ROD - Chapter 126

Chapter One-Hundred-Twenty-Six – Lightning – Part One

Where there is a will, there’s usually someone crazy enough to try anything.

-Double Retired Archmagus Carl-

My pace is even and steady as I move into the streetway once more. Clayton scans the rooftops a pace in front of me. My mind is distant in memory a persistent headache clouds my thoughts in a thick film. Even with my enhancements, I’m not sure it will be enough. My body feels strange, like spindles of energy are writing themselves into the marrow of my bones. Every part of me feels like it is changing slowly. The torch symbol glows dully still.

What are the Jimminites doing to me?

A sudden throb nearly sends me to my knees, and my heart rate elevates for three breaths before it levels out.

“You good?” Clayton asks, worry strewn across his brow.

“I’m fine,” I lie. Brushing the feeling off and strengthening my wisdom buff, making my thoughts somewhat clearer.

“You sure?”

I nod.

In the distance I see a figure in the sky. He can fly… interesting.

Ajax turns once he reaches sufficient height and distance. He raises his hands in the air and I feel the swell as the system pulls mana into his palms. It is flawless in the execution, without blemish in its design. I can read the feelings like scriptures of magic.

It’s an explosion spell, given his level… one that will likely level this city. I feel another surge of mana from a system skill less than a hundred paces from us on a rooftop. Light forms into seven arrows that rotate in a sphere as they hurtle towards him.

“Zero,” Clayton breathes.

Indeed, the silent archer is there. Bow in hand, the sky booms from the noise of the speed of her arrows crafted in light. Yet when they find purchase and strike their target, something strange happens. The light folds and the energy becomes part of the spell in his hand.

He has some kind of absorption skill. Interesting. I wouldn’t mind analyzing it.

“Shit… shit…” Clayton says.

Zero for the first time since I have known her says one word and one word only, “Run!”

The ball of energy is massive within two more breaths. Clayton tries to drag me away, but I calmly shake my head at him whilst rooting myself in place and preparing my counter argument for the blasphemy of magic concentrating above Ajax.

Even for being above level seventy, it’s rather suspicious how concentrated it is.

“We need to go!” Clayton yells, looking up at Zero who is scaling down the walls like a jaguar in a jungle.

“No, we’re good.”

It’s a shame, I had wanted to get some information out of Ajax, something useful at least. But if he’s going to destroy the city to ensure I die, well, I can’t exactly go easy on him. He’s also too far away from my proximity wards for the anti system runes to be effective.

Not to worry.

I suppose that now is as good a time as any to test the false Abyssal inventory’s capabilities. My mind brushes at the inventory, pulling from it a small object. Lining it up perfectly with my target. My other hand creates wards of protection around Clayton and Zero as she arrives. The object leaving shouldn’t provide any backblast, the inventory stored it in a perfect state of movement, so it will resume said movement when removed.

However, the speed at which it moves, I suspect it will be very fast. I didn’t measure it, but I think if I had to guess, roughly one point eight percent of the speed of light. Give or take a bit.

Zero tries to shoot him again, to no avail as her magic is swallowed into the abyss of his skill.

“Godslayer, we need to go, he absorbs magic, you can’t fight him.”

I stifle a chuckle.

“System based magic, sure, maybe even true magic if he was practiced for it. Not all of my tricks require magic though. This one is pure physics.”

“What?” he asks, blinking as a bead of sweat drops down his brow. Zero tries to pull him away.

“You remember when I was putting objects in my inventory whilst we travelled the Ley Lines? Well, imagine an object travelling at the speed of that Ley Line travel was released into the normal world without any runes to catch it and decelerate it.”

He blinks. Turning to look at the massive ball of energy in the sky.

Time slows in my perception as I will the storage to release a tiny thumbtack at roughly 1.8% of the speed of light into the world.

To say it is eventful is an understatement.

Light billows like a solar flare as the air instantly turns into superheated plasma. Reality swells as the thumbtack turns into a beam of white and purple light. An explosion shakes the earth and the air filling it with blinding light that sears my retinas.

My ears are bleeding as I process what I just witnessed. There is no figure in the sky, only a path of grey smoke and a massive hole in the clouds that have parted in reverence for the humble thumbtack of doom.

Holy shit… that was better than I had hoped. Imagine if I used the candlestick or something much heavier.

“What the fuck was that?” Clayton asks, holding his eyes.

“Velocity.”

“What?”

“Velocity,” I say louder as the healing spell repairs his eardrums.

Thankfully, I had the forethought to reinforce the buildings on my way here. I suppose even as callus as I am in this form, I am still sentimental of innocent life. Windows are cracked and cars are blaring, but I don’t think anyone died, blinded, probably. Dead, no.

Besides Ajax of course, no mortal human could…

There’s a strange sensation in the air, like a god is messing with magic in the area. Light blooms in the clouds and a portal forms, shimmering gold. Like the reward portals and the ones that bring offworlders.

A figure floats from it, my vision enhances rapidly as I swell magic in my irises. It’s Ajax, intact and returned… are you fucking kidding me?

They’re just blatantly breaking rules now?

Well then.

Ajax is… laughing with his arms extended outward.

His voice booms across the land as though enhanced with a skill of some kind.

“Did you really think you could slay me?” he roars, thunder crackles in the periphery after lightning flashes. “I was chosen by the high gods to render judgement upon this feeble world… how dare you think yourself worthy to slay me.”

“Well, this is bullshit,” Clayton says, grabbing Zero and pulling her closer, “We should leave.”

“Not yet,” I sigh, shaking my head as I look at the plethora of boosts he’s no doubt getting. It’s creating a magic storm around him as all the intent is compressed onto his mortal vessel.

“Godslayer are you sure…”

My head turns so my eyes can level in his and breathe confidence into his spirit, “I’ve barely opened my bag of tricks. Relax.”

Ajax roars like some kind of feral wolf man, “They want me to rip you limb from limb! Rejoice that a prophet of the true gods shall dispatch you!”

He’s like a knock off Adaraic. Where do they find these guys? Ajax points his hands towards me like he thinks he’s some kind of superhero and flies directly at me. Within a hundred paces though he turns and lands just thirty or so off. Looking at me through the dissipating smoke.

Well that isn’t good, he doesn’t care about collateral damage, if I use the same trick and he’s on a street, the force will dissipate around him. Also I think his skin is enhanced now. There’s an oppressively thick amount of lines and runes above it.  

“We have labored for this moment for years, the collapse of all the Champions on Earth. The fall of the WHA and the WSA. Now we control the United World Order. I was supposed to celebrate it with my sister… but now, you’ve ruined it.”

“Are you still monologuing?” I ask him with a pained expression and an eyebrow half cocked, “Because if you need a few minutes to prepare, you can just say that, I’ll let you power up whatever it is you want.”

Ajax sneers then roars with laughter, “I never took you for a coward.”

I blink at him, with a genuinely confused expression I ask, “What?”

“You need time to power up your ultimate, godslaying ability, the same one that just killed me before I was brought back. It’s obvious, you foolish piece of shit.”

I blink again… does he think that was my ultimate attack?

“The Goddess knew your plan, she saw through your bullshit. She knew you’d try to instant kill me, because I’m so strong…” he groans strangely as he flexes his bulging muscles, “So powerful…”

He’s an idiot… but more importantly, who is this goddess? Can’t be Sera or Ulana, I’d recognize their runes and the sensation of their vibrations. No… this is familiar, but it’s not either of them.

My head turns slightly as I feel the pulse of authority on the runes on his skin, even from here, I recognize them. It hasn’t been long since I’ve seen them.

Whoever is boosting Ajax is the same one that cursed Fisban.

Who though? And why…

“Lost for words?” he scoffs, daring to take a step toward me with his chest puffed out.

“Not quite, I didn’t want to stop your monologue earlier, but that was a thumbtack stored at an extremely high velocity, it wasn’t an ultimate attack or anything like that. It was actually one of the smallest items I stored.”

He stops his march toward me, wary again he says, “You lie. You’re a filthy lying heathen.”

“Heathen? Do you really believe the bullshit you’re selling?”

He growls, “Any who do not worship the Nine are heathens.”

I sigh, unexpectedly he’s a religious zealot for gods that came to Earth without an invitation and decided it would be good to see it burn. I suppose he feels that them choosing him means they deserve worship. Because they must have seen his… value? I tilt my head further. There is little here that impresses me. Except for the extreme effort to hone his body there is little I think he should have pride in.

“Even if you weren’t lying, she has blessed me to become invulnerable to piercing damage.”

“She?” I ask.

We know it’s someone who probably hates me, is a female god, and is presumably stronger than Verantha’s goddess. I can think of one. My eyes narrow. Could it really be her? I mean… she does have reason to despise me. More than one reason one could argue. Still, to help Marauders on foreign worlds to get back at me?

“Lost for words again?” Ajax asks, resuming his march toward me.

“It makes you impervious to piercing damage, you’re positive?”

He swallows, a bead of sweat rolling down his brow as his pace slows again, “Yes.”

“Well, that’s perfect then, fortuitous even.”

He squints at me and swallows again.

“See, I wasn’t quite sure what the effect of immense velocity would be against a normal flesh and blood target. But now that a reliable punching bag has shown itself. Now’s a good time to experiment, don’t you think?”

“You’re bluffing, I don’t…” he begins but doesn’t finish.

I lean down and point my middle finger toward him, at an angle, so the force will disperse skyward… mostly. The air rips asunder as another thumbtack at Mach incredible rips a clean hole where Ajax used to stand. My magic strains at the protest of violent explosions that attempt to level the buildings and kill the people who still haven’t fled.

Damn, I’m nearly spent from suppressing that and ensuring no one dies. I can’t keep this up forever. Though it’s considerably less energy to hit him up there, versus down here.

I need to take this fight somewhere else, somewhere I can really let go and open some more bags.

Light blooms in the sky once more, another golden portal. Ajax back again for round three.

I suppose if nothing else, it’s good to have a test subject.

Waste not, want not as they say.

“Now you don’t have any tricks!” he booms with laughter.

His booming laughter is silenced by the next thumbtack.

“Moron,” I sigh.