51 (III) Regroup

51 (III)

Regroup

“Heather!” Tran shouted. “I think it’s coming right at us!”

“Run!” Heather cried, snapping out of her trance. All three broke into a desperate dash, but they weren't going to be fast enough.

Then, another voice rang out—a loud, screaming one. As Siggy looked up, the Jealousy was shifting. Another faint pulse exploded out from its side, and the entire demon’s trajectory changed. It twisted through the air, unbalanced, before crashing down on the ground just a few dozen meters in front of her. Debris flew everywhere. A shockwave threw them all off their feet, and several following tremors made Siggy think that some of the cave biters had been knocked over as well.

As the smoke and dust cleared, Siggy coughed, staggering to her feet. She felt an arm grip her. She nearly screamed, but then saw it was Heather, pulling both her and Tran out of the chaos. The goblin had a few cuts on her face, but—

“Hey, guys!” came a familiar voice. All three paused. Siggy knew that voice. So did Heather. So did Tran. They followed the voice back to its point of origin—back to the top of the Jealousy’s main body.

As the dirt stopped falling and the dust cleared, what she saw, sticking out from the top of the Greater Demon’s shattered flesh like a skin tag, was Shiv. It looked like his upper body was partially fused with the Greater Demon. He stared at them for a moment, face lit with confusion and faint exhilaration. He was sweating hard; his body tensing and pulsing. His shirt and armor were gone, and the mask was nowhere to be seen.

“Hey, guys!” he cried, waving a hand. “I think, I think I know you, right?” Siggy didn’t even know how to reply. Neither did the Slayers, for that matter. “Well, if I do,” Shiv continued, “can you tell me where I’m supposed to go? I, uh, might have developed amnesia.”

A long, whining sound came from Heather. “Oh god, we’re gonna die.”

Shiv slammed his palm down, and a wound tore open along the Jealousy. A wound that expanded into a bloody cavern right in front of Siggy and the others. “Get in! I think… I think the rest of these guys are gonna start chasing us soon.”

A beam of force splashed down against him—a magical attack. It hit him with enough force to launch Siggy off her feet, but Shiv just pushed it aside like he was dealing with water from a garden hose.

“Quick!” Shiv shouted. “We should go before they learn to use something other than physical attacks against me.”

Tran and Heather looked at each other, but Siggy was already running for the gore-hole Shiv made. “I don’t know about you two, but I think I wanna hide in the demon!”

Her words proved convincing. They followed just seconds after.

***

Three kilometers away, crouched on the edge of a small mountain while disguised as slavers and mercenaries, Uva, her team, Valor, and Adam stared at the pandemonium unfolding at the gate.

“Why… Why is the Jealousy attacking its own people?” Ikki asked, blinking. “And why is it moving like that?”

The massive demon was awkwardly dragging itself along the ground, bouncing and jerking from one place to another like it was being shoved or thrown repeatedly. Beside her, Adam’s eyes of sky-blue and radiant sunrise burned with mana. He cast his Heroic-Tier Awareness Skill out to get a better look. It had allowed them to find this hidden place as an observation post while avoiding patrols.

That same skill now left Heroic Pathbearer Adam Arrow gawking in utter disbelief.

“What in the Broken Moon?” Adam said, staring at the scene unfolding before his senses.

“What’s wrong?” Uva hissed. “What do you see?”

Adam didn’t have the words.

A few seconds ago, the Greater Demon reappeared after a few hours of absence. The Jealousy had manifested in the air, its arms limp, descending as if a fallen mountain. Adam assumed that was simply a byproduct of the teleportation, that the monster might be momentarily disoriented. But it just kept falling, and when he noticed its typical veil of shadows wasn’t shrouding it, he got a strange feeling.

As it smeared a few wyvern riders beneath its plunging body, he realized something was immensely wrong.

He cast his senses onto the Jealousy, following sounds and sights, launching his senses toward the horizon. Then he heard a voice he knew. He heard Shiv’s voice, shouting incoherently. And then Adam’s senses arrived at the source of the noise to see Shiv lodged waist-deep in the Jealousy. The Greater Demon’s carapace was cracked. The Deathless Pathbearer looked utterly wretched, but it seemed like he was somehow pushing the entire Jealousy forward with how his muscles were straining. Adam also felt an unnatural field of force yank hard on the Jealousy.

The Young Lord clenched his teeth. Shiv… if you somehow got Heroic-Tier Biomancy in the few days you were gone, I’m going to either kill myself, or kill you for good…

“Adam!” Uva cried, gripping his shoulder..

Adam couldn’t process what he was seeing. His mind refused, and so he gave Uva the only explanation he could think of. “I think I’m having a stroke.”

“What?” Uva said. She let out an exasperated sigh and immediately connected with his mind. He felt her moving through his thoughts, fusing with his active perception. It was slightly uncomfortable, but Adam didn’t respond. He was transfixed as a watchtower unleashed a coruscating plume of flame over Shiv, which just washed over him without much of an effect.

This… this is bullshit! That must be Master-Tier Toughness! At least!

And by now, Uva was gawking too, attuned to Adam’s sight as she was. Ikki was badgering both of them for details. The Umbral Psychomancer let out a choking sound. “Hero Adam,” she managed.

“Yes, Sister Uva,” Adam replied.

“I think… I think I am experiencing your stroke.”

***

“Everyone! Everyone, stop that man!” a wyvern rider cried from above. “Stop him—he’s… he’s kidnapping the Jealousy!”

Magical and physical attacks began crashing down all around Shiv. Most struck the Jealousy; a few burst against him. Anything that was merely Adept simply bounced off. A few Master-Tier blows left slight bruises and cuts, but he adapted to them. He kind of wished he had enough Biomancy to don his bone armor, but he made do for now.

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He picked a random direction and started flinging the Jealousy forward. He might have overestimated his strength a little bit. Shiv could lift the Jealousy, crack one of its limbs, even overpower it in specific circumstances. But holding it entirely aloft and trying to constantly launch it with his field was still beyond him. He needed a lot more levels in Gravitic Wrestler to do that.

Right now, he was just dragging it across the ground, doing his best to keep the giant monster moving.

Mercenaries, slaves, and even giant cave biters screamed as they fled from his path. The Jealousy’s enormous limbs were dragged behind, bouncing off the floor and ripping massive chunks out of the earth with every pull of his gravitic field. Shockwaves shook the world every time Shiv exerted himself, and his muscles were burning. But he still had to keep going.

Stopping was going to end with him very, very dead, considering the number of people coming for him.

“Oh god, I’m gonna really get a good workout from this,” he muttered, launching the Jealousy forward again.

A splash of fire impacted his chest, sweeping over his form. The heat was immense, but his Adamantine Adaption kept him from suffering anything more than discomfort. He’d faced this before, at another teleportation anchor—an elemental golem, he thought.

He narrowed his eyes at the many watchtowers, each concentrating blazing beams on him, burning the Jealousy, burning him, but harming neither.

“All right, then,” he muttered, “let’s see if we can knock some of you down.” He channeled his strength once more, and the Jealousy tumbled forward. It was no longer a mind-dead mountain, but a moving avalanche. It exploded along the ground. He considered using some other skill, but he couldn’t quite remember which one he always used. It was supposed to be his first Master-Tier Skill. He kept using his Gravitic Wrestler instead.

As he loomed closer, he saw fire dimensionals abandoning their posts atop the watchtowers—and he smashed through them a moment later. Wyvern riders descended, slamming down atop Shiv. One brought an axe down on his head, and the blade shattered; a shard slammed into the rider’s throat, and he gurgled and fell off. A woman came in behind Shiv, jamming her knife into his throat while her massive beast clawed and bit at him. Her wrist broke. The beast’s teeth broke. Shiv sloppily backhanded them off the Jealousy. A third rider caught Shiv by the neck for a rear-naked choke; Shiv tapped their elbow and, with his Gravitic Wrestler, ripped their arm off and impaled them with it before throwing them off the side of the Greater Demon.

Then, Shiv cried out as a golden arrow tore an entire chunk out of his shoulder, giving his durability no time to adapt. A lance of intense flame burned the same place. His adaption shifted—and Shiv realized a limitation of his skill: It could only adapt to so many types of damage at once. With a roar of effort, he yanked the Jealousy upward and sent it “leaping” into the air, its huge limbs smashing into a few of his pursuers.

But there were Master-Tiers hunting him, and they wouldn’t be denied.

Shiv felt something enter his Psychomancy field. An enemy crashed down just behind him, bearing a colossal blade gleaming with mind mana. That was definitely something he couldn’t just ignore. “Oh shit.”

A silver-black automaton with a crystalline tombstone for a helmet pointed its blade at him and spoke. “I don’t know who you are, but when I bring Confriga your head—”

An arrow hit them in the face and detonated, throwing them off balance—and in range of Shiv. The Deathless seized them by the leg and slammed them against the Jealousy’s carapace over and over. When the automaton was smoking and broken, Shiv pulled it close and, with a burst of parting gravity, ripped it in half. Whatever you were, a Master-Tier in Toughness wasn’t it.

He chucked the dead automaton and its blade into his cloak before he flung the Jealousy using his field again. He was off the black road now, crashing through the large mushrooms and woods. Overhead, arrows flew in from all directions—mana-tipped bolts of every type and speed—crashing into the pursuing riders, throwing them off, killing the weaker ones outright.

Shiv laughed. There was someone out there helping him. He wasn’t alone! He had friends! That was a pretty nice feeling. A reinvigorating feeling. Despite his body being drenched in sweat and his muscles spasming with effort, he kept going. Because Shiv always kept going. That was one thing he knew for sure.

A heartbeat later, a spatial arrow crashed next to him, and someone emerged from the teleportation bubble. He blinked as what looked like a glass-armored, pale elf regarded him, lifting her visor to let him see her face. Then, he realized he knew her. The short hair, those eyes, her face—memories of intimacy and comfort rushed through him. He was so transfixed on her that he didn’t even notice several other spatial arrows crashing down around him, bringing more unknown allies into the battle.

“Shiv!” the pale elf cried. She bore a look of concern, and he felt her mind mana reach out into him. He reactively flinched as he recalled the Jealousy tearing at him, but he forced himself to relax—and calmed even more as she clung to him and created a shroud of protective ice around both of them. For a few moments, he felt her nudge things around in his head.

She bit her bottom lip in near-anguish. “Your mind… What did this to you?”

Shiv looked down at the Jealousy, and she narrowed her eyes at him. “You… How are you—”

“I got Gravitic Wrestler.” Shiv grinned. “I think it’s a Master-Tier Skill Fusion of Physicality and something else. It lets me move big things around with a field.”

A loud snarl of rage sounded from her brooch at the same time as a tide of Pyromancy arrows slashed overhead. They detonated at random positions, creating a wall of fire behind the Jealousy, disrupting the flight patterns of riders. A masculine voice came from the brooch. “Uva!”

“Who’s that?” Shiv asked with a frown. “He sounds like an asshole.”

“He is an asshole,” the pale elf muttered. “But he’s a good asshole. An honorable one.”

“Did he just call me an asshole? Wait, did he say ‘who’s that?’ Does he not remember who I am?”

A howl came from behind Uva as a wyvern and its rider exploded toward them in a gust of Aeromancy. “Look out,” Shiv said. He casually passed the pale elf from one hand to another as if she were a small ball. She let out a surprised noise that turned into a near yelp as Shiv punched the charging attackers. A shockwave blasted out over the wyvern and its rider. The beast blew apart. The rider outright disintegrated. The Jealousy was slowing, so Shiv pulled on its mass again to keep it going.

“Hey,” he said, staring at the wide-eyed pale elf he was holding close with his other arm. “You know where we’re going? Because I don’t. I don’t really remember much of anything at all? Except for you. Kind of.” A line popped in his head—something he instinctively had the urge to say. “I don’t think I could forget someone like you. Even if I lost all my memories.”

Silver Tongue > 12

“I—is he for real?” the voice sputtered from her brooch. The pale elf, though, was fighting to keep her features in check as she gawked. “You… Just get him out of that thing so I can shoot him with a spatial arrow.”

“Shiv, we need to go,” the pale elf said. “Can you free yourself?”

“Yeah, but there are other people inside,” Shiv said. “I can’t leave them.”

The pale elf blinked. “What?”

Shiv slammed his palm down against the Jealousy and tore a narrow hole just beneath her. A narrow hole that let her see all the slaves, the Slayers, and the goblin merc that was loudly throwing up inside the Greater Demon’s “meat cavern.”

The pale elf’s jaw dropped. The man speaking through her brooch sounded like he was about to have an aneurysm. “Is—is—that Shiv—you—are you hiding slaves inside the corpse of a Greater felling Demon?”

Shiv wasn’t sure how the guy could see that, but he just shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea to me at the time.”

A loud groan came from the stranger as Shiv felt an attacker briefly enter his Biomancy field—only to get decapitated by a lightning arrow.

“Uva! Change of plans. Have Shiv drag the bloody Jealousy over the ravine we saw.”

“Into First Blood territory?” Uva hissed.

“Yes. Hopefully this can start another skirmish—one that will cover… whatever kind of escape we can manage. Godsdammit, Shiv, how did you even come up with this idea?”

“Well, right now, the answer is severe brain damage,” Uva deadpanned. “I have no idea how he’s still sane. Or capable of anything more than drooling out the side of his mouth.”

The stranger sighed. “Shiv might be too stubborn to turn fully stupid. Anyway. Ravine. Hurry. I can see some damn riders coming for me too.”