Chapter 173: War
The two sides weren’t going to give up until the other was re dust on the floor. That was the truth of the situation, and was all here for it. I was a cog in that machine that wanted nothing more than the destruction of my opposition.
On the positive side, I had successfully managed to infuriate the Dominous dingus that tried to evolve himself.
On the negative, a few people had gotten too close, not listening to my warnings.
“Don’t touch the tal from his throne!”
Maybe in an effort to test if his power was really working. The mont a few people got close, the Dominous Hood leader completely ignored my assault by sending a massive shockwave in my direction to occupy for a mont. I needed to block force to protect the people behind . Then he, well… lted those people into nothing as they ca into contact with spikes that penetrated from his throne.
If I had to judge the situation, well, things were going worse rather than better.
Can’t so idiots listen to life-saving fucking instructions?
To be fair to the nice people who did, there had been people who, upon my warning, jumped back to a more reasonable distance and chose to participate in ranged combat. Most people were mages anyway and used guns instead staying close.
The Top Dom devoured the essence of the people that had gotten too close, not even leaving a scrap of their armour behind. A nice, scary sight to teach so people to be damn careful.
I said to the people behind, “If you don’t believe you can deal with that, then back off and provide support or deal with the other enemy forces.”
So people took up on my suggestion and fucking booked it, but there were people confident about the situation and chose to stay.
Please don’t make it your funeral.
I jumped forward, throwing myself back into the jaws of combat. My body, the firework whose reflection could be seen across his shiny tal arse. Wielding enormous, sharp constructs that floated around or were attached, I leapt to shred every single construct of his that he built and then burn them all to the ground. Resorbing the energy he released wouldn’t be easy; even I had a hard ti with it, and it would be way worse for him, so destroying his creation was having an impact on his abilities, even if he didn’t know that. With all the energy he was getting, it was all too easy for his mind to be lost in that power.
Nurous projections of weapons fell down on his body, impaling his hollow throne.
“Damn spark!” The leader complained as my body of light burned through everything in my path as I hunted him down. A number of his allies tried to jump , empowered by his mana, but that couldn’t protect them as my claws lted through their bodies as I tossed their corpses around like trash.
“Spark? You know what, not the worst nickna!” I said back, continually trying to taunt him. His mind clearly wasn’t stable. The partial evolution and the influx of power were great for the mind. There was a reason my evolution involved being knocked out for a while.
Absorbing people also would co with its own problems. The lingering thoughts that lay with the mana, yikes, would not be good if he had no protection for that.
My assumption was that there had to be sothing. No chance he didn’t have one artefact that was tied to his mind for ntal protection. I could feel the different pulses of thousands of artefacts within his body, though many of them were extinguishing. Their abilities were not deactivated but were absorbed into the man’s own abilities; their powers were not fully manifested yet.
The artefacts he started with weren’t the only ones giving him abilities; allies that had fallen on either side, the mont he grabbed their corpses, and any magical armant were taken to power him further.
I sparked with light and lted a wave of tal that ca crashing towards . Swinging a large battle axe, chopping another creature that was ford behind the wave, I then tossed the weapon at the throne.
Bang!
The large axe left a large indent in the tal throne. It wasn’t the only weapon that adorned the ugly structure. With a little more energy, each of my constructs was permanent as long as I was nearby–so they didn’t leave this arena of ours–and I kept throwing them at this body.
Basically, he was becoming my dartboard.
The leader couldn’t even absorb them, as they weren’t made with Existence’s energy but mine, a Spiritual Being.
Countering a rush from the allied forces, his attention was drawn back to due to his frustration at being unable to disarm my weapons.
“Whatever is giving you that power! It won’t save you in the end!” He roared back, his human-looking face almost monstrous as his skin stretched with his yell.
Wow, creepy. I’m happy I didn’t turn out like that.
My own body looked to be a humanoid monster at this point. Human-shaped but a scorching form of energy with horns that were looking to pierce so tal. Underneath that shining exterior, I could feel my physical form cracking. My skin, breaking apart into a body of energy.
I need to control the output…
A side effect of forcing more power into my body from my domain and using it at high capacity. It wouldn’t kill , but I felt a tingle of Existence, as if it was looking to further judge .
Espr was still not around to quell any concerns, so I had to make do with worrying assumptions.
One of my floated shields cracked and shattered as a horrific lance rocket launched through, disrupting the backline.
I hoped the additional people would be a boon rather than a curse, but my luck was not favourable today. There were a few people who fought in close proximity who were powerful enough to resist the negative effects. People who were on the higher end of the level spectrum, but there were still a number of people I wished had retreated faster or just started retreating at all!
From a distance, massive magic spells and cannon fire ca pelting down on the target. Being a large presence sure helped with the aiming. Fire, ice, lightning, pure energy, missiles, etc. Everything that could be was used as a weapon against the one slowly morphing man.
At least it is effective.
Despite his gravitas and shields, he wasn’t immune to the might of man. Attack after attack wilted down his body as the shine of his black mana wavered.
Perhaps he could’ve done a better job with ti to prepare and exist in this form, but no, he gave us the best chance to defeat him with his eagerness to show off his beyond-human power.
Damn, he really has absorbed a lot.
The fight felt as if it were stalling. Despite the fact that other sides have backup, it didn’t feel like the Dominous Hood leader was taking much damage. Now, feel wasn’t exactly a good asurent, but I could tell from the emotion of my allies that was leaking off that people were beginning to worry. The man was healing wounds, and the curses and debuffs were completely ineffective. Worst of all, no matter how many high-powered spells, mine or my allies, he appeared not to be taking damage.
“He is weakening! Don’t give up; his regeneration is lowering, and his storage is being drained as more of his constructs are destroyed. Just don’t be an idiot and dye his lap, you will just make the job harder for your still living allies.”
As said, feel was a bad indicator.
“So, how is the fight going?” I yelled and threw one of these chs at his face. He didn’t even bother dodging as the scrap rged into his throne. There were fewer of my weapons on my dartboard; he managed to remove them by pulling them out and throwing them to the side.
“Oh, you think you are managing to make a dent in all this?!” He laughed, scoffed, and looked down upon everyone.
“I an, yeah? I think I got a better idea of your energy supply than you do, idiot. All that bravado, but your ability to count seems to have deteriorated. Isn’t the classic situation for the stories? Big muscles, low brain? Or did you even have a brain in the first place? You could have managed with a charisma build after all.”
I kept an eye on the fights elsewhere, in case anything could be used to my advantage, but the war was ssy. I watched as the sides continued in the bloody conflict. The rate at which corpses piled up has multiplied since the ergence of Dominous Hood's leader. The power he provided to his allies brought along a confidence that caused deaths to increase on both sides of the conflict. More seed to fall on our side, but we still had the numbers, but who knows how long that would last. The rescue operations appeared to be mostly complete, and the resources in charge of that looked to be redirected towards the major conflict now.
The mana is fluctuating…
While fighting, I felt the flow of the mana within the black tal begin to wildly pulse. This started small, then increased in intensity.
The end result of this was that the Dominous Hood leader froze for a mont. His mind almost appeared trapped in his own body, and his facial expression shifted in pain, and in his pain, I took the opportunity to dash through the sludge to go for the kill.
Large arms broke through the sea of tal to grab .
“Bloody stars!” Each hand tried to pull down, and each felt so disgusting.
I smashed apart the ever-increasing number of arms that were keeping down and created another Starlight weapon in my hand, which ignited in a flaming glory.
I flung a burning spear of Starlight towards him. The weapon burned through shields that automatically ca up to defend and impaled the man on the throne.
Dammit, he still isn’t dead.
I wasn’t sure if my attack even made him feel any additional pain, as he still seed in shock from whatever caused his body to freeze.
An additional tal arm grew from his throne and clutched his chest as his body arched forward.
“Arghhh!” The leader scread, and his mass ballooned in all directions. Black mana flowed in all directions, suffocating the noise of life everywhere it went.
Oh shit!
I imdiately created shields around the people I could and moved back to protect them.
The black liquid tal spread out in all directions across the ground as far as the eye could see, and from my abilities, I could see it slowly stretch further beyond that. Everything it touched was integrated into him, the chs and bots, the corpses of the fallen, and people who didn’t get out of the way or protect themselves.
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