Arcen closed his mouth again because Zuhara wanted them to hold. If the fight could be finished without a fight, that was in everyone’s interest now that the mind hacker was dead on the floor.
He just wasn’t sure if that’s what Tymon would want.
“You don’t look good enough to dance with ma’am,” Tymon said with one glance at Zuhara. “Other two….a kid and a, well, who are you?” He asked, squinting his red eyes at Arcen.
He couldn’t open his mouth to answer.
“I’ll tell you, and we’ll just talk, Tymon. That’s all we’ll do,” Zuhara said in a stern voice. “There is no need to dance with anyone here; none of us has enough Aura for it.”
Jelly did something unexpected. She hopped down from Zuhara’s shoulder and made her way to Tymon on three hesitant short dashes. She stopped before him, looking up at him.
“Ah, Jelly…” Tymon said, crouching to pick her up. When he did, he lifted her awkwardly, like someone who didn’t know how to handle a baby. “Been ages since I saw you!” He said in a softer voice that was still tinged with his snarky tone.
Zuhara sheathed her sword and walked up to Tymon as Elena did the same thing. Arcen stayed where he was. He didn’t want to get close to someone who had already singled him out. The way Tymon asked who Arcen was had a dangerous amount of curiosity behind it. He knew if Tymon figured out anything about the egg, it would be impossible not to dance with him.
HE LOOKS FUN.
King was certainly looking forward to wherever this was going to go, despite having orders of magnitude less Aura after spending it all on the Maw.
“Start from the beginning, Tymon, what happened in the shaft?” Zuhara spoke in a friendlier voice than she started with.
“Well, how far back do you wanna go?”
“What were you doing in the shaft? What has happened since I last saw you? I remember you stayed with me because Rika didn’t want to play with you. You wanted some meat,”
“Godawful cooking by the way,” Tymon said with a grin.
“My house, my rules!” Zuhara retorted.
“After that, I kicked that queen thing for a few days; she died. I was taking a nap when this nostrum fuckwit came up with his team, there was an octopus guy…wait a minute-”
Tymon peered over Zuhara’s shoulder at Arcen. “Is that him?”
“Not now, continue please,” Zuhara snapped her fingers.
“Well, I played with that guy for a bit. Broke his arm off. I let him go because it wasn’t fun anymore. Then I climbed down, way down. Two hundred to chef Dominicus, you know him!. It took me a few days; none of it was fun, and I was hungry. Guess what…” Tymon raised an eyebrow. “Dude’s closed shop and gone down to thirties. He got sick of this tower. So, that’s where I went next.”
Arcen couldn’t believe his ears. This lunatic had gone four hundred floors down just to find someone that can cook him a better meal than Zuhara could. Granted, her cooking was really basic, but it was more than edible.
“How did you find the shaft from there?”
“Well, the nostrum asshole was there, and I was super curious how he got there faster than I did. He didn’t tell me shit at first, but then, there was this other little dude with him, and I kicked his ass until he told me everything. Stayed there for a while, eating good until I got bored and full, and used this shortcut to climb up. I’m gonna go back down whenever I get hungry here…” Tymon laughed. “Seriously, why didn’t you tell me if you knew?”
“I didn’t, I only saw this today. I didn’t believe a shaft could go that far,” Zuhara said, looking meaningfully at Elena. Arcen knew why. She had lied about the shaft to Zuhara’s face. They likely figured it out between themselves after Zuhara got here. He regretted sleeping through it.
“And in the shaft, what happened?” Elena asked, ignoring Zuhara’s stare with a quick side eye.
“Why is the kid asking me questions?” Tymon asked, looking down at Elena with a frown.
“Please?” Elena said in a sweeter voice.
“I was climbing up when this new asshole came down out of nowhere. The moment he saw me, he did something to my eyes. I couldn’t see anything. Some real mind-hacking shit. I ate his ass anyway, I don’t need eyes to kill a dumbass like that.”
“Excellent, so you're not part of the plan,” Zuhara said, crossing her arms.
“What plan?” Tymon asked, looking around curiously.
“I can explain if you don't mind me speaking,” Elena said, still maintaining her sweet child voice.
“Sure, go ahead,”
“Don't call me a kid again, like it's an insult, though.”
“Oh, I get it. You're a fiesty one. I got one bitchy little sister just like you!”
“Now you just called me a bitch,”
“Apologies, child. Please explain what happened here before I get bored.”
Elena sighed, looking at Zuhara, who was still thinking hard.
“I was following this echo raider guy, Colin Fraser. Did you know him?” Elena asked, turning back to Tymon.
“I don't remember their names; they don't like me anyway.”
“Alright, so, he was doing some shady stuff. A friend who got up here from the ground floor told me they had a different name,” Elena continued with a quick sideways blink towards Arcen.” We pushed him a little bit in the bar. Then we went after him. We got ambushed by a creature with almost a hundred and ninety million Aura.”
Tymon stopped moving about when he heard the number, locking his eyes directly on hers.
“Say what?”
“Yes, that happened,” Zuhara said before Tymon started doubting it.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. I stayed up here for a month, and nothing happened. I went down for some food, and suddenly everybody's having a fucking party?”
“Wasn't a party. We almost died. So we managed to kill it-”
“What did you do?” Tymon asked, taking a sudden interest in Elena he'd not taken even a little bit seriously until now. “You don't look that strong. You look like a kid.”
“I did enough,” Elena said, ignoring his little jabs. “Either way, when it died, it was Colin Fraser’s body inside. He'd been dead for weeks.”
“Cool, wow, I just missed out on all the fun!”
“This guy,” Elena said, nudging the mind hacker's carcass with her foot. “He's been inside that dead body all this time. He escaped, and we chased him. We got here. He jumped in.”
“Well, you should've jumped in too.”
“Jelly stopped me, because she sensed you in there.”
Tymon looked at Jelly as if she just turned into a new creature. Jelly stared at him with a sleepy, flat expression. “Whoa, she can do that? I knew this thing was special! She kept playing hide and seek with me for weeks!”
“So, here's what we do now. Since Rika’s gone, Barnes is in charge of the base camp. He’s looking into sending her a message. It might not work; she’s too deep in 457, none of us can get to. In the meantime, Barnes wants to check everybody. We don’t know if there are other impostors in here,” Zuhara said, looking down at the dead mind hacker. “Barnes is pissed because this asshole did a hundred and eighty-eight million Aura stunt while everybody was sleeping. If it happened any other time, a lot more people would be dead.”
“Great! you guys can do all of that boring stuff,” Tymon said, handing Jelly to Zuhara like a kitten. “I’ll play with you later, you’re too sleepy now,” he said, gently pinching Jelly’s cheek.
“Sounded like you have other plans?” Zuhara asked, her voice a bit tense.
“Yes. I want to play with that creepy tentacle guy over there,” he said, pointing at Arcen. “Because I smell a rat, and that rat smells exactly like the queen did.”
HE CAN SENSE ME.
Arcen’s heart started pounding like a machine, half in King’s excitement and the other half in pure terror.
“Look at him, he only has three million left. Where’s the fun in that for you?” Zuhara asked, picking up the dead mind hacker by the spine.
“I can think of ways,”
“I’m not going to let you,” Elena said out of nowhere, standing between Arcen and Tymon.
“Oh? You want to dance too? What can you do?” Tymon said, tilting his head at her, a sharp grin spreading on his face. “Wait, I remember hearing about you. An oily girl with a black egg. Ah, yes, the nostrum idiot told me that. You’re supposed to have like ten to twenty million Aura…”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Tymon’s eyes darted all over her from head to toe. “Where’s the egg?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Elena said, defiantly.
“Children, calm down. There is no need to fight,” Zuhara said, flinging the corpse on her back.
“I disagree,” Tymon said, straightening his back.
“Very well then, you do what you want,” Zuhara said with a sigh. She unfurled two fingers at the ground, and spider threads burst out from all around them. It happened faster than anyone could react—except Tymon, who tried to stop her by grabbing her hand. It was too late.
The threads weaved a gigantic bubble that engulfed everything. They rippled, twisting and turning and multiplying as they created a new spider silk cocoon of a size Arcen had never thought possible. The walls were nowhere near them, thresholds of her domain fading into darkness.
Zuhara dashed towards Elena, wrapping an arm around her neck as she threw a floor tunneler ahead of them.
“I’m taking the kids-” Zuhara said before the portal sucked them in. Her voice faded into the distance and vanished with the bright threads. Tymon dove headfirst into the portal only to bounce off and roll three times on the floor.
“That fucking woman!” He yelled angrily, shaking his head.
“I guess this could be fun,” he said, standing up. “Since we’re in this spider domain, no contracts, no skills. Just you and me.”
Tymon smiled. “Show me what you’ve got, tentacle boy. I’ll even make it easy for you. I won’t use my domain until you use yours.”
Arcen ran as fast as his Meronolith legs allowed. Tymon chased after him like a maniac with no regard for ground features or the distance. At every step, it felt like he was coming from three different directions all at once.
He used the terrain to his advantage while still circling the space of Zuhara’s domain without breaking out. Tymon caught up without even trying, body slamming him straight into the spider thread wall at terminal speed.
Recovering, Arcen dashed in a zig-zag pattern, weaving through boulders that poked out of the ground. Tymon followed closely behind, his speed limited by rapid turns. He was insanely dangerous in a straight line. King quickly found the best strategy to stand a chance against Tymon. He had to move erratically and unpredictably. He managed to throw Tymon off six times this way. He didn’t get through those without significant damage.
Tymon had superhuman strength that surpassed what King could augment with Arcen. Each blow ripped muscles and cracked bones within. Tymon was keeping his teeth out of the fight for some reason, and that was good. If he were using his shark mutation, that would’ve piled up the regeneration costs beyond what Arcen could afford to spend for this fight.
King focused on reducing the amount of damage suffered during their evasive actions. It took at least thirty failures to work, and Arcen found himself ‘dancing’ along with Tymon while avoiding direct hits to his limbs or vitals. King put all of the energy into preserving the legs at any cost because slowing down would mean eating a barrage of blows that would take too long to regenerate.
“You haven’t hit me once yet,” Tymon said at one point after they both came to a standstill next to a rocky formation.
Arcen couldn’t open his mouth to respond. He didn’t want to figure out what Tymon’s domain was. He tried to recall what he saw in the queen's chamber a long time ago. Tymon had created blade-like things from enamel-like material.
MAYBE THAT WAS A TRAIT?
That didn’t make sense. Traits didn’t sound as powerful as contracts or as useful as skills. A teeth-producing trait sounded rather different. He didn’t know what ‘triat’ meant inside the towers. But he’d never seen anyone using their trait as a weapon.
He couldn't think for too long. Tymon was finding flaws in King's evasive footwork. He dashed in a series of straight lines, recalculating his direction every time.
Arcen managed to dodge a charge by switching directions nearly in the opposite direction, but he had to eat a painful slam on his side as Tymon dashed past him.
He felt his own ribs crack.
Using the momentum of the blow, he rolled away, changing directions yet again. Tymon followed, dashing in straight lines all around him, trying to catch another opening. As his flesh and ribs regenerated, Arcen dashed back and forth ahead, trying to keep Tymon guessing wrong destinations to be in to catch him with another big blow.
King didn't have a solid plan. Although Zuhara probably used the domain to make the playground even, it was getting in the way. If he were to damage Tymon in any way, he had to break out and take the fight outside.
However, that would also mean getting whacked like an insect. Tymon will certainly have contracts that Arcen couldn’t even imagine.
His only advantage would be the Red Court and only the first instance of it.
Arcen dashed towards the wall, thinking about executing this perfectly. He dodged several attempts by Tymon to break his legs by dashing to the side at the right moment, but the damage that he received on his torso delayed his plan.
That worked out well for him. Because he suddenly remembered the fact that Tymon already defeated someone else with the Red Court. He’d killed the queen out of sheer boredom. He already knew Red Court, and he likely had the means to escape it, whatever they were.
THAT WILL NOT WORK ON HIM THEN.
As Arcen realized he was more stuck here than he thought, Tymon started dashing faster and faster in his jagged, disconnected straight lines. The initial advantage of erratic movements wasn’t going to hold forever. Breaking out of the domain wouldn’t work in his favor either.
Unless it could with Multivariate. Skills always did exactly what they said they would, and chaining a thousand of them together meant that thing had to be done that many times. There was no magic counter to a skill except another skill, like in the case of using Conceal before someone else uses Reveal.
If he chained a thousand Detonate at Tymon, that would potentially work wonders and catch him off-guard. Arcen hadn’t seen Multivariate anywhere except the King. The queen didn’t have anything like it when Norm Lorraine fought her. Something that is broken couldn’t be a regular trait that just anyone can have.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ TRAITS ╰︶
????
SWALLOW
??
SUFFERENCE
??
EMBODIMENT
??
COMMAND
??
EXTRACT
??
REGENERATE
??
MULTIVARIATE
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
“You’re slowing down,” Tymon mumbled as he passed by like a land rocket. Arcen ducked with milliseconds to spare as Tymon’s outstretched hand swung above him like a sword. That would’ve taken his head clean off.
Out of other options, he decided to go through with the plan anyway. He could also maximize his chances by combining everything he had.
Heading towards the thread wall, Arcen made sure to dodge Tymon’s every move targeted at taking his legs. He only had a window of less than a second to execute things that he wanted to do.
Once he made it to the thread wall, he turned, trying to trick Tymon into thinking he was going to circle like before.
Tymon seemed too fixated on him to pay attention as he kept dashing all around him, trying to exploit any opening with a gleeful look on his terrifying face.
Arcen touched the wall as he ran, trying to make it look accidental. The threads tangled up in his fingers and ripped as he did. He waited for Tymon to make a move.
Sure enough, he did the exact thing Arcen wanted him to do. Tymon dashed ahead and slammed into his side, trying to make him topple. This time, Arcen let himself tumble while sinking his hand further into the domain wall. It ripped as Tymon bounced off him, and they went their separate ways like two billiard balls.
In the brief moment that he got, Arcen crawled through the rip in the wall. On one hand, this seemed like an easy domain to get out of. Anyone could rip through the wall if they were strong enough. He remembered Zuhara’s meat cocoon. The way those carcasses hung from the ceiling. She likely had a way to use her threads to great effect in this domain, and it required her presence here to prevent anyone from escaping.
Bursting out to the other side, leaving a large gap behind him, He felt the air change. It smelled fresher and cooler outside the domain. Mid jump, he focused his eyes on Tymon, who was dashing towards him already.
King kept his head stable as he rolled on the ground, and the moment Tymon poked his torso out of the gap, he had what he needed.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ SKILL ╰︶
????
PREDICT
????
PREDICT
????
PREDICT
????
PREDICT
PREDICT
PREDICT
PREDICT
PREDICT
PREDICT
PREDICT
PREDICT
PREDICT
PREDICT
PREDICT
…(34)
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE ︶╯
King had already mastered the multivariate activations. He didn’t need to ramp up to them anymore. Chained Predicts were something Arcen hadn’t thought of before. The last time he used this, he got a glimpse into the future that was about one second long. He didn’t know it could stack this way. Thirty Predicts made the world smear before him like a wet painting, creating an array of faded snapshots ahead of Tymon.
As his eyes brushed over each snapshot, King did the obvious, targeting Tymon across time.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ SKILL ╰︶
????
DETONATE
????
DETONATE
????
DETONATE
????
DETONATE
DETONATE
DETONATE
DETONATE
DETONATE
DETONATE
DETONATE
DETONATE
DETONATE
DETONATE
DETONATE
DETONATE
…(566)
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE ︶╯
He’d seen the effect of these chained Detonates on flesh before. They ate through Maw’s regenerative flesh like it was Styrofoam. Tymon, being a human, didn’t need a thousand. This fight wasn’t about killing him. This was about showing him.
╭ ╰︶?? ERITHERIA ?? ︶╯ ╮
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ ATTRIBUTE INCREASED ╰︶
????
FUTURE
[16] +1
DESTRUCTION
[15] +1
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
As the first Detonate’s rippled on Tymon’s thick gray skin, He activated the only weapons to counter him, just in case.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ CONTRACT ╰︶
????
MIRAGE BLADE
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE ︶╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ CONTRACT ╰︶
????
MIRAGE BLADE
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE ︶╯
Tymon retreated exactly as Predict showed him, as more Detonates exploded on his skin. Trails of blood spurt from his cracked skin, and he fell to a heap on the ground.
King didn’t waste a second. The moment he fell, Arcen was already there. King slashed Tymon’s tendons with surgical precision, and with the other hand, he did something Arcen hadn’t seen before. The blood gushing out of Tymon’s wound accumulated where King held his hand.
Gold emerged from the blood, small amounts at first, but grew large in milliseconds. He was using the trait Extract to steal Aura from Tymon.
“Oh, you son of a bitch!” Tymon yelled, laughing maniacally. “I’m going to cook you!”
I WONDER WHAT I TASTE LIKE.
Next chapter on Wednesday.
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