“Fugitive, I’d like to call a ceasefire! You don’t move from that spot, and I won’t make chase. We will resu this later, once I’m done speaking with Ripley,” Jon called to and Erani. He turned over to where Sylvie and Ainash had been fighting the soldiers. “n, put down your weapons. We will…oh.”
I looked where he was staring, only to see Ainash standing in the middle of four bisected corpses, all cut cleanly in half by her whip. Blood covered her body and the yellowish grass that surrounded her. An obviously horrified Sylvie stared at her, and Ainash herself was enthusiastically waving hello to us with a big, open-mouth smile on her face.
Jon pursed his lips, sighed, then turned back to Ripley. “Well, that’s dealt with then, I suppose. Anyway, I’d like to negotiate with you regarding a peaceful return to the Koinkar Kingdom.”
“I’m not going with you,” Ripley growled, weapon still drawn.
Part of just wanted to sprint off with Erani. Jon was distracted, speaking with Ripley, and maybe we’d get a good bit of distance between us before he realized. But the other part of knew he probably would notice instantly, and we’d resu our chase as we had before in just as bad a situation as we’d been in.
Fact of the matter was, we got a lot more out of this break ti than he did. His buffs would wear off, so he’d have to reapply them once we got back to fighting, aning he’d waste all of that Mana. And on my end, I’d get much, much more Mana back from natural regeneration in the ti that passed than he would.
He had probably understood that he’d co off a little behind as ti passed because of the buffs, but he had no way of knowing about my insane Mana/Minute, aning he was completely unaware of the fact that every second that passed directly translated to almost 2 full points of Mana being deposited right into my pool. So I was more than happy to let him argue for a mont with Ripley, especially considering I knew what the outco to this conversation would be, anyway; he’d already had it in the previous tiline, and Ripley had refused to go with him, choosing to fight instead.
Jon continued speaking with Ripley. “Asmo wants you back in the kingdom. She said that you were, ahem, ‘an invaluable strategic and emotional asset.’ So, my orders are to bring you back.”
“Emotional asset, huh?” Ripley laughed. “Yeah, that sounds about like what she’d say. I get what you want, Jon, but I can’t go back with you. If Asmo wants , she’s gonna have to co and get , herself. I wanna duel her, one on one, and we’ll see who breaks first. Go back ho and tell her that.”
“I can’t go back to the kingdom without you,” Jon said plainly. “So, if you won’t co voluntarily, I hope you understand that I’ll be forced to put you into a more agreeable state.”
Ripley chuckled. “Really? You’re outnumbered, what…one, two three…eight to one. Don’t care that there’s a bit of a Level gap between you and , you really wanna sit there and tell you can make up for that?”
“Have you been viewing the battle so far?” Jon asked. “How many lives do you think your so-called allies have taken?”
Her face turned to a scowl at that. “Ah. Right. Y’know, I never liked that Spell. Feels too much like cheating.”
“Don’t be a plague on the world, and it won’t affect you.”
“How much damage would it do to you, Jon?”
“I will admit that I have taken on much of a personal burden in my mission to improve the world. I have cured many sicknesses by taking them onto myself. I am a blight, just as many others have been, and it will beco a better place when I am dead. But before then, I will continue to work to help as many people as possible.”
Ripley rolled her eyes, preparing to say sothing, but before she did, another voice shouted out.
“Hey, Annor!” I glanced over to see it was Sylvie, confused at her interjection. She continued, “Ask him!”
“What?” I responded, yelling back across the battlefield.
“Ask him! The guards!”
I glanced at the guard outpost confusedly. Was sothing wrong with Bon, Jannin, and Poppins? Didn’t seem like it.
Sylvie saw my confusion, and looked at like I was crazy. “The whole flamin’ reason we’re here! Those border guards who went missing! With the bounty?”
“Oh, right,” I said. That was technically the reason we’d co out here initially, and as far as Sylvie knew, the entire reason we were here. Jon was just a suspect in the cri we were investigating, not an assassin here sent to kill us. Right. “Uh, yeah, Jon, did you, like, kill so guards on your way across the border? In an outpost like this one?”
He ignored my question, instead looking to Sylvie. “That’s what he has you believing? You’re here to collect so bounty for a missing person? Do you even know who you’re working with?”
Hm, yeah, that’d be a problem. I stepped forward, preparing to re-engage with so Spells, but Erani was a step ahead of , using one of her limited activations of Elental Embrace to shoot off a superpowered Firebolt straight at him.
Jon tried to dodge, and managed to avoid a direct hit, but even with the explosion rely coming from nearby, it was still massively powerful, forcing him off his feet and onto his back. Ripley took this mont to charge him, weapon drawn, as I enabled everything I could on him. Crippling Chill had been active the whole ti, aning Cumulative Catastrophe not only carried over, but got more powerful over our brief chat, now past a 50% bonus on all Spell effects.
With Ripley swinging her axe down on the still-recovering Jon, he had little ti to roll out of the way, quickly going through his buff Spells to power himself back up. Another swing by Ripley, another strike dodged, and I realized that we finally had so frontline power to back us up and keep us from being forced on the run this whole ti. My job was now to keep Jon in as bad a state as I could, and hope Ripley would do the rest.
In the previous tiline, Jon had beaten Ripley pretty badly. But in that tiline, he hadn’t been sapped of his resources before the fight began, nor had he been afflicted with several powerful curses during the fight proper. With those circumstances, he was put at a significant disadvantage.
Ripley swung her axe at his head, but he ducked down, catching a kick she aid at him at the sa ti and only sliding back a bit. I saw his hands dig into her armor, and the tal began to lt, his acidic touch digging for her skin as she drew her foot back, using the montum to fuel a full-power swing at his midsection which forced him to backpedal again, giving her more ground.
Jon’s movents were growing labored. He wasn’t defenseless, but given enough ti, Gravity Well would be strengthened enough by Cumulative Catastrophe to make him effectively immobile.
He raised a hand in the sky, and it glowed a blinding white—-I imdiately recognized it as his Day of Judgnt Spell, the one which killed in a single hit in the previous tiline.
Index, he isn’t aiming at , right?
“No, you’re still out of range.”
Okay. Keep an eye on those distances, please.
“Yeah, not exactly what I was created for, but I think I can handle tracking the distance between you two as long as I focus.”
With and Erani ineligible targets, there was only one remaining: Ripley.
She froze in place, seeing his land lifted to the sky, ready to strike down at any mont. “You wouldn’t.”
“If you prove capable of killing , I have no other choice,” he said, breathing heavily.
“Asmo wants alive. You can’t kill .”
“Then you need to ensure I have better odds with you than I do with her. Currently, I don’t. Lay down your weapon, and that will change things.”
Ripley was obviously hesitating, effectively caught in the sa position she’d been caught in when we found them in the other tiline. Dammit, we couldn’t lose our frontliner here. We were so close to killing this guy, but if we went back to him chasing us, I didn’t like our chances.
Frantically, I looked over to Sylvie, who was standing where she’d been before, hesitantly gazing upon our battle. I signaled for her to co over, engage with Jon again and keep him busy, but she didn’t budge. Did she not understand what I was asking? I could yell, but I didn’t want to get Jon to start paying attention to us again. Or maybe Sylvie just didn’t want to fight, whether because she was afraid of Jon, or hesitant to fight on our side after he implied that we had secrets we were hiding from her. Maybe I could—
“Oh, Arlan, behind!” Index shouted suddenly.
I whipped around, but before I could even get an idea of what I was looking at, I was suddenly hit with a wave of force and blasted away from whatever was behind .
Only a tiny bit of damage, but I was sohow thrown that far? I blinked groggily, opening my eyes to see what’d happened. Three more soldiers had snuck up behind us, and it seed like so of them were Magic-Types, using so fucking force Spell on us. Sothing like it, at least. But they still didn’t deal much damage, so…
“Range!” Index voice shouted again. “You’ve been knocked into—”
A bright light filled the air above , and I had just enough ti to think “fuck” before—
You have been smitten. 1075 damage.
Dark Plate has triggered. Damage has been reduced to 340.
Your Health is 332.
The weight of heaven itself felt to have co down to crush , Dark Plate the only thing leaving stubbornly alive. I felt my body steaming, burnt and broken, and I was lying flat on my back, though I had no idea how I’d gotten into that position.
Barely opening my eyes, I saw Erani holding out her hand and throwing off a Firebolt before the sa blinding white light filled the sky above her, and then ca crashing down on her body, as well. She was crushed, though not technically dead, with her own Angelic Shield coming in to save her from being killed—though it also left her with no Mana.
“So, that’s dealt with, then.” Jon’s muffled voice ca through my ringing ears. “Anyway, Ripley, I’d rather not waste ti fighting you and making this take longer than it has to. You co with , and we both end up alive. If I’m forced to kill you, I’m sure neither of us would enjoy what would co of that.”
Sothing prodded my arm, and I opened my eyes again to see one of the soldiers poking with his foot.
“S-sir!” he said. “This one’s still alive!”
“They both are!” said another, coming from Erani’s location.
“Oh, that’s curious,” Jon said. “I was sure they’d have died in a single hit, especially considering they’re Magic-Types. I suppose I should pay more attention to my notifications, shouldn’t I? Well, no matter.”
I sat up, trying to get to my feet and hopefully scramble out of his range, but before I could even plant a foot on the ground, I was slamd back into the dirt by one of the soldiers using that damn force Spell again.
And then the bright light filled the sky, ca crashing down on for another ti, and I was reminded once again of the sins Jon convicted of.
You have been smitten. 1075 damage.
Your Health is 0.
You have died.
**********
In the in-between place, I plopped down on the ground. Not that there was a ground, or that I even had a body to plop onto that non-existent ground, but I put enough force of will into the idea of collapsing into the floor in an expression of defeat that I got the damn ssage across.
Fucking really?! I thought. He had soldiers in reserve the entire ti? Yeah, no, that’s cool, just keep three entire Magic-Types literally hiding behind so rocks or whatever, and then don’t even fucking use them for the entire first tiline. That’s really cool, and totally fair of you to do. I an seriously, what the fuck?!
I tried to calm myself down, putting so thought into the concept of closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.
So there’s him, his four accompanying lee-Types, and then three more Magic-Types staying back as cavalry to call in if things get dire, I guess. Or, at least, one of them was a Magic-Type, with so Spell that can throw us around like ragdolls. What a jackass.
Yeah, I still wasn’t calm. I could feel my mind fading by now, though, so I hurried to pick a ti—the furthest back, as usual.
**********
And then I was back, walking down the road yet again. I was actually back before I’d co to this point when looping the first ti, aning nobody knew anything, still.
I instantly turned around and began walking the opposite direction.
“Uh, Annor, what’re you doing?” Sylvie asked.
“Is there trouble?” Ainash asked as well, though I wasn’t sure if it was actually her, or if she was just relaying a ssage from Erani.
“C’mon, we’re going back to town,” I called back to them.
“What? Why?”
“We’re getting more people.”
If Jon can bring in reinforcents, so can I.
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