The Gamer Chapter 1467 – 27 Days of Preparation 20 – Fighting is Fun (Patreon)

‘I get an almost criminal level of enjoyment out of that sound,’ John thought, Inkaryl’s blades spreading and then slotting back into place. It was a perfect little bit of sound design. Each elemental switch sent pure joy down his proverbial ear canals. It was almost as rewarding as caving in the skull of another elf with the force of burning starlight.

John was feeling like a mini-Arkeidos, advancing with confident steps. An unflattering self-description in many ways. For all the terrible things the tyrant of the other Kingdom had done, John still felt a begrudging respect towards the sheer force of personality and determination he had been. To emulate the combat style of the revenant was one of the parts the Gamer could agree with himself on.

‘I really do wonder why so many of my girls love violence,’ John thought, as the massive tree grew ever more dominant in his field of vision. He had reached the heart of the floor, after about forty minutes of fighting and navigating. Here and there, he had spared himself the complicated paths across the treetops, instead marching over frozen water.

With a casual swing of the mace, he knocked aside a thorn. The mace was steadily feeling less than a tool in his hand and more of an extension of his arm. Barely even looking over, John launched a radiant Elemental Bolt. The elf was struck and met the typical fate, falling out of their perch and ending as biting practice for the crocodiles.

‘Biologically speaking, men get a rush out of violence because it’s useful for the whole protecting and expanding the tribe idea,’ the Gamer continued his musing. ‘Women getting a kick out of violence isn’t unheard of, but it’s definitely rarer, so how did I manage to attract a bunch of them that do?’

A doorway had been carved into the front of the mangrove. Like an ancient ash could withstand the harassment of a woodpecker, so too did this fantastical tree barely care about the pathways cut into its insides. How much of that was a genuine feature of the plant’s vitality and how much Gaia taking creative liberty was up to debate. Considering the high level of the dungeon, John was leaning more towards the former. After finding out World Turtles were a real thing, a tree that was as much mangrove, the plant type, as it was layered mangroves, the biome, would have been the least surprise.

‘A selection of the Abyss, most likely. Women having diminished physical disadvantages, if any at all, over their male counterparts, combined with the steady danger of confrontation, would naturally promote more aggressive traits even among females,’ John continued to theorize. ‘The less aggressive women probably just take the safety of the mundane.’

John marched through the brilliantly carved corridors. Around a corner, he was predictably met with a stab to the face. The difference in speed let him tilt his head to the side before the thrust connected. The moment of feeling awesome was prolonged by him grabbing the head of the wall-hugging knife ear. Repeatedly, he smashed the face of the enemy into the wall. Damaging light was replaced with the more aggressive aura of Hellfire.

Helmet shattered, then bones, until John’s palm crushed dust particles against the wall. Instinctively, he shook out the wrist. Neither was there a joint to be hurt nor was there any purpose in trying to clean the hand. The dust disappeared on its own.

‘Then again, how many of my women are even descendants of the Abyss in the biological sense? Jane, obviously. Eliana actually isn’t, but I don’t know if she’d be this prone to violence if she had grown up in proper circumstances. Who else revels in physical confrontation? Salamander and Metra both aren’t of human descent, so this really doesn’t apply to them. Same for Nathalia, if one could even say that she likes violence a lot. I’m starting to think I am overanalyzing this. The only one that’s really out there is Jane.’

John walked knowingly into an ambush. Just as the first attacker rushed towards his back, he whirled around and liberated their head from its connection to the neck. Another strike cut open his back at the same time, but the wound closed near instantaneously from the life transferred to him by the execution.

Inkaryl beat most satisfyingly and continued to drum excitedly, a wide swing of the mace forcing the second assailant back. The earthy brown blades were the only warning the elf could have gotten regarding the nature of the Elemental Bolt about to strike them. A solid sphere of rock slammed hard into the shoulder, nearly throwing them onto their back. Exploiting that imbalance, John crushed the enemy’s leg with a sideway swipe, then ended them entirely with an overhead swing of his mace.

‘I should buy Jane something nice,’ he thought. ‘Actually, I should buy everyone something nice. I haven’t really handed out gifts without any reason in a while… last would be that pendant I got Lydia, putting aside all the little things I buy them during dates. Should I get them all gifts at once, or should I stretch it out? There’s equal merit to making them all bond over a shared experience as there is to making them each know they’re special for a day…’

The very meandering of his thoughts granted John the calming certainty that the absurd enjoyment he withdrew from his physical capacity was waning. Oh, he still enjoyed it. The impacts, the shocks moving up his arms, the free forming of the elements according to the dictates of his will, unshackled by the frames of game mechanics and the limits of his MP.

All that mattered was what element he had chosen and how much he could channel at any given moment. The Creator Puppet was striding into realized raid boss territory with each new acquisition and the improved mace was a massive stride. More SEP translating into more Perks, becoming more cooldown Skills, would add to this base power of steady low threat elemental magic and the very high threat of getting hit by a Fusional mace.

For all of that enjoyment, John’s impression that he could get addicted to this was diminishing. It wasn’t like pretty women and sex with them – that he couldn’t imagine living without. This was more of a particularly entertaining game he kept coming back to.

The tunnels cut into the tree had many twists, turns, and forks, all of them eventually conjoining in a foyer. A gate of solid iron, a great oddity in this natural environment, guarded what was doubtlessly the boss room.

Without hesitation, John pushed the doors open. A strong draft of wind pulled him through the gap. Even the weight of the Creator Puppet did not prevent him from becoming airborne. Inkaryl spread and snapped back into place, the aura of dirt particles around his feet replaced with the near invisible, green swirling of air magic. It let John stabilize his tumbling ascend, until he landed vertically on a surface and oriented himself.

The room was a giant hollow tube, extending a hundred metres upwards. Massive, snail-house-esque structures jutted out of the walls, their openings the source of an intense updraft. Spiralling shapes along the walls and carefully placed platforms shaped the winds into a vortex. In the middle of it all, attached to strings of willow leaves, dangled chunks of metal.

John was currently attached to one of them, but the particularities of the draft did not let him hold onto the position for long. He dropped, forced himself forwards with a gust of wind of his own, and was pushed back into the main vortex that dominated everything besides the centre of the room.

As he was pulled upwards, his eyes caught spreading wings. From amidst the dangling metals, an elven woman emerged. Wings coloured like those of a butterfly, but thin and fluttering like sheets of silk, let the auburn-haired woman fly. The attractiveness of her slender body was diminished by the wooden plate that replaced her face with a smooth surface. In her hands, she held cruel swords that ended in curved hooks.

The boss monster clashed against John mid-air. Together, they moved on the upstream, pushing against the other’s effort with might and magic. John gave, his inevitable loss in this contest clear. All he could do was direct the way he was shoved back. The moment his feet hit the solid wall, all of this changed.

Inkaryl’s iron heart beat, green replaced by deep purple. Slicing shadows cut into the skin of the boss monster, drawing golden blood in small trickles. The demand of gravity to fall became lesser. It wasn’t eliminated. Siena’s command over gravity magic was minor, even if she theoretically had it as such a high Tier shadow elemental. A minor ability divided by ten came out as magic less than a footnote in combat like this.

Disappointing as the freeform of the elemental power was, the might brimming in Inkaryl was still strong.

The elven woman suddenly drew back. Without the force pinning him against the wall, John was once again ripped up by the vortex. Wind howled over the smooth features of the golem body. Heavy, as heavy as he could make himself, he slowed his ascent to an easier predicted level. The boss set after him, executing a twirling slash as she flew by him. With the grace of a butterfly, she had an easy time confirming the slice and escaping his retaliatory attack.

‘My strategy isn’t going to work here,’ the Gamer thought, Inkaryl switching back to air. The shove he could give himself with Sylph’s secondary priority was many times more effective than the gravity control.

The boss descended, fighting against the current of the gusts to get to him fast enough to stop him. Alas, the attributes of her home did not spare her of their drawbacks. Before she reached him, John made it through the invisible barrier where the active storm met the eye. Like a rock, he fell, landing atop one of the dangling metal pillars. The heaviness of the impact made it swing. Like a bell, it rang when it hit a neighbouring rod.

The footing was terrible, barely broad enough for him to stand. Still, it was footing. Inkaryl once more changed to the colour of gravity and John prepared himself for the renewed aggression of the boss.

John didn’t expect her to cut the proverbial rope.

Using the curved hooks atop her swords as scissors, she sliced through the willow vine. Realizing what was happening just in time, John leapt to another pillar, just before his last floor was sent chiming and ringing down to the ground.

The boss lost no time to move to the next vine. A fact that made her movement predictable. Just as she sliced through the plant matter, the Gamer struck her with an Elemental Bolt of humming shadow energy.

The darkness enveloped her senses. Confused, she flew off in a random direction and John set after her, leaping from vine to vine. The effect diminished quickly, but John made it close. One more leap and he managed to grab the elf’s arm.

Metal fingers closed around the limb like a vice. Inkaryl let out a patient humming sound as John let go of the weapon. The second hand was needed to grip the elf’s other arm by the wrist, before she could stab him.

A wrangling began. A wrestling, where she tried to shake him off and he desperately attempted to position himself correctly. Her wings spread out wide, six large carpets of symmetrical patterns of orange, red and black. Gorgeous and dangerous.

The many times he had wrestled with his girls had given him quite a bit of experience in the matter, doubly so when combined with his maxed Kickboxing Skill. Soon, he had his legs wrapped around her dainty waist. Once he managed to knock one of the swords out of her hands, it was over.

No longer fearing the retaliation in full, the Gamer summoned Inkaryl back into his hand. To land a good hit at this range was impossible. To press the gravitation weapon into the chest of the boss monster was completely in the realm of possibility. Their mid-air scramble rapidly gained a downward trajectory.

Their fight was no longer one for who would free themselves of the other, but for who would be on the bottom when they slammed into the ground. A scramble the one with flight usually would have won, had they not been the heavier side on this tumbling sandwich.

They crash landed on the ground. Shock moved up the metal surface of the golem, denting legs and cracking stone within. The rapid destruction was immediately counteracted by the life of the boss monster, her chest getting punched through by Inkaryl’s downward aimed blades. The slender torso was now just a gaping hole and vitality fixed all damage John had suffered from the impact in an instant.

John rose up from the body as it fell apart. ‘Got to compliment Gaia for continuously finding interesting new ways to make things challenging,’ the Gamer thought and rolled his shoulders. It did nothing for that body, but it still felt nice. ‘I suppose that concludes early testing.’

Results: fantastic.