NOVEL NEXT 3.19: Distraction
As soon as he saw the wind blades fly at him, Henry activated Blink to get out of the way, only for the presence of the giant bird to flare out, snuffing out his skill before it could drag out of the way.
Crap!
Henry shoved himself out of the way with Lightning Dash, barely escaping the off-hand attack of the A-rank that would have reduced him to chunks and looked up as the remnants of the dashing skill arced along his arms. The Windscythe shrieked and whipped its arms at Zerathstra, throwing the ape back from it just as it tucked its head away from a flying red-tinged attack from Velistraine before it violently unfurled its wing and summoned a powerful gale that sent Henry back down a few yards and made the giant trees of Thalis sway.
I'm not even that close to it yet, Henry thought as his many hearts hammered away. He felt so… outclassed. And it made sense, this wasn't just any random A-rank. Still, Henry hadn't felt this powerless for a while.
With a slow breath, Henry got himself back up in position and began preparing. The more he was up here, the more he'd be exposed to retaliation so he might as well make his attempts and get the heck away.
The bird whipped out two more giant wind blades at Zerathstra, forcing the ape to defend the trees below him. Henry pooled the seven Octominds he had available, and when he saw the ape rise back through the air, he got started. And he was sparing no expense.
Henry poured every ounce of conceptual energy from Thaumaturgy in his Octominds, bolstering each and every one of them until he could feel their presence all around him. Next, he activated Telekinesis, feeling every Octomind supporting his effort but before he let the spell out in the world, he pulled everything he had available in Predation, Dancing Shadows, and Watchful Guardian. The first was for the raw power it would imbue his skill with. The second was so that his ability would slip through the monster's defenses and finally, the third was because he needed Telekinesis to be the protecting force that would prevent the city from falling to these predators.
In the spell nexus holding in the overpowered and overcharged skill, Henry felt as if he was holding on to a ball of molten, unstable plasma that just wanted to blow up and blow him up along with it, so just as a precaution, he also suffused his own body and mind with the conceptual energies of Renewal, pouring some of it Trickster's Fortitude as well.
The strengthening magic that spread through his body felt as if he'd just applied a coat of water sealant on a piece of furniture before he'd chucked it into a lac.
Henry felt the pressure on his soul grew with every second, pushing against the limits of his spirit and will as he strained to maintain it all from crumbling away and clearly, whatever he was doing had reminded the giant dumb bird of his existence, but before it could throw an attack his way, Velistraine pulled its attention once more while Henry channeled every ounce of mana into the Telekinesis skill he was forming, and even the last skill he had to activate threatened to topple everything he and his Octominds were holding up.
"[3…2…1…Now!]" he shouted toward Zerathstra and Velistraine, and he activated his magic.
A wave of intense purple burst out of his body, straining his mana channels as sharp pain raked through his sourut right as an identically coloured haze materialized around the Windscythe king, and if activating the empowered spell had been painful, then it was nothing compared to the feedback he immediately got as his will surrounded the A-rank and clashed against its might.
His target had been the wings. Immobilizing those and exposing the monstrous bird's body was his plan. It was what he activated his skill for. But Henry had no clue if he succeeded or not. One moment, he sensed his own restricting skill wrap around the wings and immobilize them. The next, the A-rank flexed its impossibly powerful muscles as an outraged screech filled the air, and it was as if someone had driven hundreds—no, thousands—of spikes through every square inch of Henry's body and soul.
Henry's vision had blinked away. He forgot where he was. He even forgot what had been happening and he didn't know how long that had lasted, but eventually he came back to consciousness as wind whistled all around him while a part of him shoved healing magic into his many brains, which was likely why he could even think.
Right. The life-saving measure he'd establish with his Octomind.
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"[Henry, get out of the way!]"
The urgency of Zerathstra's voice jolted his eyes open, and Henry's plan came back to the forefront as Thalis's tree grew larger in his vision. Without wasting any time, he sensed the clone he'd left with Maurice and triggered his switching ability. But he hadn't been fast enough.
Right as his consciousness was pulled away, a freezing cold pain tore through his limb. He felt it, cut through the first arm, then the second, the shear through the mantle connecting his arms and out the other side and as Henry slipped away through the infinitesimally small tunnel connecting him to his clone, he sensed the weight of a couple of Octominds fade away at the same time as he lost feeling in five of his arms.
Then he was right next to Maurice, somewhere dark. He heard the crab saying something, but he still couldn't see much and, considering he wasn't bleeding out, Henry let himself rest for a short moment.
Just enough for the glass shards he could almost feel running through his veins to abate.
***
When Henry woke back up, he found himself back in his personal pool at his guest home.
The skies were clear, and the air was quiet as he pushed aside the notifications that clamoured for his attention, and as he tried to move his arms to readjust his position, he sensed it. The wrongness.
Henry looked down and only saw three arms under him. A clear cut had gone through two posterior arms and fully severed part of his mantle and three frontal ones. As he looked down at one of the stumps, he found it sealed. Healed. And when he tried pushing some healing down to one of them, the magic fizzled away, as if there was nothing to heal.
Huh?
Henry stared dumbly at one of the stumps when a presence bloomed above him, and out came Zerathstra from between the canopies, dropping out of the sky as if he'd jumped from another tree-top toward him.
Henry broke his head through the surface and peered about for a moment before he focused on the figure at the edge of his pool. The ape was smiling, and as he sat down with a grunt, he waved an arm toward Henry. "Don't worry. They'll regrow. You just gotta flush away the Windsythe's concepts. The evolution process should greatly help you there, and if that's not enough, I'll help you with it. But we should do it fast."
"What happened to the bird? Is Maurice alright?"
Clearly, the birds were gone, but while he remembered having teleported back to the clone he'd left with Maurice, he didn't have eyes on the crab at the moment.
"He's fine. Training. As for the birds, we didn't manage to kill the bastard. But that half a second distracted it enough that me and Velistraine managed to land a couple of quick hits, and considering the damage done to its flock, it ran away. But it'll be back."
That last part sounded heavy, and Henry peered at the ape. "Not the first time it came around?"
"No, it is not," Zerathstra said with a sigh as he shook his head and dipped a hand into the water. "It's been hounding Thalis for a while, but every time it comes back, it's a little stronger. And no, I didn't just let it live for the fun of it. It's just… really hard to kill an A-rank that actively wants to get away. Especially one that is so mobile. And unfortunately, I can't chase it away. I gotta sit here and wait for it to come back when it feels more ready."
"The fight looked close," said Henry as he peered inwardly at his Octominds. Two of them seemed to be dormant, as the mini-brains they'd been using as anchor had been severed away. But Henry was glad that didn't mean they were gone. He could sense them, slowly rousing back to consciousness, though he had no clue which brains they were using, exactly.
Zerathstra nodded. "It had been, yes. Dangerously so. I think… if it hadn't been for Velistraine and you, I might have had to use some last-resort weapons to chase it away. And the next time it would have attacked, we would have had to just give away the trees and leave."
That sounded dire.
"In any case. Not to rush or anything, but I'm here to help you flush those concepts away if the evolution process isn't enough. So if you're ready, you should get started on it as the longer you take, the more your body would 'forget' that you're supposed to have more arms. And we wouldn't want that. So. Are you ready to get started?"
Henry looked at his interface and at the many kill and skill-levelling notifications waiting for him, then he nodded. "I'll get started," Henry said as he read through the prompts.
Still, a smile snuck up on him, and he found himself chuckling inwardly. He'd managed to affect an A-rank's fight. He got smacked for it, but still… he had taken another step toward A-rank. And soon, they will become his new targets.