldn’t take the strain and flaked off, but liquid metal flowed up from deep inside him to take their place.

The intact plates came loose one by one and floated in the air behind him as liquid metal flowed to fill in the gaps and then some. Every part of him grew larger. Suddenly, my doppelganger stood twice my height instead of being merely a few fingers taller.

But he wasn’t done. I sensed enchantments activating across his body in great, billowing waves.

“Stop him!” I yelled. But it was too late. Now that my doppelganger was made of liquid metal, axes, swords, and daggers would do nothing to him. Back when we knew what to expect, we’d prepared accordingly. But we were in new territory now.

The plates in the air shifted and changed, and they no longer felt like they were just metal. They were weapons directly under his telepathic control.

I shivered, realizing now that it was too late. “Get back!” I yelled, taking back the orders I’d given just moments ago. The way my evil twin was controlling those metal plates was very similar to how I controlled my Sword Storm blades, but there was something different about them I didn’t understand yet. Something deeper that I hadn’t discovered myself. “Mac, call in the reinforcements! We need them now!”

[On it. They’re on their way.]

The metal of the plates shifted, changing shape and form but keeping their enchantments. Some became the diamond-shaped throwing stars I made. Others became shields like those I sometimes wielded. He shaped them so fast on the fly without the need for anvil or forge. It was scary to see visible proof that he'd gotten better at this than I had.

But most of them took a form a level beyond what I could create. Each weapon was coated in enchantments. At least some of them had to involve spatial zeal because they were far larger than they’d been and now had components beyond simple metal. One shape in particular was something I recognized.

“Melise, get down!” I shouted.

One of the plates floating above my doppelganger had taken the form of a jet-black rifle, and it launched a ball of enchanted lead for where Melise had been standing moments before.

That gunshot was a herald of what was to come as the other plates finished taking shape. An instant later, the sound of continuous gunfire rattled the Hearthwood.

The bullets flew everywhere. My back was pelted again and again. A normal human would have been shredded into little more than a pile of meat. Fortunately, I was made of tougher stuff. To me, even these high-caliber rifles were merely like paintballs.

Yorik seemed to be holding up well on her own as well, thanks to her potent body cultivation.

The others were having a tougher time, though. They focused on magic rather than their bodies, and a bullet was still enough to draw blood from them. They were forced to stop what they were doing and erect magical defenses.

Some took the form of shield talismans. Others took the forms of shimmering bubbles of zeal. A few others grabbed the nearest tree trunk or boulder and held it up like a shield. Whatever my companions used to defend themselves, it would take time for them to get back in the fight.

Time that we couldn’t waste, because with that time my evil twin was getting away.

He jumped into a ley line. Had it been me controlling so many guns, the attacks would have stopped then and there. I couldn’t manipulate my Sword Storm blades without a clear line of sight and time to focus.

But my evil twin must have come up with a solution for that as well. It seemed he didn't need to look or even be anywhere near the objects under his control to keep using them.

If I didn’t act fast, he would escape. So I did the only thing I could do and raced into the line after him. I caught up to him while we were both merged with the earth, stuck as twin bundles of energy wrapped in Earth zeal.

We wrestled back and forth, but I was ultimately a creature of flesh and blood. He was one of magic and earth. This was his home-field advantage, and if the struggle carried on too long, I would most certainly lose.

Or so he thought.

All that would have been true if not for the fact that I had a friendly dungeon core ready to help with just this sort of thing.

“Mac!” I called, though my voice went nowhere in the peculiar energy state I was locked in.

Still, Mac heard me, thanks to our connection through The Wanderer, and he did just what I hoped he’d do. I felt the ley line twist and bend, and suddenly, it came to an abrupt stop.

We were thrown out not far from where we’d been fighting. My doppelganger jumped on top of me and punched me, but I kicked my legs around to bind his arms. He still had one hand free and pounded me in the face again, but I just needed to buy a few more seconds...

“Kowabunga!” A shout came from above, and suddenly, my doppelganger was sent flying backward, where he landed on his ass. Standing beside me was Dean, and he glared daggers at my evil twin. “Forgot about me, metal man? You owe me a fight.”


<Note>

I'm excited for the next chapter. I got to do a lot of stuff I've been waiting a long time for. Might release it early so you guys can enjoy it that much sooner! If I finish drafting my new chapter early I'll get the next one edited and released early.