George Knows Best [Mud Wizard LitRPG]

"Moh! moh! Wuh nuh moh!"

Things were going badly for the mud magician. His attacks didn't even faze the bandit king. Bob couldn't mana express. And no matter what the story-books say, you don't learn complicated, practice-based new abilities in the middle of combat. He was faster, just, and his counter-style played well against the man's mad offense. But there was only one way this fight could end. You only win when the other guy falls over.

Bob had one chance.

The bandit king roared, mashing his axe forward, in brutal, unrelenting cross swipes, as Bob fell back, struggling to stay ahead of the axehead. Bob was being pushed back. And the bandit king advanced mercilessly, reveling, trembling with pleasure, eyes red with bloodlust. And then, suddenly, Bob slipped. His back heel sliding away and crashing him down into a kneeling position. Betrayed by the mud. The bandit king howled and hammered the axe down.

Now!

Bob twisted out of the way, even as a patch of hardened mud bulleted towards the bandit king's back. Sophie's poisoned dagger. One scratch would be the end of him. The bandit king rebalanced, widening his stance and cracked his axe around. A ringing, metallic clang and then explosion as the dagger disintegrated before the bandit king's weapon, shattered into shards of metal. Thud!

The bandit king looked down. Bob looked up. There in the king's left arm a sliver of metal. He had done it. He had worked. The bandit king turned to Bob and smiled savagely. He stretched out his arm. Swoosh! The axe head shivered through the air, and then a wet sound, and then an unpleasant crack, and then a thud.

Yes that's exactly the sound you imagine it to be. The sound of the bandit king's detached arm thudding against the ground. Bob stared at the severed limb. Then at the bandit king who was still smiling... Was he... Was he whistling to himself? Even as he pulled off his tie and started using it to tourniquet the stump.

"You, you... I think you dropped something, mate."

The bandit king actually laughed (see, Bob was funny).

And that was when Bob came back to himself. This was a fight to the death. And he'd never have a better chance. Now or never. Quickly. He conjured up the spell form and:

"Mud—"

Bob spasmed over. His ears ringing. The bandit king had blazed across the distance and head butted him to the ground. If Harry hadn't shoved Bob to the side, the next head-splitter blow would have head split him.

"What the..."

Bob sputtered, as he backed away at pace, the bandit king stalking after, blow after blow after blow. Bob couldn't keep up. The man was transformed lightning. The great wolf that devours the moon. The attacks were faster and sharper. There was a new weight to them. Bob was getting pushed back. He was too slow, too weak. Each strike was a flash of death. A vision of the afterlife. Death was knocking at the gates. The storm that swallows the sky.

Talk about a second ability. It really put his own second-tier "mediation" into perspective. This fucker started with invincibility and followed it up with a stat boost that scaled to damage taken. Nobody plays fair anymore.

Bob was taking hits. He prioritized avoiding axe strikes, but that left him open to the knees, punches, elbows and fingers the bandit king mixed in. Everything hurt. He half-limped. He was spitting out blood. He had a black eye and a crushed finger. He'd been driven clean out of the camp clearing and into the night.

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Where was Bob's blade when he needed it? Where was Exacliborn? Weapon of the emerald city. Of King Arthur and his beetle knights. Where was hope? Because Bob was weaponless. And the monster in front of him could not be stopped. Heavens give me a sword!

The axe haft wheeled across and Bob couldn't get out of the way. He took the impact full on in the chest. He was smashed down and skipped across the ground; the wind crushed out of him. He didn't get up. He gasped and spat and coughed. But he didn't get up. The rain fell down on his face. Cold and cool.

"Noh, noh, naht yeh, moh, moh. Geh uh!"

The empty mind, Bob. Breathe, exhale, breathe, exhale. There is nothing in the world. Everything is an illusion. You are an illusion. Breathe, exhale, breathe, exhale. The bandit king was walking towards him, confident, swaggering, the king of world. Breathe, exhale, breathe, exhale. You are everything and you are nothing. They were back where they started. The bandit king standing over Bob with his axe raised.

Bob is not Bob. Harry is not Harry. The mud is not the mud. They are all one. One breath. One exhale. Bob's mana flowed among them and between them. You are the illusion. The illusion is you.

"Wait!"

The bandit king smiled. He was invincible after all, what did he have to fear?

"Geh uh!"

Bob put one hand down, then another, then pushed himself to his feet.

"Guh! Guh! I nu yuh hah ih ih yuh."

The bandit king slapped Bob on the shoulder, almost undoing all Bob's good work. But Bob ground out a passable grin and thanked his host.

"Cheers."

"Reh-ee?"

"Ready."

Bob was not Bob. Bob was Harry. And Harry was Bob. And the mud was Bob. The empty mind is a state of being. A breakdown of self. An all-encompassing awareness.

The axe lightning out—and... Harry was ahead of it, smoothly pushing it to the side. The bandit king stepped into his attack, readying a side kick, but he stumbled as his foot was frozen in place, the mud there hardening around him. Thud! Bob's mud spiked fist pounded into the bandit king's chest.

The bandit king howled. He slapped his leg and hooted. Glory and hallelujah! The fight was still on. He snarled and tipped his head in acknowledgement. The two of them could go deeper, further, break new ground, find new worlds.

Bob's body was not his body. His consciousness was pushed out beyond its limits. He was in Harry and he was in the mud. He was Harry and he was the mud. He borrowed Harry's instinctive mud bending ability and leaned into the silent vastness of the sleeping darkness.

Harry caught the axe shaft, slowing it enough for Bob to close the distance and swing for the bandit king's head. But the bandit king's stump pivoted up and blocked the attack, just as he tore himself from the mud chain and kneed forward. Bob guarded with a glove of mud spikes. But the knee shattered through and Bob wasn't there. Harry had puppeteered him to the side, following up with a gatling gun fire of mud fists that forced the bandit king back.

"Mud-armour"

Harry formed himself over Bob's body like a second living skin, the hood coming down, the googles clearing, his cloak sweeping out and around. The bandit king cut his axe upwards, but Bob defied linear movements; he had the martial experience of a sage and the mud wielding talent of a magician's mantle. Bob flowed around the attack and started battering into the bandit king.

The attacks were merciless. Bob punched and kicked, kneed and spat, headbutt and elbowed. He poured in every last ounce of his strength, every final resolution, every broken hope. And finally, exhausted, gasping for air, Bob pulled back. Surely, surely that had been enough.

The king looked wretched. Bleeding, bruised, cut up, scarred, tongue-less, armless, his toes squished, his face half-burned off, one ear hanging down, not to mention, his stump wound had opened and was gushing out blood.

But through it all, through it all, the all damn time, the bandit king hadn't stopped laughing. And now he struck back. The axe trebucheted forward. It was a siege-weapon. Harry parried and it pummeled through, unslowed, unhindered. Bob couldn't get out of the way in time. Inertia defied escape. He took it in the shoulder with an awful crunch.

Bob staggered back, dazed and overwhelmed, throwing out a hand to command the mud. The mud obeyed, sweeping up and around the bandit king, entombing him where he stood. But the bandit king just strode through, like he was walking through water.

"What are you?"

There was no winning this fight. The more Bob hurt him, the stronger he grew. Why at the moment right before death, the king would be unstoppable, unmatchable, a colossus among mortals. Bob had to end this in a single blow. In one decapitating strike.

But he had no weapon. His sword was lost to him.

"Lord Bob calls for aid."