Even before he’d finished his shout, his line was already charging. Sid took the lead, barreling into the enemy soldiers and generals. Sable followed close behind, almost as excited as her father. Soma giggled gleefully as he ran past, and Straw drifted off. Rhys wasn’t sure where to, but the man seed to know what he was doing, so he left him to it. Bast went to charge Virgil, but Rhys raised his hand.
“Let have the first pass. I’ve got sothing really important to do with him.”
“It better be really fuckin’ important,” Bast gritted out, frustrated. He glared at Virgil with what could only be described as sheer bloodlust.
Rhys smiled. He felt a little bad about preventing Bast from killing Virgil off the kick, but this was necessary. He didn’t know how long it would take Bast to duel Virgil, and there was sothing he really had to get done ASAP if they wanted to leave the Alliance in anything but shambles. “It is. Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of Virgil to kick around when I’m done with him.”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
For a mont, Rhys felt as if he was dangling a squeaky toy inches above the nose of a very large dog. It didn’t want to bite him, but it really wanted that squeaky toy, and if he wasn’t fast about it, he might end up as collateral damage.
I’ll have to do this quickly, then.
He dashed toward Virgil, closing the distance in a flash. To tell the truth, at Tier 5, there were very few people on this battlefield who posed any kind of threat to him, let alone could stand on even footing against him or give him pause. He’d been a big fish in a small pond; now, he was in a fishbowl. It was ti to leave, no, past ti. But before he left, he wanted to make sure he set things right. And that ant not just winning this battle, but winning it right.
The Alliance had been neutral to shitty to him, and he wasn’t going to deny that. Still, he’d been reborn here, and it wasn’t like he hated the place. In fact, he liked plenty of the people who lived here. It was just the leadership that needed a change.
Plus, if he wiped out all the Alliance’s strength here, he’d create a power vacuum, and that would go even worse, if such a thing were possible, than power vacuums back ho. Not only would there be political infighting, but the surrounding regions would all tear into this place and rip it to shreds. There wouldn’t be a single resource left standing afterward. The ordinary citizens didn’t deserve that.
To put it simply, I’ve got beef with Virgil, not the whole region. This was a surgical removal, not all-out destruction. Not that that’d ever gone well back ho, but… He looked at the backs racing into battle ahead of him and smiled. He had his own insurance against internal maneuvers. Maybe it was trashy, but it was nonetheless true that a little fear was a great motivator.
But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. First, he had to deal with Virgil.
The man stared at him in shock, not prepared for Rhys to dash in, sohow. I was teleporting, I guess. But in combat, it was way handier to run around. Better micro control for his thod of teleportation.
Not that he was going to explain any of that to Virgil. Rhys grabbed him by the collar and checked his neck. It was kind of a stupid idea, but what if he had a master mark? One mark to control them all?
His skin was clean. Rhys wrinkled his nose.
Virgil laughed. “What, did you think I had a master?”
“No, I just wished it a little. And that the master was Soma. And that I could watch.”
“I can make so of that co true!” Soma shouted from the other side of the battlefield.
“For clarification, that was a joke!” Rhys shouted back. He turned to Virgil. “Guess we’re doing this the hard way.”
“That’s right. Draw your weapon,” Virgil snarled, trying to twist away.
“Not that hard of a way,” Rhys said, glad that Soma was once more not paying attention to this conversation. He put his hand on Virgil’s head and pushed.
Bast had let him into his ntal space. This ti, he was invading. Virgil instantly counterattacked by stabbing Rhys in real life, as well as by jabbing him with a spike of ntal energy. Before Rhys could even react to the sword hurtling toward his gut, The Hunger leapt forth and t it, wrapping around it in a sort-of parry, sort-of constrictor attack. A sloppy sucking sound ca from The Hunger as it chewed on the sword like it was a popsicle. Virgil made a face and tried to retract his weapon, but he was fighting two battles. Rhys had already corrupted his ntal spike, then reversed it, plunging a spike of impurities into Virgil’s ntal space. Virgil staggered, instantly stunned, and threw himself into his ntal space to launch a full-on internal defense.
As he retreated into his mind, he shouted one last command to his generals: “Protect !”
Rhys clicked his tongue. “Yeah, about that.” He was still half aware of the real world, as he hadn’t yet fully plunged himself into Virgil’s ntal space, and that made this so much easier to deal with. He dropped a hoop behind him and pulled himself and Virgil into it, stepping out into a random forest sowhere in the Alliance.
Even if Virgil’s generals knew where he was at all tis and could rapidly chase after him, they’d still waste a few seconds, if not minutes, finding him. He’d confird they could teleport, but he had no idea what the restrictions on that were; still, from the fact that Virgil had arrived first, and then the others had appeared, he had to assu it was a technique Virgil knew, and that as long as he kept up the ntal assault, Virgil wouldn’t be able to teleport anyone in.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
That’s my theory, anyways. My ga theory… Well, regardless, it’s what I’m going to go with, and if I get hamred while I’m mind-killing Virgil, I guess that’s the risk I took teleporting out here all on my own.
Speaking of, Bast is probably super-pissed right now, since he wants to personally kill Virgil. I’ll have to make sure I finish up fast and take him right back there.
The whole ti, Virgil had been attacking him with every ntal spire and jab he could muster, but Rhys simply absorbed his mana with impurities and kept pressing inward. He was a higher tier than Virgil, now. There was nothing Virgil could do about him.
Inward, onward. He stepped into Virgil’s ntal space and was imdiately surrounded on all sides by an attack far fiercer than any he’d faced so far. If the previous ones had been ignorable, these were decidedly not. Any one of these could destroy his ntal projection. It wasn’t like he’d trained in ntal projection, not even the slightest; he was brute-forcing this whole thing with great power and impurities. And it seed like his trust in his own greater power was his blunder. Virgil was clearly well-trained in ntal attacks.
The ntal blades closed in on him from all directions. Rhys hunkered, summoning an orb of impurities around himself. The blades struck it and pierced right through, shredding the projection within. Thrown back into his body, Rhys stumbled, almost losing his grip on Virgil’s head. His nose bled, and his head ached.
“You fool. I put Soma in line. I’m prepared for you! I’m the strongest ntal—”
Rhys shook his head, wiped the blood from his nose, and dove back in. Mid-brag, Virgil squawked and fell silent, concentrating again.
This ti, Rhys was ready for the all-sides attack. He rolled to the side predictively like a soulslike player on their seventieth run against the sa boss, and the blades closed in on nothing. Instantly, they whirled and chased after him instead, and he ran, fleeing across the ntal landscape. More blades popped up out of the earth ahead of him, and he dodged again, only to dodge into a waiting blade. Once more, his projection burst apart, and he snapped back into his body.
“—ntal mage to grace the Alliance! You can’t—”
Rhys ignored him. He dove into Virgil’s mind again. Once again, he dove to the side as soon as he appeared, and the blades closed in around him. He sprinted off in a different direction. The blades chased after him again. Rhys kept running, dodging as well as he could. A blade leaped out of the ground in front of him and pierced through his ntal projection, and he opened his eyes back in his own body. His headache was awful, and his nosebleed was bleeding over his lips, but he kept his grip on Virgil’s head and narrowed his eyes as he focused, forcing himself to materialize another ntal projection.
“You madman. I’ll kill you!” Virgil shrieked.
“Nah. I win these,” Rhys replied, and plunged into his ntal scape again.
Once again, he rolled, then sprinted in a new direction. Once again, Virgil chased him, throwing swords at him from all directions—and then he stopped. Rhys, too, slowed, then turned back, beaming.
“Realized it at last?”
This whole ti, he hadn’t just been running around willy-nilly in Virgil’s ntal space. He’d been using it as training, yes, to form a more and more perfect ntal projection, but that was only part of it. With every step he took, with every breath he exhaled, he pushed impurities into Virgil’s ntal space. By now, the place was as much his domain as Virgil’s.
He grabbed all the impurities and thrust, piercing past the ntal space and into Virgil’s mind itself. He wasn’t interested in anything there, except for one thing: the marks, and how he controlled them.
The space beyond Virgil’s ntal space was dark, with little dots of light here and there. Rhys swept his attention past all of them, searching for the only one he cared about: the mark. Images appeared montarily before him: sword techniques, books, monts in Virgil’s life, faces and places. Mouse appeared, but he didn’t fixate on it. It didn’t matter. Right now, he had to find that mark thought, mory, ntal representation… whatever this space indicated.
Round shapes, complicated… there! He charged forward, grabbing the representation of the mark. He pushed impurities into it, darkening it deeper and deeper until it winked out altogether. Distantly, he heard Virgil scream, and smiled. It worked!
He paused, then, looking at the image of Mouse. She was younger, barely twelve, in the mory—just a kid. For a second, he drifted toward it, then shook his head and retreated instead. They were in the middle of battle. He needed to find out if his attempt had actually worked, deliver Virgil to Bast, and check in on the rest of them. Now wasn’t the ti to self-indulgently look at the creepiest version of a parent’s picture book he could imagine.
He leaped out of Virgil’s ntal space. The man was panicking, his eyes wide. “The marks… the marks. How do I control them? How did you—how did you—my marks! My technique! You destroyed it!”
Well, not really. I disabled it temporarily. Soone like Virgil, who’d figured out all kinds of anti-impurity techniques to combat Soma, could definitely figure out a way past his crude destruction of the man’s mory of the mark technique. But he didn’t intend to give Virgil the ti. Still gripping him by the head, he backed into the hoop and teleported back to the battleground.
Bast stood nearby, as tense as Rhys had ever seen him. Rhys smiled and tossed Virgil his way. “He’s all yours.”
“I’m so ready.” Bast charged, rushing toward Virgil.
Virgil tensed, pushing his panic away. He drew his sword, sneering. “Ha! I’ve been weakened, and you’ve been strengthened, all at the hands of your friend here. Even if you strike down, is it you who did it, or him?”
“It’s Bast, obviously,” Rhys said, before Bast could reply. “Stop spouting bullshit, asshole. I didn’t do shit. That potential was his to begin with, and corrupting your mark technique doesn’t stop you from swinging a sword. This battle is all Bast’s.”
Bast snorted. “I knew that without you saying it.”
“Yeah, but man. Fuck this guy. He can only get his kicks when he’s in soone else’s head, huh? Talk about a different kind of skull-fucking.”
“Couldn’t agree more.” Bast closed in. Virgil yelped and raised his blade. Their swords clashed, and Bast imdiately began forcing Virgil back.
Rhys watched from the sidelines, eyes narrowed. This was Bast’s fight. He’d only interfere if Virgil used so nasty trick that Bast couldn’t handle. He was playing referee; he wanted to see a good, fair fight. However, it was true that there was no such thing as a good, fair fight in the real world, and Rhys more than anyone knew how true that was. By demanding a good, fair fight with his overwhelming presence and punishing Virgil if he crossed the line, he was fundantally throwing the fight in Bast’s favor.
Not that he was afraid of that. Not in the least. If anything, it made him pleased that he had that effect on Virgil. Fuck that guy. He deserved to lose.
Let’s go, Bast. Crossing his arms, he settled in to watch the fight.
Reviews
All reviews (0)