NOVEL NEXT Chapter 96: Ice Knife
Jay ducked back behind the tree, reining in his rapidly accelerating breathing.
The fuck do I do now?
They hadn't spotted him yet, which was something. But what if he slipped up? What if another team followed his path, and Jay ended up sandwiched between them?
Too risky.
Jay grabbed onto Ping and silently willed the shield to lift him up to the canopy. She could barely support his weight. Each inch upwards would be a slow, grinding battle. But still they ascended.
Jay could've climbed faster on his own, but that meant giving away his position.
Too dangerous.
Ping's metal rim dug into Jay's fingertips as she floated upwards. Jay gripped tighter. He clenched his jaw shut, forcing a silent exhalation through his nose.
They neared the canopy. Ping couldn't rise any higher without knocking into the branches above. Pain faded from Jay's fingers, overthrown by a growing numbness.
He couldn't float here forever.
The first whispers of cramp seeped into Jay's forearms. He had to enter the canopy's fold at some point.
But that meant making noise.
Jay hung in the air, slowly losing his grip as he deliberated on what to do. He couldn't ju-
THATHUNK!
Footsteps…
In front of me, beyond the clearing.
Someone's coming.
Jay waited.
Ezekiel's pacing footsteps stopped.
Jay still waited.
CLA-
Jay leapt into the treetop, disguising his entry beneath the scraping, metallic clatter of Amaya's arcane knight awakening.
Behind him, obscured from the clearing by the giant tree trunk, Ping spun in the air and dropped two metres. Almost like she was jumping for joy. Or… the sentient flying shield equivalent to jumping for joy.
Jay smiled, but urgency cut his silent amusement short. He crouched in the branches and surveyed the clearing below.
The leafy tangle clouded part of his vision, but Jay had a good enough view of the exit hub.
"What're you doing here?" said a hoarse voice from across the clearing.
Three newcomers left the thicket, entering the grassy clearing. Two wore identical, black martial artist's robes that covered wide-framed bodies but left their bald heads exposed. From a distance, they both looked male, although neither of them reached five feet tall.
The third member ducked behind one of the martial artists, Jay couldn't make out much of their appearance past a set of billowing ice-blue robes.
"I said, what're you doing here?" said the martial artist standing in the middle. The same voice that spoke earlier.
"What the fuck does it look like we're fucking doing?" spat back Ezekiel. He drew the giant curved sword from his back, drawing flinches from the three incoming gladiators. Instead of holding it in front of him, he stuck it into the soil.
"We're just waiting for a kind group of gladiators to hand over their relics to us." said Amaya, her gentle voice laced with mockery. "Care to volunteer?"
A raucous howl escaped the man who spoke earlier. His teammates remained silent.
"Well, looks like we've found some like-minded folk, lads." he said. He knocked his teammates chest, before snorting. "We're after the same. But it looks like you're a man down. Now that's a damn shame. Not so nice on the losing side of the numbers game, ain't it? You barely won last time either."
The man stepped forward and mimed an explosion with his hands.
"Now, hand over all your relics and we'll let you scurry away. Maybe you can find your third while you're at it. Unless you've offed him already."
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
"How magnanimous." said Amaya.
Ezekiel pulled his sword from the ground. Amaya retreated two paces as her Arcane Knight raised its sword and stepped in front of her.
"But I'm afraid we'll have to pass."
Ezekiel ran forward.
The trio fanned apart.
The blue-robed man retreated into the forest. The group leader matched Ezekiel's charge, while the third member rushed towards Amaya. He pulled a kunai from his waist as he neared the Arcane Knight.
Ezekiel ignored the gladiator running past him. He swung his sword to the side, skimming it above the hardy grass before swiping at his opponent's face.
His opponent raised his fists to his temples. A shimmering forcefield flickered, encasing the surface of his forearms. He deflected Ezekiel's opening strike with ease.
A boxer… or at least a guy who punches.
Jay channelled Eye of the storm through his eyes. They clung to Ezekiel's every step.
Jay had a front row seat to Ezekiel's fight—even better, his fight against a boxer. Jay analysed every move, building a model in his head of how Ezekiel fought with his new sword.
The curved sword straightened and stiffened as Ezekiel thrust it forward, adapting to its wielder's strike. His opponent dodged this time, stepping backwards while holding up one of his shielded arms for safety.
Ezekiel flicked the quicksilver sword to his side, shaking off the severed blades of grass that still clung to it. The blade returned to its original, curved shape. He attacked again, this time swinging his sword almost like a whip. With time slowed down to his eyes, Jay watched the weapon bend to Ezekiel's will. It twisted with every swing, often snaking through the grass with a mind of its own until Ezekiel commanded it back to action.
But the Soulsnatcher wasn't simply whipping at a training dummy. The gladiator opposite him parried the lashing strikes with his bare hands. Or rather, the barriers hovering less than a centimetre away from his bare hands.
He swept a heavy strike aside with both arms before lunging towards Ezekiel's chest.
Ezekiel didn't look surprised, or upset, when the boxer brushed away his weapon.
He smiled.
Because the Soulsnatcher's new sword didn't just bend as he willed it. It could shrink too.
Instead of yanking Ezekiel's sword arm aside, the mercurial blade shrunk to the size of a dagger. He jabbed it towards his onrushing opponent.
The boxer lurched sideways, diving into the ground.
Ezekiel advanced, but not at the man rolling in the dirt. He rushed towards the blue robed gladiator standing by the treeline, his sword returning to its original length.
But the group's third member hadn't just been idly waiting.
A crown of ice floated above his head. Twelve more icicle blades arced around the man, flying in circles around his torso. One icicle shot at Ezekiel. He batted it aside with his sword, barely breaking his stride.
He parried or dodged every sliver of ice that shot his way. The flexible blade contorted itself to block attacks from every angle. At full length and whipping around at pace, it looked like a steel dome guarding Ezekiel's every flank.
The Soulsnatcher drew closer, and his opponent looked terrified.
Ezekiel swung his sword at the ice mage's neck.
It's short.
He's gonna miss.
The mage agreed with Jay.
He didn't even take a step back.
Ezekiel proved them both wrong.
Without Eye of the storm, Jay would've never seen how.
The moment it passed the mage's cheek, Ezekiel's sword extended another inch.
It sliced into the man's nose, drawing a nick of blood.
The mage in blue recoiled. He flung his hands to his face, remembering Ezekiel's past fights.
He waited for several seconds, before releasing his breath and looking back at Ezekiel.
"Not so tough without that sword, are ya?" said Ezekiel's other opponent. The boxer had risen to his feet again. The forcefield that had previously surrounded his forearms now extended to cover up to his shoulders.
Ezekiel scoffed, lips twisting into an ugly sneer.
His sword trembled. Its silver sheen radiated a frigid, ghostly blue and crystalline frost crawled along its edge.
The ice expanded. Eventually, it coated the entire blade.
It didn't stop there.
Gravity pulled the ice downwards, melding it into several spikes running along the blade. The icicles grew longer, before ultimately breaking off, floating in the air, and forming a crown round Ezekiel's forehead.
Ezekiel turned back to the boxer.
"Are you sure about that?"
Although Jay kept half an eye on the other side of the battle, he'd seen enough of Amaya's fights to understand the Arcane Knight technique.
Ezekiel, on the other hand…
Did he just steal that guy's Harmony?
Is that his new sword's ability?
The boxer charged, raising his shielded arms in the air. Ezekiel peppered him with lashing strikes.
The forcefields held strong.
Ezekiel shortened his icy sword into a smaller whip that split into three points near the tip.
Blades of ice rained down on Ezekiel from the treeline. The Soulsnatcher countered with icicles of his own. Each time a shard shot towards him, a spike would detach from his own crown and intercept it.
Whenever one detached, another grew back instantly.
But Jay spotted another layer to Ezekiel's strategy. With his sword now shortened, he never used two hands to wield it. The whip-like sword rightfully drew most of Jay's attention, but he kept a sliver of focus on Ezekiel's offhand too.
On the shard of ice crystallizing inside its grasp.
Ezekiel slashed at his opponent's neck, a sloppy strike that got pushed aside easily. The boxer lurched forwards, entering his range.
But a knife of pure ice was there waiting for him.
Ezekiel sank his new weapon through his opponent's guts before thrusting upwards, tearing a gash from his navel to his chest.
The man's blood curdling scream cried out to the jungle until an icicle to the throat cut its vibrations short. Ezekiel jerked it further upwards, hacking through the man's jaw before yanking the ice knife out.
A spurt of blood jetted into the air, painting Ezekiel red before dripping onto the almost bisected corpse.
"Therrin! Run!"
Jay's eyes shot towards the other black robed gladiator as he called out to his teammate. He leapt away from the Arcane Knight, fumbling around his waist before tossing a beige sphere at the armoured puppet.
The projectile exploded into a smoke cloud, surrounding both fighters. The ice mage retreated into the jungle. Ezekiel didn't follow. When the dust cloud dissipated, the one who threw the dust bomb was nowhere to be seen.
"My, my." said Amaya. "These smoke bombs seem to be getting the better of us today."
Amaya called her puppet closer, before sitting back on the grass, closing her eyes, and leaning against it.
"Would you please check his body, Zeke? Hopefully he has a relic for us."