111 (II)
Surface [III]
As Shiv impacted the ti dragon from the side, his Biomancy sensed sothing interesting. He wasn't just facing a dragon. There was also a rider attached to its back. And the rider had Adept-Tier Pyromancy as well. He could sense their mana field washing over him.
But more importantly, he could feel both the rider and the dragon’s Magical Resistances. To Shiv's surprise, he found the rider to be the one with the higher resistance. And so he brought his fist down against the dragon, slamming a Woundeater-empowered punch into the beast's skull.
A crimson explosion enveloped the 200-ter-long beast. Scales broke free from its exposed head, and Shiv seized it by the neck and suddenly spiked himself downward forty tis. He gave himself a hernia at the sudden increase in speed and strain.
Parts of his bone armor snapped free, his arms nearly dislocated, but the dragon fared worse. He accelerated so fast that he denuded most of its neck. Its scales tore off in strips. The creature scread. He felt it try to trigger its Chronomancy, and he saw a cracked temporal shell starting to form. Shiv slamd a knee into its head, stunning it. Its temporal shell vanished.
Then, Shiv drove the dragon head-first down into the earth—and he kept going. He drilled deeper using the dragon’s face as an excavator. At the sa ti, he ford another Woundeater, fed it, and slamd it into the dragon's body once more. He felt a crack in its Magical Resistance and spiked his gravity field another twenty tis as he spun in place.
Previously, he thought it was a struggle to break a dragon's neck due to how far it could bend backward, how it was far more flexible than a human's neck. But he thought about that for a while and realized there was a different thod he could use.
If one twisted the dragon’s neck more like a handle at extre speeds, the outco would be imdiately grisly and quite fatal. It couldn’t rotate its head in place three hundred and sixty degrees, after all.
The dragon's ligants tore free from the base of its neck, and even its impossibly strong muscles couldn't keep up with Inertial Overdrive. Though Shiv's body was coming apart, the dragon’s head was getting torn clean off.
He spiked his field five more tis as he felt the dragon’s bones shatter and muscles tear. As all resistance vanished, he pulled back hard and ripped the dragon's head off at its base before detonating his inertial sheath.
Just then, he felt the rider die as well—splattering apart inside the capsule from the sheer concussive impact unleashed by Shiv’s detonation.
Shit! I wanted to take them alive. To figure out how they operated. Ah. Nothing for it.
Gravitic Wrestler 141 > 142
Shiv cried out as sothing in his spine fractured, but the dragon was launched aside. Its body resembled a rat that had been struck by a hamr. Parts of it were flattened. Its adamantine barding had bent but didn't break, and inside the capsule, its rider beca as if a puddle of jam inside a tight, collapsing can.
Just then, the soil around him beca fluid and dissolved thereafter. Shiv scoffed, and he triggered his spatial anchor. He teleported back inside the mountain, back to where he left his knife, and continued along his way underground now that he got a good look at where the Tidewall was.
I’ll keep moving for now. The rest of the bastards didn’t close in. But let’s see if I can lose them for good…
***
"Gold-03! Co in! Gold-03! Respond! Respond!" Gold-01 shouted telepathically, but in his heart, he knew Gold-03 was dead. Dead or ntally comatose. Even soone unconscious had a mind. You didn't just drop off from the world unless you went out of range, or you stopped being accessible.
Gold-02 and 10 cast their Geomancy spells again. As the ground turned to dust, Gold-01 saw the mangled remains of Gold-03's dragon. It looked crushed. Its head had been torn clean off, but the enemy was nowhere to be seen. A growl of absolute fury escaped Gold-01's throat. That monster was going to pay for this. They were—
Gold-01 received another telepathic missive from SC Central. A chain of images splashed into his head. An observation post noted a series of cracks spreading along the ground, traveling fast in the general direction of the Tidewall. The adversary was underground again and moving fast.
"Received, SC-Central." He shared the mory with the rest of his squadron, and they imdiately moved. They soared through the air with hurt spreading between them, with things unsaid and anger building.
Gold-03 had been in the squadron for five years. Five years and 600 combat flights. And now, in an instant, she was dead.
You didn't get to make mistakes with a Heroic-Tier adversary. Especially not a cunning and vicious Pathbearer like the one they were hunting.
***
Broken Moon, I'm a fucking idiot, Shiv thought to himself. I think I’m already lost. I can’t rember which way I’m supposed to be going…
Right now, he was traveling vaguely in the direction of the Tidewall. The thing was, he couldn't really see where the Tidewall was anymore because he was underground. As he continued tearing through the foundations of the earth, causing minor earthquakes and cracking the surface wherever he went, he lost his sense of direction in seconds, and now he was considering what to do.
Shiv knew he needed to surface at so point to get his bearings, but if he surfaced, those dragons were likely going to be on him. There had to be observation posts everywhere in this place. There was no avoiding that, and even now, they were probably tracking him sohow. They managed to figure out how to get past his Creeping Void, didn’t they?
God damn it, if only I had so kind of subtler skill, Shiv thought to himself. And that was another benefit of having more Adept-Tier skills as well. If he had Adept-Tier Geomancy, maybe he could have navigated underground. If he had Adept-Tier Hydromancy, maybe he could have turned himself into water or sothing.
Being a powerful, overwhelming brute felt good, but it also made his actions very, very obvious. Shit, nothing for it. Once more, he pinned his blade in the parting soil, and he shot upward. If anything went wrong, he would jump back down to his knife and find a different direction to hit. It worked the last two tis, so it might work a third as well. But Shiv didn't expect it to be a trick he could use over and over indefinitely.
He exploded out of the ground, casting stones everywhere. His Creeping Void was still active; he didn't deactivate just because no one had fired any arrows at him in a while. The dragons might be able to see him, but maybe the observation posts didn't have the sa skills. Better to have additional layers of protection anyway.
He found himself sailing over a rocky adow that beca a series of rolling hills. Dense patches of vegetation beca a series of bushes below. There were fewer mountains around him now, but there were more in the distance. He thought he caught a glimpse of sothing atop the Tidewall. Shiv spiked himself in its direction. He kept low to the ground as he did before and—
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Nine beams of necromantic energy pierced the surrounding soil.
The Creeping Void 110 > 111
SHIT! Shiv scread internally.
He teleported back to his knife and imdiately started moving in a random direction. They missed! They weren't as accurate this ti. But they still had his general position, and so he had to keep moving. He had to do as Adam suggested. How did he get a level? Did his Creeping Void fool them this ti? Why didn’t it work before?
Wait… Do they have so kind of Divination like Adam does? That… that might make sense.
Shiv tried to rember which way he was heading, but he bit back a gasp as lacerations began to open across his body. He was going to need to detonate again soon, and once he did, they would definitely notice his position. Judging from where the shots ca from, they were right above, high up in the air.
I wouldn't be surprised if they just stayed far away and kept shooting at from... Wait a minute. What if… what if I can get closer? Can Hu… Can Hu was supposed to be my armor against Necromancy. What I need now is armor… Sothing that might let take a few hits and get closer. Those dragons are pretty big. What if I can get inside one? Use it as a literal at puppet while keeping it alive.
A terrible thought ford in Shiv’s mind. He considered doing sothing just a bit reckless. He clutched one of his decoy bodies inside his cape using his Biomancy. If Minor Illusion and his other Stealth Enchantnts weren't working on their own, maybe he just needed to give them sothing solid to shoot at.
And maybe I need to give them more than one thing to worry about. Shiv continued barreling through the underground. He reached out, and his gravity field expanded around a massive chunk of earth.
"Alright then," Shiv said to himself, "let's give them a distraction.”
***
Gold-01 watched as the spreading cracks marking the path of their target suddenly stopped. A spider web expanded outward, and a fissure began to form in place, but the enemy wasn’t moving anymore.
Gold-01 did the sa. He wasn't going anywhere near that monster. Whoever could tear the head off a dragon in little more than a second wasn't soone he intended to fight in close-quarters combat. They would grind him down using range, strategy, and Necromancy. That was why there was 500 ters of distance between each of the riders now, and why they remained two kiloters above the ground.
Every dragon was to cover their own sector, and every dragon was close enough to render the other aid should they co under attack.
"What is he doing?" Gold-10 asked. "It's like he's just..."
And then there ca a massive shudder. The earth trembled. The fissures grew and beca chasms. Gold-01 prid his Necro-Thrower for another cycle when he realized what the adversary was about to do. An entire parcel of uprooted landmass rose into the air—three hundred ters of stone and dirt shaped into a dense ball.
It accelerated fast, the soil peeling off, the stone staying together longer. It soared high like a missile the size of a small mountain, but it was still far too slow to hit any of the dragons, and it wouldn't reach the altitude they were at either.
“What is he trying to do?” Gold-06 asked. But just then, they saw the bone armored figure shoot out from below the earthen sphere.
01’s Divination Matrix painted the target into shape. A shroud of violet enveloped them. "It's him! Fire! Fire!" Gold-01 roared.
Nine streams of Necromantic energy imdiately speared through the target's body. Nine streams intermingled, and a concentration of necromantic corrosion built and detonated outward, catching the large mound of soil and stone as well. In seconds, it vanished.
In the aftermath, all Gold-01 could hear was the fast pumping of his heart as the world fell silent.
"Did we get him?" Gold-02 asked. "Gold-01, do we have confirmation?"
"I think we hit him," Gold-10 said. "Wait, sothing just passed by..."
Gold-10’s thoughts promptly trailed off into a scream.
***
The hardest part of lifting an entire section of the earth was keeping it together rather than bearing its weight. Shiv was more than strong enough for the latter, but soil… Soil didn't stick together. Even stone broke apart after you accelerated it at a certain speed. It took all his gravitic control to keep it from unraveling right on top of him. As he rose higher and higher into the air, he kept his Chaleon Enchantnt active as he prepared to launch his decoy body.
Five seconds passed as Shiv's insides tightened. He watched the skies, waiting for one of the dragons to fire. Then, his patience broke as he threw his decoy body out.
All the dragons promptly fired their Necromantic beams. Nine different streams ca from nine different directions, and Shiv almost let out a miserable sigh. They're spread out. Why the hell did they have to be spread out? The worst thing about not fighting an idiot was that you had to use more strategy and planning every ti you engaged them. These dragon riders learned from him just as he adapted to them as well.
But his plan wasn’t over. He needed to get to Part Two: Dragon at Armor as soon as possible.
Rearing his arm back, he threw his Skysplitter across the horizon at where one of the corrosive streams ca from. In an instant, the sound barrier broke. His Skysplitter shrank and vanished. He doubted the dragon could spot sothing that small. Shiv hoped so, at least. As the blade traveled, a blast of corrosive energy swept down. Shiv's eyes widened. A muscle in his shoulder ca apart as Inertial Overdrive wounded him once more. A wave of Necromancy crashed down on Shiv’s cover. His dirt mound disintegrated.
He teleported to his blade at the last second. A squeeze of pressure washed over him, and he found himself a re four hundred-sothing ters away below a dragon.
Luck smiles on again, Shiv thought. He detonated his inertial sheath, and a blast wave swept out from him. It broke both of his legs, but he didn't need legs to control his gravity field. Shiv stopped ti—and the dragon, unaware of his presence, failed to trigger its own temporal shell in ti. It stopped moving. Shiv fed his injuries to a Woundeater and crashed into its chest. A detonation followed as he crawled along its body, but as he ca into contact with it, a flare of gold flickered in place as its temporal shell ca alive. Shiv was almost taken by surprise, but he was still faster—especially with his Inertial Overdrive running hot.
Didn’t know it could—Wait, we have the sa skill. I didn’t know it could just jump back in ti and activate its temporal shell. Wait, that ans I can do it too if soone tries to ambush using Chronomancy…
The primal dragon bit at him. It moved like it was pushing its head through mud. Shiv caught it by the jaw and twisted it to the side. However, instead of killing it imdiately, he drove a blade into its right eye and used that to launch himself along its neck to get at the capsule on its back.
A flash of green flared before Shiv. Sticking out behind the capsule was a strange weapon. It had a long barrel that was wide open, and a corrosive crystal was lodged in its backmost section. That must have been how they were firing the Necromantic beams at him.
Shiv extended his Skysplitter’s size and cut without thinking. His blade extended thirty ters in a single second. He split the Necromantic weapon on the back of the capsule into two pieces. Then, with the greatest threat eliminated, he studied where the rider resided for the first ti.
The capsule was pod-shaped, with a series of faint glowing windows on all sides. Shiv laid eyes on the rider, and they laid eyes on him. They wore a helt that had gleaming, purple visors, and their armor consisted of sothing that was only leather. Shiv snorted and sliced through the glass. The rider tried to get up—but then they froze still. With the capsule compromised, the rider was no longer spared from Chronomancy, and now they were at Shiv’s tender rcies.
Just then, the dragon twisted its head around to bite him once again. Shiv caught the monster’s jaw with his left hand and growled as he pitted his strength against its. With a snarl of effort, he shrugged its head off, and Frictionless Vector activated. It slid off against him violently, and Shiv found a new opening as he cut at the capsule several more tis.
Most of its fra was adamantine, which ant Shiv couldn’t just brute-force his way in quickly. Thus, he changed his tactic to cutting at the bolts and seals around the capsule. Here, Deepest Edge proved its worth. It popped open just as the dragon ca back around for another bite. Shiv’s temporal shell cracked. Three seconds of Chronomancy left. He ripped the rider out of their seat and prepared to face the dragon once more.
But then, a thought occurred to him.
I want to be inside this thing, right? I want to use it as a shield against Necromancy. To pilot its body with Biomancy. Well. It’s not easy to overpower this thing without Overdrive, and I can’t exactly just tear my way through the adamantine barding and its scales… The dragon’s jaw opened wide, and Shiv looked at the ti-frozen rider before he shrugged. Well. Nothing ventured. No dragon at shields gained.
And with his mind made up, Shiv spiked himself and the rider straight down the dragon’s throat.
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