Ch. 4.09

9. 

Santi sped up as he cast an overpowered [Windblade] at a pair of lined up amalgamations. The spell burst the two of them apart as Santi cast [Gust] and aimed it at Naomi. It wasn’t the full powered spell as he was coming down from using the overpowered spell, but it still pushed Naomi off target. 

She wasn’t quite in range of her target and she looked over at him and threw him a dirty look but she had the hint of a smile on her face. She recovered instantly and corrected herself, her blade turning red as she cut apart her target. 

Santi had used that brief break in concentration to work his way further down the bridge and toward the third amalgamation that was scurrying toward him on a half dozen legs. The mass of limbs and sewn together flesh closed in and Santi extended the morph blade into a long razor whip, cracking it down the middle to split the monster in half.

The whip bit in and tore halfway through before getting stuck. He retracted the blade as the monster got closer, but a fully empowered [Gust] hit it and threw it backward, bones snapped as it rolled over and over. Santi continued the chase and brought the morph whip back down with a terrible crack that finished the job.

“That’s three!” Santi shouted as he risked a look to where Naomi was fighting two of them at the same time. These monsters supported each other, sacrificing limbs to keep the other from dying to Naomi’s skills. They were running out of limbs to sacrifice though.

Four more of the balls were working their way toward them and these were even bigger than the first group. A quick scan showed these ones were getting close to fifty, still within easy enough handling range, but getting closer to where he’d actually have to put on his game face and be serious. 

[Windstep] pushed him further toward them and he turned the morph weapon into a massive sword. Legs pummeled the ground and pushed himself up and above the closest of the monsters with the blade trailing behind him. Perched above the creature he could see all the twisted mess of limbs and mottled flesh. There were dozens of people’s remains wedged in there, mixed in with animal and monster corpses.

Then gravity reasserted itself and he fell like a meteor. He whipped the sword down with all his strength as he closed the distance toward the amalgamation. Black blood sprayed out like a hose as the sword split the monster in half before it buried itself into the bridge with an audible crack. 

[Air Shield] stopped blood from splashing over him, freezing it in mid air to slide down like a waterfall as Santi ran around the heap of rotting flesh and toward his victory. A smile had started to cross his face as the fight progressed, just enjoying the fun of the challenge with a true peer. 

A blur flew past him and Santi gaped in astonishment as he realized it was Naomi. The woman had put on a burst of speed he hadn’t realized she had as she hit her fourth target in a blitz of sword strikes that were nothing more than a blur even to his own advanced senses. The disparity of their talent levels were apparent, her bladework was simply beyond anything he’d ever seen. 

Santi’s smile widened as he started to pull more mana through himself as he sped up. He couldn’t match her physical stats without a bit of magic. [Windstep] combined with [Air Shield] sent him flying above the bridge, the breaking shields sounded like popping balloons as he rose above the fray and looked at the last two monsters. 

They were near the off ramp and shambled slowly toward the fight. Santi needed to kill both of them before Naomi finished off her own and could steal a kill. Neither of them were lined up for an overpowered spell to finish them off and with how much thicker and larger they were, Santi doubted they would die as easily as the other had. Both of the ambling monsters were in the low fifties and had an appreciable amount of more mass. 

Santi used [Air Current] to angle himself as he floated there weightless for a moment and cast an [Air Shield] above himself so he could push off and rocket toward the two amalgamations. [Windstep] shot him like a rocket down toward the duo as he formed a massive lance with the morph blade and waited till the last moment to use [Air Manipulation] to roughly grab himself and slow down his momentum before he hit the monster. 

The lance pierced the core of the monster and his own body crashed through the rotting flesh as he blew it apart like a bomb. All his momentum bled away as he burrowed through the creature and hit the asphalt with a grunt and the bridge yielding to his body rather than the other way around. The kill alert had barely dinged in his mind before he ripped out of the remnants of the monster and toward the last of the creatures. 

He could hear Naomi’s laugh behind him and the thudding of her footsteps as she headed for the last monster. Neither could win but the tie was still possible. She was only a few steps behind him even as he used all his spells to speed himself up. 

“Faster, Santiago! I’m right behind you!” Naomi said laughing as they raced each other. Santi didn’t hate the woman in the moment, couldn’t hate her while they fought together. The longer he was around her the more he saw her as a person rather than the nightmare she and the other Apostates had been in his mind. The joy of the challenge and the cleanness of their fight clarified in his head a half thousand disparate thoughts. 

The last amalgamation reared up and above them, nearly fifteen feet tall and with long arms that grasped at him as Santi focused on forming a powerful [Windblade]. Naomi bounced above him, flipping as her red wreathed sword cut apart half a dozen of the arms. The spell ripped free of Santi and hit the creature with a blast of power that split apart part of the cylindrical torso. It hadn’t had enough time to fully charge up strong enough so he could split it cleanly. 

“Mine!” Naomi said as her blade suddenly doubled in length and split the monster apart through the wound Santi had inflicted. The creature died and the two of them were left staring at each other, breathing heavily at their sudden sprint across the bridge.

“Feels good, doesn’t it? To go all out like that?” Naomi asked as she flicked her wrist and sent the blood off of her sword and to the ground. 

“Without having to worry about killing other humans? Yeah, that felt fun,” Santi admitted. 

“You’re a bit reckless at times, that shooting down from the sky thing looked dangerous,” Naomi said.

“It was fine. I have plenty of durability to have survived that fall. Might have hurt a bit,” Santi admitted.

“I don’t want to waste a healing potion because you were showing off. They’re not as rare as they used to be, but some habits die hard.”

“This timeline is a lot more giving in its resources, that’s for sure.”

“Makes me nervous for what’s to come. The incursions that are going to hit are going to be like a train wreck. There’s not much time left. I think they’ll land sooner rather than later. Maybe another month or so. We’ll need to be prepared here by then. I think clearing this area will be a big deal. Form up small forts and towns along the coast using all the captured pillars we’ll gain.” Naomi trailed off, lost in thought for a moment.

“You’ll see when we get down to my place. How to properly organize. I have a few heavy hitters, but you definitely have more talent here. With my training and resources and your overabundance of talent, we’ll be able to offer solid resistance,” Naomi finished after just a moment of silence.

“Let’s do one thing at a time. We go and clear out this island and start our way through San Francisco,” Santi said, putting them more on target.