Chapter 382 - A Talent for Destruction (Patreon)

Zeke ducked beneath a hammer blow meant to decapitate him, then dove to the side as he employed every ounce of agility he possessed to avoid the follow up. He succeeded, if only barely, but the shockwave of the overhand strike knocked him off-balance and sent him sprawling across the floor. He hit his head against the golden frame of the mirror, sending stars dancing across his vision. But through sheer willpower, he managed to maintain his wits enough to drag himself behind the frame.

It was just in time, too, because only a moment later, a loud gong sounded as the reflection’s copy of Voromir hit the mirror. Meanwhile, Zeke scrambled further behind room’s only structure, his sluggish mind whirling to come up with some way to extricate himself from the situation.

But he could think of nothing.

His skills were inaccessible. His stats had been artificially reduced, stripping him of his incredible strength and endurance. And his Will, though still available, would tear his weakened body apart if he tried to use it.

The only true bright spot was that his reflection, though it was obviously capable of using the unattuned form of [Triune Colossus], seemed to have no access to his other skills. If it had, Zeke would have already fallen.

Even with his debatable success, Zeke knew that it wouldn’t last much longer. He just couldn’t keep up. His stats weren’t quite as depleted as his brief glance at his status would indicate – not in reality, at least. With a two in endurance, he should have been crushed into paste. But though he’d taken far more damage from the reflection’s attacks than he should have, based on his real stats, he wasn’t nearly as crippled as he should have been.

So, perhaps there were two bright spots.

In any case, Zeke was on borrowed time. Every passing second brought him closer to ruin, and what’s worse, he had no idea how to forestall his inevitable death. He just didn’t have the tools to do so.

And yet, he had to keep fighting.

Not for himself, though that was part of it. Instead, he worried for all the people depending on him. What would happen to the kobolds and former slaves in the tower? What would happen to Pudge? The others might make it out of the dungeon alive, but if the soul bond connecting him to the former dire bear was suddenly severed, nothing good could come of it.

Then there was Eveline. She would die, too. And while she was often abrasive and seemed to revel in mocking him, the demoness was his responsibility. Not a friend, perhaps. But close enough that the distinction didn’t matter.

No – he needed to survive.

Somehow.

But just saying it was very different than doing it. Never was that more apparent than when his reflection stepped around the mirror and surprised him with a front kick that sent him skidding across the shadowy floor. His momentum didn’t stop until he hit the black wall. Once again, he felt bones break with the impact.

He coughed, spitting blood as he dragged himself to his feet.

He needed to think!

For once, he couldn’t just solve a problem by hitting things harder.

But that wasn’t necessarily true, was it? Sure, his strength had been sapped, but his path – and the braids he’d built around it – had never been about his stats or skills. The only problem with utilizing it was that he could barely control so much power. And as a result, it had a habit of ripping his body to shreds.

Could he withstand that?

Maybe not. But he’d already run out of other options. So, he pushed himself to his feet and glared at the approaching reflection. It looked like him. An unfeeling automaton. Inescapable. Indestructible. Inevitable.

Zeke dragged mana from his reserves, then summoned corruption from the air around him. The two disparate powers didn’t play well together, but Zeke clamped down with his Will, keeping them in line as he reached out to the only source of earth mana in the room.

The reflection stumbled as Zeke snatched at the trace amounts of earth mana flowing through the reflection’s body. It wasn’t a lot – the default version of the skill mostly used pure mana, but he’d long since discovered that each form of [Triune Colossus] utilized all three types of mana to which he had access.

Zeke didn’t let the reflection recover. Instead, he focused on weaving those three types of mana together into the braid he associated with his Worldbreaker technique. Each strand tried to escape, but he squeezed with his Will, forcing them to coalesce. The moment he had the braid in place, he released all that pent-up energy in the reflection’s direction.

The force tore through the room, fracturing the black walls and ripping cracks in the floor. Pure, white light shone through those rifts, bathing the room in illumination.

But Zeke only had eyes for the reflection who, predictably, could not stand up to such a powerful force. It shattered like broken glass, then fell apart. The pieces hit the ground, breaking upon impact.

Zeke wasn’t much better off. Even as he let the technique dissipate, he fell to the ground. A spiderweb of cracks had spread across his body, and blood dripped from eyes. He collapsed to all fours, heaving for breath.

His body hadn’t fully recovered from his previous use of Will against the wereterror, and even if it had, using the Worldbreaker technique was exponentially more damaging.

But he was alive, if only barely.

That had to count for something, right?

He was on the verge of letting himself pass out when he saw something glinting in the mirror. How the apparatus had survived, he had no idea, but it looked just as whole as when it had first appeared. That wasn’t what concerned him, though. Instead, his eyes locked on the movement within its depths.

Horrified, Zeke watched a figure manifest in its shiny surface. Then, once again, a reflection stepped out.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered.

One had been difficult enough, but having to fight the battle all over again? He didn’t think he could endure it. But did he have much of a choice? No. He would fight, and he would probably die. But he wouldn’t give up. With that in mind, Zeke pushed himself to his feet. He wobbled in place, but he refused to face the upcoming battle on his knees. He would meet it head-on and fight until his very last breath.

* * *

Pudge clawed the door, using every point of strength at his disposal. He’d already aimed countless balls of [Hellfire] in its direction as well as tried to rip it to splinters with [Netherclaw]. But nothing had worked, and the only evidence of his efforts were a few scorch marks on the dark wood.

Still, he persisted because he could feel what was happening on the other side. Zeke was barely hanging on. He needed help. And yet, Pudge couldn’t bridge the gap between them and render aid. It wasn’t just frustrating. It was demoralizing and infuriating, and Pudge had no idea how to combat it.

So, he continued his fruitless attacks on the inanimate object.

Finally, Sasha’s voice interrupted his tirade. “Stop!” she yelled. Had she already been shouting? Pudge didn’t know. He could hear little over the sound of his own roars. Her hand found his shoulder, and with surprising strength, she pulled. “Stop, Pudge! I’m ready!”

He jerked his own arm free, but he stopped himself a second later. “Ready? For what?” he demanded, flecks of spittle flying from his mouth.

“I think I can bring the door down. Just…I need you to step back, okay? Just for a minute, and then…then you can keep going,” she said. Fear danced in her eyes, and the odor of the same wafted in the air. However, she stood straight-backed and unmoving.

Pudge glanced toward the others. The dark elf was still immobile, and Silik had only marginally recovered. Eta seemed to be in the best shape, but even she’d taken a few grievous injuries. But what really stood out to Pudge was the way they all looked at him. There was concern there, but fear was far more prevalent.

“Step back,” Sasha repeated.

Pudge shook his head and followed her order. The last thing he wanted was to frighten his friends, but with Zeke in danger, he’d lost control. And his companions were rightly afraid. If he’d had to, he would have gone through them all.

Except for Sasha.

His feelings for the boarkin girl were complicated and took a far different form than his relationship with Zeke, but they were no weaker.

As Pudge stepped back, Sasha waved her hands and murmured some incantation. Neither were strictly necessary, he’d learned, but they helped her concentrate and organize the temporary runes she used to build her spells. Pudge didn’t really know much more about her curious abilities, but then again, he didn’t need to. All he cared about was that they were effective.

Hopefully, that would continue to be the case.

For long minutes, Sasha wove her spell, and all the while, Pudge felt the echoes of Zeke’s battle in his mind. It was maddening, standing by and doing nothing while his brother fought for his life. And making it even worse was the fact that Zeke was obviously losing. He needed help, and Pudge desperately wanted to give it.

But he couldn’t.

Not until Sasha completed her spell.

Gradually, the mana continued to coalesce, and then, with her arms trembling with effort, Sasha growled, “Get ready. It won’t hold for long.”

Pudge tensed, then said, “Ready.”

With a flourish, Sasha shouted something Pudge didn’t understand. A second later, the ambient mana thickened before imploding. For a brief moment, Pudge felt almost like he was drowning, though it wasn’t a physical sensation. Instead, it was the absence of mana.

Then, suddenly, an explosion, both corporeal and ethereal, splintered the door into a thousand pieces. Even as a wave of dense mana washed over him, Pudge raced through the door. He barely made it before it reappeared, but he wasn’t concerned with that. Instead, he only had eyes for Zeke, who knelt in the center of a stark, black room clutching the frame of a mirror for support.

Another version of Zeke – this one in his colossus form – stood over the other, his hammer raised for an attack.

Pudge dashed forward, summoning [Hellfire]. However, it didn’t coalesce as a ball of black-and-red flame. Instead, it suffused his hands, and with every step he took, the fire spread across his body. The smell of scorched fur filled the air, and pain tore through his body, but he ignored it.

Because power came with the pain, and it propelled him across the space in a blink. He hit the false Zeke in a waist-high tackle. Then, he let his frustrations and anger loose, ripping the creature apart. It went far better than Pudge could have expected, and if he’d have been in a better frame of mind, he might’ve wondered about that fact. However, because he was so overcome by fury and frustration, he never gave it a second thought.

Not until the thing was dead.

“It’ll just come back,” Zeke muttered, his voice weak. Pudge turned to see that his brother was standing, albeit unsteadily. “They always come back.”

“From where?” Pudge demanded, turning left then right as his [Hellfire] receded. The burns it left behind were largely superficial, but they were still painful.

Zeke pointed at the mirror. “It won’t be long,” he said.

Pudge didn’t hesitate. He launched himself at the mirror, reasoning that if he destroyed it, it would stop the cycle he didn’t really understand. However, when he hit the shiny surface, he just bounced backward.

That didn’t stop him from trying again, though.

Anda gain after that.

“Stop!” Zeke said, his body looking like it had been shattered into a hundred pieces and put back together. “Just stop, Pudge. It won’t work. But…”

At that moment, another version of Zeke appeared in the mirror and stepped through the shiny surface. It didn’t speak. Instead, he just attacked Pudge, who barely managed to avoid the blow. He didn’t need any more prodding to engage in battle, and he threw himself into the fight.

Meanwhile, Zeke shouted, “Just hold him off, and stay out of the way!”

Pudge had no idea what Zeke was doing, but he knew enough to follow directions. So, he attacked, edging to the side and pushing the reflection toward the outer edge of the pitch-black space.

At the same time, something had changed about Zeke.

Destructive power bloomed from him, mixing with earth, pure, and demonic mana. Even Pudge could feel the contrasting forces warring against one another, but somehow, Zeke held them together.

He wasn’t facing Pudge or the mirror creature, though. Instead, he had his back turned and clearly intended all that destructive energy for the mirror itself.

The reflection seemed to know it, too. For the first time, it made a sound, letting out a roar that reminded Pudge of breaking glass. It tried to bull its way past Pudge, but the former dire bear was well-suited to holding his ground. With a corona of [Hellfire] wreathing his body, Pudge met the mirror monster’s charge, and using every ounce of strength he possessed, he stopped it cold.

As Zeke finally released that power, the monster tried to claw its way past Pudge. And after only an instant, its superior strength won out, and it tossed Pudge aside like so much refuse. He hit the wall with a thunderous impact that rattled every bone in his body.

But that small delay was enough.

Zeke’s attack, which Pudge had never seen before, ripped through the mirror. It shattered, then crumbled to dust. The room trembled before the solid, black shadows splintered and fell away, crashing into the ground and revealing a more mundane setting.

Five women – no, four women and a demon – stood, staring at Zeke in obvious shock. But then, the four women dissipated into motes of mana.

“Hello, Pudge,” said the demon. She was red-skinned, with a lithe and curvaceous figure that was barely hidden by a tight, black dress that fell all the way to the floor. “It’s nice to meet you at last. I’m Eveline.”

Pudge had no idea what was going on, but he did know one thing: demons were enemies. So, marshalling what strength he had left, he dashed forward, intending to tackle the enemy to the ground. He reached her in only two bounding steps, but he lowered his shoulder, he passed right through her ephemeral form.

Off-balance, Pudge fell on his face, then skidded across the floor.

The woman laughed. “Oh, you two really do belong together,” she said. “Now, see to your…brother. He needs your help.”

That’s when Pudge glanced at Zeke, who’d collapsed into a heap. The cracks in his skin had widened, and his body looked as if it had lost all of its strength.

Pudge raced ahead, then scooped Zeke into his arms. The demon didn’t say anything else before she, too, disappeared. Fortunately, shattering the mirror had unsealed the room, and Sasha came running in a second later.

“Help,” he said, holding Zeke in his arms. “Please…”