Ch 187 – Poison Jar I
A month and a half later, Deacon was back in the training field with Echoform Reliquary split into its dual short sword form and leaping backwards, to the eyes of most casual observers, who would have passed into the Training Field, he would have looked like he was standing still in the middle of the field and twitching seemingly at random with Echoform Reliquary sheathed on his back.
However, in the eyes of any trained fighter who knew what they were looking at, it would have been immediately obvious that Deacon was currently engaged in what he and many other combat specialists considered to be shadow fighting. This training technique required the practitioner to fight against an opponent that existed only in their mind by drawing upon memories and experience to recreate every aspect of their opponent's combat style.
The practice typically required the person doing the shadow fighting to have an incredibly vivid and detailed recollection of their chosen opponent, perfectly picking up on their shadow's mannerisms and fighting style and every important facet of their movements and attack patterns down to the smallest detail in order to properly simulate a realistic fight, and this was very much the case for Deacon who was currently fighting against someone in his mind that he had already fought before and who represented his most recent and insurmountable wall to date.
This particular shadow was none other than the Antlion Prince itself, the same opponent he'd been facing and losing to repeatedly for the past month and a half, both during his waking hours here in the Training Field and in the nightmares that plagued his sleep every single night without fail.
His body twisted hard to the left as he ducked beneath a swipe from the Antlion Prince’s right claw, a foe that existed only in his mind.
Before he had even finished the evasive movement, his left blade was already sweeping upward in a rising arc, scraping across the imagined chitin of the Antlion Prince’s torso. The impact sent vibrations up his arm and into his shoulder, though the strike left nothing more than a shallow cut in the creature’s armor.
The Antlion Prince retaliated instantly, its left arm shooting forward in a straight thrust aimed at Deacon’s exposed ribs. Deacon threw himself into a sideways roll, coming back to his feet three meters from where he had been standing. His right short sword snapped up into a defensive guard while his left blade extended outward at waist height.
At the same time, the Antlion Prince’s shadow form shifted from its Assassin form into its Brute form. Its arms thickened, its stance widened, and it charged straight at him with its shoulder lowered like a battering ram.
Deacon’s feet dug into the packed dirt of the training field as he braced for impact, both shortswords crossing in front of his chest in an X-pattern just as the Antlion Prince’s massive shoulder slammed into the intersection of his blades.
The force sent him skidding backward a full five meters, his boots carving twin furrows through the ground, before he finally arrested his momentum by dropping into a low crouch and jamming both swords point-first into the earth.
The Antlion Prince gave him no time to recover before it was on him again, its right fist dropping in a crushing overhead blow. Deacon barely avoided it, wrenching his swords free from the ground and diving forward into a roll that carried him between the Antlion Prince’s legs.
He came up behind the creature and pivoted sharply on his left heel, driving his right shortsword into the back of the Antlion Prince’s knee joint, where the chitin was thinner. The blade sank in only half an inch before the Antlion Prince’s leg snapped backward in a vicious kick that caught Deacon square in the chest and launched him into the air.
Deacon’s back slammed into the ground hard enough to drive the air from his lungs in an explosive exhale, his vision swimming with black spots for a split second before instinct took over.
He rolled to his right just as the Antlion Prince’s foot crashed down where his head had been moments earlier, the impact cratering the earth and throwing up a spray of dirt and stones that pelted his arms and face as he scrambled back to his feet.
The Antlion Prince's form blurred as it shifted back into its Assassin form, closing the distance between them in three bounding steps that ate up the ground so quickly Deacon barely had time to bring his blades up into a defensive position before the creature's claws were already raking across his guard, the impacts sending jarring shocks through his wrists and forearms that made his grip on the hilts falter for just an instant.
Deacon twisted hard to the right as the Antlion Prince’s left claw swept in from the side in a horizontal slash aimed at his ribs. The razor-sharp talons passed close enough for him to feel the air displaced against his skin through the fabric of his training suit. Using the momentum of his dodge, he swung his left short sword in a counter, the blade biting into the flesh of the Antlion Prince’s extended arm just above the wrist joint.
The strike carved only a shallow groove before skittering off the chitin, dark blue blood welling briefly from the wound before the shadow reset itself and the damage vanished.
Over the course of a month and a half, during which Deacon began challenging the Antlion Prince’s shadow to fight him, he had never won.
The Antlion Prince’s right hand shot forward in a spear-like thrust, punching straight through Deacon’s guard and striking his left shoulder.
The fact that he was even able to kill it was nothing short of a miracle in essence.
The phantom impact sent a lance of pain down his arm, loosening his grip on his left sword enough that it nearly slipped from his fingers. He clenched his jaw against the sensation and threw himself backward to put distance between himself and his opponent.
It had severely underestimated him and was caught entirely off guard by how willingly Deacon disregarded any semblance of self-preservation to avenge the deaths of his friends.
His feet had barely touched the ground when Echoform Reliquary shifted form, the dual short swords melting together and reforming into its recurve bow. Deacon’s right hand was already reaching back to his quiver as his left brought the bow up into firing position, his fingers hooking three black-and-red feathered arrows and drawing them free in a single smooth motion.
The Antlion Prince was charging straight at him with its head lowered and its arms pumping at its sides to build momentum, and Deacon notched all three arrows simultaneously against the bowstring before drawing it back to his cheek in one fluid movement, his breathing evening out as he sighted down the length of the shafts at the rapidly approaching target.
He released the string and the three arrows leapt forward with enough force that the bowstring actually slapped against his bracer with a sharp crack, the projectiles streaking through the air in a tight cluster that slammed into the Prince's raised forearms as the creature brought them up to protect its face, and while the arrows didn't penetrate deeply enough to cause any real damage they did manage to stagger the Prince's forward momentum by forcing it to brace against the impacts.
But now, without those intense emotions running through him, safe for the visceral hatred he had toward the Antlion Prince…
The Antlion Prince swatted the arrows out of the air with a backhanded sweep of its right arm that sent the projectiles spinning off into the dirt, and in the same motion, it launched itself forward in a lunging pounce that closed the remaining distance between them in less than a heartbeat.
He no longer held the one advantage that had allowed him to stand in the same power bracket as the Antlion Prince, pushing through the sensation of his body being torn apart or even exploding under the sheer amount of energy he had been channeling through his limbs.
Not to mention the obvious of it not being the real Antlion Prince, which further prevented him from putting his mind in the headspace he was in then.
Echoform Reliquary shifted again before Deacon's feet even touched the ground, the bow collapsing back into its core form before extending outward as the double-handed Ulfberht longsword, and Deacon's right hand closed around the familiar grip just as orange flames erupted along the length of the blade in response to Flame Armament being cast.
Flame Art: Flame Steps materialized beneath his feet in a burst of flames that seared themselves into the dirt, and the moment the spell took hold Deacon felt the familiar surge of propulsive force launch him forward with enough speed that the Training Field became a blur of motion around him, his flaming sword held out to his right side as he shot straight toward the descending Prince like a meteor streaking across the sky.
No matter how vivid the fight felt, somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew this was only a shadow, not the true Antlion Prince, thus any lingering hatred he had towards the insectoid could only be funneled towards the only other person he blamed for the deaths of his friends.
Himself.
Their collision was thunderous despite being entirely imagined, the Antlion Prince's crossed arms meeting Deacon's flame-wreathed blade in a grinding clash that sent sparks and embers cascading down between them, and for several long seconds, they remained locked in that position with neither giving ground as their respective strengths pushed against each other in a brutal contest of power.
Deacon felt his blade begin to tremble in his grip as the Antlion Prince forced him backward, its superior strength steadily overpowering his own. Through the crossed barrier of the Antlion Prince’s forearms, he caught sight of the sickly grin spreading across its mandibles as it realized it was winning the exchange.
That fucking face, Deacon growled as he once again found himself staring at that mocking expression the Antlion Prince had fixed on his face.
His boots were starting to slide backward across the packed earth despite his best efforts to maintain his ground, small furrows forming beneath his heels as the Antlion Prince continued to press its advantage, and Deacon knew that if he didn't do something drastic in the next few seconds he was going to lose this clash entirely and leave himself wide open for a devastating counterattack.
Unless Deacon used his newly gained skill.
It was the same skill he had gained during his berserker state, back when he saw Sam die and clawed at every shred of energy in his body for more. More strength to match the Antlion Prince. More speed to keep up with it. More mana to feed Undying Flame as it erupted around him and empowered his spells.
Power Boost (Uncommon):
By channeling all three internal energies and circulating them throughout your body, you temporarily increase all physical and magical attributes by 10%. After the effect ends, you suffer temporary physical and mental exhaustion. Forcing this skill beyond its 10% limit causes severe physical damage and mental strain, with costs increasing exponentially.
Deacon reached deep inside himself and grabbed hold of the three energies dwelling within his body, his Vitality and Stamina and Mana all surging through him in response to Power Boost activating, and immediately he felt his muscles begin to swell slightly as steam started rising from his skin in thin wisps.
His heart rate accelerated until he could feel each individual beat hammering against his ribcage like a war drum, his lungs expanding to draw in massive gulps of oxygen that fed the growing inferno building within his core, and the mana flowing through his channels intensified to the point where the flames wreathing his blade grew brighter and hotter until they were nearly white at their core.
The backward slide of his feet came to an abrupt halt as the enhanced strength from Power Boost allowed him to match the Antlion Prince's pushing force, his boots digging into the ground, and for a brief moment, they were once again at a complete stalemate with neither able to gain any advantage over the other.
The moment did not last. While Deacon’s feet were no longer sliding backward across the ground, his blade was still being forced inch by inch toward his face as the Antlion Prince’s arms pressed down with inexorable pressure, its sickly grin drawing closer as the distance between them shrank with every passing second.
As it drew closer, Deacon noticed that the Antlion Prince's right compound eye began to pulsate.
Recognizing what that meant from their previous encounter, Deacon knew without any doubt that the creature was preparing to unleash a concussive wave of subsonic energy point-blank at him.
But it wasn’t the only one with an ace up its sleeve that could be cast without the need of its hands.
Beneath both of their feet, a massive magic circle began to materialize with geometric patterns and inscriptions that covered a full three meters in diameter, the orange glow intensifying with each fraction of a second that passed as Deacon poured a solid quarter of his total mana reserves into the Flame Mine spell.
The Antlion Prince’s gaze snapped downward to the glowing circle beneath them just as the spell ticked to zero. The entire three-meter area erupted in a catastrophic explosion of fire, a massive column of flame blasting skyward as the ground cratered beneath it and an expanding shockwave of superheated air tore outward in all directions.
The blast cloud of ash, dirt, and smoke billowed outward from the epicenter of the explosion in a roiling gray-black mass that obscured nearly the entire Training Field from view, and for a handful of seconds, the only sound was the crackling of residual flames and the patter of falling debris raining back down onto the scorched earth.
Then the Antlion Prince burst from the lingering smoke cloud in its Assassin form with its massive translucent wings beating furiously to keep it airborne, the creature's royal blue chitin armor covered in dark scorch marks and streaks of ash while its left leg was completely missing from the knee down, the stump weeping trails of dark blue blood that dripped down through the air as it hovered roughly fifteen meters above the cratered ground.
The Antlion Prince's compound eyes were scanning the smoke below with visible wariness, its head swiveling from side to side as it searched for any sign of movement or threat, but it didn't have to wait long before Deacon came, launching himself straight up out of the ash cloud like a reverse meteor with flames wreathing his entire body.
His training suit was almost completely destroyed from the explosion, the fabric burned away in large sections and hanging in charred tatters from his frame, and through the gaps in the ruined clothing, the dark red runic tattoo-like markings that covered his torso and arms were clearly visible against his skin, protecting his flesh from being consumed by his own flames.
Both of Deacon's hands were wrapped around Echoform Reliquary, which had shifted back into its dual short sword form, the twin blades held in a reverse grip with the points angled downward as he rocketed upward toward the hovering Prince with Flame Steps.
The Antlion Prince’s wings beat harder as it tried to pull away from the rapidly approaching threat, lifting itself higher into the sky in an attempt to stay out of Deacon’s reach. Deacon answered by forcing even more mana into Flame Steps.
The gap between them closed in less than two seconds. Deacon twisted in midair, bringing both short swords around in a crossing slash aimed at the Antlion Prince’s torso, but the Antlion Prince managed to raise its arms in time, catching the blades against its forearm guards.
The collision sent both of them spinning through the air.
Deacon's momentum carried him past the Antlion Prince, and he had to wrench his body around while simultaneously re-engaging Flame Steps to arrest his upward trajectory before he went sailing off into the sky, the flames materializing beneath his boots again and providing just enough counter-thrust to bring him to a hovering stop roughly five meters above where the Antlion Prince had stabilized its own flight.
The Antlion Prince's wings folded tight against its back as it dropped into a dive straight toward Deacon with its remaining leg extended and its claws spread wide, and Deacon responded by dismissing Flame Steps entirely and allowing gravity to take hold of him, his body plummeting downward to meet the Antlion Prince's descending charge.