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154. Executioner
🕑 Added 2024-09-05 14:00:04 +0000 UTCThe axe hurtled through the air. Spinning blade-over-butt, it closed in on Ike and Wisp.
“Wisp!” Ike tossed an invisible bundle to her. He spun around and punched upward, aiming at the broadside of the blade. Green waves slammed into the blade’s flat. The axe bounced upward, away from Ike and Wisp alike. Ike leaned backward as the axe barely skimmed past his nose. Behind him, Wisp yelped and dropped to the ground. The axe slammed into the wall with a shimmering clang. Ike glanced at it. It vibrated from the force with which it had been thrown.
On the platform, the executioner stomped. Blood splattered up. Vibrations spread out over the surface of the blood. They peaked. Liquid blood darted up from the ground. The bloody pillars formed into ambiguous, slender humanoids. The humanoids charged at Ike and Wisp.
“Wisp, get out of here!” Ike shouted.
She laughed. “No way. Let’s stand and fight.” She stepped forward.
He glanced at her. “Where are the other two?”
“Lying on the ground, being pathetic. Don’t worry. Once they recover their strength, they’ll be stronger than us,” Wisp reminded him.
“Oh. Right.” Ike nodded, chuckling under his breath. That was right. They were the rulers of their city. City lords ruled by strength. Even if they were extraordinarily weak city lords, they’d still be at least Rank 3.
“Look sharp.” Wisp nodded in front of them.
The blood figures closed the distance. Ike raced to meet them. As he ran, he gathered the technique he used to force the blood out of the deer in one hand. The figures were all blood. Maybe the technique would work on them.
One of the figures lashed out. They were too far to reach Ike, or at least at first. As the figure swung its slender arm, the arm lengthened. It snapped like a whip into Ike’s face. Ike’s head snapped back from the force of the blow. He reeled. His vision flickered. The technique on his hand winked out.
The blood figure closed the gap between them in one single fluid step. It threw its whole upper body backward in preparation to strike.
Mid-backward-stumble, Ike forced himself to recover. He leaped into the air. The figure lashed out, but it missed him. It was still aiming at where he’d been, not where he was now. He dropped down behind it and gathered the blood-ejecting technique again. The figure looked around, lost. It looked over its shoulder. A single round eye regarded Ike.
“Too late.” Ike slammed his hand into the figure’s back.
His fingers sunk into the figure. It had no skin to speak of, nor internal organs. It was nothing but a conglomeration of blood, forced by mana into human shape. But it had a pseudo-core, and mana passages.
Ike released the skill.
The figure exploded. Blood splattered all over the road.
Near him, Wisp looked over. “Hey! Don’t waste food!”
“Yeah, yeah.” Ike stepped back. For a split second, he pulled up his stat sheet. That felt like a skill.
[Name: Ike | Age: 16 | Status: Nm | Rank: 2 [Abyss Dweller]]
Skills: Common: 11 | Bronze 3 | Silver 3 | Gold 2 | Rare 1 | Unique: 5
Common: All-Around Runner Lvl 8 | Razor Handling Lvl 9 | Spear Handling Lvl 4 | Axe Handling Lvl 4 | Sword Handling Lvl 9 | Bow Handling Lvl 1 | Primitive Crafting Lvl 9
Bronze: Sensory Enhancement Lvl 9 | Mana Manipulation Lvl 5 | Lunam Manipulation Lvl 0 | Aether Manipulation Lvl 0
Silver: Flurry of Kicks Lvl 3 | Chlorophyll Lvl 1 | Exsanguination Lvl 1
Gold: Shockwave Punch Lvl 5 | Ice Armor Lvl 4
Rare: River-Splitting Sword Lvl 8
Unique: Lightning Dash Lvl 9 | Lightning Grasp Lvl 9 | Lightning Clad Lvl 4 | Lightning Caller Lvl 3 | Body Reforging Art Lvl 1
Ike blinked, taken aback. Ex-sangui-what-now? I guess that’s what the skill’s called. And—wait, hold on! Body-Reforging Art is a Unique skill? Holy shit! If I’d known that earlier, I would have been way more excited about it! Not that I wasn’t, but fuck, man! That’s insane!
“What?” Wisp asked, giving him a look.
“I made a Unique skill,” Ike informed her smugly.
“What, just now? In your pants or something?” Wisp asked. She jumped at one of the blood figures and opened her mouth. Her lips latched onto it, and a horrible slurp sounded. It shriveled up.
“No. The Body Reforging Art. That was Unique,” Ike informed her.
“What? No fuckin’ way. What kind of bullshit-ass cheater are you?”
“I’m not cheating!” Another of the bloody figures lashed out at Ike. This time, not one to fall for the same trick twice, he sidestepped its swipe, then closed in. Before it could attack again, he slammed a hand on its chest and Exsanguinated it.
Blood spurted. Wisp darted over. She turned her head to the sky and gobbled up all the blood she could. “Point that shit at me, man.”
“Do you really want that?” Ike asked.
“Do I—do you know how much effort spiders put into goo-ifying people? And these people are pre-gooed! It’s like buying snacks from a street vendor, but spider style.”
Ike snorted. “Alright, alright. Next one, I’ll point your way.”
“You better.”
Two blood figures closed in on them from either side. The two parted, each choosing their opponent. Wisp grabbed hers with all four limbs and sucked it dry. Ike turned his into a blood splatter with a strike, directing the splatter at Wisp. The second her opponent vanished, she whirled around and swallowed the blood splattering her way.
She patted her stomach, satisfied. “That’s more like it.”
The executioner grumbled. He stomped on the now-dry surface and glared toward the guards. The guards jolted. At first one, then two, then all of them, charged at Ike and Wisp.
Ike swept his aether over the guards as they closed in. Not a one over Rank 1, though some of them were close to Rank 2. He nodded at Wisp. “How many do you think you can take?”
“Ten.”
“Ten? Only two for me?” Ike gave her a look.
She grinned. “Slowpoke.” Leaping into the air, she cast a spider thread past the guards and flew toward them.
“Hey! Get back here!” Ike chased after her. Lightning flickered from his feet, and he sped past. He looked back at her, grinning. “Slowpoke.”
Wisp grimaced. “Get back here, you.”
“Nuh-uh.” Ike drew his sword. He closed in on the first guard. The man’s eyes shone with terror, but he raised his sword to meet Ike all the same.
Comments
David
I hope wisp gets that blood manipulation skill from the executioner, even if only to use it to direct food her way lol. Excited to see what this new Unique skill Ike made is going to allow him to create! Tftc!!
Tom C
Tftc! If the reforging art is unique then it will be more malleable like lightning clad, I wonder how he can make it even better? If he could spawn some lightning reforging skills that are a mix of the two, or is he going for the elemental clad skill with wind in the mix? So many options!
