Book 4 - Chapter 21

Brin was fairly certain he could take a level 30 [Warrior] without too much trouble just based off raw stats, but he wasn’t sure what a [Knight] could do and Hedrek kept his status locked down tight. The biggest issue was the armor. It wasn’t raw steel like Brin’s; Hedrek had real armor. Though it was plain in design, it practically thrummed with magical energy. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to break through it, and he wasn’t willing to sacrifice his Bog Standard spear the way that he had with his glass spear against Aberfa.

Hedrek didn’t give him time to plan. He launched himself forward, sword swinging. Brin defended against a wild assault, with Hedrek’s sword seeming to come from everywhere at once. Each strike landed with force that made Brin’s bones tremble, and he barely managed to parry and block the oncoming strikes. The haft of his spear deflected the sharp steel sword well, but Brin didn’t trust it against a full-force swing, so he had to nudge the sword aside rather than block as often as possible.

Hedrek chopped down with a wild overhand strike that Brin had to jump to avoid, and it stuck Hedrek’s sword a foot into the ground. He roared and pulled it out, spraying dirt into Brin’s eyes. He only blinked for half a second, but in that time Hedrek closed on him in a side sweep. Hedrek’s sword left a notch in the haft of his spear that had partially blocked it and made a clang as it hit the armor on Brin’s shoulder.

Brin kicked Hedrek, knocking him back, but he recovered and launched himself forward again, sword swinging like a madman.

Despite the power of the blows, they weren’t especially quick. Brin was stronger, and probably had more Dexterity, too. Something else was making the sword hit harder.

Growing confident, Brin moved to the attack, taking advantage of openings. He rang the glass of his spearhead against Hedrek’s breastplate, and then did it again. Hedrek stepped back on reflex, opening up some space, though of course Brin was nowhere near penetrating that armor.

They circled each other for a moment, calculating, and now that he had a moment to breathe, Brin realized something was strange. Hedrek didn’t fight like someone with [Blade Mastery]. He fought with a berserker fury, almost like [Blade Mastery] had given him perfect form and then he’d forced himself to learn how to fight poorly again. It was effective, since Brin never knew what to expect. 

But what was really happening here? Now that he’d seen some sort of Skill being used, maybe [Inspect] would show him what it was. He tried and–success!

[Path of the Blade] The second step on the path to true mastery. This Skill heavily increases a blade’s striking power in exchange for making it more difficult to control. Imbue the blade with mana to increase its striking power further.

Inspect +1

All things being equal, Brin thought that he could win against Hedrek sword-to-spear, but all things weren’t equal. He didn’t have a good way through that armor, not fighting like he was. He had no doubt that Hedrek would be able to chop through his own unmagical steel. As much as he’d like to show off and beat a [Knight] with sheer strength of arms, that wasn’t going to happen. He’d had to use his magic.

Main: Screen me

Task Manager: Growing screen

This little program was deceptively simple; it was one of the things he’d come up to pull off an illusion trick without using any [Illusionist] magic. It put up a paper-thin panel of glass in front of the opponent. They’d see it as a transparent sheet of glass, but it was really a perfect print of a photo from Hedrek’s point of view.

Hedrek saw Brin standing still behind a thin sheet of glass. In reality, Brin was running the other direction as fast as he could to give himself some space.

“Break it! Quick!” Brych shouted, being the first to catch on. Cheater! True, calling out advice was fine during a friendly spar, but he should know that this was a duel in all but name.

Hedrek cautiously jabbed at it, tiling his head back as if he’d been expecting some kind of trick. It shattered, and then he saw that he was right about the trick; just not a bomb or something like he’d been expecting. “Hey! Get back here!”

Brin stopped and turned. He’d given himself about fifty feet. The ground started to tilt downward behind him, heading back down the hill. This would have to be enough.

He reached into a pouch at his side and pulled out a handful of marbles. They really were just glass marbles; if he was going to keep pretending to be a [Glass Invocationist] he needed to look like he was using glass items at least some of the time. He didn’t plan on hiding the fact that he’d evolved his Class from [Glasser], but he still needed to lean towards items. One thing he’d found was that doing it this way was actually very beneficial. It was a lot more cost effective to summon glass if he used a starter. He tossed the marbles, scattering them. Each of them had already been pre-assigned a signature; anyone who [Inspected] one of his marbles would see “Seed of Mirror Man - This glass ball can be used by a [Glass Invocationist] to create a glass duplicate of the caster.”

That done, he sent his orders to his threads.

Main: Army of Glass. One for every marble.

Task Manager: Initiating. Stand By.

Was that enough? He decided to do another for good measure. From another pouch, he pulled out a few glass darts he’d premade and threw them in the air. These were really just a misdirection; trying to create a hundred starters for this spell just wasn’t worth it.

Main: Hail of Glass. Empower with Language.

Task Manager: Activating.

He shouted, “Feel the wrath of my army of glass!” and then the Mouth Manager took over, moving Brin’s lips to words of Language. “<Several Disparate Points of Glass, To Three Hundred Degrees, Complex. Summon! Move Like a Biting Wind, Hurtful. Fire!>”

Hedrek seemed paralyzed by indecision as Brin’s two spells were casting, and only started to charge forward right as the hail of glass darts hit him. He stopped and crouched down, shielding himself with his arms.

The glass hit hard and plinked off his armor like a hundred raindrops. Surely some of them would get through the gaps, though. Brin kept an eye on [Battle Fury]. The storm of glass darts ran dry, and Brin didn’t see [Battle Fury] tick up by a single percentage. The armor had blocked everything. How?

He took control of some of the darts and started to climb them up Hedrek’s armor. If he could get inside the armor and then grow the glass he’d be able to injure him from there. At the very least he’d be able to lock down the movement. He wriggled the slivers of glass up Hedrek’s body like snakes, worming their way into the gaps, finding all the little pores and openings and…

They were gone. One by one, he lost the connection to every single piece of glass that touched Hedrek’s armor. It had some kind of anti-magic enchantment. Unfair. Well, it didn’t matter. His glass army was ready.

A dozen Brins stood between Hedrek and the real Brin. They carried a variety of weapons; spears, axes, and swords. They swung their weapons in flourishes or made rude gestures, taunting him. All except one, who held a spear that looked just like the real Brin’s and pretended to be trying to sneak away. That was his best decoy, Brin’s real body was jeering and taunting like the rest. It was too bad he had to stay silent, though.

Hedrek reflexively swung his sword at the nearest copy, who jumped back to avoid the strike. “What is this?”

Brin put a sphere of silence around his mouth and started casting again. This one he did with his own mind and his own voice. For complex spellwork it was fine to pass it off to a thread, but for his most powerful strike he had to do it himself. He’d pump as much Mana he could spare into one big spell. He summoned a javelin, putting it up his sleeve and letting it then fall into his hand so he could pretend it had already been there. He assigned it’s status with some nonsense about a really powerful artifact that only a [Glass Invocationist] could use, and then got to work.

While Brin chanted, his Mirror Men formed a circle around Hedrek and pressed in. Hedrek swung wildly to keep them from grouping up, defaulting to the tactics of one man against many and backing up while keeping ready to defend.

The Mirror Men darted in from every side to score glancing blows against Hedrek’s armor. None of their weapons would make a dent in it, but it was doing a good job of pissing him off and keeping him occupied.

Every time he swung at one of them, the Mirror Man jumped back to avoid it. Hedrek was fast, but Brin’s magic was faster and since they were each being piloted by a Directed Thread, their reaction time wouldn’t be a weakness either. 

“What are these? Are these Mirror Images?” Hedrek called out in outrage.

“They’re made of glass! You have to stop the real guy!” It was Brych again, calling out advice that Hedrek didn’t need. 

Brin finished his spell. “<With Translucent Sharpness, Biting Glass that Thirsts for Blood. Sharpen. Tearing, Hurtful, Created in Wrath! Fire!>”

He threw the javelin with all his strength. The glass buckled, the shoddy summoned glass unable to completely contain the insane amount of magic that he’d poured into it, but despite some cracked and glowing waste energy, the bulk of the javelin stayed together.

It struck Hedrek like a comet. All of Brin’s glass men jumped back as one to avoid the impact, but a piece of shrapnel still shattered one of them, taking it out of the fight.

There was a small cloud of dust and magic, but when it faded Brin saw that Hedrek’s armor had held. Seriously, what would he have to do to beat this guy?

It would have to be bludgeoning damage. He’d need to do what he’d threatened and ring Hedrek like a bell. 

He reached out with his magic to pick up one of the kettlebells, grabbing by the handle he’d made, and flung it at Hedrek. It landed with a loud crash and Hedrek gave a pained grunt, the first sign of actual weakness he’d shown in this fight. Better, [Battle Fury] ticked up; apparently a bruise counted as a wound.

Brin grabbed three more, and flung them all at him. He avoided two, but the third caught him in the back of the head, knocking him to the ground.

He leapt back to his feet, cursing, but Brin had another ready to go. When this one hit Hedrek, he dropped his sword and caught it. Brin felt the magical connection cut out, he couldn’t touch the glass on it anymore.

Hedrek spun like a shot putter and threw the kettlebell back at Brin. He tried to move, but the stone hit him on the shoulder, flinging him to the ground. [Battle Fury] ticked up again, but Brin didn’t think it was serious. Worse was the fact that Hedrek hadn’t fallen for his decoy. Of course not, he’d seen the real Brin throw the javelin.

“There you are. Good. Do you all want to see what a [Knight] can really do?” Hedrek called.

Brin felt the hair on the back of his neck tingle. This wasn’t good. He could run, but only the steep downward slope of the hill was behind him.

Main: Quick Swap

Task Manager: Invisibility ready to go. Take DT7’s place, to your right. Swap now.

For this spell, Brin kept a couple Directed Threads ready to go with Self-Invisibility and Mirror Images. It was a bit expensive to keep ready for something he never really wanted to have to use, but now he was glad he had it.

He ran to the nearest Mirror Man, and sensed that it was moving to take his spot. Before he’d even dropped the illusions, Hedrek blurred.

One moment the [Knight] was standing there across the field. The next he was gone. Half of Brin’s mirror men were exploding, their glass flying in the air, whatever had destroyed them already gone.

Only then did Brin see where Hedrek had gone. He was to the left. Standing in the place Brin’s decoy had only just reached, glass flying in every direction.

What was that?

Knight’s Charge - Fly forward at great speed with nigh-unstoppable force. The effects of Strength, Vitality, and Dexterity are tripled for the duration of the charge. All powers and effects of this skill are applied to mounts. This Skill begins to lose efficacy at distances greater than two thousand feet. This Skill has a significant stamina cost.

If Brin hadn’t swapped with a Glass Man at the last second, he might be meeting Solia right now.

A less experienced version of Brin might’ve stood and gawked at that unfair Skill a bit longer, but his mind was split into too many pieces for that. All he knew was: Fight now, think later.

He jumped and kicked Hedrek with both legs, then fell onto his back. Hedrek was pushed back a single step, but his foot hit empty air. He probably hadn’t noticed that Brin was right on the edge of where the hill started to slope steeply downward. He waved his arms comically for just a moment and then fell backward to tumble down the hill.

You have defeated: Hedrek Trueworthy (30)

Experience reduced for a non-lethal sparring match.