Wish upon the Stars chapter 341

After doing Rime's wishes and handing over the elixirs to Benny  (officially maxing out his elixir cap and bringing his Might up to one  eighty nine and his stat total to five hundred and three) we headed for  the arena to wait for the match to start, and we went over our various  strategies for the fight in the waiting area.

The plan for  going up against the Burning Heaven Abyss was pretty much "Abel fights  the Master Candidate" again. I had zero delusions that I could beat most  Master Candidates, but even less of a hope of taking down a fucking  gunslinger who could use the terrifying abilities I'd seen from Abel and  Lament. Which left us going up against the other three that Sloane had  mentioned.

Two augmenters. Callie and I should be able to  take them, but it would be stupid to assume they didn't KNOW that. More  likely than not at least one of them would probably be buffing the  defender, who was apparently already a total monster. Hell, both of them  might be doing that, you don't really NEED more raw power than being a  Master Candidate in a tourney like this. Either way, the defender would  definitely be sticking close enough to protect those two as well as the  gunner.

Unfortunately we had no idea what the gunner's  ability was, since Sloane hadn't been able to push him to use it. As a  Master Candidate her spear skill was enough that it had taken a full  team to push her into using her lightning power, and one with a HUGE  terrain advantage to boot. We would most likely be enough to force the  gunner to use his, but that still left us blindsided.

When  they finally called us out we moved into the arena slowly and with  extreme caution. I was half expecting to be ambushed, but when stepped  onto the sand we found the other team waiting for us calmly.

Burning  Heaven Abyss were...impressive. They wore what looked like black  leather armor accented with gold, hoods over their heads and the top  halves of their faces hidden by black metal masks that glinted almost  like mercury. The cloaks themselves were lined with bright red silk, and  a few tassles of red were strategically placed along the armor. They  each wore a mantle over their shoulders, and gloves, leaving their arms  bare from mid bicep to mid forearm, and lined with black tattoos that  matched the golden traceries of symbols on the armor.

There  were two women and two men, the women almost identical short brunettes,  and the two men being a study in contrasts, one tall and muscular with  olive skin and one incredibly short and pale with pitch black hair.  Based on the holsters on his hips the shorter one was the Master  Candidate, but it was jarring to see them standing so orderly and  relaxed waiting for us.

The tall man was the one who spoke  when we stepped out. Based on the MASSIVE F-ranked shield on his back  he was the defender, and I was kind of annoyed that shields counted as  defensive equipment because I was sure he could and would smash us over  the fucking heads with that thing. "Greetings." He said in a resonant  baritone.

Callie nodded. "Hello. I'm Nightstrike from the Starchaser Pavilion, these are my teammates Appolyon. Starbreaker, and Solomon."

"Of  course." Said the man politely. "I am Raka, these are Sult, Truva, and  Forn. We represent the Burning Heaven Abyss." He had an indefinable  accent I'd never heard before, something crisp and formal, it put me in  mind of nobility of some kind.

Forn, the gunner, smirked.  "I doubt they know what that is Rak. Remember we're talking to hicks  here. Admirable they made it this far, but even among the wider scale  forces we're tougher than most." He sighed, as if he was being given a  chore of some kind. "Tell you what. How about you all just concede. No  reason for us to slap you around just to be mean. This way you save some  face and we don't have to waste the energy stomping your teeth in."

Raka  put a hand to his face with a sigh. "Forn, I've told you that making  offers like that is counterproductive. They WON'T be saving face now,  because you just put it like that, and will be almost obligated to fight  us. Not to mention your antagonistic and condescending tone."

"Oh."  Said the smaller man conversationally. Then he shrugged. "My bad." And  his hands blurred as he drew both guns and leveled them at us.

The  bark of firing pistols filled the air as he unloaded them at us, though  I noted he mostly aimed at limbs and other nonlethal spots. Regardless,  it didn't matter that much because Abel was just as fast and his own  hands blurred. My eyes widened in shock as my mentor pressed his fingers  in the air and created a series of finger width spatial slipstreams,  one in front of each bullet.

Watching each of the bullets  slide around us like that was shocking, especially since something in  those guns was propelling them at ABSURD speeds. Forn looked genuinely  shocked at the response, telling me he hadn't done much research on us,  but he calmly ejected the magazines, letting them slip to the ground,  and, letting go of his guns midair, withdrew a pair of new ones and  calmly reached up to grab one gun after another to reload them.

Abel,  not one to let an opening pass him by, stepped forward, vanishing in a  blur of warping space and appeared in front of the group, throwing a  punch at the gunner. Instead of throwing a bus sized punch this time  though, he stopped right before he reached them and raised both arms.  Space warped and a series of smaller images of his arms were left  behind, and when he punched out, the six blows overlapped in a way I'd  never seen him do before.

Raka reacted FAST. Managing to  get his shield out and slam it into the sand in front of his teammate.  There was a catastrophic BOOM as Abel's superimposed blow smashed into  the shield and the fucking F-rank artifact CRACKED. Granted, it was a  really small crack, but still. The explosion of sand and force would  probably have blown him away, if Sult and Truva, the twins hadn't lashed  out a hand each to augment his power.

Still, even with  the boost, the explosive pressure of that single punch hurled the team  apart. Raka was forced to dive for the twins, who were the much weaker  part of their party, leaving Forn open as he brought his now reloaded  guns back up to bear on Abel.

A pair of train sized  barrels appeared in the air, and Forn blitzed a series of shots at Abel,  absolutely monstrous bullets tearing through the air at my teach. Abel  raised both hands, manifested a pair of palm images and neatly  redirected the flurry of bullets, taking a step closer with each  movement.

Sadly I wasn't able to watch too closely because  I had to back up Mel, who was in the midst of attacking Raka as buffed  by the two girls. The big bastard was strong enough to tank what I was  pretty sure was the first serious punch I'd seen Abel ever throw and  sure enough, when we got in close we realized he was MUCH stronger than  any of us individually.

Mel, being a fire user, was  monstrously stacked on Might, so she wasn't exactly helpless, and  combined with the flames themselves was able to at least get his  attention, but he'd condensed the sand around him into some kind of  earthen battle form and the heat wasn't getting to him.

He  swung the shield forward at her like a club, and I lashed out with my  cane, touching Mel's shoulder and focusing as I triggered my strongest  defensive ability over her whole body. The strain of using Stone Limb  across a whole person and triggering a density shifted triple strength  attack and a Mercy Kill, along with Consecration of Flame just for the  boost, was almost too much for me on such short notice, but I felt the  bond flex and Callie take on some of it, allowing me to get away with  the move with only a quick burst of head pain.

Even with  the huge increase in power from the gala training that had been rough,  but it was enough that the powerful blow of the shield stopped, only  slamming Mel back instead of seriously injuring her. As she caught her  footing again, she roared with effort, and a massive wave of flames  appeared behind her, before condensing into a huge fire avatar of  herself. She snarled and slammed her palms together and the avatar  condensed, layering over her body and turning the magma covered figure  into a living statue of flame.

She hauled back with a roar  of rage and, driving her fist forward with almost as much power as I'd  seen from Abel, smashed it into the cracked shield.

There  was a tortured groan from the metal as the already fractured artifact  was superheated and the crack widened. Before the man could adjust, a  MASSIVE hammer or shadow slammed into him, sending him sprawling. I  triggered Double Trouble, appearing behind him and swung my cane, which  I'd spent all of yesterday charging up a blow for, at the shield,  triggering another triple strength density shifted blow, and a Mercy  Kill as I released all that stored up power.

Two things  happened when I did that. First. The still fragile shield finally broke  under the immense amount of power I'd had stored in my cane. Second. My  cane fucking EXPLODED. Without even thinking I released the thing and  triggered Double Trouble as fast as I could, just in time to MOSTLY  avoid the fucking conflagration of toxic flame as the shattering cane  released not only the stored force, but all the power inside it at once.

I  cursed, dropping to my knees and holding my currently charred arm,  which had been flash fried even under my armor, though the F-rank  defensive item had mostly spared me from the poison aspect of the flame.  I triggered a healing burst and scan heal, and when that wasn't enough  did two more for good measure. I almost groaned with relief as my skin  started the repair itself.

Once I attended my injuries I  looked up and around, trying to figure out what had happened.  Raka...looked bad. He wasn't dead, and I dropped the poison fire skill  instantly so he wouldn't die, but he looked like a melted action figure.  I winced at the twisted rock armor that had warped onto his very badly  burned flesh.

The twins we staring in horror, and at my  glance immediately dropped to their knees, putting their hands behind  their heads. I felt kind of bad. I could hear the booms of Abel dealing  with the other Master Candidate but I didn't have the spare attention  for it as I sprinted over to where out opponent was. Kneeling down, I  started peeling off the rock as quickly as possible.

There  was...a lot of skin and muscle that came up with it, but I used scan  heal again and started dumping in healing bursts. I couldn't do more  than five apparently, because his body just wouldn't accept more life  energy at that point, but that seemed to be enough.

It  took me a few minutes, but I got all the rock off him and his skin had  healed enough to cover all the exposed muscle. Knowing he was going to  live I exhaled in relief, and found a hand on my shoulder. I looked up  to see the others around us. Forn was beaten pretty badly but he looked  more focused on his teammate.  I couldn't imagine what this must look  like to them, but I was just glad I hadn't accidentally killed someone.  Still...I guess this was a win. Gods I hoped the prize was worth all  this.