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Chapter 68 - When the Head Falls
🕑 Added 2023-09-29 20:26:49 +0000 UTCChapter 68
When the Head Falls
The charge, the same one that would have absolutely failed just a day ago, was beyond successful–the rows of Altukeen ushered forth carnage as their tall, broad, and strong frames spilt into the city streets. The soldiers that came to try and stop them fell one after another, and the citizens began to stream out in droves. Fires, soon, began to consume the edges of the city, rising and rowing like steady canoes toward the centre.
Ethan himself did nothing, standing in the rear with 'Michael'. Earth's soldiers poured in right after the Altukeens and began fighting. The experience was the mother of all learning, and this was a perfect opportunity for them. Thoyn was all but finished, decimated from within, with its Palace having already crumbled. The remaining soldiers were all weak, and the Knights were all being dealt with by the Altukeens.
However, there was still one foe that Ethan was interested in–the Emperor. While the Guardian may have been the strongest enemy, technically, the Emperor should be the ‘final boss’ of the Tunnel. And Ethan wouldn’t ‘give’ him to anyone else. Despite instigating the city’s collapse, past the unique Title he’d received, he didn’t get anything else–no XP, no items, no special rewards. As such, he had to bleed the Emperor dry for something.
The combined forces of Altukeens and Earth's soldiers spilt out into the vast streets of the city and began to comb through it. It was a rather… ghastly sight. So much so, in fact, that some soldiers retreated to the rear, unable to withstand it any longer.
Disregarding them, Ethan left 'Michael' and began rushing to the right-side cliff where he sensed the Emperor's unique Mana signature. The pathway had already been opened by some Altukeens who were currently too busy cutting down ordinary people with bloodied glee on their faces. Ethan wasn't the one to judge–while the ordinary citizens of the Empire likely didn't do anything wrong, it was one of those 'sins of the fathers' situations. The Empire's treatment of Altukeens was worse than that of a slave as the ultimate goal was eugenics, to completely remove them as a species from the continent. That sort of treatment tends to breed a lot of anger and hate and, for the first time in a while, the 'bedevilled' had a chance to exorcise some of their inner demons.
Ethan rounded past them all and managed to climb the cliff. Walking past the limestone-paved streets and into a grassy flatland, he saw the Emperor floating just above the ground in a meditative pose. Evidently, this was the ‘boss arena’, and he was simply waiting for a challenger.
The Emperor was a man in his fifties sporting short, black hair and a pair of twilight-dyed eyes that immediately locked on Ethan. Within a breath, calmness within them stirred with madness and rage, Mana spilling out from within.
“You!!” evidently, the Emperor recognised Ethan’s Mana signature from when he used the scroll. “Filthy peasant, how dare you! Do you understand what have you done?!!”
“...” Ethan ignored the speech and focused on a string of notification windows that informed him that he’d activated the boss battle and that nobody could interfere in the fight until either one of them was dead.
The reason, or at least part of the reason Ethan was confident in facing the Emperor even after having sacrificed 15 Vitality was the stat-stacking from the few Titles he’d received in the Scorched Savanna–the Emperor, technically, was a ‘King-titled’ creature which increased all of Ethan’s stats by 15%. Furthermore, The Holy Guardian title increased all his stats by 35% because it was a Field-funnelling Tunnel, plus the additional 15% as he was facing the final boss. In total, his stats were increased by 65%, not to mention the additional 20% bonus to the damage he dealt to the final bosses in the Tunnels thanks to the Slayer title.
All these boosts were enough to bridge the gap of Levels, and in the midst of the Emperor’s tirade, Ethan attacked. Blood poured out of his forearms as he used Hemomancy to morph it into countless tiny needles. On his approach, the Emperor raged at his ‘insolence’ as the golden sheen blasted off the surface of his skin, churning out a massive visage behind the Emperor shaped like an eskyrion, the Empire’s sigil.
Arrays of golden light flew forward at Ethan but he ignored them, tanking them directly as he used the additional blood they produced to summon a Crimson Blade. Using its long-range mode, he slashed at the surprised Emperor who managed to summon a shield of Mana to block it. Just then, Ethan was on top of the man, countless bloody needles shooting forward.
The Emperor was a humanoid, and despite blocking over 80% of the needles, 20% were more than enough to cause the countless ‘Bleed’ statuses to appear. This was the ‘gameplay loop’, so to say, of a Blood Inheritor–blow for blow, wound for wound, outlasting everyone. Every individual instance of 'Bleed' status healed Ethan–while it wasn't much per tick, considering the number of them, he was regenerating anywhere between 30 to 40 Health per second with those Bleeds alone, all other forms of leech being ignored.
The Emperor blinked backwards, his body morphing into a singularity and appearing some twenty feet back; he was a Mage, and so long as Ethan could get into melee, was restricted in what he could do. Nonetheless, as Ethan started running forward, the Emperor roared and summoned a wooden staff into his hand. Atop the staff, a golden orb appeared as the man aimed it at Ethan–the latter's spine tingled as he immediately tossed himself to the side, rolling rather disgracefully to the side. A breath later, a beam of golden light was fired off the staff and pierced through the space between the two men as quickly as light itself allowed it.
Even some ten feet away, Ethan felt the sheer, raw heat of the beam; if he'd been hit, depending on where, he might have even gotten one shot. He didn't panic, however, immediately rousing to his feet and running forth once more.
The two men engaged in a dance–Ethan, bleeding from every orifice, used both his and the Emperor’s blood to congeal blades and needles and speartips galore, using the downtime during which the Emperor couldn’t blink to further inflict Bleed statuses. Some expired, but new ones were being added constantly.
On the other end, the Emperor desperately fought to create a gap between them, using the distance to launch beams, arrays, and pillars of golden light at Ethan. Both men’s Health bars were hardly moving slowly–though Ethan's kept going down and then quickly back up, while the Emperor’s persistently went down.
One of the weaknesses, at least early on, of the Blood Inheritor Class was its rather low damage output–while Ethan played up and close to near perfection, using every instance of downtime when he closed the gap to deal as much damage as possible, he was still only shaving around 10% of the Emperor's total health per the combo. One part of it was that he didn't actually have a proper weapon yet as he kept the Dagger in his inventory, not wanting to waste the charges, but part of it was that he still had a long way to go in making the Class self-sufficient.
When the Emperor fell down to roughly 40% Health, Ethan suddenly found himself striking at a shield of Mana that he couldn’t pierce; the repelling force kicked him back some twenty feet, the feedback numbing his fingers. Swiftly looking back up and forward, he saw that the Emperor was floating some ten feet in the air, arms spread out, winds fluttering his robes, eyes glazed in milky-white streams that smoked ivory fire.
Ethan recognised the ability in an instant–but it wasn’t that dangerous, actually, despite the appearances. It was somewhat similar to his own Bleeding Agony in that it was a defensive-minded, automatically-activated passive that restored some Health, increased defences, and increased the casting speed of spells by a decent amount. What it meant, in the end, was that the battle would simply last a bit longer…
Ethan rushed forward as soon as the Emperor’s feet hit the ground; by the time the man ‘awoke’ from his stasis, Ethan was upon him, managing to land several hits with the Crimson Blade, not to mention shooting several dozen needles at the Emperor, a good chunk of which managed to pierce the skin and cause bleeding.
Duels were, at the moment, when Ethan was at his weakest–the Class thrived in the chaos of a battlefield because 2 major Spells that he had that increased his damage output massively could only be used in a group setting. He was effectively fighting with a handicap, but it didn't matter. The reason the Emperor was much easier than the Lion, despite being of a higher level, was quite simple: the Emperor was a human. Bleed effects were much, much, much more effective on people and people-like species rather than on the massive behemoths that could bleed for days without running out of blood.
Furthermore, the Emperor was a Mage-related Class–while he packed rather massive damage, so long as he didn't kill Ethan in a single shot, it didn't matter as the latter healed all the damage back up within less than 10 seconds. Additionally, because it was a Mage-related Class, the man was slow, clumsy, and had paper-thin defences. Even with virtually everything in Ethan's favour from the onset, it still took him over 30 minutes to finally land the finishing blow. That was even with the massive boosts to his stats from the titles.
The Emperor was on his knees, one of his arms cut off, the majestic robes having long lost their lustre, tattered and stained in blood. The man defiantly stared back at Ethan, unblinking, his breathing shallow and ragged.
“... why?” the Emperor asked as Ethan summoned a crimson blade.
“Because it had to be done,” a head flew off, a look of anger and unwillingness in the dying eyes. A string of notifications appeared in front of Ethan as the collective weep echoed out through the city–for the Emperor was dead, and the Empire was falling.
