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The Gamer Chapter 1550 – vs Karia
🕑 Added 2023-10-28 11:01:37 +0000 UTC“Karia of the Azure Tribe!” Romulus announced. “Versus John Newman of Fusion!”
‘Huh,’ John rolled his neck. ‘I did not expect to be the first repeat customer.’
“This is bad,” Momo mumbled.
“Because you are losing your chair?” John asked and squeezed her thigh.
Playfully aggressive, she kicked his hand off. “No!” She stabbed at his shoulder with her index finger, moments before her firefly wings were filled with soft, black-white veins. Hovering up, she continued her sermon. “It’s bad because you’re fighting the attractive woman!”
John just chuckled. For all the criticisms regarding his weakness to attractive women that could be leveraged, hesitance to fight those that were ‘evil but hot’ was not amongst them. A fight was a fight and he would neither underestimate nor pull punches because his opponent was a female of any level of attraction.
“I respect the harem bloat,” the Gamer assured.
“Oh, really?!” Momo had to reign in her outrage, to not spill the beans on something she should not.
John stepped onto the platform again, riding it down. The damaged Mandala Sphere and the Creator Puppet were with him, the Ego Blades remained lost. The elementals were there, which was the important part, and his resources were topped off.
Karia walked with a spring in her step. She did look damn good, John had to give her that. The ethereal blue of her hair followed her step like a banner, the tip of the strands fading into translucency. Her face was a blueish-white and more human than any of the others, her azure lips curled into a smile. Of all the members of the Azure Tribe, she looked by far the most actually human and harem worthy at that. That was, on the level of attractiveness.
“Combat shall commence… in an apple orchard,” Romulus announced. There was a degree of withheld disappointment in his voice. As far as landscapes went, an orchard was among the more dull ones.
“Why is there even an apple orchard in the selection?” Jeff asked the question on everyone’s mind.
“The Apex works in mysterious ways.” Dra gave the most dismissive shrug. “Rumour has it that Luna distributed slips to random people and then used them as inspiration.”
“Wow, really?”
“It’s a rumour, don’t take it as gos-“
“I can’t believe that they are so generous to let the public influence the battlefields of this monumental occasion! EVERYONE, CHEER FOR ROMULUS!”
The reason for the hype may have been questionable, but the thunderous applause still echoed through every corner of the coliseum. Ten thousand people roared and stomped on the ground. The noises only grew louder when Romulus acknowledged the adoration of the masses with a mild smile and a hand raised in salute.
“You’ve drawn the short straw.”
The words turned John’s attention to Karia. The arcane elemental stood two metres away from him. Already, she pulled the crimson robe off herself. The body underneath was, like her face, vastly more human than those preceding her. The fact that she even wore clothes over the rest of her blueish-white curves hinted that she was the full package. Under tight, black leather, decorated with pieces of azure metal, were breasts of decent size and a shapely ass that stretched the pants enticingly. A gap between top and bottoms revealed an alluring bit of flat midriff. A jacket hid her shoulders and her hands, once she had put them into pockets. Her feet were bare, the nails glowing like her hair.
“Are you also going to make a joke that I’ll be too enticed to fight you?” John pointed over his shoulder, back at the viewing platform. “Because one of mine just made that joke.”
“No, I mean that I will absolutely humiliate you,” Karia responded, a sharp smile spreading on her attractive features. “I’m a weapon forged to fight people like you.”
‘This is what you used to sound like, by the way.’ John heard Sylph in his mind. ‘All, “John, you are so evil, and I am the weapon to destroy you! Fear me and my thick thighs!” which, to be fair, had you led with those, you could have probably sat on his face until he died smiling. Just saying, maybe I can give you some assassination tips? I am the bestest concubine, I know all about successful bedroom action!’
‘Shut up,’ Siena told her, embarrassment swinging in her tone.
“You might as well tell me all the details of your ability if you are going to boast like that,” John egged her on.
“You knowing a little in advance won’t change anything.” Karia stopped for a moment to smile. “I think the proper term for my Innate Ability in this language would be ‘Connection Interruption’?”
‘Shit,’ the Gamer cussed inside his mind. “Well, I’ll do my best to work around that.”
“Please do, it’ll be entertaining.” Karia laughed and did a butler’s bow to indicate that he should go first.
John was rapidly running through his battle strategy. He had come up against connection interference effects twice before. The first time had been harmless, coming in the form of machines that barely inconvenienced him. The second time had been delivered by Theron, a member of the elite of the then-hostile Lake Alliance. That had been an actually difficult instance to overcome, spreading a headache and paralysis through his entire mental network.
‘At least Aclysia is already out of connection range,’ the Gamer thought. Anything that affected him wouldn’t negatively reflect on the weaponized maid because the interference could hardly mess with a disrupted signal. ‘Unless it is just that strong… better safe than sorry.’ He quickly opened up the Harem Comms and wrote Aclysia a message that summarized what she should prepare for. ‘If the Purest Front would make an attack for the Rose, they would do it while the known bodyguard is weakened or when the tournament is wrapping up so the ensuing scandal can’t hurt them anymore. In either case, it will almost certainly be today, if it happens.’
Aclysia: Affirmative. Best of luck, Master.
John closed the Harem Comms again and analysed his surroundings. The apple orchard was stereotypical. Green grass, broken by the shade of the medium-sized apple trees. Spread out in a grid, made disorderly only by the way each individual plant had grown. Whoever had been in charge of creating this orchard had gone through quite the effort to not make magic turn it all unnaturally similar.
‘Soooo, since we’re pretty certain that she’s going to disrupt the fuck out of our connection, how about you just give me all your mana and then I nuke the shit out of her?’ Salamander suggested.
John considered the idea for a moment. Provided Karia did have such a powerful anti-connection ability, utilizing his usual strategy of using his superior resource regeneration and numbers to grind down his enemies would not work. Firing everything and hoping for a hit that was at least crippling would be the smartest in that case.
Provided Karia did have such a powerful anti-connection ability, that was. It was possible and even somewhat likely that she was lying to him and that she either did not have that ability or that it was weaker than she made it sound. In that case, she was hoping he’d expend his resources early.
The passive part of Observe, the part that managed to worm its way through whatever intel gathering precautions were woven into her being or her clothes (or both), told him only that Karia was in a good mood. That did not help him with the decision making. Whether she was telling the truth or not, she could be in a good mood. It was basically a 50/50.
‘Let’s err on the side of caution,’ the Gamer ultimately denied Salamander’s proposal.
‘Urgh, fine, what is the battle plan then?’
A very good question, that John only had one very dissatisfying answer for. He stood on a piece of the grass marked with a spray-painted X, looking at Karia’s back. The arcane elemental stretched, her hand clutching a dagger of resplendent blue. It reminded John somewhat of Nia’s weapons in how artificial its appearance was. Unlike the void-black of the pariah’s armaments, this purely arcane dagger did not exude an air of wrongness, though. It was the length of the tall woman’s forearm, with a hooked cross-guard and a simple grip, all of it the colour of pure mana.
‘Keep her away from me.’
Combat was heralded by an explosion overhead. In an instant, Karia was gone. John did not have to guess where she was. Immediately, he took a step forward. The dagger sunk into an earthen wall erected by Gnome between the two of them.
A basic factor of Magus Step, and most other means of teleportation, was that it changed one’s position but not one’s pose. Her standing with her back turned had just been preparation for the backstab.
The Creator Puppet and Gnome immediately descended on Karia, but the teleporting assassin was gone as quickly as she had arrived. Back in her initial position, she whirled around, throwing her manifested dagger.
Sylph attempted to steer it off course with a gust of wind. The projectile proved supernaturally resilient against such interference, remaining on its course. John barely managed to Magus Step out of the way. The dagger sunk into the stone wall behind where he had been.
John hid behind an apple tree. None of them made for useful cover. Even a wall of styrofoam, little structural protection as it may have offered, still offered visual cover, though. The rest of his familiars split into three groups: protection, area cover, and direct attack. Gnome, the Creator Puppet, and Undine were the first group, Salamander and Sylph the second, leaving Siena in the last.
The midnight elemental stormed towards Karia. Manifesting a new dagger in her hand, the arcane enemy anticipated the attack with a grin. She waited until the very last moment.
Then she vanished again.
John felt the displaced air before he saw her. The dagger sliced through the apple tree he was hiding behind, the range of the attack elongated by a mixture of arcane and martial arts. With a swift tumble, John saved himself from the attack. Again, Gnome descended on Karia’s position, but the blue-haired woman continued to be slippery, teleporting towards John while the earth spirit was mid punch.
‘That’s more than just Magus Step,’ John thought.
The Creator Puppet moved in to tackle Karia, while John was still in the process of getting up. Everything around him moved at much higher speeds than his comparatively subpar Agility allowed him to compete with. Inkaryl’s descent was parried, the weapon pushed aside, creating a moment that John could use to Magus Step to a new position.
‘Around my level,’ John made his estimation. The degree of superiority she had over the elementals and the Creator Puppet in terms of speed was clear, but she was not utterly dominant. John could still trace her movements, the elementals still reacted fast enough to threaten her position. Since all the power of her level was concentrated in her, she was considerably more capable than any of his elementals individually.
Were it not for the threat of her stated Innate Ability, John would have been somewhat confident in achieving victory.
‘Which means it comes down to whether or not she lied,’ he thought.
Around him, Salamander and Sylph bombarded Karia’s positions with black-fire infused lightning strikes. The dark electricity was the better option for pinpoint attacks. John wanted to keep as many of the trees around as cover as he could. Even if the repeated lightning strikes did not land a hit, the fire they spread did not obliterate as many visual obstacles as Salamander’s meteors would have.
Although it seemed Karia had other means of tracking him.
John felt her appear again, further away this time. Three slim daggers, barely more than flat blades, sunk into the tree stump. Where they connected, they turned into pillars of energy. One of them caught the Gamer’s back before he could move out of the way. Particle Skin caught the attack. A version of the Connection Fizzling debuff opened up and immediately closed. His Endurance was too high for the basic versions of these effects to affect him on such a basic hit. ‘Even if she is a disruptor, she has to hurt me first.’
That bit of knowledge added some hope to the situation. Otherwise, Karia just continued to be slippery. Since the lightning strikes were largely a waste of mana, Salamander joined Siena in the direct combat. Six-armed fire spirit and invisible shadow chased after Karia, often supported by Gnome and the Creator Puppet. All of the combat was happening in close proximity to John now.
Karia skilfully weaved between the various attacks. She was a streak of bright blue hair, white skin, and dark leather. Daggers of varying designs were created and discarded, used as throwing weapons where she needed them to be, as threats to keep someone at range, or to block incoming strikes when she had no other choice. The majority of the time, however, she remained on the move. Whether it was claw, fist, lightning, or even a surprise attack by Undine coming her way, she made it through via a combination of teleportation and athletic movements. The environment was aiding her as well, the branches of the trees serving as grips for her nimble motions, the trunks as kick-off points.
Too late, John realized that the way she was chasing after him served to bring him back to the original point. When the dagger stuck in the stone wall entered his field of view, it was already too late. Karia manifested next to it, her entire body coiled up like a spring, ready to strike. That was not the pose that he had last seen her in.
The point of the weapon connected, loudly screeching against his Particle Skin. John had expended his teleportations and he was too slow to get away, but the defensive spell held. While he tried to pull away, while his familiars rushed towards his position, the screeching sound decreased in volume. Fewer and fewer sparks rose from the silver barrier on his exterior. The dagger’s edges turned more and more silver in turn.
A lightning strike forced Karia to pull back before her effort could conclude. ‘So she can circumvent arcane defences, wonderful,’ John thought drily. He considered using Purgatory’s enchantments to wield Salamander and Undine in their item forms. Another plan swiftly discarded. Even if this would protect them from the effect of the connection interference, John was just too slow to make that plan effective.
John bit the inside of his cheek. In the few seconds that Karia was distracted by the onslaught of elemental attacks, he ran through his options. ‘What are my roads to victory?’ he wondered, rapidly listing out his Combinations in his head, searching for any that would help. He found none. Arcane Ascension? There was only one spell that could work, but it was far from guaranteed. Grinding her down? Her mobility was simply too much for his set-up to handle. If he had Beatrice or Aclysia with him, that would have been a different matter, but his elementals just could not create the necessary pressure to keep her from getting hits in. ‘Arcane Ascension it is then.’
A moment after he had made his decision, the environmental destruction ramped up. Salamander hurled a meteorite at Karia with previously reigned in enthusiasm. The arcane elemental twisted out of the way, simultaneously delivering a kick to Siena’s side that had the cloaked shadow spirit fly backwards. The fire-rock exploded in the background, turning much of the apple orchard into a crater.
Every act of destruction fed into Purgatory, granting John more and more Strength and Agility. The total bonus of half his level (so 320 to each) was a glass in the bucket. Notable, yes, but ultimately it did not make a difference to Karia managing to outmanoeuvre him.
The arcane elemental ultimately weaved her way out of their sight. John furrowed his eyebrows. ‘She’s figured out the range of my extra senses.’ The realization did him no good; he was every bit as prepared for the strike as he was before – insufficiently. A thrown dagger came his way, bouncing off Particle Skin. Then, Karia herself appeared, now holding the deflected dagger, plunging it right back down.
The weapon bit into his flesh.
Karia’s eyes flickered with surprise for a moment. John grinned, taking the amusement for as little as it was worth. The way she circumvented his defences seemed to be tied to achieving the same magical frequency as the spell itself, fundamentally unique to each caster. John would rather take the loss here than have her be capable of penetrating through Particle Skin immediately should she ever aim to assassinate him in earnest.
The amusement ended when a cacophony of headaches rushed through his mental connections. Every last one of his five active elementals dropped, while an unbearable amount of static crashed their mental connection. John himself experienced a terrible ache in every fold of his skull, but that was just low enough on his torment scale that he could still think. Stirwin was spared, remaining in item form, but that would immediately change if he Unleashed the infinity elemental. The debuff was not nice enough to make an exception.
The entirety of John’s mana bar depleted, while Karia went for the second stab. This was not due to her actions or the increased mana cost, but for the simple reason of the Skyfall now descending on their position at rapid speed.
Karia’s blue eyes dashed upwards for a split second, then she made the only logical choice: to take him out before the attack could reach them. There was no use running from an orbital bombardment, after all.
John had nothing to threaten her with. The Creator Puppet and the Mandala Sphere were still operable, but sluggish. At their speed gap, that might as well have paralysed them. John tried to push her away, so he could Magus Step out of the situation, but all he got was a second stab into the shoulder firmly cementing his position.
Pulling him closer, curved arcane blades pressing against the inside of his bones, Karia smiled. “You’re sturdier than you look,” she complimented him.
“You’re just as pretty as I thought initially,” the Gamer answered, “but a lot more dangerous.”
Karia withdrew one of the daggers and rammed it right into his heart. It was fascinating and scary to feel the organ pumping the lifeblood through his veins stop but for his existence to continue unabated. His HP only sunk to a lower third. It continued to drop and it hurt, but neither were utterly worrying factors. Unless someone had tampered with the Fateweaving. That was a possibility his paranoia kept whispering in his mind.
The headaches of everyone kept worsening with each second the daggers were lodged inside him. Soon, they couldn’t even keep their corporeal form. Even Stirwin was affected, dropping out of item form. Sylph was even de-summoned by the sheer intensity of the effect on their connection.
“Don’t give me too much credit, killing mages is just what I do,” Karia stated plainly. She sliced his throat moments before the first of the two Skyfalls could connect with the ground. Even taking her time, she was too fast for his countermeasures. He bled.
John found himself in the hospital.
Comments
Funatic
It's a play on "drop in the bucket"
LOLZMAN
A glass in the bucket? I have never heard of that phase I can of course understand its meaning but that's new is that from german or something?
Christian Krueger
well, that sucks.
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