Chapter 466 - All out (Patreon)

I don’t hesitate even for a moment and go all out.

Ley Lines shoot all over the place, deploying the structure I was preparing in my mind ever since I returned to Beyond. Dozens of threads all over the place, creating a three-dimensional web and pathways I can teleport or send mana through.

The entirety of my body mana compresses, turning black, the ever-so-familiar feeling flowing through my body. Something I haven’t sensed in a while. Whitey doesn’t use mana, so it’s no use against him raw. Instead, it strengthens my body, my kinetic energy still cannot do it to the same extent.

After all those preparations, I let part of the vast amount of mana collected in the crown flow into my body.

Whitey reaches me within a blink, his palm hitting my chest, making my unique passive turn all of that immense energy into mana. Even then, the damage is severe, with most of my organs bruised or ruptured.

Another of the now six remaining marks left by Lily is used.

Five remain.

This time, I can move through that field and attempt to grab Whitey, but he is much quicker than me. Before the second hit lands, I teleport, opting to get used to my current state.

A white flash, not a bit of kinetic energy wasted, and Whitey is onto me.

He grabs and pulls my arm, dislocating it and nearly tearing it off my shoulder.

This time, I move with much more precision. He dodges my strike, but the burst of my mana evaporates the building behind him, leaving debris suspended in the air. It’s a primitive use of mana, inspired by the training drills Liss made me endure—simple, but quick and dangerously effective.

I teleport again as he lets go of me, and when he charges again, another burst of mana welcomes him, his body moving to the side in a movement reminiscent of teleportation.

I release an amount of mana equal to my entire body’s reserve, without even tapping into the reservoir. The blast tears a massive chunk out of the mountain beneath us.

I teleport, and my body moves much quicker, getting used to his field around me and all the forces within my body. Even so, my body alone wouldn’t be enough. My domain, [Redistribution], and [Resonance] all have to pick up the slack.

My mind is fine, but noticing the damage to my body caused by all of this, I use another healing mark.

Four remaining.

Two bursts of mana—each with even more output than before. It's extremely wasteful, an amount that could achieve so much more if not used so recklessly and primitively. But it’s incredibly fast.

Whitey dodges both attacks, his field weakening as he redirects more effort into his body. His movements grow sharper, and even his stance shifts.

I teleport and try to move again, and for a moment, both my body and mana freeze, unable to move.

Even with all the preparations, the sheer amount, the immense defenses, the number of calculations my eye trait and mind endure, Whitey still stops my mana from moving.

The monstrous kinetic energy user does it with nothing but that energy, while blood seeps from his ears, eyes, and nose.

Something like that shouldn’t be possible.

A much smaller pulse of kinetic energy pierces my body. It’s not blunt but very sharp, so my passive doesn’t stop it.

My entire insides turn to soup, only my heart protected by a mana barrier I create at the last possible moment.

Another teleport.

Two healing marks gone. Two remaining.

A burst of my mana explodes around me, but Whitey isn’t there.

He stands still in the same place, staring in my direction. Even as dead as lurker eyes are, his still have a bit of red in them, the demon horns poking from under his long white hair that seems like freshly fallen snow.

And his heart keeps beating. Steady, unstoppable. A perfect generator, an engine allowing him to wield these powers.

But even now, this doesn’t interest me the most. No, what fascinates me the most is the way he wields these powers, the mind capable of doing that, the abilities he has. This is what I want more than anything else he possesses.

The kinetic field he was keeping up until now disappears as if it never existed. My blood stuck in the air, the debris from my attacks, the corpses of the lurkers around, all come falling down at once.

More and more of my Ley Lines shoot all over the place, and I compress more mana, turning it black, powering my mind and body. It’s all simple, but in terms of skill, I have no chance against him.

Whitey then changes stance again, and with it, his heartbeat changes. The rhythm becomes more erratic and quicker.

Thoughts disappear from my mind, and I use the same method I used to locate Specter, I…

I drop my head down, the stone behind me exploding with tiny shards, a hole as thick as my finger drilled into it.

Another one pierces my chest right over my heart, a third destroys my knee, a fourth scratches my cheek, a fifth nearly scalps me.

I teleport again.

Five more attacks shoot my way, I protect my head and heart, four more holes drilled into my body.

I teleport again, three more holes piling on.

Another healing mark gone. One remaining.

I appear behind Whitey, my eyes wide open, my mind pushed to the brink, focused on avoiding these attacks even from this close distance.

One hole pierces through my body as I avoid the rest.

With it, the web made of [Ley Line] is finally done, half of that immense mana I’m still storing flooding through the shimmering pale blue lines, and the effect of [Redistribution] covering the entire area but directed and concentrated in a sphere around me.

It’s Whitey who freezes this time, unable to move.

His field reactivates as well, and I find myself unable to move. Dozen more piercing attacks shoot at me without even a hint of movement from Whitey.

Half of them are blocked by a tricolored mana barrier I make around my skin. Others, concentrated on single spots, pierce my body in two places.

The last healing mark is gone, and with it comes the feeling of approaching death as I sense these attacks reverberate through the air, their source just a step or two away from me.

Five small segments of the tricolored barrier activate, blocking each of these attacks, and then two more.

In exchange for two attacks piercing my body, I redirect a bit of my concentration from defending myself to attacking, the rest used to uphold the web holding Whitey back. A burst of mana explodes from me. It’s even more primitive, less efficient and less damaging than before. It’s the simplest attack I can do.

It tears pieces of flesh from the body of the demon opposite me, revealing his bones in places.

Another wound to me, and another burst of mana.

And another.

And one more.

Until Whitey stands there, nearly a skeleton, barely any muscle remaining, and I can see parts of his heart through the rib cage.

Then the half-skeleton moves.

There are no muscles, just a few tendons. Whitey has just a patch of white hair remaining and a single eye looking at me. Yet he still moves, even against my field.

Another burst of mana, three javelins, and a tricolored orb explodes.

And he takes another step, just the skeleton and movement possible by kinetic energy.

I almost want to laugh when I see him move his finger bones, the hand turning into a closed fist in a show of crazy control.

He can’t see me anymore, only sense my heartbeat and my movements.

The same as I can sense his, the beats becoming slower and slower, the damaged, torn heart out of rhythm.

Whitey, even now, holds me with his field, and for the last time, he punches the mana shield I create. That barrier shatters, and the last burst of kinetic energy damages my body for the last time. Only then does the skeleton crumble, a split second after the notification sounds.

[You have defeated Reanimated Corpse - lvl 301]

You have won your first Challenge. The contents of the wager will be delivered soon!

What held me standing disappears, and I fall to the ground. With no healing marks left on me, I can only rely on my healing passive. For a while, I sit there, surrounded by all this devastation, and replay the fight in my mind. Move after move. Every mistake I made, every opportunity I missed, every attack of Whitey’s that surprised me.

While part of my mind scouts the area, I keep replaying that, over and over again, and with it, I already start modifying ways I use kinetic energy. Something I was proud of reaching and yet feels so inadequate after what I saw.

Liss with her mana control. Whitey with his kinetic energy manipulation.

Amazingly, Whitey was barely over level 300. One of the lowest-leveled named lurkers, yet the one that kept wiping out entire groups with such ease.

There is this bad feeling in my mouth from the knowledge that I won only thanks to the amount of mana I stored, an amount enough to power a city. Just trickery and using my advantages against someone long dead, a lurker unable to fight to the full capabilities of his past self.

How fucking sad is that.

I want to fight him at his best, not as a lurker with weakened abilities, but as a living, breathing being.

The web of Ley Lines that is now useless I start modifying for detection, reducing the density and expanding the area of coverage. My plan is simple now. I will try to survive as long as possible, probably to be hunted down like a rat. Then a few seconds before the end, I will reach the place where I hid items and materials from the expedition Whitey wiped out. The one on which I found so many damaged arcane items with Shayna.

If I add the items of dead lurkers now lying around — killed by Whitey — it will be a lot.

That line of thought also makes me pause. For someone who doesn’t care about items that much, I sure enjoy collecting them.

***

POV Beyond, 1st floor

A short man with a shaved head and wearing simple uniform-like clothes, a combination of white and pale blue, turns to the woman next to him.

“Nyssa will fucking love that guy. Do we grab him right away?” he says. They both watch from the distance, observing the young man who they watched fighting the named lurker called Whitey.

“Not now. He probably timed his stay token so he’d have to run from Whitey for a few minutes before it expires. He’ll most likely leave Beyond in a minute or two. Would you have been able to kill Whitey?” the woman asks the man.

“I think so.” He then pauses with shock, “Is he collecting the items from the lurkers Whitey killed?”

“Looks like it.”

Then they wait.

An hour passes, and the young man is still there, hiding in one of the buildings, lurkers still scared to enter what is considered Whitey’s territory.

The man starts giggling and shaking his head unbelievingly, “Timed his stay token to be able to run away? Ha! That motherfucker is even crazier than I thought.”

“Looks like it. Pretty decent at kinetic energy, and in combination with that mana… Nyssa will want him. We will grab him when he enters the second floor.”

“And if he refuses?”

“The Doctor can gather some information from his body. There are groups of lurkers staying just outside his detection range. Stop them and let only a few through so he doesn’t get suspicious. Don’t reveal yourself, and remember his mana signature.”

“I already did that,” the man snorts, then rushes away to complete his objective while the woman stays on top of the hill, observing the man far away.

***

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