Legacy of the M'Zee Chapter 22

*** AUTHOR'S NOTE ***

I ordered the cover for Energy Barons, and y'all will get to see it first! It's almost done, just waiting on one change. 

*** AUTHOR's NOTE ***

My steps squished as I found myself on the shores of a small lake. “What?” I asked, looking around. In the distance, I saw the outline of a door. I’d either have to swim, or go around the pond to get there.

I turned to go around and noticed that my backpack was gone again. “So, last time my bag vanished, I had to dodge deadly beams of Aether. This is the perfect place to be ambushed from the water,” I told myself. I focused on my Aether Sight, but everything was awash in Aether. The Water was almost entirely Water Aether, with patches of Wood, Earth, and Ice flowing deep within.

A bit of Wood Aether seemed to drift against the current, but a surge of Water Aether blocked it from my sight. “You know, waiting for an ambush is stupid.” I took off in a run, occasionally supplementing a step with an Air platform from my newly upgraded Aerobatic Northern Wind. The technique coated me with Air Aether, letting me move significantly faster than without, and it kept my feet from slipping. Ever since that initial sprint to save Aleks, I’d been able to combine the increased straight-line motion of Gusting Northern Wind with the increased agility of Dancing Northern Wind. The name was still a work in progress.

The lake blurred beside me as I ran. I quickly covered more than half the distance around. A surge of Aether under the water told me I hadn’t outpaced whatever the threat was. I leaped into the air, six meters straight up, only to barely clear a massive crocodile. “Light!” I screamed, then created a platform to my side and kicked off it.

Tentacles of Water and Wood extended from the Beast. “You know, I’m faster than you!” I taunted it, then sent more Aether into my movement technique. I exploded into motion, dodging trees by millimeters in an attempt to reach the door. Crashing sounds came from behind me as the croc followed. It took me only another minute to reach the doorway, but a film of Water and Wood Aether over it blocked every attempt to open it.

“Of course, can’t avoid the boss battle,” I grumbled. I dashed towards a tree, leaving the clearing the door was in, and hopped up into the branches. The croc wound its way closer, and I had to decide whether to send a massive attack to start the fight off, or try to sneak attack with a smaller one. It was level six. Just barely level six, but that still puts it as equivalent to a Seed Core gatherer. I doubt I can hurt it without wearing down its defenses first. This fight is probably going to hinge on my ridiculous amount of Aether and tempering. So I might as well use as much as I can and start regenerating my Aether pool.

Aether flowed out of both my hands, and I started to form a massive hemisphere of runes around me. It took the Beast almost a minute to make it to the clearing directly across from where I waited. The croc opened its mouth and roared, only to receive a faceful of Plasma. The attack was the strongest one I’d ever thrown, the time given allowing me to fully complete the technique, layering it three times around me.

I’d drained nearly three-quarters of my Aether into the attack, letting my gathering meridians fill it back to just over halfway during the time I waited. I followed the attack, leaping from the tree and sprinting forward while pulling Aether into a focused Lightning Aether Blast.

A surge of Water Aether obliterated the tree I leapt from as the Beast screamed in pain. The Lightning shot into the side of its face, but an Aether Shield had covered its scales. Parts of the shield were blasted off, but it quickly filled in the damaged sections. More whips of Aether formed, slashing at me, but I was able to dodge every attack successfully.

I reached the crocodile, only to leap forward with a surge of Aether to avoid its snapping mouth. I rolled, coming out with my trisula slashing. Each attack damaged the swirl of water surrounding my opponent, but it was so miniscule I could barely tell. “This is going to take a while,” I growled, setting a layer of Lightning, Fire, and Air Aether on the edge of my weapon. The next few stabs did significantly more damage, but the drain on my Aether was significant.

I dropped the Air from the mix. The amount I was using became only a bit higher than my natural regeneration. The Beast tried to turn away from me, maneuvering to get its mouth back into play, but I was faster than it was. After a minute of dancing around, the crocodile got frustrated, and a wave of Water Aether exploded out from it in all directions.

I was washed away from it, tumbling around, only to slam against a tree. I grunted as the air was forced out of my lungs. I took the opportunity to form a wedge of Metal Aether to divert the Water. The attack flowed around me, nearly twenty seconds long, letting me catch my breath and prepare another Plasma beam. As soon as the Water ebbed, I dropped my Metal shield and attacked back.

The Beast’s shield must have dropped when it exploded, as my attack burned away a large patch of scales. It roared in pain again, and this time I was surrounded by vine whips. I slashed viciously at them, escaping my encirclement, but I still ended up with a dozen lines of blood on my arms and legs. I shot at the Beast, ready to dodge its bite yet again.

This time, though, it glowed with Aether and moved twice as fast as before. Only a quick twist of my body let me avoid its teeth, its lip smacking me aside. I cut it, barely able to get through the skin, but it still bled from my blades. The push it gave me let me avoid its front claw that slammed into the ground near my head. Fire Aether slashed into its leg as I tried to sever a tendon. I couldn’t cut deep enough, though, so all I managed to do was piss it off more.

“This is ridiculous!” I screamed, leaping over another wave attack. “How in Darkness am I supposed to beat a Beast so much stronger than I am? Am I supposed to acknowledge that, when I attacked the crocodile the first time, I only beat it because I had a dozen friends breaking apart its shield. Can I go on now!?”

There was no response. I leapt off another Air platform to land on its back. Immediately, my Aether Shield started to fight the Beast’s. The interference drained me quickly, but I was able to send another Lightning Blast into its back, breaking apart another patch of scales. It bled from the injury, adding another area that would weaken it. Its shield grew more tentacles of Water, and one knocked me off its back.

I landed in a roll, dodging a massive Wooden Spike thrown from the Beast, then ducked under another. Two vines whipped into my legs as I jumped to my feet, trying to wrap me up. A flare of Fire Aether burnt them away, but I was left with another set of bruises and cuts. Two leaps into the air gave me enough breathing room to pull a healing powder out of my belt, and I silently thanked Spirit that he hadn’t taken those from me and that I had my belt Inscribed to protect items in it from blunt force trauma.

Immediately, I felt the powder’s Aether flowing into me, my injuries itching as skin stitched itself back together. I surged towards the Beast again, ready for round two.

The next half hour was a repeat of the first two minutes, as I struggled to injure the Beast while frantically dodging each retaliatory attack. My Aether drained quickly, and I ended up taking one of the three refill powders I had only ten minutes in. A gathering powder followed it after five minutes, enhancing how much I was pulling in without focusing on it, so I was able to continue fighting well past the point I should have ended up empty.

Finally, I sent a blast of Lighting at it, and no shield blocked the attack. It’d dropped its defense, focused on taking me down with it. A scream shot out of it, and the number of Water and Vine Whips it sent out doubled. This is it! I leapt into the air, dozens of Air platforms forming around me so I could leap and dodge through the gauntlet of tentacles.

I ignored a dozen attacks, pushing through even as my left arm and three ribs were broken, all while charging up another massive attack. Finally, I made it through, and then landed on the Beast’s head. Plasma leapt from my right hand, forming a spear as I modified the Forceful Punch technique to smash apart the Beast’s skull.

The crocodile spasmed, throwing me off it yet again, but its techniques grew still. I landed, collapsing as I realized it had broken my right leg too. I lay panting, my entire body aching. Dozens of cuts criss crossed my arms and legs, my pants and shirt a lost cause. My chest was mostly protected by the chainmail armor, though it would definitely need some fixing after this battle.

A shimmer of Aether made me flinch. I tried to get up, to move away from the body of the crocodile that glowed brightly, but the drop of my adrenaline had wiped me out. “Aw come on,” I groaned, closing my eyes in expectation of being blown up again. My Aether Shield flickered around me, though I was drained enough that it was difficult to hold the technique that had become second nature.

The glow vanished, and in place of the Beast was a watermelon sized Core and six of its scales. Each scale was the size of my torso. “Cool,” I said. After five minutes, the squishy ground stopped being the most comfortable thing ever. I focused inward, directing my Aether to fix the broken bones in my leg. My right hand pulled out another healing powder, giving a jolt to my self-healing capability, and ten minutes later I was able to struggle to my feet.

I hobbled over to the scales to find my backpack was behind them. I dug into it, pulled out a rope, then tied the scales to the bag. No way those’ll fit in, I thought, then shoved the Core into the top. Hefting my backpack made my ribs groan in protest, as I hadn’t gotten to healing them yet. Hopefully the next room isn’t a combat trial again.

The clearing was destroyed, so I took my time walking across it. This gave me time to continue fixing the bones in my leg, getting it to the point where I could probably run just before I reached the door. Twice I had to use an Air platform to keep me from falling, the torn up, wet ground sucking at my boots. I opened the door and stepped through.

The ground turned solid instantly, and I found myself in a square room. The walls were made of twenty centimeter square tiles, most of which were light gray. Occasional squares were black, though. Additionally, there were eight gems embedded in each of the left and right walls, one of each Element per wall. They didn’t make a line, or any kind of pattern.

The floor was made of the same squares, and sixteen gems, matching the ones from the walls, were embedded around a central pillar. On top of the pillar was a fist-sized diamond. Two steps into the room, and a translucent hand appeared in mid-air. It shot to the side, where it carved a thick line directly down from the Air gem on the left wall. Immediately, a stream of Aether from the gem flowed into the carving, then back into the gem. The hand pointed at the gems, then at the center.

“Ah, fun,” I said. “I just have to figure out a path for all the gems to reach the center. I bet I’m not allowed to overlap them too.” I set my bag down near the entrance, then started to map out what I would need to do. “I never did play those mobile puzzle games.” I tapped on the wall below the Lightning gem and my finger sunk into it. I quickly drew upward, and discovered that the stone had the consistency of wet clay. It held well, though, staying exactly as I left it after I pulled my finger away.

Lightning Aether crackled as it flowed into the ditch I’d dug it. I smoothed the clay back into the scratch, and it filled up perfectly. “Okay, so I can fix it,” I told myself. “Let’s just go for it.” I started to draw, pulling the outermost gem’s flows to the far outside. Twenty minutes of smooshing and redirectly clay, and I had a dozen flows that met up in a cluster that I could not figure out how to get past.

“Okay, that didn't work,” I grumbled, then smoothed out the majority of what I had done. Over and over again, I tried to figure out how to connect the nearest gems. After an hour on the left wall, I switched to the right, hoping I’d have an epiphany of some kind.

“Wait,” I yelled just after I started my third attempt on the right wall. I leapt into the air, my body fully healed after so long, and laid on an Air platform that I slowly raised higher up. My Aether drained quickly, the technique not quite able to hold me up indefinitely yet, but it lasted long enough for me to get most of the room in a single glance.

“The nearest gems are a trap, there’s no way I can get them to work, but if I overlap the Air and Water gems to the other side, I can wrap the Lightning gem to there …” I started talking to myself, jumping down and running to the wall. I worked quickly, somewhat afraid the epiphany would fade and leave me scrambling at the problem again.

I connected the gems, each one lighting up and sending Aether into the pillar. Once all sixteen were correctly set up, the diamond glowed a bright, brilliant white. After a few seconds, a beam shot out of it into the wall across from the entrance. Over the next thirty seconds a doorway formed, and then all the gems dissolved into a powder except for the diamond.

The door opened, and the remaining gem became dim. I walked over to it and found that it wasn’t attached anymore. “Another gem reward. I thought they were rare,” I said. “Oh well. Still something I can use.”

I walked out the door, and vanished into the next challenge.