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The Gamer Chapter 1422 – Thorough Grinding 14 – The Entertainment of Base Violence
🕑 Added 2023-04-11 22:14:26 +0000 UTC
“Could have given it a more flattering name,” John complained to Delicia. “I’m still using it as a body.”
“And you keep calling Eliana a ‘very breedable sow’ and still stick your dick in her, so where’s the problem, hm?” Delicia shot back with her usual smugness. “Like you don’t looooove being inside dirty things. Want to tell Lydia anal is off the table?”
“You win this one,” John grumbled.
“Ah, woe is me, I just can’t stop winning. I weep, it’s all so easy.” Delicia tumbled to a nearby stool. When she fell onto it, it tilted backwards dangerously, before making a full round and stopped straight. The alchemist broke out into thigh-slapping laughter. “Bwahahahahaha, that mixture of contempt and worry on your face! Priceless!”
“Aggravating me must be so fun.”
“You have no idea.” Delicia grinned and shooed him off. “Now get out of here, I have to make like 10 more of these. Come on, go. I want your pretty face between my legs later.”
“You do remember that I don’t need to leave to Raid, yeah?”
“Uhhhhh…” Delicia stopped for a moment
John stopped for a moment.
Delicia started running.
John set after her.
Halfway down the hallway, he remembered that he had to use Creator Puppet on the new body first. He ran back into the laboratory, used the Skill, then chased after the brat again. ‘I’m going to tease her until she breaks,’ he thought.
______________________________________________________________________
John rested Inkaryl on his shoulder. The plates of stone of the Dreg model shifted much like muscles would. A valley between shoulder and neck was the perfect resting place for the weapon. With each step he took the weapon vibrated with excitement. John could barely contain his own eagerness.
“Don’t get in the way,” Metra warned him.
The kick to his enthusiasm was received with a nod. The Creator Puppet’s Stats were incredible for the extension of a mage build. At roughly 2300 Agility, he was only 250 behind Siena, and with 942 Strength and 937 Endurance, he exceeded her in both of those categories. Its Attributes only further elevated that tankiness.
What it had in Stats, Siena made more than up for with her abilities. Her Unleash alone would put her miles ahead of the golem and then there were her invisibility, her shadow diving, and her magic to consider. If all of those weren’t enough, Siena had an advantage that John would have to work hard to make up for: experience in melee.
John had entered melee combat before, but only to trigger the mana regeneration of Arcane Rejuvenation. That required a singular hit with a Technique. Such hits were typically secured by utilizing the help of his allies, Mana Chains, and Magus Step. It could barely be compared to a true melee engagement. The Gamer had seen it as a failure of tactics if he spent more than the minimum time in direct confrontation with anyone.
At other times, the close quarters combat he got engaged with was either against opponents that were of a lower level than him and, even then, he had used claws or rapiers. His expertise was at using fencing weapons and a mace was hardly compatible with that style of combat.
John had spent a little bit of time trying to trigger the creation of a new skill for mace-wielding – without success. Either he would have to invest more time, invest in the Martial Artist Class, or spend an SEP on Fencing. The last was the most likely. Gaia was not gracious with new Skills and neither should she be. John was well past the character building phase. When he wanted something, working for it was required.
Even knowing that, he could not help himself. He had to use the Creator Puppet for the Raid. All of the preparation had to pay off with something. “I’ll engage with care,” he promised. His voice was projected from the head of the golem. With no lips to speak with, magic took over entirely. A pair of flickering dots indicated where he was looking.
“If ya die, we all get booted, so ya best,” Rave weighed in and rolled her neck. “Then let’s keep going.”
The Creator Puppet nodded again and gestured for Aclysia to take point. Their party currently consisted of her, Rave, Metra, Gnome, Beatrice, Momo, Salamander, Undine, Siena, and John himself. An incredibly melee-intense line-up. Which had a very good reason.
They were advancing through the crooked streets of the city beyond the shovel area’s first boss. Towers were looming over them, their roofs tilted like the pointy hat of a witch. Yellow glass sat behind the steadily moving hands of the many clock towers. Black cats sat inside the many windows, observing the passing party with their sulphur eyes.
Malevolent magic was in the air – quite literally. Aclysia walked with her katana extended in front of her. She came to a stop when the tip of the silvery-white blade collided with something invisible. The cackling of women was their first and final warning before a rune lit up in front of the weaponized maid.
Aclysia executed a diagonal slash, dragging her weapon through the seal. It sounded like she was scratching away at glass. One attack was followed flawlessly by a step forward, ramming the dagger that appeared in her hand into the centre of the complicated seal. A swift backstep was next, accompanied by a second swing of Eclys. Then she took a larger step back, hands raised above her head. Where a katana was in one instant, a massive claymore appeared next. Tiemarath soared with crimson energy, flowing from Aclysia into it. With a controlled cry, “HA!” she brought the weapon down. The seal shattered like a wall of glass.
Servant Strike into Cutting Flurry, a reliable combo to overcome these defences. The cobblestone alley before them transformed. Five humanoid beings became visible, their protective wards broken. They were women of petite build, black dresses hugging tightly to midriff and chest, then widening into a massive skirt upheld by metal spines. Masks hid their faces behind depictions of the moon and stars and pointy hats sat atop their raven hair.
They were the Astria Witches, locked away by the Shovel Knight due to their loyalty to the traitorous Enchantress. Not exactly fitting with the original plot of the game, but John wasn’t going to complain about a little originality.
The witches were waving their hands, holding a wand in one and a crystal ball in the other. Runes were woven in front of them, varying colours of malevolent magic that would have (and did once) wipe out anyone hit unprepared.
Metra’s hand sunk into the air in front of her the instant the seal was broken. It appeared across space, gripped the throat of the closest witch, and dragged her forward. The aggressive action made all of her comrades switch gears. The carefully prepared spells were exchanged for a quick blast of various projectiles.
The party members rushed forward, each targeting a witch either on their own or in a team of two. For a split second, John forgot to charge with them. Then he set right after Aclysia.
When he accelerated past her, the glee he felt had to be wrestled down immediately. Concentration took its place. This part of combat, he had ample experience in.
Inkaryl spread out, then slotted back together, the blades an icy white. An aura of frost rose up around the Creator Puppet. The weapon and the aura were both dependent on the soul type and thus on the metals used. Changing from a pure water metal to one closer to ice had thus influenced both.
The witch crooned something in an unknown language and loosed a bolt in John’s direction. He responded by firing one of his own. A flick of his wrist and a lance of ice flung from his offhand. It made John’s heart soar to cast a spell like this. It was more shaped by his imagination than any of his Skills had been.
The joy was short-lived as the projectile was shattered by the superior magic. The bolt of the Astria Witch was only slowed for a moment, but that was all John needed to dodge. The witch hissed when frost began to take hold of her clothes. She pointed her wand at him again and mumbled a couple other words.
Her clothing suddenly turned stiff. Aclysia was in front of John, Aiding him with her body. The three-minute cooldown bridged in an instant the distance that her Master had crossed and put Tiemarath between them. The blackened side of the massive blade took the spell. John pressed his shoulder into Aclysia’s back, keeping her from losing ground. A surge of love filled his mind, breaking in from the outside. It violently switched to pure rage when the witch’s crystal ball conjured a large number of silver projectiles that curved around the artificial guardian.
“How dare you?!” she screeched at the Raid spawn. Black ice and Hellfire enveloped Tiemarath. Scourge was in full effect.
The hatred the ice dragon wore on her face was beyond reason. The graceful exterior had cracked and revealed underneath the deepest, darkest recesses of Aclysia’s obsessive mind. Swinging upwards, she sliced open the chest of the Raid enemy. The flesh underneath was boneless and firm, like a slug. Purple ooze was frozen in place, where the Hellfire did not scorch the tissue.
Aclysia twisted into a second attack. Ethereal tendrils latched onto her, spawning from the crystal ball of the witch. A scream turned into a cone of icy breath, continuing until a tendril ripped her head back by the black horns. Black energy burst from Aclysia’s skin, breaking the binding spell for a second. Then it was swiftly reapplied. With the strength of a Juggernaut, the weaponized maid kept struggling. It took all the witch’s attention to keep her tied down.
Which John used to leap up and slam Inkaryl into the side of her head. It wobbled unnaturally, like a block of gelatine. More of the ooze gushed out of where the heavy weapon had cut the skin. The facemask cracked like porcelain. The many pieces became the heads of a multitude of differently sized eyestalks. A grotesquely human mouth between them crooned beautifully another incantation.
The Dregs model was hit in the lower abdomen by the spell. It tore a hole through the metal and stone, thin as a pencil. Had this been his real body, he would have had a vital chunk of his liver taken from him.
The witch drifted backwards, too fluid to be moving on legs and yet not fluid enough to be flying. A trail of slime was left behind on the cobblestone and instantly frosted over by Aclysia’s presence. John landed on solid ground and charged, following the stretched tentacles to their origin.
Ripping her left hand upwards, the Raid enemy saved her focus from his next swing. The black ice on her chest cracked from the force of her movement, then cracked again when another icicle spawned along its mass. John circled around the witch, trying to play for time. The Black Ice would assure his victory eventually, even if the Astria Witch had moved out of Aclysia’s aura radius.
The problem was that he was not a match for the Raid enemy 1 on 1. In the background, Aclysia’s struggles collapsed into a futile stretching. Her Juggernaut spell had ended, leaving her a love-crazed beast of a maid that clawed and bit at the tendrils binding her without further aid. Against spellcasters like these, rushing was the only way to assure victory.
Every second that passed slowed the enemy, but it was only a matter of time until he slipped up himself. Spells kept pelting him, breaking apart the surface. He either had to commit or retreat before his inability caused the Fateweaving to pull him and, by extension, everyone else out. He went with the aggressive option.
‘Too wide,’ he chastised himself when the miss left him wide open. A magic missile of pure arcane force hit him in the shoulder. Unmitigated damage blew the limb right off.
John dropped Inkaryl and jumped for the crystal ball. He cast another Elemental Bolt. The witch reacted barely in time, her freezing limbs cracking where no bones would. John leapt and the Astria Witch reacted as predicted, lowering the orb to move it out of his path. Even covered in ice, she matched his tempo.
Her eye stalks followed him and Aclysia. They did not see the weapon he had discarded. Holding his hand out, he beckoned Inkaryl back into his palm. The mace obeyed with the sly silence of a weapon that had seen a millennia of dominance. It took the most direct path to him: through the enemy and the crystal ball she was holding in front of her.
Fusionals slammed into Gaia-crafted glass. A scratch deep into the surface was all that came from it. Then the witch swept aside the weapon with an arcane gesture and pointed her wand at John again. In mid-air, he could not dodge. The magic danced around the tip of the focus: noxious green and coiling like a band of silk.
If the Creator Puppet could smirk, this would have been when John would have allowed himself that much.
The crystal ball fizzled, the tendrils dissolved, and what remained was torn apart by the force of Aclysia’s renewed charge. The Astria Witch shivered when she was once more subjected to the glacial winds that surrounded the murderous maid. A shiver that was closely followed by the tensing of her entire body.
Goo splattered and froze into crystals, adding purple splatters to the ice that encrusted Aclysia’s black scales. Gritting her teeth, Aclysia pushed Tiemarath deeper. She growled, tissue and organs tearing and cracked under the frozen hellblade. John landed and watched the black flowers bloom before the blade emerged from the witch’s abdomen.
Aclysia grabbed the larger woman by the back of the neck. Claws like frozen oil dug into the throat, spreading more of the Black Ice. Lips pulled back, the head maid revealed her pointy teeth. Satisfaction danced in her emerald eyes, their colour elevated by the blue of her frozen lashes.
The witch attempted to cast another spell, but John swiftly knocked the orb out of her rigid fingers. Chill and Black Ice crept through her entire body, the unified auras taking care of everything. The crimson of Tiemarath was extinguished, leaving only the freezing cold. When Aclysia finally withdrew her blade, the Astria Witch collapsed into a pile of shards that then disintegrated fully, as dungeon monsters typically did.
Aclysia took a deep breath and opened her hand. Before her cleaver could fall to the ground, she grasped her dagger instead. It turned into a silver service tablet in an instant, decorated by mandala patterns of blue and black. She took a slow and deep bow, reigning in the agitated twitches of her many-bladed tail. “I apologize for my inability to defend you, Master,” she stated.
“It wasn’t your fault,” John stated and went to pick up the arm that had been blown off. He crouched down to let Undine spawn a part of herself from his shadow. A bit of healing slime and the material was mended back to the greater whole. The Dregs golem was still damaged, but that took care of most of it.
John didn’t have to look around to know the battle had concluded. He and Aclysia had taken the longest to take care of their enemy and the others were getting their own health topped off. There was some chatting here and there regarding what had and had not worked during combat. The basic strategy for these enemies was to rush them down, but the execution could always use more work.
“You did alright there,” Metra stated, her voice distorted until her helmet split open. The ancient, borderline evil, design receded like a piece of sci-fi tech – segment by segment, until the head of the First of Wrath was revealed. “You still fucking suck with that thing though.” She used Rex Magnar to point at Inkaryl. “You’d be a liability right now.”
“Metra, my John is enjoying himself,” Aclysia hissed.
“My king is a lover not a fighter.” Metra rhythmically tapped her shoulder with the shaft of her weapon.
Aclysia opened her mouth to disagree, but John cleared his throat. Standing up, he switched from Ascended to Socialite Mode, so he could speak the normal way. “Metra is right,” he said. “This is fun, but as I am right now, I make too many mistakes to be in the frontlines. One wrong move and we reset to the last checkpoint. It’d cost us too much time.” He smiled at both of them. “Best we do this cautiously.”
“Master…” Aclysia’s entire body slumped softly to the side, then she had to take a balancing step. “Haaaah,” she sighed dreamily. Her slit pupils were dilated to the point there was more black to her eyes than green. “Your wisdom knows no bounds.”
Rave gave the maid a soft tap to the back of the head. “Ya rebounding way too hard into the dere there, Yanclysia.”
“It is only natural to feel boundless love after defending my most beloved John!” the head maid stated. “You’re the weird ones for not wishing to feed him grapes as he lounges on your thighs.”
“Is that my thighs or the general ‘you’?” Rave asked.
Aclysia smiled enigmatically.
Comments
Funatic
Uhm, I realize that the Achievement Store hasn't been shown in a while, but not only are there Stat Points to be bought on it (it makes up about half the interface) but John bought some Wisdom when he last had major mana problems
gordianTangle
That was an absolute delight to read! In particular, I'm glad John is getting some slightly free-form magic, and look forwards to seeing this aspect of his Elementalism get explored. Thinking about the Creator Puppet stat scaling did make me think something - I wonder if John will ever have a chance to purchase stat points (at a rapidly escalating cost, of course) with GP? Since some things scale with his base stats, not buffed ones, currently that is something he can't use GP to do anything about, which doesn't seem to fit his ethos. [also, given his OCD about clean numbers on stat sheets, his wish fulfillment would give him a way to tidy up his final numbers xD]
Hellfire2099
YES omg this was amazing!!! More of this please! Let's see John kick ass with Inkaryl and the creator puppet! This makes me unreasonably happy to read lmao
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