Ruthless V5Ch53-The Panther Queen Fight Part 1

James descended, his movements slow and stately at first, and then sudden and violent.

He really did not think the Panther Queen should be a challenge to defeat, considering how simple her abilities were. His “Avenger” Title from Vidarr had also been active this whole time, since the Queen and the Panther Army were the aggressors here. James could still feel his power surging slightly as a result.

[Avenger: A god of vengeance is defined by his grudges, as are his faithful servants. When you feel that you have a legitimate grievance against an opponent for past wrongs, enjoy a dramatic power boost, varying in intensity with the depth of the wrong. Gain increased efficacy for abilities that depend on negative emotionality.]

Even without those factors, James felt confident that he could beat the Panther Queen. He was simply too deadly, against almost any combination of defenses.

But he could at least treat the fight like practice for the Victors Tournament coming up. Perhaps he could force her into surrendering and becoming one of his subordinates, as he had done with Samuel and Duncan. The Queen was certainly a physical specimen compared to most other Rulers James had encountered. It would be interesting to see if he could beat her without relying on illusions—which he had assessed would probably not work effectively on her—or Soul Magic—which would be an instant kill, if effective, but was not his preferred method unless he needed to use it.

She was leagues beyond Roscuro or Duncan in physical Strength, Agility, and Fortitude, and she was also stronger than some actual physical combatants like the Bat Queen—though either not as strong as Samuel, or maybe only a little stronger.

Let’s see how far I’ve come. If I can break you down without killing you, it proves that I’m a contender for strongest in the world.

James used Precision Gravity Control and Air Strike as motive force to propel himself flying through the air, closing with the Queen at such violent speed that he saw her expression turn to one of surprise only just before James shot into melee range.

At the last moment, he shifted his stance and threw a Meteor Strike punch at her abdomen more quickly than she could react.

Then it was James’s turn to look surprised. Despite the suddenness of the attack, her body had been ready for it.

Her abs just completely absorbed the force from my punch… and is her fur magic resistant or fire resistant or something? Need to test more attack options.

He sensed as the Queen’s body reacted to him—he could feel how her muscles were adjusting and flexing through his knuckles, which were still in contact with her stomach. James quickly assessed the situation and then kicked off of her body. As he flew backward, the Panther Queen was slashing her long sword-like claws after him, but James’s body had already rocketed out of her reach by the time her arms swung down to his height.

“Human, you will regret playing these tricks with me and my soldiers,” the Queen growled, her eyes following his movements while her body simply stood on the air.

“I doubt it,” James said. “I decimated your army while it was missing its strongest member. Unlikely that I would have had the chance if you had been there. Now you’ve got, what, a quarter of the number of able-bodied troops you started with?”

As he spoke, he made a small hand gesture, and the ground beneath him and the Queen began to fall back into its usual position, covering up almost all of the survivors who had fallen into the sinkhole. Some of them would have been impaled on the stone spikes James had lined the bottom of the pit with, but James estimated that roughly a quarter of them were still alive and healthy. A number that he could kill without needing his illusions if he managed to kill the Panther Queen first. Only a handful of the Pantherfolk remained on the ground, having clung to the earth as it was shifting around them. The rest were completely out of the action, and as James glanced down, he saw that Doppelganger was quickly working to incapacitate the others.

That’s good. With them out of the picture, I’ll be able to dispel the illusion.

James’s True Regeneration was keeping him from running too low on Mana, but Complete Illusion Magic was a significant drain. Once he no longer had to keep that spell active, he would be able to show some much flashier magic while still recovering energy.

“You will regret that with every fiber of your being!” the Queen promised. She threw herself at James, and he simply shifted to the side, moving through the air effortlessly with the combination of Air Strike and Precision Gravity Control that essentially approximated true flight.

“You started this,” James said, shrugging. “I don’t see the need for further words. Let me know if you decide to surrender.”

“Hold still!” the Queen hissed, turning in midair and hurling herself at James.

Not exactly giving me a compelling argument to do what you want, James thought.

But he said nothing aloud.

James was tempted to keep bantering with the Panther Queen, but he wanted to focus on fighting instead. Silently focusing on fighting would allow his “Silencer” Title, from Vidarr, to activate.

The Queen seemed to be careening past James again, but at the last moment, she extended one of her sword-claws even further, like a pole vault, and she slashed at his armor, chopping through the shoulder with just a glancing blow.

The blade didn’t cut his flesh, though. It only scraped past, leaving a small piece of raw skin that instantly healed as soon as the claw had separated from his body. It mainly reminded James that he needed better quality armor. The Royal Exoarmor he had acquired back in Orientation was now markedly weaker than his own skin.

The Queen wheeled around, her fangs bared in a savage grin. She knew she had struck a blow this time.

James decided to stop allowing her to believe that she had a chance.

He jetted down to just below the Panther Queen’s height, quickly charging a Solar Ray with the solar energy remaining in his body as he moved—it was the middle of the night, so it was just the little bit of solar power that was left within him from earlier in the day.

When he got close to the Queen, she naturally looked down to face him, and that was when he fired the Solar Ray right into her eyes.

“Ahh, fuck!” she cried out, more in surprise than in pain. Though Solar Ray was a damage-dealing move, it was not particularly effective so long after the sun had set, especially not on a night with no moon like tonight.

It was still satisfying to surprise the Panther Queen, though.

That’ll teach you to get smug, he thought.

He darted back up to within melee range.

Lightning Strike!

He threw a lightning infused chop with Roscuro, whose body James had quickly transformed into a dagger. The blade entered the Queen’s right arm at just above the elbow, and it cut through a layer of muscle and then simply stopped, unable to cut through the bone.

James quickly pulled back as the Queen swung a wild, blind blow at him, and Roscuro dissolved his shape to slip free of the Queen’s body. The Panther Queen was momentarily blind from being shot in the face with Solar Ray, but he knew it wouldn’t last. James pointed at her and activated Precision Gravity Control, increasing the pressure of gravity on the Panther Queen by a factor of four.

Her body stumbled backward, losing its grip on her magical footholds in the air, and she began dropping rapidly. James activated Invisibility, to give the Queen an extra headache trying to find him when her sight came back.

Then he used Full Body Control, copying the Queen’s weaponry by forcing his body to grow additional bone mass in the form of blades that sprouted, not just from his hands—as hers did—but from his upper arms, his shoulders, his back, and around his rib cage.

The Queen managed to get her footing in the air again, using her Skill to catch herself despite the sudden increase in her weight. Perhaps her weight was immaterial to the efficacy of this particular Skill.

She was blinking her eyes, her vision seemingly slowly coming back, when a human pincushion slammed into her side at sixty miles per hour. The bony spearpoints penetrated multiple internal organs, and she coughed up a handful of blood a second after the attack, just before her body began to repair itself.

James felt her healing abilities as they kicked into overdrive, her body knitting itself together around his bone spikes.

The Queen also seemed to take the blow in a more calculated way than James would have thought possible after suffering such a serious set of injuries. This time, rather than wildly flailing at James, she carefully reached around and tried to grab hold of him. But her wounds had slowed her. He was already pulling back, leaving behind the bits of bone that he had stuck her with, like massive splinters. He willed them to burrow deeper into her body, though he could feel her own abilities resisting the effort.

The Panther Queen blinked once more, and James could tell that she would be able to see again now. The night would naturally feel darker than it had been. Her eyes would need to adjust once more.

But her sight was back, and James had no good way of blinding her a second time.

She looked from side to side, but of course, James had rendered himself invisible.

The Queen shook her head dismissively.

“We are warriors!” she called out. “Hiding and playing underhanded tricks does not become us!”

She began chanting, not waiting for a response, quickly gathering a thick curtain of wind Mana around herself.

What’s she going to do with that? James thought.

Of course, he got an answer immediately. The queen pinched a handful of hairs from off of her arm and tossed them into the air, and the wind Mana picked them up. It began to swirl around her body, forming a tornado, and the gale grew rapidly larger and more powerful, sucking in objects around it.

James used Precision Gravity Control to increase his weight this time, and he began dropping like a stone, too heavy for the twister to pull him in. He groaned quietly to himself. The Panther Queen was making him work for it, he had to give her that.

But the level of resistance she was putting up was a bit annoying. Rotter was still live streaming and recording everything for posterity over in his corner of the battlefield. This was supposed to be a glorious victory in which the Fisher King steamrolled all opposition—not a slog in which he slowly ground down the Panther Queen, who must even now be healing behind the protection of her walls of wind.

He was still invisible, but now he had a new problem. He had to think of how to get close to the Panther Queen for his next attack, without being seen and without getting sucked into the tornado.

How can I trap her, so she can’t avoid my next attack? he thought. His body was still covered in the bone growths that he had created before—more than ever, as he was quickly growing new ones to replace the old and sprouting additional bone spikes to make himself a deadlier weapon. He activated Predator’s Venomous Armaments to make the next attack even more lethal.

But none of that would avail him anything if he couldn’t get a melee hit in.

I could always overwhelm her with magic, James thought. She’s using it now, because she’s kind of desperate, and she had no other way to attack me, not because it’s a specialty of hers at all. Giant waves of earth or water wouldn’t be blocked by that tornado, they would just get sucked in more quickly… Wait. That gives me an idea.

A slow smile spread across his face.

This idea might be enough to win the battle all on its own—and force the Queen to admit defeat without dying.

James began gathering a large quantity of Mana around himself.