NOVEL NEXT 304 – Tactical Supremacy Asset
The emotional rollercoaster of it all set aside, she physically struggled to keep up with her risen-from-the-dead lover’s movements. The manner in which Zelsys ripped across the battlefield, sliding and drifting, tearing chunks out of the ground with sheer force - her movement was better compared to Zero than a person. A high-velocity war machine of which she was in total control… Barely.
Ubul raised a blindingly-fast trail of thin spikes from the earth, seeking to impale, or failing that, trap Zelsys, but for all their speed, the beast-slayer just set loose a flurry of Flying Thundersaws that cut them down like chaff, swarming around Ubul and biting pieces out of his skin. She came to a halt, casually striding across the flattened-out stone walkway she had created, leaving half-molten stone in her wake, her face plastered with a visage of psychotic exhilaration. A serpent of lightning slithered down her left arm, working the bolt of her gun, releasing a cloud of crackling Fog before it whipped back, pulling a new shell from her belt and seamlessly loading it into the weapon.
Zef’s tablet buzzed again. Another message in her mind’s eye.
“Shoot me in the back. I need a bit more kinetic charge.”
Not a moment’s hesitation crossed her mind - Zefaris threw a coin, briefly waiting for it to flash as she projected a Concussion Impact seal into the air in front of , before she willed a message to go out warning Zelsys, and in the same moment, shot that coin with the intent of sending the gunshot into her back. The gambit’s purpose was also a distraction, one that worked perfectly, prying open a split-second hole in the general’s attention. By the time the bullet bounced off the coin Zel had already formed a layer of Siphoning Pulse over the middle of her back, her hair wreathed in the Fog of Graze Pulse, its impact seeming to instantly propel Zelsys forward at a velocity surpassing even what she had displayed up until now. She smashed cleaver-first into Ubul, the Butcher’s entire length wrapped in lightning, her strike whipping forward with such velocity it cracked the sound barrier. The blade flashed with such velocity as to split the general’s head down the middle, but it simply lacked the raw destructive power. It left a crater in his forehead, a crack down the middle of his stonebound skull, but he was able to grab the blade and force it away, even as the killing light which enveloped it ripped at his hands.
“Did your emperor not share with you what I told him?!” she questioned, deftly shifting her grip, pulling the trigger-lever of her weapon as a serpent of lightning whipped down the length of her arm and slithered into the gun. The Thundercannon’s
blinding flash of light and thundercrack resounded before Ubul could retort, but not before he could front kick his opponent away, freeing up his arms to serve as a defense. Even still, the shell had the wherewithal to pierce through, ripping a hole through the general’s arms and becoming lodged within his forehead. Zelsys, her chest glistening with the fading sheen of iron and entirely unharmed, handsprung back to her feet, yet again seemingly misusing whatever elemental might she had usurped to merely reload her gun without the use of her hands. The two clashed openly yet again, both throwing out their strongest techniques with seeming abandon, Ubul shattering the earth and constantly forming constructs from the earth and his own body alike, while Zelsys obliterated them just as quickly, cutting them apart with her cleaver, enveloping her boot in lightning to kick them to pieces, and striking right through Ubul’s defences through the invocation of Thunderclap Sting.To all but a number of observers easily counted on one hand, this protracted, chaotic dance was little more than just that - chaos. A display of primordial violence beyond human comprehension, a clashing of two natural forces that couldn’t be stopped once they were set in motion. Then, just as quickly as it had begun, it stopped - the two simply separated, neither displaying visible injuries or exhaustion. Zelsys continued on with her tangent as if nothing had happened, spinning the bladed tuning fork her cleaver had become all the while. It didn’t seem to have lost any structural integrity, but the blade was so badly cracked and its handle so deformed, Zefaris could swear it was about to fly apart.
“I’ll get dismembered a hundred times and take a hundred lightning strikes! For all the effort you’ve put into cheating death, I’d have thought you would at least know better than to underestimate another’s defiance of the reaper.”
“I… HAVE UNDERESTIMATED YOU, YES. I WILL NOT PRETEND OTHERWISE. IT IS A MISTAKE I WILL NOT MAKE AGAIN, FOR YOU SEE, I HAVE SCARCELY REVEALED SEVEN TENTHS OF MY TRUE STRENGTH.”
“STONE BEAST ARTS: MOUNTAIN GOD MANTLE!”
Six arms erupted from Ubul’s back, merging together with his actual arms to form limbs of monstrous size, six more yet bursting forth and merging to form a second pair, while his legs bulked up to a smaller degree, but still enough to match. His proportions should’ve by rights appeared comical, yet somehow, they weren’t. The revelation had little apparent effect upon the beast-slayer’s morale - if anything, it only excited her even more, prompting an audible chuckle from the woman.
“I’ve scarcely even tapped a third of my full capability!” she proclaimed boisterously.
“The whole of the Living Storm has entrusted me with your death, general! You, who have thrown away your humanity for duty’s sake, can never defeat me! My very existence is a direct consequence of your conquest, your feverish desire to stamp out all opposition!”
“REGARDLESS OF WHAT COMES TO PASS TODAY, KNOW THAT YOUR EMPEROR IS DOOMED. EVEN SHOULD YOU GRIND ME DOWN TO DUST AND SCATTER ME TO THE FOUR WINDS AS THE SAGE DID TO YOUR PRECIOUS WEAPON, I WILL RETURN IN ONE FORM OR ANOTHER.”
“I’VE GATHERED STRENGTH FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE EARTH, THE BEASTS OF THE LAND, THE IKESIAN PEOPLE’S VENGEFUL SPIRIT, THE HEAVENS THEMSELVES! I’VE BECOME AS ONE WITH MY BEAST SELF, AND BY MY AUTHORITY OVER MYSELF, I NOW USURP EVERY OUNCE OF STRENGTH THAT I YET POSSESS…”
