Chapter 1212 (1/2)
OOOooonnnnggggGGGG.
Ileot Swacc barred his teeth and suppressed a curse as he was forced to use his arms to defend against one of the Nether King’s quick attacks. Bad enough that it could utilize its sound wave attacks to blast him from across the rapidly disintegrating stone island on which they fought. Even worse was the being forced to endure that terrible resonance when their blows crossed.
His skin against the weird liquid Nether was the perfect conduit for its attacks.
As a gleaming and sparkling orb of power condensed in Ileot’s right hand, his left block the enormous, dripping arm of the Nether King that whipped toward him. Ileot’s image steadied his physical body in the face of the Nether King, but that terrible dissonance that formed the core of the Nether King spilled over into Ileot in that brief second of contact.
His organs trembled and tightened. His skin in the area surrounding the contact point quickly became inflamed, then ripped like wax paper.
All the emotions that animated the Nether King, all of the violent desires and swirling connections, were a furious cacophony that drove the body forward like an engine. Then veins in Ileot’s left arm bulged outward as he strained to endure the slow spread of that resonance through his limbs. Surging forward, the Nether King raised its other arm to strike from the side. The ground beneath its feat visibly cracked and disintegrated as it charged forward.
It was disaster incarnate.
Luckily, Ileot managed to unleash another eye-catching blast of white lightning and smash the Nether King in the chest. It stumbled backward, allowing Ileot to tear his arm away and take a few steadying steps to the side. With his high base Stats, Ileot’s flesh quickly mended. But this was still probing sort of engagement; nether Ileot nor the Nether King had truly made any all-out attempts to kill the other as of yet.
The Nether King’s liquid Nether body splashed to the side from the impact and revealed a gleaming core of energy, but the surrounding body quickly began to ooze back downward. Within a moment, the vulnerable core was covered once more. Ileot attempted to gather more of his image into a strike, but a Nether Herald lashed out at Ileot from the side in a sharply timed ambush.
Snorting, Ileot spun around the Nether Herald’s blow and pressed a palm to the Nether Herald’s side. Unlike the Nether King, these Heralds were much easier to get close to and sustain contact with. With that contact, Ileot smashed his image of a projected world directly against the Herald’s core. It staggered backward, reeling from the weight that a world’s worth of details could carry.
But before Ileot could finish it off, the Nether King was back.
“Do you think I’m afraid of you?” Ileot spat out as he unleashed two more beams of brilliant energy to press the Nether King backward. But even as he spoke, a tremor ran through his voice. One that Ileot couldn’t ignore. His eyes narrowed in hatred.
The situation was not good. He couldn’t inflict significant damage on this foe unless he knocked away the Nether King’s liquid exterior, but he was only willing to do that if he had the opportunity to strike a truly decisive blow immediately afterward. And as long as the two Nether Heralds that kept ambushing him wouldn’t let Ileot gather that sort of momentum, that was impossible.
Because the truth was that the liquid exterior of the Nether King served two roles; it protected itself from outside interference with its core, but it also greatly weakened the core’s offensive power. That terrible height of emotion that reverberated outward was the true core and strength of a Nether King. Casually engaging that wasn’t something that Ileot was willing to risk.
Ileot cast a hateful glance to the side, where Lord Miln was currently struggling. He wished to blame Lord Miln for failing to keep the Nether Herald’s off of him, but the truth was that Lord Miln was contributing by barely holding his own fighting against four Nether Heralds. One of them was crippled by Lady Iellaya’s earlier actions, but still. The feat was impressive enough that even a desperate Ileot wasn’t willing to release any cutting remarks.
But if it’s like this… damnit…! Why did it turn out like this…?
Lightning quick, the Nether King kicked upward with one of its tree-trunk wide legs. Ileot scrambled sideways but the Nether King spun like a top and brought one of its arms crashing sideways toward him. Although the Nether King had started off slow, it was clear that it was gradually becoming familiar with the body it needed to control as it descended into an area controlled by Aether. As a result, the force of its movements was quickly reaching the point that the air seemed to rip like paper when it moved.
This blow was another one that Ileot couldn’t dodge, but he saw how the two Nether Heralds were waiting for him to commit to blocking so they could strike at his back. Furious, Ileot raised his head and unleashed a piercing scream. White lightning blasted outward in a forking nova, slowing the Nether King slightly but sending the two Nether Heralds stumbling back. With a little bit of space, Ileot raised both hands and met the ominous strike of the Nether King.
OOOOOONNNNNNGGGGG.
The impact shook the air and jarred Ileot. The ground beneath his feet fractured as some of that horrible noise was transferred through his body into the orange stone beneath him. All the hate and rage that the Nether King felt became a physical sensation in Ileot’s spine that was near-agonizing. Yet this time, Ileot’s fingers couldn’t help but tighten on the mucous-y limb that sent such force outward. This was his fated foe. Despite the many visual variations that radiated outward, Ileot’s eyes were fixed on the Nether King’s blank face and bright eyes.
By this point, it was clear that the Xyrt Brigade Strike Team he had arranged was not arriving. It was incredibly frustrating, but Ileot had to admit that something was going wrong; some force that he didn’t understand was present on the battlefield. Surely it wasn’t just that they had been surprised by the suddenness of the Nether King’s assault, right?
Would it be worth it to buy another ten minutes' worth of time to see if they arrived late…?
“DO YOU THINK I FEAR YOU?!?!” Ileot bellowed, looking his worst fear that he had avoided for his entire existence full in the face. He did not blink. He could feel his blood pounding in his eyes. Breathing heavily, Ileot prepared to mobilize the last bit of liquid Aether that he had painstakingly refined. No matter if things had gone off the rails, Ileot refused to allow this chance to slip through his grasp. If he didn’t have an opening, he could make one. Because he was Ileot Swacc, the Duplicator.
In the Nexus, he was respected. And for good reason. He had three thousand years' worth of power and influence at his back.
Yet Ileot couldn’t escape the truth that his if had been a life of fear that Ileot had lived for the past three thousand years. Growing stronger, avoiding the frontlines, enduring the increasingly frequent nightmares that forced him to relive the experience of his original body dying right before his eyes. Ileot hadn’t put much stock in karma, but he couldn’t deny that he had at least a terrible mental scar from the experience. No matter how he attempted to run away, his feet always seemed to lead him back toward that moment where he had died.
It happened twice in the past, where he had gone to investigate some matter for the Nexus and found a Nether King inexplicably there around the site of the investigation. Both times he had panicked and fled immediately. But afterward, Ileot resolved to not let it happen a third time. So he had begun to make preparations to face this strange complex that he possessed.