“Your only hope?” I asked slowly. “I doubt that. You are quite capable yourself,” I told the fake Clarissa. If I went along too easily then this would make the person doing this suspicious. I needed to push back a bit. The silence stretched out and the fake Clarissa didn’t respond. “What is it?” I asked her.
“You realized instantly? Didn’t you?” The tone was much colder. I guess I wasn’t that good at lying. Interpersonal communications were not my strong suit. Well now I would get a chance to speak directly to my newest enemy.
“Can I have a na?” I asked. Fake Clarissa’s head tilted at and looked at intently. I noted a slight golden glow behind the eyes.
“Nas have power, Michael Decker, quite a bit of power.” I felt a growing sense of danger and looked around. “Nice touch having no one use their last nas, but your mother, well that was a font of useful information.”
“How horribly did you kill her?” I asked as I forced down my anger.
“Oh, she isn’t dead or being tortured. She is my guest. Which I know will frustrate you far more,” fake Clarissa replied. The sense of danger was lingering around .
“So, what do you want? Chaos? Destruction? My life?” I asked. Any insight I could get, I would take.
“Your life. Once you are dead, then there will be no one to oppose ,” they replied. It was annoying that I didn’t have a na or a title for them. At least the goal they ntioned was one I had already envisioned.
“Well it won’t be easy. Going to try and curse ?” I asked.
“You are surprisingly resistant to resonance based attacks. Your stats are indeed impressive. I had underestimated how much your ta-point would do for you.” I took a deep breath before responding.
“Since we can speak reasonably and you don’t appear to be insane, isn’t there a chance of cooperation?” I asked. I knew that question could be viewed as a sign of weakness, but I wanted to at least try. I had regrets about past foes and if I could turn one to an ally that would be a huge boon.
There was a stretch of silence as fake Clarissa just stood there looking at . After a minute I finally got a response. I still couldn’t tell how it was being done. The energy manipulation skills of my opponent were top notch.
“Even after everything I have done? Even if I kill your mother?” I considered those questions.
“You said you haven’t killed or tortured her, and an Empire can be rebuilt. But there are greater threats out there. The sphere is the most obvious one, but I am sure there are others. I don’t know what I have done to you, but I know you have at least one ta-point and are competent with your skills,” I replied.
“One? I have more than one Michael Decker.” I felt another wave of danger wash over . It was greater than before. I frowned at this. If fake Clarissa tried to say my full na one more ti, I would lt her.
“Two?” I asked in surprise. That would be much more concerning.
“Three actually.” My heart skipped a beat at that. It could be a lie, but I doubted that conclusion. It was clear that my opponent was flexing on . “I can’t take all the credit, except for one.” My mind raced at that statent. Were they like the sword? Sucking up ta-points of other people?
“That is quite impressive. But the fact you aren’t willing to face directly shows that you picked more esoteric things. I don’t suppose you asked what the purpose of this place is?”
“Suffering. That is the nature of this Systemic Land as you call it. Suffering eternal. And there can be no peace. I only wished to speak with you to try and remotely curse you and to get your asure,” fake Clarissa said.
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“Now I am really curious what I did to you in the past? Why are you trying to hide your identity so much? I know you aren’t on the Crystal Vortex, so why would a title matter?” I asked in curiosity.
“One can never be too careful. Also, it amuses to you flail about helplessly as your doom closes in on you.” I considered that statent and shook my head. Perhaps it would have annoyed in the past, but I was expecting this. My opponent was acting like I would. Not giving anything of worth up in our conversation.
“That is true, one can never be too careful. Since I didn’t fall for this low-level ploy, how do you expect to target ?” I asked out of curiosity. By just having this conversation showed that their number of available moves against had drastically decreased. If they could attack , they would have attacked already.
“I am content to wait as well. Let the world burn. If you return, I will make a move. And I am confident in my ability to grind away and catch up with you even with your ta-point.” I let out a scoff at that. While I doubted many things, that was clearly an outright lie.
“We both know that is nonsense. Like you could catch up any ti soon. It would take years,” I countered their statent easily.
“Possibly decades, but that is fine by . A ga of cat and mouse,” my opponent teased . “You are not an easy target, but that will make my revenge all the sweeter when I finally claim it.”
“Just as you grind away, I will be as well. I also doubt you are going to play the long ga of trying to get more stats. No matter how many ta-points you have, I doubt you have one to increase stats.” I countered their nonsense quite easily. “So an endless proxy battle? I like grinding, but I doubt you have the patience to do so. If you did, you would have waited to catch by surprise. Instead of trying stuff like this.” I waved a hand at fake Clarissa.
They went silent and I knew I had scored a major point there. While it was easy to say you were willing to grind for years, it was another matter entirely to actually grind constantly, day after day. It would be all too easy to get tired and bored.
While my opponent might think they could compete against long term, I knew I had the advantage there. I had placed them in check with my decision to run away and grind out crystals.
“A good point, but I haven’t really started targeting you constantly. You think you can just hide out forever?” they asked. I grinned at that question.
“Yes. Even though it will be annoying and painful. I will triumph eventually. But there is another option.” Fake Clarissa went quiet after that and gave harsh look. “I will threaten your mother.” I was wondering when the knives would be pulled out and that particular threat would be made.
“That is honestly disappointing to resort to useless threats. She is already dead. The mont you kidnapped her, I had written her off in my mind. It was obvious this threat was coming,” I replied calmly with as much disinterest in my voice as possible even though I was really interested.
“You would abandon your own mother?” I nodded at that question .
“Indeed. She would want to live. She is like that. Anything else before I lt your puppet?” I asked.
“Just that you should be more careful-“
Acid Shot. Void Shot. Fake Clarissa took a major dent in their chest, her fake clothes smoldering away. I upped the energy put into the attack and imdiately followed up. This ti the torso was shredded. There was a large gaping hole as blood and guts poured out.
It quickly turned to dust and left behind a crystal. Apparently, it was a monster that had been controlled. That brought back mories of my pet rock. That thing had been both hilarious and obviously fake. I felt a massive spike of danger. I kicked off the deck of the airboat to get distance.
Air Burst. I used the skill several tis in a row as the entire airboat exploded. Not going to let have a free airboat? What a waste. But that was their choice to take out. Even though I had acted imdiately, the explosion was large enough to singe my clothes and hair.
A sha we couldn’t have worked out sothing more. As I flew back to the Crystal Vortex I let out a long sigh. I had been hoping there would be a chance to make peace. But that was clearly impossible with their attitude. While the threats were annoying they weren’t surprising and I gained a lot of valuable information.
My opponent was easily frustrated. The longer I stayed away from anywhere they could attack, the more unhinged their ntal state was likely to beco. Everything reeked of desperation and poor planning. While they had skills and tactical planning in spades, they lacked patience of a long term mindset.
I was concerned about the claim of three ta-points. That didn’t feel like a lie and was the foundation of their power. If it really was true, then I was being scamd by the Almighty System, like that wasn’t already known and incredibly annoying.
Despite everything that had been said, there was no reason for to change my plans or move away from this location. There weren’t any good ways to assault . They should have tried to take down the Crystal Vortex while I was off grinding and looked for an opening to strike.
As long as I had my airship, I wasn’t concerned about surviving long term and keeping up my grinding speed. If I lost the Crystal Vortex then things would beco far more difficult and headache inducing.
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