Ruthless V6Ch10-Sonic Boom

A monster confronted James, the likes of which he’d never seen before—and the likes of which he suspected Earth had never seen before, including before the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. It boasted long, sharp finger-length fangs growing from a head roughly the size of James’s upper body, a long, thick neck, two pairs of wings, six arms and two legs ending in razor talons even longer than its teeth, and a tail almost as long as the rest of the body.

Every inch of it was covered in scales, but atop most of the scales, especially the wings, there was a layer of feathers.

The most intimidating thing was what Identify told him, though.

Vorpal Wyvern Warp King Zandros, Lv. 48.

Shit, James thought. He’s even stronger than the Purple Oni.

Despite the fact that the fight with that boss monster had taken place in Carol’s Dungeon, the Purple Oni had been strong enough that James thought it could have killed him if not for James’s greater combat cunning—mainly in the form of his willingness to fight dirty.

And the Purple Oni had been an affable sort. James hoped they might meet and fight again one day, if Carol still kept the Red and Blue Onis—the component monsters from which it was formed—in her roster of creatures.

This Warp King did not seem affable, or perhaps it was just the circumstances of his first meeting with James. The parted cloud of dust that the wyvern had displaced had revealed that the other occupants of the top floor of the building had not survived the Solar Ray blasts.

Piles of bone and scorched flesh lay scattered over the rubble strewn flooring.

As James watched, more feathers grew over the Warp King, and he realized that the dinosaur had actually been injured by the blasts, too. It was simply recovering rapidly, including growing in more feathers to replace lost ones.

So how much damage did we do, before he started healing?

He blinked, and when he opened his eyes, he found an empty space where he had been staring. The monster had disappeared.

What?

Then it was inches in front of him, eyes boring through the space James occupied.

The beast’s mouth moved. James could tell it was saying something, but before the words could reach his ears, two hard, sharp—bladed?!—pairs of wings struck James at impossible speed.

A tiny fraction of a second later, as the blood gushed from his wounds and his severed arm dropped away from his body, the boom hit him, a deafening sound that battered his entire body with its impact and shattered his ear drums.

The monster could move faster than sound.

As James began falling out of the sky, his mind fixated on the least important detail of everything that had just happened.

When the beast’s lips had moved, it had said something, but a sonic boom had drowned out the words. But James’s eyes could perceive much faster than the speed of sound. His brain uselessly remembered the lip movements and reconstructed what the monster had been saying.

“Die, human,” the beast had growled.

That makes sense. The thought was slightly giddy, and James realized he was becoming lightheaded from loss of blood. The only upside was that now that he had Pain Ignorance, he literally didn’t feel any pain. But perhaps that was what he needed, to wake him up and keep him from losing this fight.

Full Body Control. Maximum adrenaline, and hold in as much blood and organs from my wounds as possible… and turn down Pain Ignorance so that I only ignore ninety-five percent of the pain of my injuries.

James wasn’t entirely sure if he was using the Skill or just thinking what needed to happen as hard as he could, but he got an answer to that question a second later. A sharp pain slapped him in the gut and in the stump of his severed left arm.

Right, I just lost a limb. Fuck. Fuck!

Where had it gone? His eyes scanned the area around him.

Then he perceived something entering the area around his body—approaching from his blindspot. He didn’t need to think to know it was the wyvern again, trying to finish the job.

Precision Gravity Control.

James rendered himself instantly ten times heavier. His acceleration sharply increased, turning him to a missile headed toward the ground. A moment later, moving again at seemingly impossible speed, a creature whizzed past just over his head.

He used Precision Gravity Control again, this time making the monster into the object his gravity pulled him towards. Instantly, James stopped falling downward and started falling toward the wyvern.

Then the wyvern flapped its wings and simply disappeared again.

A second later, James felt himself being pulled backward. He knew immediately what was happening.

“Arrogant,” pronounced a deep, monstrous voice from behind his neck.

Predator’s Sacred Armor!

A giant pair of jaws clamped down on the aura shield all around James’s head. There was a loud noise of impact—every sound was slightly painful to James as his ears healed, but it was far from the worst pain he was in, as his arm regenerated mid-fight.

But it seemed that the wyvern at least could not penetrate his defenses with a single bite.

It raked the side of the aura armor with a vicious claw, but it simply sent James flying a few feet away. And then James was pulled back, thanks to the continuing effect of Precision Gravity Control.

The monster accelerated at James and struck him with its blade-feathered wings once again, but this blow was perceptibly much weaker than the previous one, both because of Predator’s Sacred Armor—and because there was some other qualitative difference, which it was hard to put his finger on. Something different about the movements in the two situations.

It was just a lot slower this time, wasn’t it? Before, I could barely track it. Maybe it was just because I blinked at the wrong moment. Or does the monster need room to accelerate properly?

He ordered his eyes to stop blinking unless it was necessary to protect against dust and debris. Even if they became very dry, that was a small price to pay to catch what was going on with this wyvern’s movements.

James’s body continued to be pulled after the wyvern, and as the creature turned to look back at him, it became obvious that the wyvern knew what was going on—and didn’t like it.

In response to James’s body following after it, the wyvern beat its wings harder—and then it disappeared again. The immediate clue to its new location was that James started to fall straight up. So somewhere above him was where the wyvern was. He looked over his head and back, behind where he was—that was where the wyvern had to be, to cancel out his forward momentum so quickly—and saw the beast flapping its wings and charging what appeared to be lightning Mana around its throat.

Some kind of lightning breath attack, James thought. Interesting. It was doing damage close up earlier, but as soon as my armor stopped its wing attacks, it wanted to try playing the distance game. Does this thing lack stamina, then?

Every monster had a weakness, after all. No one and nothing could be perfect in all respects.

So what’s yours?

As James was questioning that, the wyvern suddenly jerked to the side, struck in the neck by an unseen object. The lightning Mana gathering in the throat shook, and James had the sense that it had almost been dissipated by the impact.

That was interesting. It indicated the wyvern had somehow been unaware of Doppelganger’s presence right beside him. But the beast had known Doppelganger was there earlier—the wyvern had referred to James and Doppelganger, plural, as “humans” when first threatening them.

Even if he got Doppelganger’s Race wrong, it was close enough to right to be impressive, considering that Doppelganger was made of human parts, and that he was entirely invisible both at the time and currently.

But the wyvern noticed him before and not now. What gives?

The lightning Mana returned suddenly to the wyvern’s center of mass, and a thin, high, piercing sound passed through the air. James felt it strike him and recalled something similar earlier, when the dust cloud was still hanging over everything.

And he understood something of the wyvern’s powers.

It had Echolocation or a Skill very similar to it. And that was its only way of perceiving things that were invisible—like James and Doppelganger right now.

Ignoring James as he fell upward towards it, the wyvern flew up and forward, clearly pursuing Doppelganger where he had been when the sound wave struck him.

Doppel, he’s using Echolocation to find our locations, James sent quickly. Evade, and blast him with a sound attack when you get the chance. Echolocation requires really sensitive hearing to work. If we ruin his ability to hear us, he won’t be able to find where we are.

Yes, Progenitor, Doppelganger replied.

James began preparing a set of attacks of his own.

First, he used Precision Gravity Control again, targeting the wyvern this time.

As James’s gravity adjustment took effect, the speed of all the wyvern's little movements suddenly changed. Every wingbeat carried more weight. Every flick of his claws or tail took visibly more effort.

He had multiplied the beast’s weight by ten.

The monster jerked his massive head down and stared right through James’s position—or where he must have calculated, using Echolocation, that James had to be. Then he flapped his wings a bit harder than usual—and disappeared from sight again.

So that didn’t disable his ability to travel that way after all, James confirmed. The movement speed isn’t pure speed, then. The monster is using a mix of speed and actual space manipulation. Maybe teleportation, maybe something more complex.

The wyvern entered the air directly behind James again, acting exactly as he had expected the monster would. He clearly loved taking James by surprise if he could. A blow from behind was the best way to do that, now that the wyvern’s movement speed itself was less of a surprise.

James was helpless to do much to change his direction now, though. Even if he adjusted gravity’s effect on him, the wyvern had seen James’s gravity manipulation powers at work over and over now. The monster would simply shift his trajectory through the air to catch his prey. Nor did James want to avoid a conflict here. It was a necessary clash.

“You think you are very clever, human,” the wyvern said as it closed the distance. “But your powers are insignificant next to my own.”

It struck James, and though this hit was less impactful than most of those previous, the Predator’s Sacred Armor had finally had enough. The wings managed to smash through and rip open a gash in James’s back, from his shoulder down to his hip.

As the wyvern flew past, however, James continued to fly after it, pulled by Precision Gravity Control’s ongoing hold over the two fighters.

“Your powers are impressive, but you’re very predictable,” James replied.

He had known that the wyvern would probably close the distance with James again, once the invisible Doppelganger made a move. The wyvern knew who the real threat was. The monster had only needed a moment when there would be a good opening to try and strike James, to inflict a more serious injury—a moment the wyvern hoped would come while the monster seemed to be distracted with Doppelganger. That would lead James to focus on his own attack, rather than on self-defense.

But James had wanted the battle to turn into close quarters combat too. Some of his attacks were very distance dependent.

Deactivate pain completely, James directed.

He opened his mouth and let loose the loudest, most concentrated Hypnotic Shriek of his life, just feet away from the wyvern’s head. It reinjured James’s own ear drums, though he couldn’t feel anything.

But the wyvern’s entire body shook with the sound, and in particular, its jaws opened wide.

James couldn’t hear a thing, but he imagined that the wyvern let loose an agonized cry. Its sensitive hearing—and therefore its ability to perceive James and Doppelganger at all while they were invisible—was utterly ruined.

In the moment when the wyvern’s eyes clenched shut with pain, when its body went limp with unfeigned helplessness, James sprang into even more violent action.

He ripped loose the magic satchel from his waist.

Catch, Doppel! he ordered as the bag flew away from him and became visible again in midair.

And James charged his entire body with lightning Mana, while at the same time ordering Roscuro to transform into a sword.

It was time to make his attempt at ending this.

Precision Gravity Control! Lightning Strike!

James’s body accelerated through the last couple of feet of distance that had been left to it by his momentum at suddenly increased speed.

As the wyvern sensed something moving closer quickly, the creature turned his head and raised his wings to flap them once more—and a lightning-imbued blade stabbed right through his back. James didn’t stop until he felt a pulsating organ impaled on the tip of the Soul Eater Orb blade.

That’s the heart. Has to be.

Then the wings swung down, and the wyvern disappeared entirely once more.