Chapter 325 - What an opponent to face (Patreon)

The epic item, Titan's Backbone tattoo activates, and one out of its three uses disappears. My eyes activate as well, and with this, I absorb the black mana orb I have prepared.

Immediately, the world slows down, my mind quicker than before. Even with all this information I'm taking in there is barely any pressure on me.

I activate traps I have placed here a few days ago, and from all sides, a dozen extremely compressed javelins shoot, right towards the duplicate, each of the javelins creating a sonic boom.

The air around the duplicate vibrates as he uses all the collected kinetic energy to tear the weapons apart.

At the same time, two thin streams of extremely compressed thermal energy shoot from him, moving across the city, cutting the skyscrapers apart, and stopping just an arm's reach in front of me.

I absorb all of the heat from them and send it towards the Veil Guardian that was sneaking up on me, burning half of its body, yet the monster continues.

Three Veil Guardians attack the duplicate, and he throws them away with a strong blast of kinetic energy.

At the same time, golden flames surround me and the duplicate, roaring through the air like a giant snake coiling around the two of us. Anything the golden flame touches gets melted or incinerated as I and the duplicate fight over control, powering them even more from the Vortex Cores.

The air wavers under the heat, the stone and metals melting and dripping onto the street below and the flames gradually becoming even stronger as the two of us combine them.

Two Veil Guardians try to push through, only to be cremated even with their strong bodies. Two notifications about kills ring, and their Voidsteel slicers fall down on the street.

The duplicate lifts the damaged arcane axe into the air, and his thermal energy is sent through it, strengthening his golden flames even more, and a giant wave crashes against me.

I don't even blink, and my eyes read everything, and I absorb all of this information, the knowledge strengthened by my experience with thermal primordial energy.

Redirecting the flames, I spin them around me, even adding more to them. I reach into the reservoir and send more mana through my heart, generating even bigger flames, and pressuring my mind to keep all of it under control.

Like a giant golden flame tornado, flames spin around the two of us in the center, expanding more and lighting the ruined city on fire.

The ever-present vegetation turns to ash, the stone glows, and the last remaining pieces of glass crack.

More Veil Guardians die from just getting too close, not even enough to be a distraction anymore against my and the duplicate's combined flames.

And we're fighting over control, the flames keep crashing against each of us, every time stopped and redirected.

When the last Veil Guardian dies, and the signal is sent to the Veil, we barely notice it and let go of our control of the flames, letting them seep into the city, turning it into a burning hell.

I activate another one of my traps, and more compressed javelins shoot against the clone from the distant part of the ruined city.

He redirects them with his forearm coated in an extremely dense variation of barrier. He also activates his traps he left all around, and an immense amount of mana seeps into the air, and right after, led by inscriptions made in stones nearby, a strong jamming attack hits me, attempting to disrupt my mana.

It's the strongest disrupting attack I have ever felt, each of the sources with different frequencies and a staggering amount of mana behind it. At that moment, the duplicate moves in front of me, swinging the axe down.

When I find out I'm unable to absorb heat from the axe, I try to push my body to the side with kinetic energy, but he absorbs it, nearly matching my reaction speed.

Being still a little bit quicker, I strengthen my body with the entirety of my mana I can collect and dash to the side, through the molten ground and pieces of buildings all over.

Then the duplicate's signature disappears, and looking at where he stood, I only see a small black orb absorbing mana hanging in the air, not allowing me to track him. From somewhere in the city, I sense a strong burst of mana and then another one high over me.

There he floats, a calm expression on his face. Around him, six tricolored orbs float, and he shoots them all toward me, the orbs turning to blur and mana screaming as they pass through the air.

One of six orbs bursts far too soon, revealing its real state. Instead of a tricolored orb, its inside is filled with disrupting mana. When it bursts, I find myself unable to teleport and my outside senses unreliable like my eyes in this storm.

Countering it, my mind goes into overdrive and to fight against the five remaining orbs, I push my mana into a single one, concentrating it even further, turning that single orb black and shooting it towards them.

From behind me, the duplicate appears, and I don't even know how it is possible. I sensed nothing.

Our eyes meet, both of us having Mana Wavelength Iris activated and [Redistribution] bursts ahead, frequencies keep changing as we both grasp each other, not allowing the other to move.

To counter my faster processing of the information the duplicate radiates more and more mana, dozens of mana batteries all over him depleting as he does so. Then, while looking at me, he also touches the Veil, just much more invasively than I did before.

I see that he is smiling as the huge part of the Veil over us changes, mana covering the entire city. The Veil reforms, a long purple tear appears in the air, and through it, an arm pushes through, and then three more.

From high in the air, the monster falls down, crashing onto the ground and even though it is only three times taller than me, the crater it creates is massive.

[Veil Weaver - lvl ???]

The duplicate disappears and the monster crashes at where he stood and attacks me. At the same time the monster attacks, the duplicate sends a compressed mana javelin from somewhere, and it crashes into the ground near me, exploding into golden flames.

Not given another chance, I use Titan's Backbone tattoo again, feeling the first use is about to run out. I absorb black mana again, strengthening my [Focus].

In slow motion, I watch the monster's fist swing at me and golden flames from the javelin burst forth.

The entirety of my Vortex Core explodes, concentrated into a reverberating cone of compressed kinetic energy, and damages one of the four hands of the monster.

Golden flames burn my body, but at the same time, they activate my passive that starts healing the burns. Even then, the flames are stronger than my passive so the damage starts collecting before I absorb the heat from them.

My anchors get disrupted, so instead, armor forms in front of me, layering multiple times, and mana rushes through my body, strengthening it even further.

Even so, I get thrown again, blood spurting into the air and my body rolling on the ground before I absorb the inertia of my movement.

Before I can do anything else, the monster reaches towards me, still standing so far. Even though my natural barrier and construct should stop it, I feel my body pulled towards it, the strongest show of telekinesis-like skill I felt.

I fly through the air right towards it and barely identify the effect on me with my trait and disrupt it, stopping halfway.

The Veil Weaver moves two of its hands and the buildings to my sides crumble and crash, moving at the speed of a bullet train and all flying at me.

Locating the duplicate, I shoot a tricolored orb at him and push through the disrupting effect, creating an anchor far away and teleporting there.

I watch the place where I stood get crushed, compressed, and totally obliterated. Huge chunks of stone and metal creating a giant ball of compressed material. The Veil Weaver tries to do the same to me and I feel pressure attempting to squeeze my body. To counter this I constantly radiate disrupting mana, stopping the attack at a big cost to my mana reserves.

The monster is strong, stronger than a Veil Guardian.

The Veil Weaver, unable to grasp me because of my constantly resonating field decides to track my duplicate.

Another huge chunk of the city is torn off, the buildings crashing down as if a giant stepped on them. Through all that debris, a tricolored bomb shoots at the monster, only to stop just an arm's reach in front of it and be torn apart by its telekinesis.

I sense movement up there and from the tear created by the Veil, monsters start falling down. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of veil shriekers passing through and falling to the ground from high in the air.

The shrieks of an immense number of monsters mix with the sound of destruction caused by extreme telekinesis. The Veil Weaver, not caring at all, and its attacks also kill hundreds of veil shriekers as it tries to catch the duplicate.

[Focus - lvl 47 > Focus - lvl 48]

[Perception - lvl 42 > Perception - lvl 43]

[Tether - lvl 34 > Tether - lvl 35]

I finally analyze the way the duplicate was creating such sneaky anchors, and my domain expands as I place multiple of them. Even then some get destroyed by the telekinesis, but others reach the duplicate.

Then, when the duplicate gets thrown away by a blast of force from the monster, I teleport behind him and grab the axe he holds, cutting off his hand and teleporting away with the weapon.

“Such a dick,” he complains, looking at me standing on one of the buildings. Thermal energy already rushes through his body, slowly regenerating his hand.

“I wonder who summoned that asshole here to get me distracted to kill me.”

Without a speck of regret, he shrugs, “You did it first with Guardians.”

Both of us have a smile on our faces. I can hear his and my Thermokinetic heart beat loudly, mana not held by Mana Cycling rushing through, Mana Reservoir tapped into, all the inscriptions we made, all the preparations making us stronger than ever before.

We teleport multiple times, the Veil Weaver swinging its four arms, each swing tearing the buildings apart, compressing them, and throwing huge chunks at us. All while tens of thousands of veil shriekers scream all around, attacking with deep hate.

Big parts of the city are gone, huge parts of it burning.

It seems like hell.

With no need for words, me and the duplicate connect our forces, the Mana Reservoirs nearly emptying, all mana rushing to our hearts, transferring it to kinetic energy. The sheer amount feels impossible to control even with all our preparations, yet there are two of us.

He slips; I cover him, I slip; he takes over.

More and more kinetic energy collects, and then we start changing the frequency of it. A high pitch visibly reverberates through the air, and from the two of us in the epicenter, the waves of kinetic energy start crashing into the area.

Everything they touch vibrates and dissolves into dust.

Thousands of notifications about killed veil shriekers ring.

The kinetic energy crashes against the impossible amount of debris the monster throws at us. It even compresses huge chunks into extremely dense projectiles. The sky becomes barely visible as the Veil Weaver lifts up an entire small city's worth of material high into the air, sending it at us like a meteor, some even breaking the sound barrier.

Yet the waves of kinetic energy continue to crash into the area, clearing bigger and bigger parts of the city around us, leaving a smooth surface with material turned to something akin to sand.

The monster is strong, pushing us, forcing us to use everything and our skills level up. The notifications ring.

It's fun.

A single mistake and I'm dead, we are dead. Just him or me stumbling will cause it, neither of us having a chance to keep it up alone. But right now, together, we are stronger than the monster.

Our combined effort reaches the Veil Weaver, for a moment stopped by its telekinetic barrier as the monster puts four arms in front of it, its palms facing us. For a moment two invisible forces clash against each other, sending shockwaves into the ruined city that damages it even further.

I take over, the eyes activating to a higher degree and frequency changing dozens of times in quick succession until one of the arms explodes.

Then another one.

The monster stumbles, losing control for a moment and its body gets torn apart immediately, with barely anything left behind.

[You have defeated Veil Weaver- lvl 329]

[Lvl 234 > Lvl 237]

I lift the axe in my hand, and it absorbs a laser-like stream of thermal energy shot by the duplicate. Teleporting towards him, I swing the axe, releasing that energy and melting the ground under his feet as he dodges.

When I try to teleport again, he disrupts my attempt, and multiple of his projectiles crash against me and the barrier I create.

He opens his mouth, and I immediately tilt my head to the side; an orb I was unable to sense shoots from it, creating a deep, bloody gash on my temple.

His voidsteel slicer and the axe I hold crash against each other, our Primordial Energies swirling around, waiting for opportunities.

I also open my mouth, and a mana orb I was compressing there buries into his forearm he lifts to protect his chest.

A Mana Stone somewhere on him activates, and I disrupt most of the attack, the invisible slash with mana still cutting into my side.

There isn't a single veilshrieker left alive. Third of the big city turned to ruins, the material the buildings were made of mostly turned to dust or burning.

I shoot kinetic energy from my feet, sending a bit of that dust towards him, covering the view. At the same time, I create a fake mana signature to my right, inspired by the twins. When I reach him and slash against him, my weapon passes through the air, him having done the same, and the fake signature disappears.

Armor forms on my back, slowing down the voidsteel slicer just enough so I block it with my own before it cuts into my flesh.

Up close, both of us create dozens of mana projectiles, barely an arm's reach from each other.

The projectiles shoot, all boosted even further by kinetic energy, and keep crashing against our bodies. They get either disrupted or blocked by small pieces of barrier that we barely activate just for a split of a second.

As I feel my tattoo and black mana slowly wear off, I push ahead, letting him stab my thigh with his weapon, and in exchange, I swing the axe with both hands, letting go of my voidsteel slicer.

He tries to teleport, but I disrupt it, and with the full force of my body, the axe crashes against his blade, which is held by a single hand only because of the other one I cut off.

The axe buries into his shoulder as I redirect it at the last possible moment.

Breathless, both of us stand there facing each other, even now our mana crashing and disrupting each other's, and Primordial energies exploding through the air and being absorbed.

I know if either of us pushes just a bit more, it will be a fight to the death, but I won't step back. He will either give up, or one of us dies.

That's it.

The tattoo's effect disappears, and the black mana as well, the aftereffects hitting me even though the tattoo alleviated most of it. My mind feels sluggish, the world feels empty, and even mana feels less vibrant than before.

More and more of my thermal energy pushes through, heating up the axe stabbed in his shoulder, pushing through his attempts to absorb the thermal energy that keeps healing him while also burning him.

"Fuck, you are dumb," in the end, he curses and takes a step back, letting go of the voidsteel slicer stabbed in my leg, and the axe I hold pulls out of his wound.

I do not stop him when he starts using thermal energy to heal his wounds.

Slowly, both of us start using a bigger part of [Focus] to block some of our emotions again instead of keeping up the skills. The world regains more of its colors and the sounds that the skill blocked come rushing in.

The air is heated, moved by wind, dust that used to be buildings flies through the air, and fires rage in the distance, but I take a deep breath.

Then I breathe out slowly.

I live.

"Good luck," I tell my duplicate.

He stands there, wounds all over his body, cuts, burns. Inscriptions used, mana stones cracked, and batteries emptied. His eyesight blurry because of overuse of his trait. His hand is missing, and his leg seems to be broken.

Yet, he stands proudly, and even now, he feels more dangerous than the monster we killed together. What an opponent.

“I will see you when you come to Vega’s planet,” he says simply, and then he leaves to attempt his other plan.

With barely any mana remaining, I move towards where Vega is, on my way avoiding all the monsters while my mana slowly replenishes.

On a few spots, I get mana batteries I hid there just in case our fight got so far. I absorb my mana stored inside and repeat the same with a few more filled with kinetic or thermal energy. I have placed plenty of them, and by the time I reach the place, my reserves are in a much better state.

Getting into the range of my anchor, I connect to it and teleport to where Vega is, appearing in the darkness.

The place is one of the old bunkers we have found while moving around. The bunker is similar to the Sanctuary, just much smaller, and every entrance to it is destroyed and covered by tonnes of rock and stone. The only way inside is through a teleportation skill, and to place the anchors, we had to extend [Mana Domain] to the limit in a single direction.

Vega lifts her eyes up from the mana stone in her hands and smiles at me. It's a mix between a happy and sad smile.

“Will he be okay, master?” she asks quietly.

To that, I decide to stay quiet.

***

Next Chapter