The Gamer Chapter 1538 – True Believer [Nia POV] (Patreon)

Laurence.

A mask of stainless Mithril, shaped into the unmoving form of a stern man’s face, looked at her. The two eyes were orbs of grains, endlessly flowing towards rings of focused energy. His hair was as slicked back as arcane strands could be, resembling the leader of the Purest Front.

Nia followed her opponent carefully, while he stepped away from the teleporting point. The pad itself flashed and was moved to somewhere else in the Protected Space. Vaguely, the pariah was aware of a fold near the edge of this space. The pad was there, in safety, protected by the razor-thin barriers of the moon goddess.

Analysis of such was secondary. Important was scanning her enemy’s behaviour.

Laurence.

The man moved from his entrance point very carefully. His mask remained motionless, but the rest of his body language translated hesitance. He avoided the shallow, stinking puddles with measured steps, aiming for the dry land.

‘High in trait disgust,’ Nia thought. ‘Interesting.’

For her own part, Nia walked without a care. Perhaps she would have cared, had the mud stuck to her feet and the stagnant water soaked into her dress. Neither happened and so that hypothetical was moot. Any additional questions were pushed aside. This was not the time for leisure.

Laurence.

Enemy.

‘Always identify the enemy. Set your priorities. Know what must be done to achieve them. Crush them if you must, spare them if it suits your goals, be graceful in victory, consider what you can get out of a defeat,’ the many-layered voice of her teacher moved through her mind. ‘If your enemy feels anything towards you, that is an opening to exploit.’

Nia stopped, her feet planted in the sand that marked one of the two starting points. Across a divide of marsh water, Laurence approached his own spot. Rather than continue over the wet ground, he made his way across by creating a path of white arcane energy. It appeared he would rather give away his powers than get his feet dirty.

“No small talk?” Laurence asked, once he stood in the dry and clean sand.

Nia considered the question. “Would there be meaning in it?”

“What a nihilistic question.”

“No,” Nia instantly disagreed. “There is sense in too many things.”

“Then may I ask what the sense in this struggle is?” Laurence asked, magnanimously spreading out his arms in the same motion that opened his robes. The body underneath was every bit as much flawlessly shaped plate as the head was. Mithril silver-white, forged into the facsimile of a perfect man. Interesting to look at, no doubt. Pleasing, somewhere, for her female sensibilities. Otherwise, stiff and unsatisfying, too perfect to be interested in as more than an ideal. Perhaps not even that.

“Victory,” Nia answered passively.

“Victory for whom?” Laurence pushed further. “For Fusion or the Azure Tribe? Why bother with this little, when we could be striving for victory for the human race! What are our petty differences compared to the ascendancy of all?”

“Vast.” A metallic clicking of Laurence’s tongue made Nia tilt her head. “Did you expect to convince me with standard rhetoric?”

“It is not rhetoric, it is the essence of what must be done,” the true believer answered.

“No.” That was the last Nia had to say. The blackness of the Nirvana seeped out of the pores in her scalp. Swirls of black, like drops of rain in water, spread over her pale, flawless skin. Above her forehead, the black rose in a myriad of tendrils that weaved into a sharp visor. Her eyes looked through the black and saw the magic in the world clearly.

Laurence was a torch fire to her third eye. A bright weave of human remnants devoured by raw supernatural energy. His essence was broken down into shards, all borders removed, and new borders forced into place artificially to give him the stability he needed to be what he now was. A peculiar being, all around.

A being that shuddered. Even though the metal exterior was largely inflexible, he shuddered, beholding her. No matter how powerful, beings of magic reacted like this to her. They had, did, and would, and that was welcome today. Nia had her home. Enemies of that home should fear her. Enemies of her scary little Eliana should fear her.

‘In a fight, always use the most effective method from the start. It is not about making a show.’ The words of her teacher, of the god that had raised her and that now was spending a little too much of his time bullying her darling, continued to resonate in her head. The most important of all lessons, always with her. ‘It is about being triumphant.’

In the far-off distance, a flare rose with the loud whistle of an entertaining explosive.

Nia negotiated her place in the world. Position, stance, the direction she was facing, all of them considered and obliged to by a world that was as eager to keep her as the other realm was to let her go.

Now behind Laurence, half-crouching, Nia gripped the shaft of her weapon. Void lay under her fingers, cool and hot, slippery and firm. The shaft extended into a weapon reflective like smooth plastic, yet nothing like that at all. To a being of magic, the weapon was worse than nothing.

It was annihilation.

Nia swung her weapon. In the upwards path, the weightless, two-handed sword met with a pure white barrier. Energy did not spark. Energy was undone. Still, the presented barrier was enough to halt her attack. “An underhanded atta-“ Laurence began, his tone boasting.

Taking one step back, the blank willed her weapon into another shape. A dagger, gently curved, no longer than her foot. “[Thinner].” She scratched the word into the essence of this place.

Laurence threw up several more barriers between himself and her, but it did not matter. Each shell of arcane was a minor hindrance to her second swing. Her blade parted the layers like a perfectly sharpened knife sliced through an onion. Her incredible speed was further boosted by a deliberate surge of the blessings that coursed through her inverted circuits.

The arcane elemental screamed. A robotic, synthetic, alien and yet utterly human sound. The daggers sliced through him, from the top of the shoulder down to his waist. Not even a scratch was put into his metal exterior, but Nia saw deeper. She saw the semi-artificial network of magical circuits tremble and scream, fray open and rush to repair themselves.

Laurence spasmed. The right shoulder, where the dagger had entered, twitched harshly backwards as he turned. A sloppy motion sent flying a tall energy wall that Nia let hit her. Negotiations with the world had to remain on a standstill for a few more moments. She would not want to upset her benefactor too much.

While she flew back, Laurence did as she had predicted and pulled out his weapon. A crystal weapon, more finely worked than those of the others that had fought before them. A sword of European design, for knights and crusaders. Her enemy gripped the weapon tight and raised it high. “I am the pure and I-“

Nia’s foot touched the ground, light as a feather, and immediately launched her forwards again. The large barrier erected as an obstacle disintegrated into disparate particles in her presence, ripped apart by a pulse that robbed the world of the colour white. Her form, so pale, was turned abyssal blue, her outline a thick black, as were her sclera. All of it just her confused human senses trying to make sense of what her own power had brought.

“and I-“ Laurence stuttered in his very own incantation. Timing that benefitted the pariah. Timing she did not need, but appreciated nonetheless.

The Maiden of Null’s blue eyes pierced through the black wall of her visor. Landing in front of Laurence, the arcane elemental’s unmoving lips attempted to formulate words, but he had underestimated what she was. Nia let her weirdness flow freely, and the true believer took a step back, every impulse of disgust and wariness of the unknown flaring up simultaneously inside him.

What made her a stranger was a weapon.

“I dema-“ Laurence tried to catch himself. His discipline was commendable, in a way. Nia did not care. Her eyes focused on his wrist, where the magical circuits inside his body were in communication with the conjured weapon.

Dagger turned flat thorn. Flat thorn was rammed through wrist. Laurence screamed again, his entire being revolting against what invaded his physical form. He spasmed again, the thorn remaining lodged in his being. A hard barrier in the flow between the weapon and himself. Both sides of the flow hammered at the wall of anti-magic, gradually eating away at it like acid did a block of frozen base.

Nia pulled at the blackness of her weapon, split it into two, then rammed the second dagger into her still spasming enemy’s stomach. Again and again, leaving holes all over his magical network that looked like a virulent disease had eaten away at his tissue.

Locked entirely by the constant jitters, Laurence was defenceless when she went for his head.

“I demand ascendance!”

The finished Babel Phrase blew a hole through the barrier her weapon presented. Magic flowed freely, then exploded outwards. Nia filtered out the damaging arcane energy, but let the kinetic energy behind the blast persist and blow her back. A way to gain distance to watch the transformation unfold.

The perfect metal man surged in size, the inflexible surface roiling like an ocean under a great storm. His midriff burst open with such intensity, only raw energy surrounded the exposed spine afterwards. Broader and broader, the chest swelled, the finely crafted depiction of muscles making room for heavily defined, bulky ribs. Legs cracked and broke, twisted into a digitigrade form. The arms grew in size until their bulky form slammed on the ground.

The being before Nia now was vaguely humanoid, but hunched and top heavy. The head was a massive, stag-like thing, with forking horns of blue energy extending upwards. Laurence raised a hand to his head, half-covering his Unleashed form’s face. “You will pay for that,” he growled. White and blue fur covered his body, while his black claws trembled. “YOU WILL PAY, CREATURE! YOU WILL KNOW THE DEATH YOUR KIND DESERVES!”

Nia fused her weapons back together and readied herself, long sword held with both hands.

Laurence rushed forwards. Like a rabid dog, he launched swipe after swipe at Nia. Sometimes, she felt the tips of his slicing claws tingle the tips of her flowing ponytail. Otherwise, she remained out of range.

When she felt she had an opening, Nia renegotiated her place in the world once more. Appearing above Laurence, she fell, weapon pointed down at the large cross of his back. Hexagonal shields spawned in her path and flared rapidly between white and blue. The alternating currents made it difficult even for her to sink through.

Laurence twisted around, gripping her mid air and slamming her into a puddle in the marsh. Mud squelched and her tongue tasted the foulness of the stagnant water. Displeasure was immediately cast aside and her weapon rammed into the arm that held her. Magic circuits revolted against her attack, too dense to be as easily interrupted now as they had been before. A small spasm was all she needed, a twitch, a lax finger, and then she was out.

“CREATURE! CREATURE! BARELY EVEN HUMAN!” Laurence screeched, his previously stern voice drifting ever deeper into a maddened frenzy.

Nia did not care about his wailing. She gained distance. She analysed. She watched. She waited. Laurence’s claws cut through the air overhead, leaving thin barriers in their path. To others, that may have been worrisome. In the pariah’s presence, such magical effects simply could not exist. She had analysed the frequency of his basic spells and now she refused their stay.

Rushing forwards, Laurence’s hands came down around her. The two palms met behind her. Nia stepped into the space between the giant forearms and stabbed upwards. Her blade cut shallowly, eradicating the white hairs covering the metal skin before managing to sink inside. Every hair was its own barrier.

‘Small measures will not accomplish anything,’ Nia reckoned.

The giant maw of the stag-like head descended on her with sharp teeth. Nia only managed for a few metres to be granted to her, but that was enough. Standing in a puddle of water, she ran. She ran as quickly as her feet took her and Laurence set after her. A complication on the matter, she preferred to have a moment to concentrate, but she could adjust, given time.

And time she had. Laurence was after her, with claws, bites and raw violence. An approach that, while dangerous in general, was ineffective against her. Anything she had seen these arcane elementals do so far was ineffective against her.

When she was ready, the Blue Maiden stood her ground.

Laurence was in the middle of a swing. Both of his hands were clutched together in a hammer about to descend on her. Eyes wide, power surging, Nia let the aura that had left her unloved for so long do its worst. All colour was washed out of the world around her. The Nevr’est croaked and cawed and meowed behind her. Parts of the crafted environment disintegrated. The magic that provided the nutrients for the plants was undone. Grass turned into white and black dust, like frozen static.

Her enemy froze. Her enemy trembled. Her enemy tried to overpower the locked up joints and the fear that was settling into his monstrous form. This true believer, this arcane wendigo, this fusion of disgust and might, it was altogether too supernatural for its own good.

Nia grabbed her sword with both hands. The weapon was black. No reflections showed on its smooth surface. It was pitch black. Her skin and dress were colourless, differentiated only by a line that looked like someone had retraced reality with a lead pen. The area of nothing around her expanded. She brought her weapon up in a gradual rise.

Laurence surrendered ground. A part of his struggle against his flight response finally realized that it was entirely appropriate here. Too late, Nia knew.

“[Obliteration].”

The nothing of her weapon was brought down in a single sweep. The nothing that surrounded, the colourlessness, was discharged, pulled along by the wave of anti-energy that travelled forwards. It did not slice, it did not rupture, it did not do anything that could be properly described by any common physical ongoings. Where the attack travelled, anything that was not natural simply ceased to be.

Laurence’s half-turned body was caught in it. The image Nia had of his magical circuits was separated into two halves. A gap as wide as her hand existed between the two. The arcane elemental did not even scream. Whatever served as his vocal cords was gone along with the rest of his body control. Hard, the massive entity collapsed into the mud.

With long strides, Nia approached Laurence. Sand, just regular sand, and grains of quartz poured out of the chest cavity. Heaving, Laurance twitched like a paraplegic attempting to hold onto the very last vestiges of a fading nervous system. Making it swift, Nia stabbed down.

And her enemy disappeared.