EmEs_etherious
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Chapter 180- Know Thy Enemy
🕑 Added 2024-12-02 23:31:49 +0000 UTCApologies for the chapter delay. I was extremely busy getting the second book ready for publication. As of now, it's been submitted to amazon for review and will hopefully be available for pre-order sometime in the next few days. The official release date is set for the 26th of December, the day after Christmas, when everyone needs a good read to wind down from the chaos of visiting family. Thank you everyone for making all of this possible.
Book 2 link for pre-order: Etherious: Power's Price
For every 100 pre-orders I get, I'll release one bonus chapter. (Please don't just pre-order and then cancel for the numbers to go up) For every 200 pre-orders, I'll permanently increase the number of advanced chapters on Patreon and Kofi.
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Fighting the Ghoulish Skinwalker was a humbling affair. Arthur’s body was a work of art, his physical stats entering into the domain of legends. The weapon he used- his spear- was created from his very soul, a material the greatest smiths across the cosmos would go to war over. The battle art he was using- the Star-spear Revelations- was one that had been taught to him by a woman who’d crossed the System limit of level 300.
All this together made Arthur one of the most deadly combatants on the planet. Yet fighting Frankenstein was like trying to catch the wind. Every move he made was anticipated and dodged; his every thrust met nought but empty air, his slashes chased the monster’s afterimages, and even his Muay Thai, when he chose to employ it, did nothing but tire him out.
Fighting Frankenstein was an exercise in futility and he realised with growing humility that the only reason why he’d managed to strike the man earlier, both with his fist and Poisoned Fang of the Hydra, was merely because he’d caught the man off guard. Otherwise, as was becoming more apparent by the second, he was hopelessly outmatched. It made sense. The Harvester's agent had been battling for longer than he'd been alive. A few months with the System wasn't quite enough to bridge that gap. Arthur had fought some powerful monsters; the Ascended Bloodbeast, Shade, the Draconic Liverthion and most recently Wovan, the Hivemind Construct.
Beating those creatures, whilst certainly not easy, hadn't posed much of a challenge. Now, he understood that those creatures suffered from the same weakness he was currently faced with. Much like Arthur Ward, they had all been new to power, some of them only experiencing it for seconds before being thrust into battle. Well, Wovan was an ancient monstrosity I guess, but I was quite literally the worst possible matchup for the massive spider. And she was starving for ether the second she stepped onto Earth.
Frankenstein, on the other hand, had spent entire centuries honing his craft. Whilst mankind was struggling with bronze, the bastard had probably been out there in the cosmos, terrorising an innocent civilisation. I might have him beat on raw stats, but he knows how to use his so much better than I do. In hindsight, this was all stuff Arthur should have figured out a long time ago, but all his recent successes had lulled him into a false sense of confidence. Now, if only I had realised this before I got into a life-or-death battle with this freak, Arthur thought grimly as he tried and failed to avoid the sweeping slash from Frankenstein's claws.
It turned out that trusting your eyes to judge distance when faced with a space mage wasn't the wisest of ideas. Swearing, Arthur stumbled over an inconveniently placed tree root. Not for the first time, Arthur cursed Bonak for creating this stupid imitation of nature. Regaining his footing, Arthur thrust forward with his spear, knowing that he had no chance of hitting his enemy. That wasn't his intention. With the momentary breathing room he gained, Arthur used his skill, Cloaked Blade, on his spear. He didn't know how or why, but Arthur had noticed that his shadow skills, at least those parts of them pertaining to stealth had become significantly stronger. He suspected it was linked to how he'd avoided notice from even the system for the past few days.
Cloaked Blade (Legendary) level 1- A shadow mage’s blade finds all men unprepared for death and comes with no warning. Your blade is deadlier than most for your enemies shall never see it coming.
Passive effect: (Fixed) Hides 80% (previously 50%) of magical presence/signature when casting spells. 1.5% of the damage done via shadow magic recovers health, stamina and ether. (Previously 1%)
Active effect: Pay 1.5 (Previously 2) times the skill cost for any affinity to reduce your magical presence by an additional 40%. Damage done via this inflicts the debuff Trapped in Darkness.
Trapped in Darkness: Reduces speed, mental processing and skill usage by 25% (may be resisted)
Pay 5 times (Previously 10) the skill cost to make your magic untraceable to all senses up to 2,500 (Previously 1500) perception or its equivalent. Increases damage of selected skill by 50% and inflicts the debuff Fear of the Dark.
Fear the Dark: Reduces all stats by 30% for 30 minutes. You enter an immaterial state for 5 seconds after using this skill and become nigh invulnerable against physical and magical damage.
Create a dark crest for yourself or place it upon a weapon of your choice. Used upon yourself, strength and agility increase by 30% for 5 minutes. Used upon a weapon, For one minute, every successful hit landed via the enhanced weapon upon the opponent's flesh reduces an opponent's speed by 5% (up to a maximum of 75%). Damage done with an enhanced weapon does not naturally regenerate for six hours and is partially resistant to healing magic.
Dark Crest cost: 1,500 ether. (Previously 3000)
Crest cooldown: 5 hours.
It took him about three seconds to create a thin film of water over his soul spear, only a few millimetres thick. Spending one and a half times more ether than he'd usually have to to maintain the layer of water put the cost of his spell at an easily sustainable three hundred ether per minute. He could've spent five times more ether to create a soul spear that was completely untraceable, but against an intelligent enemy like Frankenstein who'd already seen his deadly weapon, Arthur didn't think he'd be too successful.
With his Hyper-efficient trait, the cost to use such magic was 12,500 ether, a vast improvement from the 50,000 it would have cost without it. Unfortunately, all the magic that Arthur had cast before the fight had begun, his overcharged poisoned fang of the hydra, followed by all the healing he'd been forced to do, had drained his reserve significantly, something he hadn't thought was possible.
Ether: 0/8,489 (653x10x1.3 [From trait: Superior life form])
Health: 167,019/402,615
(2647x58.5 [Base DV {30}x 1.65+0.3 [From trait: Superior life form]) x2.6)
He wasn't willing to spend so much energy on techniques he wasn't sure would be successful. If his spear suddenly disappeared, he was pretty sure Frankenstein would realise something fishy was going on. Instead, he'd chosen to coat it in a shell of energy that made his weapon more difficult to perceive, taking a trick from the monster's book, similar to his messing with his perception of distances.
His soul spear now had a weird translucent quality to it that made it difficult for the eyes to focus on and thus so much harder to dodge with impunity. It didn't make him suddenly start winning the fight, but Frankenstein was now much warier of the weapon. A wary enemy, one who feared something, was far easier to predict, something Arthur had learned during his time sparring with other Muay Thai practitioners. Throw a few devastating kicks to your opponent's lead leg, and it was all they would focus on as they grew to fear the pain and danger it represented.
What he'd done was very similar, albeit against an enemy who far surpassed the children he used to practice with. He'd done nothing at all, simply coated his weapon with a little water ether, but Frankenstein didn't need to know that. The spear had already hurt the monster so much, a portion of the damage dealt with it simply not recovering. Frankenstein already feared Arthur's spear. Now that he'd augmented it- even if his augmentation was little more than a useful parlour trick- the spear grew to take the place of most import within the monster's mind.
As Arthur was right now, he wasn't confident in his ability to defeat the Ghoulish Skinwalker. That was why he was doing everything he could to delay the monster; every second was extra time for his stored healing magic to get everyone back into the fight. That wasn't to say Arthur thought defeating the monster alone was impossible, far from it. It was only that he recognised his chances would be much greater when everyone else was ready.
From the corner of his eye, he could see that Rykah had sat up, though she still looked a bit dazed. It seemed like the flame mage would be the first to recover. All the while, Arthur continued to go after Frankenstein. he noted with grim satisfaction how the monster gave his spear a much wider berth, exaggerating his dodges to stay as far as possible from it instead of the hair-thin margins it had been avoiding the weapon by before.
Arthur grunted as he forced his way past the time magic the skinwalker had placed on him. Whilst Arthur was far too durable for the monster to truly harm, the skinwalker was still able to leave faint scratches on his skin. That was all the damage that the Harvester's agent required to work his insidious magic. Every faint scratch on Arthur's body was drenched in time magic.
Frankenstein was a fast learner. He'd already noted that Arthur's natural defences were high enough to shrug off the effect of his time zone. Instead, the creature now targeted each of the little cuts on Arthur's body separately, thus subjecting his every limb to a dozen different time speeds simultaneously. It was incredibly difficult to land an attack when your shoulder and elbow joints were subject to two completely different time speeds. His shoulder moved far faster than usual whilst his elbow felt like it was travelling through a viscous liquid.
Arthur was a fast learner too, however. He'd already learned how to avoid the worst of the problems he was facing with the different time flows, though he still played up his apparent frustration with the magic. A strength was only an advantage so long as no one knew you had it. He discreetly created shin guards out of his ether, similar to the kind he had created when he fought the lesser Hydra, only this time, he created them with Armaments of the Soul instead of his shadow magic. He coated them with the darkest shadows he could generate to avoid any suspicion. Frankenstein was wary of them for a few moments before focusing back on his spear. Perfect.
Twenty seconds later, Arthur got his chance. The monster had just ducked under a particularly vicious spear thrust; his footing was unsteady. A chain of fire came whipping through the air, wrapping around the skinwalker's ankle and immediately burning through skin and flesh. On the other end, Rykah grabbed it and pulled, disrupting the monster's balance further. Arthur was already in motion. This moment had been worked towards from the moment he decided to begin this fight with a spear in his hands, dozens of micro-actions and misdirections leading to this chance.
His left leg raced upwards, rapidly slicing through the air in a perfectly executed kick, aimed directly at Frankenstein's throat. He'd practised this exact motion tens of thousands of times and used it against others in hundreds of sparing matches, a simple motion in which one's limbs moved from point A to point B in as short a time frame as possible. Arthur had made it an art form, only this time, his shin was coated in a hair-thin blade of ether formed from his very soul. As far as weapons went, it surpassed his crude soul-spear by quite a large margin.
It sliced through the Ghoulish Skinwalker's purple right arm like a hot knife through butter, the monster's true form extremely vulnerable to soul damage when bereft of the defence provided by stolen flesh. Unfortunately, the Harvester's agent was a beast well versed in melee combat; he had to be to make the most of his ability to possess powerful physical hosts. Even as he suffered the pain of having his right arm cut from his very soul, Frankenstein managed to tilt his head to the side.
Instead of striking the bastard's head from his shoulders as he'd wished, Arthur's enhanced kick sliced through the upper fifth of the monster's skull. Arthur rotated his body with the momentum of his attack and returned to a stable stance. Frankenstein staggered backwards, before dropping to his knees.
Their enemy was down a limb. Permanently. It was time to end this fight.
Comments
Niko
I mean I don’t think the fight is dragged out. Probably just seemed so cause of realize schedule besides that it’s been really good and intresting
EmEs
Thanks for the feedback and I'm sorry to hear that. I don't think it's me dragging out the fight so much as me not releasing chapters consistently, which makes it feel like the fights dragging on. All things considered, it's about the same size as the Bloodbeast fight. Nonetheless, I apologise if it felt like I was intentionally dragging out the battle. That was never my intention. It's just that the Harvester's agent is basically the last big enemy before i wrap up book four.
Marun
OK here is my two cents. This fight has been going on long enough. This fight has been going on for almost a month. So, to me it feels like you are dragging out this fight which does not give me incentive to keep renewing my subscription.
