Chapter 256: Outmatched (2/2)

The team spotted a large archway leading inside and made straight for it. As they did, a silvery metallic figure with crystal eyes stepped out. It radiated a silver rank aura, but not that of an essence user. It was strange and alien, like that of the Builder itself.

“I am Zato,” it called out loudly over the noise. “If you submit now, things will go better for you. Either way, your souls will belong to the Builder, but if you join us willingly, you will keep your own mind. It is better to be a willing servant than a mindless slave.”

“As much as we’d love the chance to turn into a shiny doorknob like you,” Sophie said, “we’re kind of busy, so we’re going to start the fight, now.”

True to her word, Sophie lunged forward, Humphrey close behind. Belinda moved to protect the team from any stray monsters, Stash doing the same as he took the form of a marsh hydra. Clive called out Onslow to join them and Neil chanced pouring a salt circle to call up his golem. With the support of the familiars and the summon, Belinda formed a wall to cover the team’s backs while they faced the danger in front of them.

Months of constant fighting in the astral space was a whetstone that had honed the team to a razor sharp edge. They each knew what the others would do before they went to do it, turning them from a team with strong synergies into a singular whole, moving and acting as one.

They had experienced what amounted to three monster surges back to back, struggling to keep up as the monsters grew more and more powerful. It had brought their skill, power and experience to the point where they were literally transformed from the people they had been at the beginning.

The result of all that growth in their power, skill and teamwork was that they barely managed to avoid immediate death as Zato counter-attacked.

Zato was not an unthinking construct, despite surrendering his organic body for shining metal. Nor was he a monster driven by instinct. He immediately broke through Sophie and Humphrey, bowling them out of the way in spite of Humphrey’s strength. Zato knew that the backline members were the key to breaking apart the team and charged at Neil like a silver rocket.

The attack landed on Neil, who exploded in a wave of force, blasting Zato back. Belinda’s perfectly-timed Bait and Switch ability had teleported Neil to safety, leaving an illusionary trap for Zato.

Ability: [Bait and Switch] (Trap)

Special ability (dimension, illusion).Cost: High mana.Cooldown: 1 minute.Current rank: Bronze 3 (09%).Effect (iron): Teleport self or nearby ally to a nearby location. The subject is rendered invisible for a brief period, leaving behind a lifelike illusion. The illusion has no substance or aura.Effect (bronze): The illusion explodes when approached by an enemy, inflicting disruptive-force damage.

With Zato’s first attack blunted, Sophie and Humphrey moved back in, while the others repositioned defensively. Zato was barely staggered by the explosion, suffering little worse than the arresting of his momentum. His metal body was resistant to the disruptive-force released by the ability, which was more effective against magical defences. It was resonating-force damage that would be most effective against Zato’s metal form. Humphrey knew this and swung in with Shield Breaker, his resonating-force special attack.

Zato’s body was incredibly resilient, even against Humphrey’s special attacks. They were just threatening enough that Zato was forced to engage, rather than ignore him. Even with his dragon armour, Humphrey would not hold up to Zato’s sustained attacks. While he lacked Sophie’s evasiveness, he had his own means of adding to his defensiveness.

Humphrey’s attacks were hard to avoid and Humphrey himself was hard to hit, as there seemed to be four of him attacking at once with his huge dragon wing sword. One of the illusionary doubles was from Humphrey’s own ability, Attack of the Mirage Dragon, which created a double each time he attacked. It didn’t inflict any damage, but Humphrey could switch-teleport with it, making his true attack unpredictable.

The other two illusionary forms came from Belinda’s familiar, Gemini. The living illusion could duplicate Humphrey’s appearance, including his own illusionary double.

Zato proved to have far more capability than merely the strength and fortitude that came with his metal body. His silvery body flowed like quicksilver, reshaping itself to produce a versatile slate of combat abilities.

In close, he could produce spear-like protrusions from anywhere on his body, making unexpected attacks from unexpected angles. He also grew extra limbs, which he transformed into blades. At range, he could project metal spikes, which he threw past Sophie and Humphrey to target Neil, whose healing and shields were making up the difference between Zato and Humphrey’s combat abilities.

Sophie focused on intercepting the projectiles as Humphrey held up Zato’s forward movement. Zato then revealed that the spikes were far from his only trick. By plunging his hands into the ground he could make spikes spring up at range, then explode them into splinters. That attack savaged Neil appearing within his mana shield and exploding to send shrapnel digging into his body. Sophie and Humphrey redoubled their efforts to hold Zato’s attention while Neil tossed back a healing potion and followed up with a life bolt spell on himself.

The one key advantage the team had was a curse levied on Zato by Belinda. It took multiple attempts to latch on past silver-rank resistances, the cooldown not triggering until it finally landed.

Ability: [Power Lock] (Magic)

Special ability (curse).Cost: High mana.Cooldown: 1 minute.Current rank: Bronze 2 (47%).Effect (iron): When the target uses an ability, a random other ability also goes on cooldown, as if it had been used. If the target has no other abilities, the cooldown on the ability used is doubled or, if the ability has no cooldown, it becomes unavailable for a brief period.Effect (bronze): The ability placed on cooldown consumes mana as if it had been used. If the ability had no mana cost, the target suffers disruptive-force damage commensurate with the strength of the ability.

Belinda’s curse meant that Zato had to constantly change up his powers while waiting for others to become available. Many of his best abilities were locked out before he even had a chance to use them and his combination attacks were neutered as key steps were denied to him. It was a frustrating and effective impediment that was crucial to the team’s survival, as even impaired he was on the constant verge of overwhelming the team.

While he was stuck using them almost at random, Zato had no shortage of powers to go through. Most were either some variation on shape-changing or firing metal projectiles. As the fight dragged on he threw balls that exploded into shrapnel, turned his arms into razor whips and his fingers into knives.

Sophie desperately intercepted the storms of projectiles thrown in the direction of their healer. As quick as the mercury Zato’s body resembled, her flickering figure was a steadfast barrier for Neil.

Many of the ranged attacks Zato threw out were wide-area shrapnel attacks, from which Sophie suffered a beating. Weak, multitudinous attacks were what more traditional defenders were best at, while Sophie specialised in dodging or negating powerful, singular attacks. The peppering of attacks was precisely what she was worst at handling, which Zato quickly picked up on.

He started throwing more and more shrapnel attacks at Neil, knowing that she would surrender her vaunted evasiveness to body-block the shrapnel. She was able to blast many of the attacks away with her Wind Wave, but Zato was both sneaky and prolific with his attacks. Neil was hard pressed to maintain shields and healing on both Sophie and Humphrey, but he smoothly churned out spell after spell, power after power, all with impeccable timing.

Sophie’s damage was too negligible to be a real threat to Zato, relegating her to the frustrating but critical role of meat shield. The one advantage of the constant attacks she was subjected to was that her powers grew stronger as she suffered attacks.

Her Karmic warrior power stacked up instances of two holy boons with every attack. One increased her power and spirit attributes, while the other reduced damage from subsequent attack by the same person. As with the fight with Nicolas Hendren, she was stacking up enough instances to have a real impact. On top of the damage reduction, the holy boons also combined with another of her powers.

Ability: [Strong Soul] (Mystic)

Special ability (dimension).Cost: None.Cooldown: None.Current rank: Bronze 3 (57%).Effect (iron): Disruptive-force damage dealt to you is reduced by a large amount; other damage dealt to you is reduced by a small amount. Resistance to dimensional or astral effects and energies is increased. You can physically interact with incorporeal entities.Effect (bronze): Increased curse, magic and unholy resistance. You cannot receive unholy boons. Each instance of a holy boon on you increases the damage reduction of this ability.

With each attack she received, Sophie’s defences grew. The Agent of Karma boon made her tougher as it increased her power attribute and strengthened her magical abilities by enhancing the spirit attribute. This affected both the damage reduction from the Good Karma boon and the damage reduction from the Strong Soul power.

The layering bonuses didn’t change Sophie’s role as a meat-shield for projectiles, but it make her better able to weather the storm. She was still hopelessly outmatched, however. Beyond the simple disparity of silver-rank versus bronze-rank powers and physical abilities, she had to deal with the resistances of rank disparity that Humphrey’s Hero’s Drive power allowed him to ignore.

Humphrey had received the Giant’s Might boon from Neil, adding weight to his special attacks that were the only real source of threat to their opponent. Zato was still stronger and tougher by a good margin, more so than the silver-rank essence user they had fought. If not for his superior skill and the support of his team, Humphrey wouldn’t have been able to force Zato’s attention as much as he did. Zato would have already broken through and ravaged their backline.

As resilience accumulated, Sophie was growing frustrated at her inability to have a real impact on the fight. As her power grew stronger as she soaked up more and more attacks, frustration became impatience. She knew she was a more than match for Zato’s skill, and tired of passively intercepting attacks she dashed in, determined to make an impact.

Using her Eternal Moment power to massively accelerate, she unleashed a barrage of attacks. Her passive damage powers included resonating-force damage, which had been amplified by the boosts to her spirit attribute. With her fleeting, time-stopped moment, she unleased a furious flurry of strikes, all of which took effect as she returned to the normal passage of time.

Zato’s whole body rippled at the accumulated impact. He immediately retaliated by growing a half-dozen extra arms that ended in hammers, rather than fists. They swung in on Sophie, who could have dodged but didn’t. Instead, she used her Moment of Oneness power to absorb the blows and then deliver all the damage back with an elegant palm strike that punched a large indentation in his torso.

Despite having a huge dent into his chest, Sophie saw Zato’s grin and realised she had made a mistake. After baiting out her power to absorb a strong attack, Zato used one of his trump cards and his whole body exploded into a huge mass of shrapnel.

Humphrey was the most physically resilient of the team, but he was also very close and very large, courtesy of Neil’s spell. His armour softened the blow, but more than a few chunks of shrapnel pierced right through it.

Sophie had her accumulated damage resistance, which was the only reason she survived. She was quick enough to shield her head with her arms, which were flayed along with the entire front of her body. Her accumulated damage reduction and light armour weren’t even close to absorbing that level of damage and her armour was shredded to ribbons, along with most of the skin on the front of her body.

Clive, Neil and Belinda didn’t suffer the attack as the shrapnel stopped in the air, forming a perfect sphere, then reversed course. The metal shard flew back together to re-form Zato’s body. It wasn’t just a matter of returning him to the state he had been in, however. Zato was unmarred and unharmed, having repaired not just the damage from Sophie but all the damage Humphrey had managed to build up.

Humphrey was severely injured and Sophie was a bloody wreck, barely standing upright. Their enemy was completely refreshed, his silver skin perfect and unmarred. Every bit of the damage they had done had been undone in a moment.

“You really should have submitted,” Zato told them imperiously. “Now you are going to suffer.”