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336. Princely Clash
🕑 Added 2025-03-18 14:00:05 +0000 UTCIke charged, and the rider rushed to meet him. The beast leaped into the air, blocking out the newly-summoned sun. Sharp claws bore down at him.
“You go left,” Ike said, darting right. He and Wisp split. The beast landed between them. On its back, the rider had sheathed his sword and held a javelin instead. Eyes locked on Ike, he threw the javelin directly at him.
Ike snorted. He drew back his sword, preparing to knock it to the ground and obtain a new weapon.
In midair, the javelin began to glow, then transformed into a streak of golden light. It accelerated suddenly, too fast for Ike to see or react to. A burning sensation seared into his chest, and he stumbled backward.
Thump. He looked down. His right arm laid on the ground, still clutching the Hungry Sword. The Hungry Sword came to life. Its hilt opened up into a gaping maw, and it turned on Ike’s arm and devoured it in an instant.
“Ike!” Wisp shouted, alarmed. Then: “Dammit, I could’ve eaten that.”
Ike stumbled backward. He grasped his arm and stared at the rider numbly, shocked. A pulse of mana rushed up behind him, and he ducked at the last second. The javelin-light bolt rushed through the space where his heart had been and landed in the rider’s hand.
“Do you surrender?” the rider asked, voice low and ominous.
Ike gritted his teeth. He pushed aether into his Body-Reforging Art. His shoulder closed over. A nub formed, then surged outward. A new right arm grew. He picked up the Hungry Sword, activating his steel hands so it didn’t eat his new arm, too, and pointed it at the rider. “Never.”
The Hungry Sword opened that new maw and bit onto Ike’s hand, only to rebound off the steel. It shook itself and settled down, closing back into a normal hilt.
The rider chuckled. He hefted the javelin and drew back, sitting up high on the beast. “Then die.”
Before the rider loosed his weapon, Ike darted to the side. The rider’s hand tracked him, then threw the javelin. The second it left the rider’s fingertips, but before it transformed into a beam of golden light, Ike activated Storm Clad and accelerated at his absolute top speed. He blurred away in a smear of purple lightning and dark clouds, and the javelin rushed off and slammed into the wall behind him.
“Clever,” the rider complimented him.
“Clever, your ass!” Wisp appeared over the man, her elbow braced in a heavy blow. She elbow-dropped his head, and he ducked, falling from the force of the blow.
The beast roared and shook itself, but Wisp just clung on with her spider hands and feet. On its back, unbothered by the shaking, the rider lifted his hand, calling the javelin back to himself.
“Wisp! Get out of there!” Ike shouted.
“Huh? Oh.” She caught sight of the blaze of light and shot a thread to the stone walls, swinging away.
The rider tracked her. His eyes narrowed.
“Get punched!” Mag slammed into his wrist bird-claws first, his claw curled into a sort of fist. The rider’s wrist cracked, and he dropped the javelin. He snatched it up with his other hand and turned to Wisp again, but she was gone.
While the other two were distracting the rider, Ike raced directly at the beast. It narrowed its dark eyes and lowered its head, pawing at the ground. He cocked his head back, daring it to charge.
The beast roared and charged Ike, taking the rider with it. Startled, the rider whipped around and tried to quiet the beast, but to no avail. Ike closed in. He hopped up, landing on the beast’s head. Before the beast could shake him off, he pushed off and launched himself at the rider. The rider lifted his sword.
“Uh-uh.” Spider thread tangled the man’s arms from behind. He jerked back, yanked off the charging beast. Mag battered about his head, blocking his sight with a flurry of feathers.
Ike dashed across the last few feet, his sword held at chest height. He slammed it home, sliding the blade between the puppet’s ribs.
The puppet sighed, an exhausted sound. Ike expected it to instantly recover, but instead, it shattered, as if a blow to the heart were just as deadly to it as it was to a human. On the other side of the petal-bound arena, the beast shattered as well. The two groups of dust flew toward one another, mingling into one giant ball of dust.
“I don’t like the looks of that,” Wisp muttered.
“Yeah, me neither,” Ike said. He rolled out his shoulders and swung his new arm, still adjusting to the way it felt. It was stronger than the rest of him, freshly reformed from new, stronger materials.
Mag fluttered back up into the sky. He circled overhead, well out of reach but ready to dart down at a moment’s notice, or better yet, use one of his large-form spells. All three of them watched the mingling dust, waiting to see what fresh form it took.
And then Ike startled. He rushed toward the dust. “Wisp, use your fire!”
“Oh—oh! Got it!” Wisp swung in. She shot a thread of flaming spider’s silk into the mingling dust.
A small section of the dust caught on fire and burned up, but no more. The rest of the dust quickly rushed in and extinguished the fire.
Ike grinned. So it can handle a small fire. But what about a large fire?
He dashed back and forth in place, pushing all the aether he could into Storm Clad. He activated his lightning hands and dash technique as well, layering as much lightning as he could onto his body, and poured aether into Lightning Caller as well. The sky darkened as storm clouds covered the sun. Lightning crackled in the clouds and thunder rolled in the near distance.
The dust swirled, starting to take form. Shapes appeared in the nebulous cloud.
“Hurry it up already!” Wisp shouted.
The cloud grew more and more firm. As it firmed up, the emanation coming from it grew more and more ominous. Mid-Rank 3. High Rank 3. Peak Rank 3. Rank 4. And still, it kept escalating, growing stronger and stronger as the dust firmed into shape.
Ike clenched his teeth. He shoved even more aether into it, and at last, Lightning Caller took on a different sensation. He pointed up into the sky. “Come!”
White light flashed, washing away the world. Ike saw nothing else.
