Universe's End

Vexing.

Dozens of beams of prismatic light rays fired toward Rory as he swept his staff outward, red-crystal mirrors appearing and distorting the rays.

It wasn’t enough; two managed to pierce through and strike Rory directly, who winced as the prismatic energy scorched his armor.

Very vexing.

It was the entire theme of their battle so far.

Vexing.

Rory hated to admit it… But he was outclassed for the first time.

Not in the sense that the Bird was outright more powerful than he, but magically speaking. Oh, sure, in the past, there had been higher-level monsters or Territory Alphas or whatnot with more raw magical muscle than he.

But for a peer to clearly be so distinctly superior? It was the same feeling as with Apostolos, who actually invested in Pneuma, except that the Bird had not just the investment; it had the talent and practice to back it up.

“Solar Chariot!” The Bird cawed out, as a blend of prismatic magic and solar magic shot outward, fusing into the shape of a stallion rampaging toward Rory.

Tsk.

Drawing his hand back, Rory muttered a single stanza chant under his breath as he released a spear-sized arrow.

“Nathair!”

The oversized serpent arrow struck the charging stallion, as the two attacks cancelled each other out.

Vexing.

They’d been clashing for some time now, and Rory believed he’d gotten a solid grasp on the kind of attribute load that Bird was displaying. Physically speaking, it was inferior to Zoey, with her attributes inverted; otherwise, he and the Bird were comparable as far as speed went. Agility was a different case; the Bird clearly had a surprising degree of Flexibility investment given how it seemed to bend and dodge in ways that disregarded physics or logic. As far as Cognition went, Rory had to assume an average investment, if only because there were only so many attributes to go around, even for a monster.

Leaving Durability and Pneuma as monsters didn’t seem to touch Growth, if it were even possible for them.

Pneuma was obvious, a large degree of investment. Durability was the problem.

Because it cheated.

Flying through the air, something that was only possible after more than a decade of practicing using his Coordinate affinity to travel linearly through space and not always through flicker teleportation, Rory whipped his hand out. As he did so, his inventory emptied partially as several weapons flew toward the Bird, who conjured a barrier of prismatic light to block the careening weapons.

Exploding them, an acceptable expenditure given the caliber of foe, Rory used the momentary distraction to flicker behind the Bird as he slashed downward with his hand, a whip composed of liquid Blood Iron, a rather new creation, slashing straight through its wing, cleaving the appendage from its body.

A rather catastrophic injury, proving the lack of durability investment… Only for it not to matter, as it instantly healed.

“You cannot win,” The Bird cried out. Its body shook, and what seemed like tens of thousands of feathers shot outward, solid light that could cut as easily as they could burn, all racing through the air after Rory like heat-seeking missiles.

Vexing. Rory mentally repeated for what felt like the millionth time.

Had Rory not known better, he would have assumed the Bird was the one capable of drawing from Ehkorrus, given how its massive pneuma reserves were constantly being refilled. The mystery of how would have lasted longer, had Rory not recognized it from having seen it before, similar in effect to Apostolos, who had a solar affinity and was slowly topped off simply by standing in sunlight.

Except at a much higher level.

Its body even seemed to operate like Apostolos’s anima body, with the few key differences being that it was still a physical body, relying on durability, given that it took physical injuries, which just happened to heal instantly.

And to make everything that much more vexing? Rory could distinctly sense Stigmata radiating off the Bird, the power of faith.

Bullshit.

All of it together meant Rory had been forced ever so slightly to release the natural limits on his attributes, a band-aid solution to the real problem.

It has a point. How do I win?

It clearly wasn’t all-powerful; Eon would hardly allow for that, nor would it have needed to bring in such an army or wait for wave one hundred to attack.

There must be some weakness. Fight at night? Hardly, it can pull back at that point.

The solid light feathers continued to hound after Rory, who’d been using several mental threads to focus on the battle, all while his ‘main’ mind considered the problem.

A singularity point attack would probably work; the erasure of concepts from Oblivion energy would surely do the trick if even Zoey can’t eat one of them without activating her damage nullification.

Except that hitting such an agile opponent who was also magically inclined would be impossible, it would instantly sniff out the danger of such an attack.

“Solar Chariots!” The Bird called out once more.

Plural?

Having noticed the slight distinction, Rory’s eyes widened only a smidge as the prismatic and solar energy fused into several stampeding brilliant stallions.

Enchain might work…. Actually, with its magical capabilities, I’m not sure I want to gamble on such an expensive skill; it might burn free before I can land a Singularity Point.

Rory felt like he could see the blueprint of a win condition, but as of now, it just seemed too far out of reach.

Teleporting, Rory unleashed a barrage of exploding weapons, some nothing but ordinary projection magic, with several being physical weapons that Rory detonated the significance within, tearing apart several of the brilliant stallions stampeding after him, all the while the hard light feathers also chased after him like a pissed off hive of wasps.

And yet, even with the counter barrage, two of the stallions remained, slamming into Rory and launching him several miles away as he crashed into the ground like a fallen meteor.

“Fuck,” Rory muttered, spitting out a tooth as he wiped blood from the corner of his mouth. “That hurt like a bitch.”

Glancing around, Rory momentarily saw a man about to be overrun by a pack of squid-shaped hounds. Cocking two fingers, Rory took sight.

Pow.

A beam of energy ripped through the heads of the monsters as the man turned around, staring at Rory with wide eyes.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“You might want to get back behind friendly lines,” Rory said.

The man nodded frantically, scrambling to his feet. Smiling, Rory raised the same two fingers to his brow, giving the man a quick salute before flickering back into the sky where the Bird was, the entire event having taken no more than a few seconds.

“You are strong, I will give you that.” The Bird said, his expression harder to read than a human, given the lack of human facial reactions. “But you cannot win.”

“It’s all the Wheaties I eat,” Rory said, rolling his shoulders.

“What are these ‘wheaties’ that grant strength?”

Bah, so much better to banter with an actual Founder rather than a wannabe replacement.

Staff in hand, several metal rings appeared along its length, electrical discharges crackling from them. Within moments, Rory forced the Bird to dip and dodge through the air as hypersonic rails were fired from his staff.

Avoiding attacks means that it doesn’t want to needlessly take damage, meaning there is a regeneration limit.

Absorbing information as quickly as he could, Rory felt like he was in the middle of solving a puzzle while sitting atop a speeding bullet train. The Bird was dangerous, more dangerous than just about any other foe he’d faced that wasn’t outright stronger than he was.

“Judgement from High!” The Bird suddenly called out, as the temperature ratcheted up a good hundred degrees in an instant, cuts appearing all over Rory’s body like the light surrounding him had suddenly turned to glass.

The problem with fighting so high above the ground was that one of his strongest tools, Earth Soul, was far less effective away from the earth.

Flaring his aura, Rory copied a trick he’d learned from Roxy, folding and layering it like a second layer of protection. She had a skill for the purpose of folding aura and pneuma, but Rory had a good few decades on her, so the application hadn’t been too hard to adapt into freeform magic.

Between the flared and layered aura, the serrations stopped appearing all over his body as Rory swapped from staff to whip, lashing out once more even as the Bird seemed to invert its body to avoid the hypersonic whip crack.

A domain might work.

If the Bird really were drawing its nearly endless regeneration from the sunlight, the only way to cut off that connection would be through the establishment of a domain.

Easier said than done.

The problem was the parameters. Establishing a domain took time, time that the Bird definitely wasn’t going to give him. Altering the parameters could circumvent that problem, but only to an extent; there were only so many parameters.

Time is probably the easiest one, but a delayed activation isn’t enough in itself.

Location was one of the strongest parameters; the self-restriction that one couldn’t move was extremely potent. Except, once more, the Bird definitely wasn’t going to make that possible.

Still debating the best set of parameters to alter, Rory’s head suddenly swiveled as he felt something.

What the hell?

The battle below had clearly been going on long enough now that, at last, the wave boss had appeared, the aura of a tier eight making itself known.

But that wasn’t the real issue. It’s that another tier eight had appeared alongside it.

“Too late.”

The moment distraction was enough that the Bird suddenly appeared above Rory, wings sweeping with scorching prismatic fury as Rory was launched directly toward where the wave boss had appeared.

Oh, look, Iasilisk.

One of Rory’s mental threads briefly noted that the wave boss was none other than the Iaslisk he had faced decades ago. He’d always expected the wave one hundred boss to be the Iaslisk returned, but the fact that next to it was a group of what could have only been referred to as shamans, all chanting, while the second tier eight monster he’d sensed was currently assisting in pinning it in place, was a bit odd to say the least. As for the second tier eight monster, it looked like a cross between a frill-neck lizard and a Komodo dragon, covered in serrated chitinous scales and a dorsal spine like the teeth of a saw.

They also clearly weren’t here to help; that much was obvious. Pinning the monster, the shamans finished their chant as the lead shaman, a level seventy-nine Varasian, jammed a rainbow colored feather into the Iasilisk’s eye.

Shaking, the Iaslisk suddenly began sprouting rainbow-colored feathers, as Rory’s eyes widened.

Oh, that’s not good.