Aetherios System: Whirlwind

Chapter 41: Cornered

The thickly muscled, red-veined, abyssal arm of Alex’s [Descending Demon Fist] held a lot of power. As a finishing attack, the martial art skill was the most potent attack that he had. Based on what he knew, and what he had discussed with Master Sionnadel, the skill itself was close to being a true [Technique] all on its own.

Held back by an unfathomably compressed edge of air aether, the demonfist grated against the Prince’s sword, astonishing Alex with its durability.

How? Alex looked on, astonished for a moment, before focusing on his [Aether Sight] to see what had happened.

The augmentor spell the prince had cast, and subsequently boosted with a meridian imprint, was no longer suffusing his body. All of that powerful aether had been directed and jam-packed into the prince’s arm and his blade, causing the weapon and limb to shine brightly in Alex’s vision.

Ah, I see.

It looked as though the prince had already thought about how to handle Alex’s finisher, and he had come up with this.

“Alex, your flesh suit is about to be in very suboptimal condition,” Obby declared in his head.

As soon as the words were finished, Alex felt the aura of his [Descending Demon Fist] unravel, the red-black aether collapsing and rejoining the silhouette that usually accompanied his martial style. As soon as it finished, the angry backlash kicked in.

Alex’s body tingled for an instant, then pain and fatigue hit him at once. One by one, all four of his meridian imprints activated, doing their best to withstand the skill’s cost, hardening his aether channels, feeding it to his Wyrm-Heart, or absorbing some of it and transforming it into a new surge of aether energy.

But they didn’t stop Alex from taking a small part of the hit.

The prince noticed his shoulders sag, his knees buckle for just a moment, the telltale signs of a cost for a large attack. The moment it happened, the aether of his spell flowed back into his body, even if now substantially weaker, and the prince counter-attacked.

His blade shot out at Alex’s chest, aimed directly over his heart.

Just a centimeter from piercing Alex’s skin, he stopped the sword by finally revealing his newest martial skill. A katar swiftly formed over his left hand with the use of [Asura’s Armament], and batted away the prince’s blade. In the same moment, his pulled the aether-hilt weapon from his bracelet, transforming it into a short-spear that he jabbed back at the prince.

The combination was something new; Alex hadn’t shown the skill at all in the tournament, and never outside his training with Master Sionnadel, or inside a Dungeon where there were no prying eyes and Obby could scrub the aether tablets he turned over.

The prince retreated, but not quickly enough. Alex’s shortspear had punctured the chestpiece of his armor just below his left ribs and scored a small wound.

“You are always just so full of surprises,” Prince Irieth said as he gingerly probed the rent in his armor.

Alex changed both his weapons into curved short blades and shifted his fighting stance into the [Demon Asura]’s second path, one sword raised high, the other pointed low.

“One to talk, aren’t you? I planned to finish the fight with that last punch, but I don’t think I’ve even seen your finisher yet,” Alex said before waving one of his blades in a ‘come on’ motion.

“It would only be fair, wouldn’t it?”

At last, Alex got to see what the prince’s new feathery white cloak was for. Normally the prince was able to hover over the ground, very much like how Holly did with her air aether. But now, he could see that the cloak at the prince’s back moved to spread out behind him, the tips of the many feathers gaining a very slight green hue.

With surprising speed, the man jumped just as the cloak seemed to “flap” downward, launching him into the air. It wasn’t to unlike an assisted leap, but Prince Irieth stayed aloft instead of falling. The cloak continued to flap, and translucent green aether wings joined it, assisting in his fight against gravity.

Air affinity mages are cheaters. Alex thought as he stared up at his foe who fly in place a good thirty feet above him. First, Holly, now him.

“I think you are just jealous,” Obby said.

Well, yeah a little bit. Who doesn’t want to be able to fly?

“Earth affinity mages, I would assume.”

Nah, even them.

Obby hummed in his mind, then gave of little chortle. “You might be right.”

Alex performed a mental double-take. Did you just admit I was, right?

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“Pay attention, you are about to be attacked,” Obby replied urgently, and began highlighting the prince in his sight.

Sure enough, his opponent looked to be up to something during the time of Alex’s little mental spar with the rock.

It might have been a peculiarity to air aether, or just be a sign of how proficient prince Irieth’s aether control was, but Alex could see that all energy of his augmentor spell had moved once more, this time exiting his body and congregating into dozens of small rods with sharp points that floated about the prince’s body.

That was the second time that the energy of his spell had been repurposed, and Alex idly thought whether there was another secret meridian imprint involved, or perhaps a constitution effect at play.

Either way, the potent and hyper-condensed aether was now arranged in what looked to be large number of spell attacks.

“I will be the one to finish this fight, worldstrider,” the prince said from the air.

Then he lowered his hand to the ground, and the many conjured spells lit up in reaction.

Alex had almost no time to respond to the spell. Air aether was notoriously fast, even from the distance they were at, the amount of power each of the rods held was massive and would assail him nearly instantly.

Even with his fully earth tribulation refined agility, and the activation of his [Vita-Surge Cloak], he wouldn’t be able to just outright dodge all the blows. Luckily, Alex had spent a rather long time practicing and fighting against large numbers of foes and fine-tuning his spell control to dizzying levels.

Nearly three dozen beams of deadly sharp air aether shot down at him, their angles shifting and turning as if to confuse him, Obby’s overlays barely even popping up in time to show a bare guess at their final approach vector.

That was more than enough for Alex.

Tiny, expertly controlled [Aether Burst]s released from his feet in rapid succession, while [Projection Shield]s appeared and died around his body just as quickly. It was like one of those rhythm video games back on Earth, falling lines, and near-impossible timing frames between every single one of them.

Though unlike a video game, any mistake Alex made would cost him a limb, or even his life.

In the span of only a couple of seconds, Alex’s sight was nothing but azure shields, bursts of light, rays of translucent green, and the red trajectory lines of Obby’s illusions.

That’s all the time it took for nearly three dozen lethal attacks to come his way, and for him to block or dodge every single one of them.

He didn’t come out the other side unscathed, though.

The tiniest missed timing on a dodge earned him a ray of air aether that punched into his left forearm, leaving a perfectly round hole through and through, carving a crescent of bone along with it.

One of his [Projection Shields] was angled just a bit off, and was unable to deflect another ray, shattering and letting the attack catch on Alex’s right lower torso, ripping out a line of flesh, but luckily it missed any serious organs.

Alex tapped into the aether gems, replenishing his meager aether pool once the assault was done.

He ended up standing among the bent and now blood-sprayed platform. Injured, sure, but still very much alive.

“Forfeit now,” Irieth demanded, still aloft. “My next volley will finish the job now that you are incapacitated.”

A chuckle burst from Alex’s lungs. The prince was right that he wouldn’t be able to repeat such a feat with his new injuries. But Alex was rather certain that his opponent couldn’t just repeat the attack either. He was bluffing.

“Come and make me,” he said.

“So be it,” the prince muttered, then rose his hand again.

Alex’s eyes widened in shock as the prince’s augmentor spell filled his body, and the potency rocketed up just as before.

He had been sure that the prince wouldn’t be able to just do such a thing twice in a row. That some sort of cost was being paid, either on his body, his soulgate, or even his soulspace. But, the prince looked fine, albeit with a mask obscuring his facial expression.

Still, Alex didn’t know what was happening or how his opponent was able to pull it off.

Obby?

“I can’t discern what he’s doing or how. But it looks like you need to do something, very fast, before he can repeat that attack.”

Shit, shit-shit!

He moved his awareness inward, searching his skills and spells, trying to find a way to survive this without forfeiting the match.

But he saw nothing that would save him. A full-powered [Projection Shield] would be overwhelmed. [Aether Burst] added to his already active [Vita-Surge Cloak] would let him dodge like last time, but only in the initial part of the barrage, as it appeared the prince could control the attacks’ approach angles even after firing.

He was too far away for [Aether Grasp].

[Energy Spear] was much weaker than the prince’s spell, so countering with attacks of his own would just see his spells overwhelmed.

He hadn’t completed his [Technique] yet. He could attempt it, maybe. But trying and failing meant he would be killed for sure. Alex seriously doubted the Magus-tier proctor outside the battle platform would be able to intervene in time to stop him from having his head vaporized from his shoulders.

[Burning Strike], [Wrath-Siphon], [Asura’s Armament], [Bloodwrath], [Descending Demon Fist]; again, he was too far away.

He looked deeper, into his soulspace.

The floating bits of his long-destroyed mage core were still there. Above it was the beating flesh of the [Wyrm-Heart].

A Dragon-fire attack? He asked inside his soul.

“How? Amnios hasn’t taught you that yet. You can’t even activate the Wyrm-Heart on your own, let alone control draconic energy to such a degree,” Obby said while floating alongside him in his soulspace.

Yeah, but maybe I can still try.

He “stepped” up to the Wyrm-heart inside his soul, his face inches away from the basket-ball sized fleshy glob.

Hey! Wake up!

Nothing happened.

Outside, on the platform, Alex was still standing, the prince above him, now finalizing the formation of his dozens of air-aether beam-cannons, just about ready to obliterate Alex from the tournament, permanently.

Hey! What happened to ‘A dragon does not kneel’? Buck up, asshole.

Again, there was no response.

Alex pocked at it with his soul-avatar’s hand, the flesh feeling strange, ephemeral, yet substantive both.

Prince Irieth’s attacks started to glow brighter.

Fuck. Alex grabbed the heart with both hands and tried to shake it, failing miserably as the damned organ didn’t move at all, except for the slow beating within his grasp.

He wanted to squeeze harder, to crush the thing so it would wake up. Crush it and pull out the draconic energy within. Squeeze and squeeze until it bled out, releasing every bit of what the fucking thing hoarded inside itself.

Wait… bleed, Alex thought. Obby, I know what to do.

“Please share with the class, and do it quickly,” Obby whined.

I’m gonna make it bleed.

Prince Ireith’s attacks finally finished charging up.

Not even knowing if he could pull it off, that it would work, or what would happen it it did, Alex activated [Asura’s Armament] inside his own soulspace, conjuring a small dagger made from the reddish aether of his martial art that was pulled in through his soulgate.

Then… he stabbed the Wyrm-heart.