(TLO) Chapter 95: Convergent Skill (Patreon)

Seth had never been so happy to see the long tachi in his life. The moment it got into the range of his awareness he knew exactly what it was. It registered like a king spider’s dying shriek: unmistakable.

He let it hit the ground before snatching it up. Its weight was almost empty compared to what he remembered. In his hands it weighed no more than any sword had a right to. It was a breath of fresh air compared to Dainik and Varmei that weighed him down just by being strapped to his waist.

With a conscious thought, guided by an instinct born of his new found awareness, he leaned back. The action was gentle, almost subtle, and the Guda Snake’s tail scaled past him. The heavy wind that brushed him was enough to stagger his footing. He wondered just how many times he’d survived from just avoiding it as he staggered back.

The past days had taught him much in little ways. One of these teachings was in the pattern of the Guda Snake. It was not robotic, not necessarily fixed in its ways. But it was predictable. If he went high enough that the trees did not stand in its way, it attacked with a biting strike. If he stayed too far with little trees between, it scurried through to him, snaking around them. If he chose to crowd himself in the thick of trees, it forced them from their roots one after the other.

And if he managed staying close to it like he did now… he took the hilt of the tachi in his grip and prepared himself… It attacked in a frenzy.

Its head came down, mouth wide open in a massive bite, and he activated his skill.

“[Quick draw]”

Masamune shot from its sheathe, hissing gleeful murder.

The attack barely pierced the snake’s scale. But it was enough to make the snake veer off in another direction. Its head dug into the ground beside him and raised an eruption of sand and dirt, drowning both of them in a cloud of dust, grass, and mist.

[Quick Step] carried Seth out of it immediately.

The dust cleared to an angry Guda Snake. Its eyes were baleful, as if insulted by his defiance. That he would stand before it and attempt to take its head was a sin.

“You don’t like that, do you?” he smirked, smug. “Neither do I.”

With Masamune, his reia seemed abounding, and he used his skills generously. He fought his opponent with quick evasions and strikes that never truly connected. Yet each failed attack seemed to anger the beast more. He took his little wins where he could get them and struck more.

Evening came upon them like a cripple with crutches; slow and spotted from a mile away. As it fell, the orange glow of a setting sun barely piercing the slowly thickening white of an ever clouding mist, he activated [Fractured Mind].

His senses sharpened graciously. His awareness grew in leaps and bounds. He felt an insect die on the tree beside him as the snake’s tail struck it, flattened it against the very bark it hid on, and pivoted on one foot, spun to the side like a ballerina from the old world. It was a beautiful rendition of a pirouette as the tree blew past him harmlessly.

But it was not done.

He felt the tail continue on its trajectory, and he moved again. He did not turn his attention to it as he dropped to the ground, flattened himself like the dead. It shot past him and he rolled himself back to his feet. Nothing could hide from him for thirteen feet in all directions, not now.

With [Fractured Mind] still active, he turned in the opposite direction of the tail, and fled.

He bounded through the trees, feeling the effect of the skill on his reserves. It had tanked it considerably, but not so much that he was useless. He knew he still had enough for a few more skills. Unfortunately, he was faced with the problem of how best to use the skills he had. His mind scurried around as his eyes continued to shift, plotting routes and eliminating them just as quickly.

He ducked left, evaded a branch he did not see, then cut a sharp right between two trees. A moment later a tree crashed into them and they buttressed the force of it so that it went no further. It seemed the Guda Snake was maddened. It was a good thing, all living things, humans or animals, make mistakes when clouded by emotions.

Seth caught himself in his glee, touched his free hand to his lip and found it stretched in a smile. This would not do. Anger was not the only emotion capable of clouding one’s judgement; of leading one into mistakes. The thought solidified his next choice.

With a conscious frown and a sheer force of will he closed his eyes, allowed his other senses guide him for the briefest moment. Harboring a contained displeasure for the aftermath, he lowered himself into [Heart of Winter].

Skill [Heart of Winter] is in Effect.

He discarded the notification without thought.

When he opened his eyes, everything was different. Thoughts went through his mind in a laminar flow. Why had he been charging down this path? To annoy his opponent?

It seemed pointless.

He did not turn his eyes as he sought out the snake. Instead, he spread his awareness to every reach of it. Thirteen feet of radius all around him succumbed to his attention.

Still, despite its pointlessness, he continued on the same path. A path he knew had no useful result. As he did, he checked the air around him. The disturbance in the mist that feared nothing. Finding nothing there, he studied the sounds around him. The quiet thudding of his feet he discarded immediately. His constant breath and the beating of his heart he cast aside.

He took in the information outside him. The swaying of a branch in a breeze that did not affect the mist. The crushed grass that broke under the weight of something too heavy for it. The groaning of the soil as the roots of a tree tore through it violently. He turned to the last sound and ran towards it.

When the tree came free of the soil, he knew it as a man knows he’s dominant hand from his weak. He jumped to his right as the tree came at him, used a tree he knew was there as a platform, and boosted himself higher and forward. He vaulted over the incoming tree like a skilled acrobat as it flew beneath him, landed in a roll, came up to his feet, and charged on.

With [Fractured Mind] and [Heart of Winter] active, he was running terribly low on reia. His reia reserves were scraping what seemed the bottom of the barrel. His thought went to Dainik and Varmei. They were the reason his reia reserves were not picking, the reason he was running out so fast. Discarding them crossed his mind next—a logical decision by all means—and he threw the thought away. Jabari had given them to him, instructed they be with him throughout the fights. Inconveniencing as they were, they served a purpose, even if he could not fathom what it was besides purifying his reia.

Jabari had souled him in a way he did not know. He had given him the opportunity of the seminary, a path to power the likes of which the academy would’ve never given him. Now the man was leading him down the path to Iron. As ludicrous as the idea of being a pure core soul mage was, it was not gratitude that kept him obeying; carrying around the weight of Dainik and Varmei with him. It was logic.

The man had attacked an academy convoy single handedly. Killed a contingent of Silver soul magi armed with manasteel bullets without batting an eye. Then killed a Gold soul mage of the academy, practically declaring war on them. All to kidnap him, carry him across great distances, train him, soul him, then give him to the seminary—all not necessarily in that order.

It told him two things. The first—he already knew—was that Jabari was a man of great power. If there was an authority beyond Barony, his powers laid there. The second was whatever he had planned for him, he had invested a great enough deal for it to not be pointless.

His thought process came to a halt in his mind, and so did he. He skidded to a stop in front of the snake, Masamune firmly in his grip. Between them was a littering of trees and a distance of perhaps thirty feet. Beyond the thirteen in front of him, his mathematical accuracy to gauge distance failed him.

The snake watched him with blazing eyes, a constantly darkening shade of jade orbs, and he met its stare unaffected. A sense of being disrespected bubbled inside him. His opponent might be stronger than he was, but what led it to believe itself better; what led it to think itself worthy of looking down on him? It was no more than an overgrown lizard. One nature did not even deign qualified to give limbs.

He crushed the emotion as soon as it rose, killed it like an inconsequential thing. It did not change one irrefutable fact, though. One of them would die here. In this moment there was no other alternative. This beast would charge him. He would respond. And one of them would die.

But it would not be him.

To make sure of it, he needed more than he had. He needed to evolve. Jabari had matched him against this creature because he knew he did not have the skills required to beat it. It was the reason he continued to step in, continued to save him where he had not in his previous fights. An evolution would grant him a new skill. A convergence. This, he already knew.

Jabari had already told him he was ready for it; he was done preparing the body he wanted him to have. All he needed to do now was evolve.

For the briefest moment he was distracted at the thought of what kind of body he would have. With all the poison Jabari had been having pumped into him, would his convergent skill be something that poisoned his enemies? Or would his body simply be poisonous like the snake that disrespected him?

He stepped away from the distraction with the calm of a man on an evening stroll and channeled his mind. He took command of his breathing until it was an entirely conscious act. He did not know how but knew it cycled his core, replenished his reia reserves, or at least tried to.

He needed a new skill now and he worked towards it, something that would pierce the snake’s defense. Something powerful. As if understanding his intention, the snake raised its head, poised to strike.

One powerful blow. One final blow.

Yes, he thought. This was the way. He was thinking too much. Like in the winter test and the consequences of his daily quests all he had to do was put it all on the line. An uncharacteristic grin split his face as he lowered his stance. The tachi, held at his side in one hand, he held the other over its hilt and flared his awareness so that his world came alight. All thirteen feet of it around him.

He felt the mist around him brighten. The grass beneath him he could not see was somehow more alive, greener. In this moment, he was as much the distance of his awareness as it was him. To step within thirteen feet of him was to intrude.

He opened eyes he hadn’t known he’d closed and the Guda Snake struck.

It shot at him, exploded forth like a fired bullet. It did not weave around the trees but ploughed through them like a force of nature, uprooting them from the very soil they had come to call home. As much as it should’ve served to weaken its attack, it didn’t seem to do so.

Seth waited patiently, hand wrapping around his hilt. Neither fear nor worry touched him. There was no calm to accompany him, merely a blatant void, thirteen feet on all sides.

Then something pierced the void, broke into it. It intruded upon his territory, an unrepentant sinner in the presence of a greater power, and pale blue steel left a wooden sheathe in an echo of retribution.

Convergent Skill has been Attained.

Convergent Skill [Echo Draw] is in effect.

[Echo Draw]

The use of a weapon is as old as sapient life itself. Born of a need for superiority, it has evolved over the years. From the necessity for simple strength, it has grown to the need for reach as well. Take the weapon granted and reach further. Strike over a distance than you have any right to, and bring death to those who would oppose your will twice. None shall disobey your domain, be they beasts, humans… or even Gods.

Masamune sang through the distance, one strike ringing after the other, and Seth followed.