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Chapter 178- Transient Life
🕑 Added 2024-11-16 23:59:02 +0000 UTCIn the end, using the new technique Arthur had figured out, it took him a little over six thousand ether to completely heal Ursula's wounds instead of the sixty thousand he'd expected, a vast increase in efficiency at the cost of a little extra time. Healing the beastkin woman had taken him just under two minutes, and just as Iris had said, the attack force had been perfectly capable of keeping the Ghoulish Skinwalker engaged without his assistance.
They didn't fall apart like he'd feared even with one of their strongest fighters out of commission. It was a little humbling to know that he wasn't always needed and served as a reminder that the world didn't revolve around him. A battle wouldn't go to shit just because he didn't actively participate.
As powerful as Arthur Ward was- there were very few at his level who could match him across the universe- the men and women he was fighting with today had been in this field of work for longer than he'd been alive. Lady Sleyca had hand-picked her people from across multiple worlds, they were each geniuses in their own rights, masters of their respective fields of magic. And beasts in physical combat, Arthur thought wryly as he watched Ursula savage the Harvester's agent with a swipe of her claws. The wolf-woman had returned to battle with a vengeance, attacking with so much ferocity that Frankenstein could do little but defend himself.
Ursula had been embarrassed to wake up with Arthur's hands on her head and he'd had to force her to stay put until he could finish healing her concussion. It looked like she was trying to wash away the shame of her failure with the second chance she'd been given at Frankenstein. Arthur would have been worried if the woman wasn't completely dominating the battlefield. At this point, he was surprised she'd ended up so wounded in the first place. Had she been caught off guard? Maybe she just got unlucky. Still, as good as things were going, Arthur felt uneasy. A seed of doubt had been placed in his heart and he'd learned long ago to trust his instincts. They were missing something, he was sure of it.
And yet as he watched the ongoing battle, everything looked perfectly fine. Everyone was fulfilling their roles properly; Ursula kept the monster engaged in melee, focusing all its attention on herself and punishing every lapse of it with a devastating blow. Benjamin was using his sound magic to affect the creature's balance and he'd augmented Ursula's claws with a vibration that left every wound she inflicted jagged and gaping. Iroh and Ryka provided ranged support with a constant barrage of fire magic, alternating between rapid fireballs and solid chains of fire that cracked like whips.
Iris, however, was the glue that held the team together and he wondered if Lady Sleyca had factored in her presence in her decision-making when forming this team. Without her, everyone would've been long-dead. It was her constant vigilance and timely interventions that prevented mistakes from being fatal. In the symphony of battle, she was both the composer and the conductor, everyone dancing to music only she could hear. It was beautiful to behold, her movements almost seemed choreographed with how perfectly executed they were in both timing and action.
Arthur, of course, played a critical role. If Iris was the glue, then he was the foundation upon which the battle was taking place; constantly propping up his teammates with timely healing spells. Debilitating wounds were made temporary setbacks and every cut, scrape and broken bone was made better in seconds. Without Arthur's constant assistance, someone would have died by now, of which he had no doubt. He'd learned long ago how to heal someone without directly touching them, a ranged healing spell of sorts. It cost more ether and worked far slower, but for battlefield healing, it was the most appropriate approach by far. His current range was around twenty feet. He could push further, but the cost grew exponentially, straining even his vast reserves.
The Ghoulish Skinwalker fought with wild abandon, all aggression with no thought of defence. Considering the monster was borrowing the body of a disposable corpse, such a fighting style was uniquely suited to the creature. The monster didn't care how much damage its puppets suffered. Its missing jaw had been replaced by translucent purple flesh, along with the arm Arthur had destroyed. It almost made him think his attacks had been useless, and he was right, to a certain extent. Turned out skinwalkers were all but immune to physical damage, the harm inflicted with that medium affecting only their physical shells and not their true bodies.
That's not to say they weren't hurt by the destruction of their puppets; it increased the cost of maintaining their existence and permanently reduced some of their stats. Unfortunately, it was on such a small scale that it wasn't an efficient way of hunting the creatures. Magical damage, on the other hand, was far more effective. The purple arm Frankenstein was currently using was shrivelled and weak, with veins of poisonous ether constantly running through and corroding it.
Despite how dire Frankenstein's situation seemed, the monster appeared perfectly at ease. Far too calm for a creature fighting for its life. It's planning something. I can feel it, Arthur thought grimly. No one else seemed to notice anything, not even Iris's seer abilities, which made him doubt himself. Was he being paranoid? Iris wasn't infallible though; recent events had amply proved that and so he didn't dismiss his fears out of hand.
Frankenstein was constantly trying to target Iris but Ursula kept the monster from going after her. It was strange to watch, Arthur understood the strategic value of going after the seer, but the monster must have realised by now that it wouldn't work. She was too well protected. It was almost as if the skinwalker had lost all semblance of intelligence, repeating the same series of actions like a broken record, fighting with less acumen than a pre-system beast.
Arthur didn't buy the sudden drop in intelligence for a second. It was an act, he was sure of it, and Arthur cautiously waited for the trap to close. Iris seemed to be on the same page as him now, at least the concerned frown on her face suggested she was. The Ghoulish Skinwalker lunged towards her, single purple arm outstretched and was summarily stopped in his tracks by a devastating punch delivered by Ursula. The beastkin's fist struck the creature's face with the force of a truck, completely caving its skull in and sending it reeling back. Arthur didn't want to admit it, but the wolf-woman was far better than him at melee combat. There was a method to her violence that wasn't immediately apparent and anyone expecting her to fight like a common beast was in for a rude awakening.
Her combat arts were perfectly adapted for her unique physique, as refined as any of the martial arts found on Earth. If anything, hers was better as it took into account the vastly enhanced strength people possessed post-system, something Earth's combat styles weren't designed for. Were he to fight Ursula in a battle without magic, he wasn't confident in his victory. His stats might be higher, but the woman was far better at using hers. She also weighed about two hundred pounds more than him, a substantial amount when weight translated directly to how much force you could bring to bear.
Unfortunately for Ursula, the skinwalker was a poor match-up for her abilities. Even with her hands augmented by Benjamin's sound magic, Arthur could tell that crushing the monster's skull hadn't done any substantial damage. Frankenstein was rocked for a few seconds where he had to grow new eyes from the purple substance that made up his true form, but apart from that, he was perfectly fine. They need to switch things up. The only attacks hurting the bastard are Iroh's and Ryka's and he's learned to avoid them, Arthur thought grimly. If things continued at this pace, then they'd run out of energy long before killing the skinwalker.
The moment he came to that realisation was of course the second Frankenstein decided to spring his trap. Arthur didn't know what happened; he only felt an instinctive fear that he was in danger, that the prey they'd been chasing all this time had become their predator. There was no time to react, no time to do anything at all. A wave of magic was released from the Ghoulish Skinwalker, travelling so fast it might as well have reached him in an instant. The link that connected him to the monster, the one he'd felt posed no danger to him, attached to his very soul... exploded.
I just had to go and jinx it, Arthur cursed, as he dropped to his knees, eyes swimming in and out of focus. It was like someone had taken an ice cream scooper and gouged out a part of his digestive system, painful in ways he never knew could hurt. Attached to his soul, Arthur could only thank his lucky stars the link's explosion hadn't damaged him more. Unfortunately, that wasn't the only thing that detonated. Every piece of magic Frankenstein had used, every trace of it that he'd left festering in the wounds he'd inflicted distorted as space itself collapsed.
Arthur could do nothing but watch as his worst fears became reality. Benjamin's chest caved in, the explosion sending him careering backwards dozens of feet. Iris' left arm burst at the shoulder, the limb flying off in a macabre display of broken bone and pulped flesh. They were the lucky ones. In a parody of the magic responsible for all this, time itself seemed to slow down as the inevitable unfolded before Arthur's eyes. Ursula had taken a glancing scratch to the side of the neck, half an inch deep just seconds ago. It was hardly an injury at all, already on the mend.
Too little, too late.
Time and space distorted. Arthur's vision swam. Ursula's neck exploded. Her head went flying through the air, a rictus snarl on her face, now forever locked in place, her eyes widened in surprise, shocked at how fast her end had come. There had been no warning. One moment, she'd been amongst the living, and the next, her lifeless corpse dropped to the ground. Ursula Veras had been decapitated. In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, on land that would cease to exist in the next half an hour, the mighty beastkin's story came to an end.
