NOVEL NEXT Chapter 154. A Decisive Battle
With the deaths of more than a hundred gods, Rafe was back in pristine condition. It was as if the matter of one moment before had never happened.
But it had. And Rafe now knew he was almost immortal, but not quite. Once all the thousand or so gods supporting him died, his last chance to kill the Chosen would also die with them.
Perhaps he could still escape after that, but he may not even be able to significantly injure the Chosen.
This was not the first time Rafe had a resurrection cheat. The one thing that helped him dominate the Skyholm legacy trial for years was the fact that he could resurrect even when facing tough opponents. And with the pressure of death pressing down on him, Rafe's understanding of his own battle prowess rose.
For example on this occasion, he might be lower than the Chosen in terms of stats and veil and skill levels and tier of existence, but he had a gigantic body that if he leveraged well, could make his physical strength outrageous.
He was made of rock. He had a fighting technique where he could reinforce part of his body. Using that and improving it as he went; using his body as a weapon; using everything around him, Rafe lasted more than three seconds in the second round.
The gods said he'd be unable to last even five minutes, and Rafe was performing even worse than their estimates. He had learned something in the second exchange though.
Even aside from the high rank concepts that were levels above what Rafe could manage, the Chosen had a strong offensive spec.
At the D grade, most people begun to sense their souls, and so they would be able to control their auras and veils better. Rafe had a way to sense his soul, but obviously it couldn't compare to a D grade user's means.
Rafe's veil as a low rank F grade was negligible most of the time, so he had yet to take time to master it.
When the Chosen fought, it was like he didn't have any veil, but when he attacked Rafe, the sword things contained a terrible force of Essence. Rafe concluded it must be the manifestation of the offensive spec of a D grade, controlled and compressed to cause maximum damage. That combined with the concepts that could easily drown Rafe's body of clay meant there was nothing he could do.
Obviously one of the concepts was into water. Maybe into drowning.
In the third round, Rafe went to confirm his theory.
The Chosen got ready for another of Rafe's attempts at some profound technique, but this time Rafe only charged like a bull. The Chosen was caught off guard and he responded a heartbeat too late. He still got his hand up to block Rafe's hit.
He used only a hand, and Rafe used all his might and all his body weight to try and cut that hand off. But then the characteristic yellow glow of the veil appeared, compressed and more orderly than Rafe had ever seen. And it was focused on the arm alone.
Rafe was sent flying back and so too was the Chosen.
The Chosen reacted first and charged toward Rafe. He attacked, but Rafe managed to dance backwards. Then he danced around him for a full ten seconds this time before he was overwhelmed and killed again.
It was getting bad now. By his count, Rafe only had less than ten more chances to fight this guy. Anyway it was inevitable he would die in that third round. He needed to change his battle strategy significantly.
His previous method of breaking past the veil's defense would not work. This veil would activate as long as the Chosen needed it too. And the result of the offensive spec was even more of a problem. Rafe had no idea how to defend against it.
The good news was that once he figured out how to deal with these two things, the real battle would begin. Rafe believed that if the Chosen's advantage over him was not so overwhelmingly absolute, then he could win without a doubt. Or at least he could hold out for more than even an hour.
Rafe did notice though, that every single second the number of people being transported by bubbles to the Deufont dungeon was growing exponentially. If in the first minute they only transported one hundred people, then in the second they transported one thousand, then ten thousand in the third, then a hundred thousand. Although after that it got a little harder, but the capacity was still growing steadily every minute.
At this rate, by the time five more minutes were done, they should have transported more than ten million people. More than enough people to keep the world of Primus alive in another form, Rafe supposed.
But could Rafe allow himself to last for only five minutes? That was not something he would accept until he gave it his all.
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So he continued to think through his options. Breaking the veil of a D grade user was impossible.
And the Chosen's coordination was higher than Rafe's agility, so he could not catch him off guard. As for the offensive spec manifestation, Rafe had to make use of all his best evasive capabilities. Defending it head on was a fool's dream.
As he thought through his options, Rafe lasted a whole thirty seconds on his fourth attempt, a minute on his fifth attempt, a very drastic improvement.
'Ding': Your class Wind dancer has grown to level 17.
Your class wind dancer has grown to level 18.
Your pseudo-class skill mimic has grown to level 18.
'Ding': A Basic spell, water manipulation has been used in your vicinity. Use your mimic pseudo class skill to perform this spell, Y/N?
Cool down: twelve hours (you can only mimic one spell every twelve hours.)
It was this last notification that got Rafe out of his flow. It distracted him long enough for the Chosen to take advantage.
Rafe immediately respawned and the fight went on. This time it took almost three minutes for Rafe to die. He was very exhausted in the end, only using his Puppeteer's rubber body to resist the Chosen. It seemed the more stamina he had, the more backlash he would suffer once his reserves were exhausted.
Most of his combat skills grew during this battle. They had been growing steadily over the months he was in the pits, but now they were growing even more explosively than when he fought a calamity beast.
He still didn't use his pseudo-class skill. First off, with a level of eighteen, he could only display the power of a level nine basic spell. It was better to use it as some kind of surprising factor once he had a plan to deal with the Chosen's veil and offensive manifestation.
Well, for the offensive manifestation, just evading fiercely seemed to be enough. But what about the veil? What weaknesses could he see?
First off, the Chosen's control wasn't so good that he could readily adjust it once summoned. Still, on average all the Chosen's stats were far superior to Rafe's, especially his coordination.
But the veil he summoned was pressed close to the body. Like some kind of skill armour. It was compact and indestructible, but it was basically part of the body. There was no way to penetrate the veil.
The only thing Rafe could think of was blunt force. After all, his sword was quite ordinary, but its constitution was extraordinary. It had the most indestructible metal Rafe had ever seen.
Although the Chosen's strength stat was higher than Rafe's, Rafe could perhaps exert more strength in this fight. Because his body was big and heavy and made of clay.
Rafe died one more time. By now, he had already exceeded the five minutes allocated by the gods and he still had six extra lives. There was still no hope of killing the Chosen, but injuring him a bit was on the table.
Since the five minutes Ma'la had requested were over, Rafe didn't care about angering the Chosen anymore.
When he respawned an eighth time, the Chosen had rushed past him again and was flying closer to the island. Previously, Rafe would have tried to get ahead of him and defend, but he didn't need to do so now.
The Chosen had been taking advantage of his favourable situation to break one of the most fundamental rules of combat: do not turn your back on the enemy. Now Rafe was going to teach him a lesson.
He appeared behind the flying man and attacked with a vicious slash, putting all his body weight into it. The Chosen crushed into the water.
Rafe took the chance to get ahead of him. It wouldn't do to completely disregard his allies just because he had what he wanted all along. He now had a way to fight the Chosen.
The Chosen jumped out of the water and attacked the way he had been attacking before. Offense was indeed the best defense. Rafe almost had no chance to attack as he was busy pushing his big body to the limit with his agility focused fighting style.
But with this mad dog way of fighting, the Chosen indeed had many gaps. Rafe got his chance when the tide sucking people from Primus suddenly grew by a large margin. Suddenly, every second more than a hundred thousand people were getting sucked in.
Rafe didn't know how many people Primus had, but he estimated that in the next few minutes, the gods would be done with this little task of theirs. And the Chosen couldn't allow that.
"No!" he suddenly shouted, looking at the expanding portal.
"You shouldn't get distracted in such a war," Rafe said.
His sword hit the Chosen like a baseball bat, sending him bouncing on the ocean four times before he started sinking. Rafe didn't give him time though. He attacked the area where the chosen was sinking, kicked him into the air and batted.
The Chosen flew, but this time Rafe didn't allow him to land before hitting him again.
By the fourth occasion, the Chosen was now ready. Ice lances suddenly appeared and pelted Rafe, stopping his advance for a few seconds. A ragged looking Chosen coughed a mouthful of blood into his hand. He looked at his hand for a moment, then back at Rafe.
Then he suddenly flew into a rage. He couldn't have guessed that this was the moment Rafe was waiting for.
He flew at supersonic speeds with his fist extended, hoping to punch a hole through Rafe's chest.
But when he was a few meters from Rafe, water suddenly gushed up from.the ocean into his face, blinding him for a fraction of a second. It was all the time Rafe needed.
Suddenly, the extended arm was held by stone hands, and Rafe used his movement technique to fly up into the air, the Chosen pointed upwards like his sword.
And then the most embarrassing scene occured. For almost a whole minute, Rafe used all his strength, all his stamina, to use the Chosen's body as a bludgeon.
The body of a D grade was very study. With his veil, it was almost impossible for Rafe to damage the Chosen, but using the Chosen's body to reshape a number of flying islands was quite something.
After almost a whole minute of pointless struggle on the Chosen's part, he succeeded by letting go of his control over his veil. The veil expanded to a balloon around the Chosen's body, almost half a metre in radius. Rafe was forced to let him go.
For the first time in their battle, Rafe had done some real damage.
But now things were getting out of hand. After all, the sky had been broken a long time ago, and although it was slow, the beast with the tendrils of darkness was getting closer and closer to Primus's atmosphere.