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[Skill-Eater] Chapter 88: Takedown
🕑 Added 2024-08-26 17:01:01 +0000 UTCJumo went streaking past Edge’s position, the furious jobo hot on his heels.
The instant that the beast drew near, he made his move. Instead of combining slash and elemental blade, he decided to try out a combo using his new skill. It was a good opportunity to find out what double strike could do, since Jumo was running in the opposite direction and wouldn’t be able to see him use it.
Edge took aim and dropped conceal. He activated elemental blade and double strike at the same time, stepping into the blow as his reactor roared to life and mana went surging into his arms.
His subzero sword emerged from his hands, then blurred before a second weapon appeared beside the first. Each bladed crystal radiated elemental might, cold enough to make him shiver. It turned out that the drain of unleashing this combination was huge, and it wasn’t well-suited for repeated use.
It wasn’t a problem on this occasion, since Edge was planning to end the fight in a single blow.
His attack wasn’t as fast without slash, and it didn’t hit quite as hard. But his iceblade didn’t need the extra momentum to inflict considerable damage, thanks to its piercing chill. Half a heartbeat later, both frost-swords landed on target. They hit the beast’s leading leg, right below Jumo’s knife. At that point, Edge learned something interesting about his new combo.
Doubling his elemental blade let the cold work twice as fast. Instead of just chilling the area near the point of impact, the strike frosted everything between the dual blades, freezing half the leg solid in the blink of an eye.
The jobo screamed as his magic ran rampant throughout its tissue, turning muscle and blood to ice. Caught by surprise and overwhelmed by pain, it reflexively tried to leap away. A move that sealed its fate.
With an incredible crack, the beast’s leg shattered, broken into a dozen pieces from the power of its own skill. It hit the ground hard and went sprawling in the grass. It moaned and tried to crawl away, but it was dazed and in shock from losing the limb.
Edge quickly walked over and conjured his iceblade again. He pressed the tip into the beast’s throat, restricting the flow of blood to its brain. He turned off the skill when its movements grew weak, so that he didn’t kill it too soon.
He could already hear Jumo coming back and knew that he had to work fast. Before the man could see what was happening, he activated [Extraction]. When he found himself inside the beast’s core, which looked a great deal like the spot where they had parked the cart, he saw three skills inside. One was combination strike. The second was tail lash at his best guess.
He sent his intentions into his chains and stole leap. As soon as they threw the skill into his mouth, he began to chew, using his ultimate again the moment that he swallowed.
When he found himself back in the jobo’s core, the trees had lost their leaves, and all the grass was dead. There was a foul odor riding the breeze, and he was glad that he didn’t have to stay here for long. He just needed to pick between the other two skills inside. Since Edge didn’t have a tail, it was an easy decision to make. Go for combination strike.
When he made his selection, his chains yanked the mismatched fists out of creature’s core and tossed them between his gums. They tried to punch their way free, every other hit far stronger than the first. But the common skill couldn’t break through his teeth, and it gave up the fight after a couple of chomps.
While his jaws went to work, Edge looked down at his prey. Just like before, claiming a second skill had finished the beast off, unable to withstand the shock to its system.
He didn’t have time to appreciate the dual-layered flavor, because Jumo showed up a moment later, with a net in one hand and his spear in the other. When the hunter saw that the jobo was already dead, he lowered his weapon and began to laugh.
“Damn Edge, that was amazing. One of the cleanest kills that I’ve ever seen. Riller said that you were a quick study, but you really have a knack for stealth. I will admit that I had my doubts when I saw you in there at first. But by the time I came back with the jobo, I couldn’t sense your presence at all. For a second, I thought that you had bailed on me. I turned around when I heard it scream, but you were so fast that I didn’t see you land the second blow.”
He walked over to pat Edge on the back. “Well done. We’re going to rake in the creds with this haul. It’s Trapper’s call in the end, but it’s clear to me that you have what it takes.”
“Thanks. I had had a good teacher, and I couldn’t have done it without you. Give me a second. I just cycled-up and need to spend my attribute points.”
“Oh shit. Me too. Looks like today is lucky for both of us.”
While that was true, it wasn’t his most pressing concern. Edge needed to see if leap had gained enough experience to rank-up, so that he could choose an upgrade before time ran out. When he checked in with his core, he could tell that it was close, but not quite there yet.
With that out of the way, he did want to spend his points while he had the chance, since you never knew when the next fight would begin.
Comments
Bryan Dickerson
solid analysis
Zen-RPG
Jumo as no idea he used a stealth skill, to him he's just that good at it or its parts of his "Shadow core" He also din't see him use the double strike, he knows that he can use elemental blade since the figth Vs the Shadow beasts.
Bryan Dickerson
That's a decent point. He got a little overexcited trying to impress Jumo for sure.
Arden Burrell
I'm not adverse to some sneaky extraction, but it doesn't seem worth it if doing it requires exposing so many skills.
Arden Burrell
I feel like he kinda did something very dumb here. His whole thing is that if people find out he has too many skills he's dead. He's always currently training to work with a team, so why on earth would he use skills he plans to hide? Conceal and double strike shouldn't be used. It's a pointless risk just to hunt a monster he will probably be able to hunt regularly when he's trained. He needs to work his public facing skills and set reasonable expectations of his ability level for his team.
