Wish upon the Stars chapter 350

The morning of the seventh match was the same as the ones before it.  Five wishes for Rime, five elixirs for Jessie, and she officially  reached two thirds of her elixir limit even as her Vitality broke past  three hundred. On top of that she got another ten points of Might from  her bond, bringing that to eighty seven on top of the insane three  hundred and three Vitality. Specializing definitely had upsides, since  her entire skillset was based on Vitality, compounding that stat allowed  her to see INSANE returns on her stats.

I could see now  why people with my power usually had bodyguards, funneling all of  someone's stats to one point could create absurd levels of power in  compatible abilities. Like Cark having almost all his points in Might.  Sure, he already had most of them as a fire user, but that was MOST.  Having almost a hundred percent stat allocation reinforcing your main  skillset was incredibly broken, and not something that happened  naturally even to people with heavily skewed powers.

The  further behind a stat was the easier it got to raise, and the other  stats started to climb quicker when you got too focused on one, unless  of course you cheated and did it like I did with wishes. Given how  strong her healing already was, not to mention the enhancement abilities  of her energy infusion on her animals, I was terrified to see what that  power would be able to do at next rank.

I knew that  focusing your stats was one way to change your ability without  synergizing so expected at least some kind of change when she hit  F-rank. Once again we found ourselves back at the same arena. Rime was  waiting in the stands with Zeke, who would as usual be gone by the time  we came out. By this point everyone had other things to do, and no one  but them had time to go to every single one of our matches, not that we  would ask them to.

Stepping out onto the sand, I was  prepared for anything. From what I'd seen, we usually got one of two  situations when facing new groups, either a widely varied set of  enemies, or four people in a uniform or some sort of identical  concealment attire.

This particular group of opponents  were the latter. "So." I said musingly. "Exactly how many factions use  the whole shapeless dark robes ensemble? This is what? The third we've  seen? You would be figure it would be counterproductive given how big a  role attention plays in cultivation. Like, doesn't the uniform defeat  the purpose?"

Callie shook her head as we made our way  into the pit towards the other team. "No. I asked The Nothing about  that. He said they're usually limited within a region, and they make  enough of an impact as a group to justify the choice. Being members of  that faction gives each person a similar amount of prestige, sort of  like Raleigh's Raiders back in the scavenger hunt."

One of the figures nodded slowly. "She is correct." They said with a voice like a creaking door in a haunted house.

"Yes."  Said another in a voice like claws scraping over a dead tree. "Most  correct. The Hate Demon Convergence is indeed such an organization."

I  sighed. Wonderful, they were total creeps. Callie remained calm as ever  as she said. "That's a...nice name. Any chance you could give us some  sort of individual moniker we could use to identify each of you? I  respect the whole...group mentality, thing you have going on, but it  would be nice to put a name to the lack of face."

Because  the hoods were completely dark, full of nothing but bottomless  shadow...of course. One of them nodded. "We are Skell. We are also Veck,  Stang, and Ruk." It announced this with a voice like metal screaming as  it shattered, clearly a different one than the other two.

"Right."  Callie said flatly. "Very helpful, thank you." Apparently the 'Hate  Demon Convergence' didn't teach sarcasm, because the figure nodded again  despite her clear implication that announcing the names of  the...convergers, while using the collective we made the introductions  functionally pointless. "You haven't attacked yet, are you waiting for  us to start things off?"

The four of them shook their  heads in unison. "It begins." Said the fourth one in a voice like cold  water hitting hot stone. I was a bit confused as to what that  meant...until I looked up.

Four circles of red symbols,  all slightly different but close enough to be recognizable as a similar  or identical Skill or ability, floated above us in a square. Red light  connected the four circles, and through that square of darkness I could  see a giant red hand manifesting.

"Fuck." Spat Abel as he  saw it too, and lashed out with punch at the fist, a massive  manifestation of his hand slamming into the demonic appendage.

The  red hand clenched into its own fist, meeting the blow with a similar  punch, and the explosion dispersed the manifestation, causing Abel to  stumble back with a growl of pain. I stepped over and put a hand on his  shoulder, triggering a heal burst, and he groaned in thanks.

As  we watched, another hand came down through the square, the two of them  latching onto either side of the square and beginning to tear the space  wider with brute force. Through the hole I could see a massive red face  with glaring yellow eyes and a huge mouth packed with razor sharp teeth.  Rams horns curled back from a brutal looking face as the monster  grinned down at us.

"What the actual fuck is THAT?" I yelped in terror. Whatever the demon was, it was F-rank, which shouldn't be possible here.

Abel  groaned as he flexed his fist. "THAT." He said distastefully. "Is a  cooperative invocation. looks like they're summoners. Most invocations  have a primary caster, they modify the Skill and offload the power and  soul requirements onto others. Cooperatives are what happen when  multiple people use an invocation when they all have the same Skill or  ability."

The monster's foot smashed down on the sand as  it finally crawled free, a pair of giant red wings spreading out behind  it as it threw back its head and roared in triumph.

Only  to have it's roar cut off by another massive fist as Abel slammed a huge  punch into its jaw. The beast reeled back as my mentor shook out his  hand. "Ok, this is going to be rough." Despite the grim words, his face  was plastered with a massive grin as he stripped off his coat and  started to limber up. "Mel, an F-rank enemy is going to be a mess,  especially one that size. Mind if I borrow a bit of your power?"

Mel shook her head. "Of course not, but be careful. You know the bond has limits at our rank."

He  just waved her off, then closed his eyes. The summoners all seemed  pretty much motionless but they were behind the damn demon so no way we  were getting to them fast. Calli still nodded for me to circle around  and we started moving slowly, letting Abel and Mel keep the monsters  attention.

I'd never seen them use their bond for anything  like Callie and I did. Abel was the main attacker and had never needed  to tap into her powers. As I stared in awe, a massive avatar of Abel's  fists manifested above us, condensed from golden fire. I'd seen Mel use  that ability before, taking advantage of the physical aspects of Might  to enhance her body with her condensed flames, but seeing it on this  scale was...terrifying.

More than just the size, the sheer  presence of those fists was staggering. There was a shift in the air  and the space began to warp around the hands as Abel moved them through  the air, warping the space to leave behind afterimages until there were  six distinct manifestations in the air. The left fist flashed forward,  the other two images condensing on it, then the right followed, each  blow coming down with triple the force.

The demon roared,  hurling its own fists out in a flurry of punches, but unlike last time  Abel didn't budge. His blows met the punches from the demon head on and  the beast reared back in pain, but the damage to the hands healed almost  as soon as it happened. Summons were a bitch to take out if you  couldn't one shot them, since the summoners could repair them.

I  had no doubt Abel would get the thing eventually, and seeing him get  serious and actively work with Mel for the first time in the tournament I  was blown away, but this was a team match, which meant he didn't HAVE  to do that. Callie and I had circled around to within range for me to  use Double Trouble, but I held back, kneeling down to condense Stone  Limbs on both my hands, as well as poison fire, just in case.

Waiting  for the perfect timing, I stood stock still, staring at the nearby  figures as the giant demonic summon and the massive flaming fists boxed  it out above us. Finally, there was a shift near their feet. Callie had  flooded the ground with shadows, triggering a Sucking Mud through the  bond. The distracted figures had no chance as they all got snagged by  the shadow tendrils of the Dark Swamp combination technique, slowly  being dragged into the mud.

Sadly  that didn't end the summon, so I activated Double Trouble. A Cloud Step  to prevent me from sinking allowed me to lash out with a pair of Mercy  Kill boosted punches and then spin off to slam both hands down on the  third one's head and dropping an elbow on the last, all imbued with a  triple strength tranq blow, using four of my stockpiles.

The  figures all slumped, obviously unprepared for a random teleport into  their midst. The unconscious bodies were dragged into the muck, but  Callie cancelled the skill leaving them all buried in the now solid  sand. I felt a shudder in the air as the massive summon dispersed,  showing the major weakness of summoners in general better than any other  example I'd ever seen.

Flaming  hands faded from the air as Abel released the fire empowerment Skill. I  checked on the hooded figures, and they were all breathing, unharmed  mostly since the poison fire had faded when I released the skill, since  they were buried underground. Seeing they didn't need any healing I  turned to check on Abel, who was nursing a pair of seriously damaged  hands.

I put a  hand on his shoulder and used a heal burst, hearing my mentor's sigh of  relief as I did. "Ok. Ow. Haven't pushed that far in a while. Bit  bummed you ended it so early though, that was the best fight I've had in  ages." He shrugged. "Oh well, I guess I'll have to hope someone better  comes along in the solo matches."

Mel  snorted. "You would have been hard pressed to beat that thing without  me. If someone better than that comes along when you're alone you're  screwed. Though I guess the damn thing WAS F-rank, so who knows." She  glanced at the unconscious figures. "We going to do the meeting thing?"

Callie  shook her head. "No. They give me the creeps, I don't really want them  hanging around the pavilion. I'm sure we can find some other people who  can do cooperative invocations. That summon was scary but Rime would  crush it for instance, they just aren't worth the investment."

I  agreed, though more for the first reason than anything else. I found  them all pretty unsettling. With a sigh, I turned to make my way out of  the arena with the others following behind. Next match was the last one  in the team segment, and assuming we got through that we might be forced  to fight each other. I was going to have to do some work on my DS  Mastery to prepare for fighting alone. I had a feeling things would only  get harder from here.