The Gamer Chapter 1546 – vs Malot (Patreon)

“Malot of the Azure Tribe versus John Newman of Fusion!”

The announcement for the first match of the day sent waves throughout the stadium. Atop the vast sandy field, Jeff screamed into the microphone what everyone else was thinking, “OOOOH, YEAH! Finally, we see the great Gamer himself in action again. It’s been over a year since he last fought here, in the coliseum, and if I can believe rumours about him fighting Krieg recently, then he has reached new heights!”

“The rumours are just an extra in this whole thing,” Dra added. The disguised owner of the Abyss Auction folded his hands on the table. “John Newman has been making tremendous waves in the Abyss. We don’t have exact data on anything, but we have it on good authority that he was involved in killing the god of stars, Enki, as well as an ancient lich ruling another world over in what he called the Iron Domain.”

“Feathers that he put in his own cap, it has to be said,” Jeff responded.

“Indeed.” Dra nodded and leaned back. “We have more reliable info on the Iron Domain. Putting aside these deeds, however, he is still a confirmed Latebloomer and has been growing rapidly and with seemingly no end in sight.”

“Which means we are in for a show! Elementals’ attacks flying! Arcane spells flinging! Shenanigans abound!”

“I doubt there’ll be many arcane spells from his side.”

‘Yeah, well, who knows,’ John thought. He spent the entire time the announcers kept on waffling making sure his suit was sitting perfectly. It did, as it always did, but why take any chances?

“At least I rubbed off on you a bit,” Maximillian said from the sidelines.

“What do you mean?” John asked.

“When I first saw you, you were unassuming, unimpressive, really. No flair and no style,” the king told him in a plain tone. “Your suit wore you.”

“When I first saw you, I thought you were insufferably smug, buddy,” the Gamer shot back immediately. With a sharp pull at his collar, he added, “but I think I’ll have to yield on this one. I’ve certainly come to understand that showmanship is a part of leading… If not because it's necessary, then definitely because it’s fun.” He smiled over his shoulder. “Here goes nothing.”

“Go get ’im, tiger!” Rave spoke for the entire harem behind her.

John gave her a wink and the elemental girls turned incorporeal to follow him down into the arena. Not feeling any rush, the Gamer actually used the provided mana platform to take the ride downwards.

All the while, Romulus had his hand in the vase. For some reason, he was waiting on drawing the slip that would spell out their battlefield. The face of the Apex spelled out a level of displeasure that was easy to interpret. The metal cave aside, none of the battlefields so far had created any impressive variation on the battles that had been happening. Ever the lover of spectacle, that must have vexed the ruler of Europe considerably.

John walked and made sure his formation was nicely spaced out. The Ego Blades hovered behind his head like a bladed halo, the Mandala Sphere was above his left shoulder, the Creator Puppet carried Inkaryl like a sovereign sceptre behind his right flank. Four of the elementals followed him incorporeally, invisible to most eyes. Siena hid in his shadow. Stirwin, alone, was corporeal, hanging from his belt in his item form.

The tension in the air was damn near palpable, and he loved it.

Looking over to his enemy, John tried to run a first analysis. There wasn’t much to analyse about Malot. He had been the first to reveal himself after Arkan. His motions were jittery, despite his steady pace. It was like looking at a buggy walking cycle animation, almost mismatched with the speed of his advance. The smooth porcelain mask of his face was adorned by constantly changing, jagged veins of differently coloured mana running across. His existence oozed chaos more than the daughter of Tiamat on his team.

‘I should probably expect some spells like Unstable Arcana,’ the Gamer thought. ‘Waxing and waning attack patterns, or lack thereof. Irregular but overwhelming strength. That’s what the body language tells me.’

Romulus waited until both contestants had reached the place where the vase and teleporters were set up. When he finally pulled out a slip of papyrus, the arena waited with baited breath. Something approximating a smile crossed the middle-aged man’s face. “You shall fight in the ocean.”

‘Really now?’ the Gamer thought, immediately reconfiguring his initial strategy. The water enabled a very powerful Combination to rear its scaled head. ‘How many should I go with? Stirwin and Undine are needed baseline. Siena for 3 Type, Sylph for 4 Type. That would leave me with Gnome and Salamander… that sounds acceptable.’

‘A-are you sure?’ Gnome cautioned.

‘We’d still have three mes and the two of you and it’s not like we have to wait the whole ten minutes before it becomes a threat to our enemy,’ John reasoned.

‘I loathe being this,’ Stirwin lamented. ‘It is, however, a sound strategy.’

‘We will endure,’ Undine agreed.

John and Malot made it through the teleporter. They emerged on different small islands that floated atop the softly moving waves. Elemental senses probed the area around him. He could not sense any sediment beneath him, meaning that the water was at least ten metres deep. It had the typical, greyish blue colour of oceanic water too. Optimal for a predator to lurk in.

“So,” John shouted across the divide, “are you one for small talk?”

“Funny… Fu-funny, I was about to ask you the same question.” Malot hit the side of his head a few times while he was talking, his voice distorting and slowing down before snapping back to a regular pace. “Apologies. My soul has not made it through the aeons quite as well. My soul has not made it through the aeons quite as well. My soul has not-“ He forcefully stopped himself, then jittered with his entire body. “Apologies.”

The entirety of those words gave John reason to raise an eyebrow. Malot did not mind, just pulled off the crimson robe like all previous fighters. The body underneath was a half-shattered mess of porcelain and azure metal. Segments refused to properly align, jutting out here and there like dislocated bones or mutated pieces of shattered exoskeleton. Chunks of sand made up for the gaps, flowing or freezing here and there, all on their way to a crater in the chest of the arcane elemental where the solar plexus would have been.

There, the blue and purple sands swirled in a maelstrom, constantly crushing down on themselves. The surrounding remains of his ribcage looked like a lightning bolt had hit him squarely in the chest, burning the entire area to a crisp before breaking it all with a following hammer strike.

“The Mother of Air did that?” John asked.

“Yes,” Malot responded and softly touched his chest. “A gruesome event. Deserved, perhaps? No, definitely not deserved. Inevitable, maybe?” Malot tilted his head. The criss-cross streams of sands that ran over his skull, vanishing behind the featureless porcelain mask, accelerated when Sylph manifested. “Her. Like her.”

“I do look a lot like Mom, but I got these cute ears!” Sylph tugged at her bunny features. “Big spoon ears, very cute, don’t you agree?”

“I have no strong feelings one way or- or- or-“ Malot gave the side of his head several more smacks. “The other.”

“…No offense, but are you sure you should be fighting?” John asked. “Between the dementia patient and you, I’m not sure you’re fit for this tournament.”

“An understandable but mistaken assumption. Nathalia lost to the great teacher, did she not?”

He got John there. To their left, a light rose from the waves, exploding with the typical fanfare of fireworks. The Creator Puppet was already positioned in front of John, only tilting its frame so the Gamer could throw out an Observe. Without the robe in the way, it had a chance of succeeding.

An ethereal hand rose from Malot’s metal limb. Translucent azure pinched a tiny streak of silver before it could hit the arcane elemental’s head. “Fascinating,” the arcane elemental said, proceeding to unfurl the spellwork like a rolled up scroll.

“Really fascinating,” John could only agree. “I wasn’t aware you could do that with my spells.”

“I wasn’t aware you were cultured enough to stay your hand – stay your--” Malot cringed where he stood, his body nearly contorting into an L-shape before suddenly snapping back. “To stay your hand despite the fight having begun.”

“I’ve no need to rush this – although I will attack if you keep reading my spell. I have secrets to keep,” John warned.

“Hm, we will have to continue this conversation in private a-another time then.” Malot continued to read the spellwork before him with his eyeless mask.

Inkaryl’s blades snapping back into their sockets was the true signal that combat had begun. The elementally unaligned weapon shifted to an icy, pale blue. Then, the Creator Puppet charged off the floating island, Gnome behind it. Above them, Salamander rose high up into the air. Four additional arms burst out of the shoulder segments of her new, fully plated form. Only her face remained uncovered, to let everyone see her pyromaniac grin when she channelled infernal might through six raised arms.

Above her head, a sphere of rock and apocalyptic fire came into being, black, gold, grey, and elementally charged. “LET’S FUCKING GO!” the fire spirit roared, sending the meteorite flying at Malot.

The attack slammed into a forcefield of some kind. Arcane energies crackled, shifting colours erratically, while the rock grinded against the surface. ‘Let it explode,’ John ordered. The apocalypse elemental ceased pouring energy into her attack. Without the aiding coherence of fresh mana, the bundled energy was let loose.

A wave of fire turned the ice the Creator Puppet ran on into liquid again and the liquid into steam. Coordination, however, made this a non-issue for John’s third body and the season elemental with him. They leapt just before the incinerating might turned the world into a curtain of hot steam. Inkaryl and a hurled fist slammed into the same barrier. Fresh ice was created before they could sink into the waves.

Under the cover of the steam, John turned to the four elementals that had stayed with him. Stirwin, Undine, Siena, and Sylph melded together into a singular entity. It was even smaller than Stirwin’s youth form, barely even reaching the size of a puppy. Unlike a puppy, however, there was nothing cute about this creature.

A serpentine neck extended from a slender body. Four fins and a flat tail spoke to the elemental’s marine specialization. All of the small body was covered in serrated scales the colour of blemished bronze. Its left half was covered in the swirling black lines that marked it as a descendent Combination of Undine. Besides that, there was nothing linking the creature to anything of any of his girls.

The will behind the two pairs of eyes, golden, slit-pupils sitting in an entirety of red, stared only with cold malice. Dense, thick scales covered the pliosaurus-esque skull of the entity. Needle-like teeth were set in its jaw. The first of two layers, a secondary jaw sitting inside the monster’s throat, shaped from malleable slime that was ready to shred anything entering the elemental’s mouth.

‘Grow,’ John gave the simplest order and the predatory intellect of Dendepthr responded with wordless acknowledgement. The tiny creature jumped off the floating island and into the water. Swiftly, its form disappeared into the murky water.

The Gamer turned his attention back to the battle at hand. The seeds for his victory condition had been scattered, now he just had to delay until they came to fruition.

Ego Blades and Mandala Sphere hovered far above the battlefield, allowing him to retain a modicum of an overview of the situation. Constantly, the flashes of attacks hammering against the arcane barrier illuminated the slowly thinning fog. The force of physical motions set the air into swirling tumbles. Mana particles mixed with the evaporated water and turned into fascinating patterns.

John was happy to wait on one hand, but not to wait until Malot had fully analysed his intel-gathering tool. ‘No reason to let up the pressure,’ he thought and moved into combat himself.

Crossing the water was surprisingly tricky. The Skittersteps allowed him to walk on any solid surface, no matter the angle, but it did not equip him with flight. Getting carried by the Mandala Sphere was simply too slow.

So it was that John, despite being a superhuman with multiple bodies, had to take a deep breath and go for a dive. The World Ender set all over his body hissed, the internal heat evaporating some of the water. It stopped swiftly, Purgatory first of all, as the dragon claw had long since been upgraded with the element of water.

Above the water, the steam had thinned to a mild obscuration at best. Malot still held the caught spell in his ethereal limb. His two material ones were moving at a sudden, jagged pace, flinging arcane seekers outwards. The projectiles came in swarms of prismatic, arrow-tipped lines, crackling like open electrical cords under a downpour.

They made for the Ego Blades first, taking them out one after the other. John tried to save the constructs of the crafting crew from the arcane assault, but the seekers fulfilled their purpose perfectly. Too slow to escape and too weak to withstand the assault, the Elementium blades were ripped to shreds within moments. An expected outcome, it had to be said, but bothersome all the same. John was short four viewpoints, though. Only the Mandala Sphere was of effective enough make to withstand or outpace the attacks.

John stayed several metres under the surface. The saltwater burned in his eyes, the pressure was foreign, but both were far beneath greater discomforts he had conquered. He beat his legs and arms in a steady rhythm, swimming fast and turning nimbly back towards the surface. His left hand broke through the waves.

Immediately, he was pulled upwards by Salamander. For a moment, the two of them exchanged a grin, then the fire elemental fused into his glove. Purgatory surged with renewed fire, its own flames replaced with the black flickers of the daughter of war.

Malot immediately turned one of his hands to John. The Gamer was in midair, the force of the pull reaching its zenith and making him sail back down. Three unsteady arcana appeared around him. ‘My signal to bail,’ the Gamer thought, using Magus Step just before the overlapping explosions could punish him.

He re-appeared on the other side of the barrier. The free additional teleports from Skitterstep brought him the rest of the way. Presence masked for a split moment, he swiped at the ethereal limb with his dragon claws. The contact was harder than John had expected and in a way much different than he had expected. The claws sunk through the surface and then his entire limb was dragged to the side as if caught in an intense current.

The surprise aside, he managed to finally make Malot stop analysing the spell. The smooth mask cracked into a myriad of different tetragons, rising and falling in agitated waves. A loud, singing tone was the only warning John got before several of the shapes angled into an opening. A concentrated ray of arcane energy shot out, slamming into Particle Skin and taking a sizable chunk out of John’s mana before he could Magus Step out of the way.

Melee was not his forte, but John twisted into a kick anyhow. Malot jaggedly dodged. A human spine would have broken from the manoeuvre, but the jittering creature just skittered backwards on all fours.

In a burst of flame, Salamander separated from Purgatory and joined John in the melee. Granted, after just a few moments of combat, it was more like he was joining her. Salamander gripped six swords of fire, swinging them in a constant storm of motion at Malot. John joined only where he could add cheap shots. That he had less than a fourth of Salamander’s speed was of no concern. Their timings, their unison, their tactics, all of them were finely attuned to one another.

Malot continued to contort and twist, often losing the current shape of his body altogether. His surface broke into various tetragonal shapes, a grid entirely ruined by the uneven sides of its makeup. The physical shape often lagged behind the ethereal outline of manifesting energy. The soul was dragging the body behind it like a lame chassis.

John realized more and more what he was looking at. Malot’s fusion with his new body was faulty, incomplete. He was possessing the body he lived in the same way that John Possessed the Mandala Sphere. That he managed to keep up with the physical assault wasn’t because he was fast, it was that he had the mana to burn to accelerate the movements of his puppet.

All over the arcane elemental, the surface parted. A variety of magical effects burst out. Scattershot blasts, torrents of arcane fire, arcs of mana-fuelled lightning, rays prolonged and short-lived, all of it filled the air around the chaotic creature.

John and Salamander backed off as far as they had to, but where they had to make room, a new threat to the arcane elemental entered the field.

The barrier shattered. Inkaryl beat with hungry might. Icy blue was replaced with earthen brown. A heavy projectile shot out from the advancing puppet’s hand. The rock was ripped apart, but the specialized body of the puppet was not.

The Creator Puppet charged straight into the onslaught of elemental effects. Surface stone and metal melted and shards were blown off here and there, but by and large it retained its shape even as it reached the heart of the onslaught. Inkaryl’s weight hung heavily from its long shaft. Like a hammer, the third body gripped the mace by the end of the shaft and went for a long swing.

CRACK!

Inkaryl slammed into a porcelain plate, turning it into white dust. A tumble of distorted limbs and an ethereal body dwelling within, Malot flew towards the edge of the island. He stabilized swiftly, a creature half nightmarishly distorted artificiality and half exposed soul stuff standing upright, joined at the hip to the physical frame like an attempt at making a centaur gone horrendously wrong.

Bright blue, the arcane elemental’s true eyes glared at John. The Malot that possessed the body he had seen so far was every bit as chaotic as the body. Aside from a pair of prismatically shifting lights where the eyes would be and the translucent blueness of that ghostly shape, they were practically alike. ‘Does the body get warped because his soul is warped or is he limited like I am with the Creator Puppet?’ John wondered.

No matter, the fight had to continue.