Wish upon the Stars chapter 306

Pietro's face still REALLY pissed me off. Sadly, I was still  incredibly drained, and without access to my soul strength my options  for dealing with him were limited. Still, I'd just beated my first  F-ranker, having successfully fought up ranks like a true elite, and I  was kind of riding high on the confidence.

Glancing  dismissively down at the tied up Mordaunt and the still form of Rahm,  Pietro sneered. "Trash. Oh, well, I suppose this means I don't have to  pay them." He looked around for the four, who were still occupied, and  Randall, who was fighting his own F-ranker, and chuckled. "Seems like  you don't have anyone to save you this time. It was impressive taking  down the zombie, I'll give you that, but there's no way you have much in  you after a battle like that."

I stared at him for a  second. "How are you not dead?" He looked at me in surprise. "No,  seriously, I've known you for all of five minutes and I want to kill  you, granted I have a bias against the Black sorrow Cult, but still. Do  you have a Skill for pissing people off? I'm not sure how whoever guards  you managed to keep you alive, but they're a fucking miracle worker,  because I have a hard time believing no one has tried to push you down a  flight of stairs. Or into a volcano."

To my shock, rather  than get offended, Pietro laughed. "Do they dare? My father is the  strongest D-ranker on Ranton. A genuine High Priest of the Black Sorrow  Cult. I hold the life and death of everyone I meet in my hands. Killing  me would result in the complete extermination of everyone they know and  love." He grinned at Callie. "How about you, boy. Are you willing to see  everyone you love killed? Not just the girl, either. Even if you manage  to successfully kill me, your whole family will die."

I  couldn't help it, I laughed. He looked confused, and I choked down the  giggles. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, that was rude. You're doing this whole  spoiled brat villain monologue and I'm interrupting. I shouldn't be so  insensitive. It's just...you have no clue how stupid you sound."  Honestly I could have interrupted him, but Benny had posted up behind me  and placed a subtle hand on my back, letting the spiritual calming flow  into me again.

This wouldn't fix the soul strain, not  enough to let me use my soul more, but it WOULD let me partially recover  and clear my head, which would help. So I wanted to draw the asshole in  babbling more and delay the fight so I could get back into fighting  shape. Callie and I could take him, I was sure, and just in case I was  getting ready to use my Afterburner Skill for this fight to make sure I  could keep up with her and put my best foot forward.

Without  stacking stored attacks or altering techniques I would be way less  deadly, but Afterburner should make up for that somewhat. I also still  had a full charge of stored force in the cane, and I could use Mercy  Kill, even if I couldn't stack anything on it. Sadly, Pietro, while  stupid, wasn't THAT stupid, and didn't have any interest in monologueing  for ten minutes in the middle of a pitched battle.

As he  concentrated dark power onto his hands, I had a sudden and very  unfortunate realization. I'd been thinking about what ability he had,  and how to counter it. But I'd forgotten that fucking Black Sorrow  Cultists didn't USE the ability system. He'd have one for sure, but it  would be treated like a Skill. They used the job system, or something  like it, and this asshole would have a whole host of weird powers like  Aiden had, though not exactly the same since Aiden had been using a job  from the Red Revenant Church somehow.

That meant it didn't  matter if he wasn't a descendant of Black Sorrow, he'd have crazy  overpowered bullshit tricks anyway. Annoying but still manageable. I  spun my cane up, stepping away from Benny's hand begrudgingly, because  if he was about to attack I didn't want my friend dragged into it. I  gestured for him to back off and go help Jessie and Randall with their  fight. The bear was having trouble, and a sucker punch with that hammer  would help.

He left without complaint, most likely  planning to slip in a shot on Pietro when he had the chance to hit him  without being noticed. Pietro, for his part, didn't seem to care about  my best friend as he slowly advanced, gathering dark power into his  palms. "You seemed so impressive earlier." He said gleefully. "That'll  make putting you down so much sweeter. I'll show you that the Black  Sorrow Cult aren't people you can easily offend." Without a second of  hesitation he hurled his hands forward, unleashing a wave of darkness at  us.

Or rather, darkness might have been the wrong word.  Rot, corruption, desolation. None of these was right exactly. Rot  affected living things, as did corruption, desolation was closer, but  still wrong. This wasn't a destructive force exactly. Destruction unmade  things, this just changed them. It was like some conceptual blight on  the world, altering things to more effectively suit its vision. Sorrow.

As  if the world itself was grieving, as if all hope had been lost. Hope of  continuance ceased to exist within the wave of darkness. It was, in a  word, terrifying. Callie snarled and flicked a hand, and a wall of  shadows flashed out to block the progress of the wave. To my surprise,  it actually stopped. You couldn't steal the hope of continuance from  darkness, because it was already the absence of light.

Pietro  cursed. "Shadow touched. I hate dealing with you. No one told me you  had a shadow touched." I got the feeling even if they had he'd have  ignored it. I was pretty sure he just did whatever he wanted and let the  consequences sort themselves out later.

"Thanks." I said  to Callie emphatically as I stood. I shivered at the though of  that...stuff, touching me. "I doubt that would have been pleasant." We'd  gotten insanely lucky that she could block that stuff. It was only a  G-rank attack, so I doubted it would instakill us, and it might not even  get through my armor, but the idea of letting it touch me made me want  to gag. No wonder the Cult were so unpleasant, if that was the force  their jobs game them access to.

Still, it did make some  sense that even powerful jobs would have counters. Callie's shadows  didn't do so well against the Red Revenant Church's light abilities, but  she had a natural advantage against the Cult. That was useful to know.  Of course, she wasn't some kind of perfect counter or something, just at  an advantage. That wave had been fairly spread out, and being able to  block it was more a factor of Pietro making stupid ass decisions in  battle than some kind of perfect immunity.

I wasn't  letting this chance go either way though. I activated Double Trouble,  appearing behind him as I triggered Mercy Kill on my weapon and  unleashed the force stored in my cane at the base of his skull, hoping  to put him down like I had Stricture all those months ago.

That  wasn't to be, there was a dark burst of smoke and a shield appeared  behind him, clearly the activation of some defensive item. My blow  smashed into the thing hard, but sadly wasn't enough to even crack the  shield. I activated Leaf on the Wind and danced away from the  retaliation. His dark fist swept harmlessly through the space I'd just  been in. That wide range attack had taken time to charge up and I wasn't  giving him more.

Neither was Callie, as evidenced by the  field of dark blades springing up under his feet. The attacks drove him  in exactly the right direction to open him up to another blow from my  cane at full extension, Balam allowing me to build up a truly  frightening amount of momentum for the attack.

His robes,  which I had just realized were robes and not some sort of coat, took the  blow easily, and I cursed as I realized they were F-rank defensive  items. Rich asshole. I conveniently overlooked that I also had those,  because now wasn't the time for rational introspection.

With  a grimace I triggered Afterburner. Technically using my normal skills  did use soul strength, but unmodified and without stacking they were  only mildly annoying. Unfortunately when spamming multiple skills one  after another that still added up. I was glad Benny had helped me  recover because I wasn't sure I could have managed this in the state I'd  been in after beating Rahm.

I had enough in me to use a  few normal skills though, and triggered healing burst after a slight  delay, followed by Mercy Kill, and then painfully, Flurry of Blows. My  head was screaming again, but it was enough to make me a serious threat  as I lashed out with my still poison fire imbued cane at the vulnerable  face of the wildly dodging Pietro, trying to score a hit with the speed  Flurry of Blows granted me. I got a glancing blow on his jaw and temple,  which since the armor wasn't there, meant the poison fire started to  spread.

He got his arms up in front of his face to block  the other attacks, not paying enough attention to his surroundings and  completely missing that Benny had already sneak attacked the F-ranker  and provided an opening for Randall to start really laying into the man.  The hammer smashed hard into the back of the Pietro's robes, which  while clearly heavily enchanted for defense, weren't up to a hit from a  weapon at the same rank enhanced with extra density and triple strength,  even driven by the power of a G-ranker early in his Ascension.

Pietro  stumbled, face slashed open by the shadow blades, and his eyes widened  in panic. "Malachai, help!" He shrieked at the top of his lungs.  Throwing his arms over his head in fear to try to mitigate the damage.  Unfortunately that was more than enough as every single person in the  auction hall was smashed to the ground by the forcefully exerted Impact  of an E-rank Ascendant bearing down on us.

I  cursed. "I thought you said your E-rankers were holding off the  others." I gritted out through the pressure. I was not at all qualified  to fight this asshole, considering he wasn't a cloud of red mist right  now, pressuring me with his aura didn't count as an attack either. If he  made a move on Callie or Benny or Jessie I'd have to throw myself in  front of the attack or something.

Snarling  in rage, Pietro pointed at me mockingly. "Fool! As if I would ever walk  about unguarded. While the others were detained, Malachai is my  personal guard. He was specially trained to be able to conceal himself  even from those of his own rank! Now that you've forced me to make him  reveal himself, I'll have to take it out of your hide." He began  charging his power again, getting ready.

My  eyes widened in alarm. I wasn't sure this counted exactly. Holding me  down like this while his boss killed me. This had to be an attack right?  Before I could question further the field suddenly vanished, the aura  completely cut off. A man appeared behind Pietro in a white half mask  and a hooded black robe. He was looking at me intently, as if curious  what had just happened, but he didn't do anything else. Pietro turned  angrily on the man. "Why did you do that? I was about to kill him! Pin  him down again!" Despite his ranting though, Malachai just stared at me.  Seemed like Zeke was already on the move. Something told me I wasn't  out of the woods quite yet though.