[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 83: Demolition Man

Sam hurried to the next Tile on his list.

The [Forest Tile] had been a close call, but the others were farther from the edge. And yet, Raiko’s Skyshard seemed to be speeding up its demolition efforts.

With the addition of all the Tiles he was harvesting, Sam bet that Raiko’s island would still be significantly larger than his, but no longer several orders of magnitude.

He knew she wouldn’t want anything to go to waste, not when his Skyshard could make excellent use of it.

This was becoming yet another point towards two Skyshards being better than one. With one injured and damaged, the other could pick up the pieces that needed levels and mana to sustain them.

Now that his Skyshard had a Settlement Core, the mana reserves did not seem to be falling any longer. Whatever it was using, it didn’t consume more than it passively generated.

He could only hope that effect was from the [Sourcestone], and not from being in close proximity to Raiko’s Skyshard. If that increased the mana drain her island took, then that’d quickly introduce a problem for both of them.

Their islands would sink. Being able to stay aloft drew on a Skyshard’s mana reserves, that much he knew for sure.

For the time being, that didn’t seem to be a problem. Only a potential one. One that he could figure out if it would even occur at all by inspecting Raiko’s Skyshard details.

A [Plains Tile] was next. They were useful, had arable land, and most of all provided space without getting in the way too much.

Sam hurried down the rolling hills of the Skyshard, making his way to the next Tile after the [Forest Tile] to save some time.

The final Tile he could pick up on his way back to his Skyshard. He had one in mind that he hoped would still be there.

Breaking the [Plains Tile] was even easier than the [Forest Tile]. It seemed to have less HP, if a Tile even had such a thing. It was weaker somehow, in a way that Sam couldn’t fully grasp but somehow knew all the same.

Perhaps there was less life?

Regardless of the reason, Sam Broke the [Plains Tile] by employing the same stacking weak points tactic he had used on the [Forest Tile]. The new type of Breaking required him to charge up his power, making it nearly useless in battle unless he could hide and charge up his bloodline’s power.

The only way he could see it working at its current strength was as an ambush tactic.

It took a lot out of him and using the [Dullahan Greatsword] seemed integral to the success, which only further compounded his fatigue as he collected the [Plains Tile] cube and rushed off to the last Tile.

Sam’s Skyshard had been picked for space and composition more than anything else. It needed Tiles that were specifically suited to providing the right environment in his opinion, and while he now had sand, forest, and plains, he was missing one Tile.

The one that would tie it all together.

He’d only seen this Tile from the ground. There was a tall forest atop a series of hills that blocked the view of this Tile from above, giving the viewer the illusion of a forest that went down to the edge of the Skyshard.

Komachi hopped down from his shoulder and approached the turbulent waters of the massive lake. As Sam prepared to Break the Tile, Komachi lapped at the splashing water for a quick drink.

Half of the lake was rapidly draining away, likely making somebody below very soggy. The Water mana had an interesting interaction with his Breaker bloodline.

It didn’t stop him from being able to set up weak points. He refined the technique every time he employed it and felt he was getting rather good at it despite the lack of skill ups, but the Water mana muted the effects of his Breaking.

Whether it was because Water mana naturally disperses, weakening the effects of trying to shatter its Tile, or something else, Sam didn’t have a clue, but he intended to find out.

Once there wasn’t a clock for getting the Tiles he needed.

Sam struggled. He had to line up weak points much closer and deeper throughout the [Lake Tile] compared to anywhere else.

The plains had been the easiest. They almost wanted to come apart, but the [Lake Tile] resisted all but his most severe efforts.

Every weak point Sam placed fuzzed as if encountering some strange interference. He felt he didn’t have much time before they dissolved entirely.

Striking with all of his gathered force, Sam Broke the [Lake Tile].

Once again, the Tile folded up in half like a book, then again and again until it became a cube a foot on each side.

Water sloshed inside an invisible force field, but the bottom of the [Lake Tile] cube was rich silt. It looked like one of those artistic dioramas that showed a slice of the landscape down to the bedrock.

“That’s not ever going to get old,” Komachi admitted with sincere enthusiasm, watching the magical effect. “I can’t wait to see what other ones look like when they fold up like that.”

Sam smiled at her and pocketed the last Tile. “It is quite useful, isn’t it?” He watched a nearby Tile crumble and fall away.

A terrible realization hit Sam.

“…Did you cause that?”

Sam looked at her. “No… but I just thought of something.”

She pointed a paw. “He’s gonna think that.”

A dullahan stood not too far away, watching as stoic as only a headless suit of armor could be.

“Time to go.” Sam scooped up his cat and hurried away to the next Tile already well into its crumbling.

What had begun as collecting just a handful of Tiles to satisfy his Skyshard’s limits quickly evolved into something much more.

Sam had come to the cold conclusion that if he had acted faster, he could have saved the other Tiles.

They were crumbling anyway and would never return.

Through destruction, he could preserve what would otherwise be lost. These starving lands were essentially a goldmine, and all that treasure was about to rapidly fall away into the sea of clouds.

So, Sam dragged himself and his [Dullahan Greatsword] from one crumbling Tile to the next. Breaking only took a small amount of MP, but it tired him in a way that he couldn’t put into words.

It was neither HP nor MP, but something vital all the same. He had a hard limit, and attempting to go past it was a harrowing affair.

“Be careful, Sam,” Komachi begged him. “You’re more important than these Tiles. There’s tons of ‘em out there, but there’s just the one you.”

Ten Tiles. Sam Broke ten more Tiles, and that should have been it.

There were more Tiles to save, but by the end he was dragging the greatsword behind him, creating a long, furrowed line in the dirt in a circuit around the outer reaches of the Skyshard.

Just one more.

It became a mantra of sorts. He kept pushing, unable and unwilling to give in.

Komachi hopped down in front of him and put her head against his shin, pushing, trying desperately to stop him.

She cried out, shaking like a kitten.

Sam snapped out of it and finally looked down at his cat. He could have collapsed into a coma right then and there, but he held onto that reserve of energy that kept him going.

Dropping the sword to the side, Sam knelt down and hugged her to his chest. “Okay, Komachi. You win.”

“I saved you.”

Sam grinned, and though his arms felt like wet noodles, he lifted her to his shoulder. “You did good, cat.”

She curled up and purred affectionately. Though he knew she was trying to soothe herself, as well as him.

Sam realized with a pang that maybe he had reminded her too much of when he worked himself to the bone on Earth.

He couldn’t help but frown at himself. If only because he felt like a fool for pushing himself so hard when it didn’t even matter. The Tiles were important, yes. Vitally so.

But he could Break more somewhere else, couldn’t he?

Sometimes you’re too stubborn, he chided himself.

He didn’t understand the concept of quitting. Ever since coming to Islegard, and then Il’dran, he had felt that it served him well.

After all, giving up usually meant admitting defeat and death soon followed. What would that do to a normally sane mind that only equated quitting with realizing the futility in continuing?

For the first time in… well, Sam didn’t know how long, he wondered what was going on behind the scenes of his mind. Was he becoming somebody that would push themselves so hard they’d have to lay up in bed for a week while everybody around him worried?

He had always laughed when that happened in movies or TV, but now he began to understand.

Although he really wished he didn’t.

Scratching beneath her white furred chin, Sam turned a weary smile on his cat. “I’m not sure what I ever did to deserve you.” He sat down on a rock and took a deep breath.

Everything hurt, but not any worse than that time he was dared to jump out of a car going 10 miles per hour into the grassy roadside.

That is to say, nothing broken, but bruises created a map of pain across every inch of his body.

“We’re family,” she said warmly. “Always been.”

“We are,” Sam agreed. “Don’t suppose I could trouble you for a few more heals?” He had noticed that Komachi had long-since stacked [Regen] on him.

She relied on the bell-wand to cast. Likely that needed an upgrade too in order to further increase the healing effect, and keep up with his growing HP.

He was more than a little concerned how he would have fared if he had done this on his own.

There was a very definite limit to Breaking. Overuse it, and he harmed himself. Was it possible that he could Break himself in the same way as he Broke the Tiles around him?

It was a disturbing thought, and one he endeavored to keep unanswered. If he never pushed himself that far, he wouldn’t have to find out.

Just don’t be an idiot, he reminded himself.

His bloodline still hadn’t received a single skill up, but he was beginning to realize that it likely wouldn’t until he was nearer to whatever D-Class was in terms of strength.

He didn’t even have a Rank yet, despite all the progress he had made so far.

“Is my HP harder to heal now that it’s larger?” Sam asked. Komachi had kept in near lockstep with him as he leveled, so it wasn’t that her stats were that much weaker.

She lacked his Talents and his bloodline boosts, however.

That left three reasons. Either her equipment was seriously inferior, her skill wasn’t keeping up, which he doubted, or it was harder to heal people with high HP.

“Yeah, the wand ball—nope, that ain’t it—bell is garbo. Well, it’s like a split spellcasting instrument. It’s Primitive rarity, but the bell isn’t enhanced enough to count as a Bard instrument.”

“So now that you’re a cat Bard, you need an instrument to cast with instead of a bell?” Sam asked.

It stood to reason that if her Job changed, even slightly, then that meant she might need a different piece of equipment to cast with, right?

“I can use bells, just… this thing is like toe-bean smol. But, yis, I need an instrument. Can use loads of ‘em, really.”

“Is there one better than another?”

“Yis. I can develop specializations, but certain instruments are better at giving different buffs.”

Sam thought about that for a moment. “What about healing?”

“Not sure. I gotta try ‘em out. A drum maybe, harp, or somethin’ wind based like an ocarina or flute.” She turned the carrot flute around in her paws, inspecting it. “Y’know, I didn’t use to understand these words, even all the sounds and magic those instruments make. Crazy what getting new skills does.”

“It’s learning without the annoyances of books and classrooms,” Sam said with a laugh. “I don’t know how we’d survive if we had to learn every last thing on our own. I’m surprised we’ve made it this far.”

With a grunt of exertion, Sam rose to his feet, put the [Dullahan Greatsword] into his Inventory, and made his way—slowly—back to their Skyshard.

There were Tiles to place.