Sacrifice Mage

Chapter 244 (B3: 71): Faith vs Faith

The woman herself was as distracting as she had been the few times I had seen her before. Hair so gold that it literally glowed, face radiant like she had captured moonlight, eyes flashing like jewels with LEDs inside.I did my best to ignore her and her oppressive aura, focusing on what was going on with her Aspect. Especially its interaction with Gravity.

Because I was sure now—she was practically immune to the effects of Gravity.

Now that I was looking closer, I noted that her armour seemed to be disappearing and reappearing constantly. Pieces of glowing blue-white energy, hardened into a chestplate, broke off and disappeared. New pieces reformed to take their place, quickly reforging her armour.

“You know,” she said, her smile turning into a soft sneer. “You could just ask if you’re curious.”

I scowled. “I did! And this idiot at my feet keeps refusing to tell me just what’s going on with this ritual of yours.”

The Vaunted actually laughed. “Ah, that. Well, if you promise to let him go about his business, I’ll be sure to explain everything you want to know. We can even go over it with some tea if you prefer.”

I blinked. The idea of on sunless Ephemeroth was so odd, I was actually unmoored for a second. “Fat chance of that happening. I’m not letting you conduct some crazy ritual in my city, Vaunted.”

Her expression slowly settled into a bit more seriousness. She didn’t lose her smile, nor the supreme confidence or arrogance in her eyes. But she was starting to realize that I wasn’t going to budge. No matter what kind of odds I faced.

“Crisere,” she called behind me. That must have been the Plumefolk. “Stay out of this. I will deal with the interloper. You finish the ritual.”

“Not on my watch,” I said.

Since I still hadn’t relented on Gravity, the Plumefolk was still tied to where he had been flattened. He glared at me as I reached him in a single dash, my mace raised high.

But the Vaunted was several degrees faster. She was standing before me even before I started my swing, still with that maddening, confident smile on her face. I struck hard, but she slapped it aside with just her hand, wrapped in a gauntlet and covered in her icy power.

It really icy. This close, the waves of cold struck me like frozen needles.

“Your battle is with me now, Cultist Moreland,” she said. “I suggest you rethink insulting me by ignoring the threat I present. Otherwise, I might lose patience and end you a little too quickly.”

It was my turn to sneer. “Stop being so needy, Vaunted.”

Her eyes flashed. I barely even saw her fist blur through the air and definitely wasn’t able to do anything to block her punch. Other than rely on my Augmentations, of course.

Reverence Everlife shattered completely when her ice-clad fist connected with my face. But all she managed to do was leave a small, temporary depression on my cheek. I grinned at her at the same time as the shockwave from the punch’s impact shattered the entire lip of the Gravity-affected volcanic vent behind me, sending rocks flying into the magma below.

Banished Gods bless Vital Mana for keeping me alive even against a Vaunted.

All the Gravity I had put down with Field Manipulation had disappeared at the Vaunted’s punch. At just punch. That was how crazy strong she was. Opal-ranked? No. More like Onyx at the very least. Probably even stronger.

All my buffs from the Rituals had taken me to Opal, and I knew I still wasn’t a match for her. Not on apparent power, at least.

Crisere squawked as he was suddenly free from my Gravity, what with the Vaunted’s blow having destroyed two-thirds of the crater’s rim. Field Manipulation had completely disappeared on that side. The Plumefolk cursed me, then shot off towards the robed figure. And I couldn’t do a thing about it because of this woman with her fist against my face.

“My, my,” she said, brows rising in surprised approval. “I was hoping you’d survive a direct hit despite being so much weaker, but I wasn’t expecting you to remain standing unflinchingly in this fashion.”

“My turn,” I growled against her fist.

I swung my mace with all the power I could muster. She didn’t attempt to block or dodge. I didn’t know if it was some kind of weird pride, where she was willing to suffer my blow in the same way I had tanked hers.

It didn’t make much of a difference anyway. Sure, I got one over her because she went staggering back, so much so that she slipped off downslope for a moment.

Then she was back, rising high with her white-blue wings spreading wide.

“Ha,” she said, ascending even higher. “You can hit hard too. I suppose I should stop underestimating you.”

“You should,” I said. I really wanted to take my eyes off her and pay attention to whatever the Plumefolk and the robed man were getting up to. I could hear the chant starting, could feel the twin nature of the world I had been experiencing all this time resonating for some reason. But looking away from the Vaunted was a death sentence.

“Then let us fight,” she said. “.”

She attacked seriously this time. I forgot all about the ritual and everything else. The entirety of my attention was consumed by surviving the onslaught the Vaunted decided to unleash.

At first, the battle was purely physical, which was bad enough. She was several times faster and quite a bit stronger. I could deal with the former, though. My whole body juddered like a ship hitting an iceberg and about to sink at every strike from her long, icy glaive that I blocked with my mace and with Empowered Deflection.

Multicast worked wonders. While on the one hand, I found I could extend the shielding effect of Reverence Everlife, on the other, I was casting Illumination far overhead with Manifestation, attaching Flare and Gravity to it.

Light that burned fell on us, slowly melting the icy power that the Vaunted was clad in. It also weighed her down, bit by bit.

And most importantly, I had Drain active. Now that she was under the effect of my Aspects, her innate Agility was slowly leeching out of her to add onto mine. I met her every blow faster and faster, getting my mace up into the right guarding positions better and better with every exchange.

And yet, I never stopped feeling like I was outmatched here. Not once did I get a chance to counterattack. Not once could I squeeze in a blow, could I make go on the defensive.

She switched up the wide swings of her glaive with a sudden reversal of the weapon, ramming the butting end against my chest to send me tumbling back. Then she took advantage of the shorter range of my mace by swiping at my feet with the slowly-melting icy blade. I managed to leap back, but that was just me playing into her hand.

As her glaive swung, it unleashed a cold tsunami, a tidal wave of ice that washed over me. It didn’t hurt. Protected as I was with Reverence Everlife, I didn’t feel too much of the cold.

But it blinded me, which was all the Vaunted needed to attack for real.

Even Vital Mana wasn’t fast enough. The burning, weighting light above us disappeared instantly as I was struck, sent flying back across the ground. Thankfully, I was able to get to my feet before she reached me.

Though, it didn’t really matter anyway. She didn’t seem to be in any hurry.

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“Your light has disappeared,” she said, mockingly morose. “How ever will you proceed?”

I slowly got to my feet. “And your ice is half gone already.”

With how I was Manifesting heat through Flare, the rest of it was going to disappear soon enough as well. I just needed to survive till then. More casts of more Aspects to sacrifice in my stead with Vital Mana, and that line of thinking made me wonder if there was a way I could tie Sacrifice to the way I was literally my own Aspects for my safety.

Things I’d have to consider much, much later when I actually survived my fight against a Vaunted from Claderov.

The exchanges went much the same way as last time. Same summoning of light with other Aspects imbued to it, same use of Drain, same blow and counterblow of mace against icy glaive. The only difference—one that brought a satisfying frown on the Vaunted’s face—was the way she was slowing down.

It wasn’t a huge change. Drain didn’t act that fast or that effectively. My enemies weren’t going to turn into snails in a minute while I zipped around like the Flash.

But it work. It made the Vaunted just that tiny bit slower, and conversely, sped me up just that tiny bit faster. Just enough for me to match her speed. Just enough for me to bring my mace to bear no matter where or how she swung her glaive. Sparks and shards of ice rained all around us as I met her strike for strike.

Her stronger Power pushed me back, but she couldn’t get through my guard. She couldn’t .

Especially when the next blow had her glaive shattering completely. It had melted it too much, the ice weakening under the heat from the light overhead. I had even been wary of her martial tricks, making sure I wasn’t caught by any sudden feints or attacks that tried to take advantage of her greater reach. Gutran had taught me well to deal with such things.

“And now,” I said. “Your ice is gone for good.”

“Correct.” She wasn’t perturbed in the least. “It’s been melted… .”

I blinked. “Ah, shit.”

All the ice that had melted was frothing at her feet and over her body, writhing like it was alive. It stood to reason that if she had an Aspect that could control ice, then there was no doubt another that could control water. And water was hardly going to be affected by the heat I was applying at the moment.

I exploded the Flares I had been gathering. Something told me that getting hit with those jets would have been terrible for my wellbeing.

But the Vaunted never stopped smiling. The detonating heat and the water had combined to release blasts of steam, and it turned out, she could control that too. Coiling serpents of hissing vapour twisted through the air too fast for me to react, pinging off my Reverence Everlife shield like bullets hitting impassable metal.

They weren’t going for impact, though. Instead, it was the burning heat they were trying to impart that would have left me drilled with sizzling holes. As it was, Absorption helped tremendously.

I was constantly reminded that this was a Vaunted I was facing. In the same way that I had way too many options to properly keep track of in a single fight, so did she.

While the steam had at first been an attempt to burn me, I realized that was just a distraction. Now, I was surrounded by a cloud of overheated vapour, occluding not just my visual senses but my hearing too, with how it was sizzling and hissing everywhere around me.

I had no idea where my enemy would come from.

Even Highlight wasn’t helping. The glimmers and silhouettes I caught were brief flashes in the murk, nothing definitive and way too numerous to help me prepare.

But still. I was fast enough to react. Jets of water came first, shooting at me like the kind used to cut granite. Empowered Deflection allowed me to fight them off, blowing each stream off course even when they came from multiple directions at once. Draining the Vaunted’s speed was really coming in handy. The jets were accompanied by mocking laughter too.

That ticked me off a bit, which was probably the goal. I was tired of the tricksiness.

Using Concentration to bring up Flare was easy since the steam was already superheated and I had absorbed a great deal that I could then use with Mana Conversion.

The resulting explosions rocked the area hard enough to blow away all the steam. I had set a series of the heat bombs all over the area, hearing satisfying cries from the other two not involved in the fight. Some of the heat bombs had been placed carefully to throw me backwards.

Which was great because the Vaunted’s spear throw missed me completely.

“Ha!” I shouted, pinpointing her easily now. “Got you now.”

Stellar Lance needed a small burst of energy to fire off. Especially with Mana Conversion in tow. I did just that, shooting a mini laser in her direction.

Which promptly got reflected off a shattered pane of ice.

Ah, right. The spear chuck might have missed, but its explosion had sent out a storm of glassy shards everywhere.

With a grin, the Vaunted launched herself at me, water and ice swirling in a shredding mixture around her body like armour bent on hurting her enemies more than protecting herself. Still, her actual attack was with more swings and stabs of her spear, so I was able to meet every blow with my mace.

It was insane. I couldn’t believe how much I had to keep track of with my mind, all in an effort to not die at her hands. At seeing how much resistance I was putting up, she had amped up the pressure to a tremendous degree.

There were the overpowering attacks of her spear that I was barely fending off. Her slicing armour had expanded enough that I had to squint my eyes, water was trying to creep up to my feet and hold me in place, and more steam pressed in from all sides with enough sizzling heat to me alive.

I couldn’t just rely on Reverence Everlife to protect myself. Absorption didn’t stop running. Empowered Deflection blew off her water especially with the addition of Gravity’s Repulsion Burst. I couldn’t focus enough to cast Sacrifice with Overclaim or rely on Entropy.

At the same time, I did try gathering a lot of my mana overhead with Multicast. Defeating her directly was impossible, but if I could slam down a Protostar then—

A little trick of mine backfired. I had let her get a stab in with her spear, letting it slip past my mace to ram into my waist. Reverence Everlife did enough to protect me. It cracked, sure, but I was still uninjured. More importantly, my mace was now free to slam in and strike through armour.

I crushed the ice and water, denting her actual breastplate with the weight I had infused into my mace’s head. It did work. I managed to draw blood, to rip into her shoulder.

And then the water reformed, flash-freezing to hold my mace and my arm in place.

“Fuck!” I muttered.

The Vaunted grinned wide. “.”

Her spear broke, which surprised me. Then she the broken bit she was holding with so much force against my shoulder, the ice holding my arm shattered as I was flung back.

My arm was dislocated out of its shoulder socket. Even with Reverence Everlife holding its armour cracked but steady, the Vaunted had summoned up so much force that my entire limb had been torn free of where it belonged.

My scream lasted the bare instant I needed to enact Pain Sense Control. I barely righted myself to see that she was leaping at me, broken spear reforming into a glaive, slamming down from overhead.

The kick that sent me sprawling backwards was more instinct than anything else. That blow of hers would have me otherwise. With how much Power she was displaying, I was even starting to lose trust in Reverence Everlife.

But I had waited long enough. With a focus of will, I pulled down the Protostar I had been pushing out all this time.

Was it strong enough yet? I had no idea. It had crossed the threshold needed to like a tiny star, and there was no one on the rim of this volcanic crater that I needed to keep alive.

So, I slammed it down.

It never made contact. The Vaunted was apparently aware of it already. She gave me an almost withering look, before standing stock still and calling on a humongous geyser to erupt upwards. It obscured her entirely from my line of sight, rocketing upwards to collide with the Protostar, a volcanic eruption of overheated water and steam.

That stopped it. The little, head-sized ball of combined gravity, heat, light and entropy hit the geyser with a detonation so furious, the resulting shockwave slammed both me the Vaunted to the ground. Everything was shaking enough to make me feel like the world itself was about to crack. The geyser had burst apart to steaming smithereens, radiation washing over us in cancerous waves.

And all I managed to do was force myself up just enough to use Mana Conversion at the same time as Stellar Lance yet again.

With how much energy that explosion had unleashed, I’d be utterly stupid not to reroute it to catch my opponent off-guard.

My aim wasn’t blinded by the steam and dust. Highlight might not have been perfect, but now, it was fine enough. The Vaunted’s rapidly rising and overly powerful silhouette glimmered like a beacon. So, I fired a column-thick laser of obliterating light straight at her. It bounced off her mirrorlike armour, but I thrust my other arm at the reflected beam with beam.

That set off another explosion that made her scream as she was thrown off balance.

The blast had blown away the steam. I was on my feet in seconds, ready to continue pressing my advantage, but it was pointless. She wasn’t fully down. Still on her feet, somehow, with only her hand burned and bleeding. And even that didn’t last for long.

An encasing of ice and water cloaked it in the next heartbeat. The distance made it hard to tell, but Highlight was limning the encasing with a green aura.

A aura. How much she capable of?

“Aha,” she said, her grin harder now than before. “How much else have you to show me, Cultist? Before I end up killing you?”

I didn’t answer. Her steam was vapouring out again, flooding the field and obscuring everyone. But I was done playing her game.

Now that I had space, I could start ending this.

Entropy came alive, Ignition Charge sending it out in curling horns of radiating white power. In moments, almost the entirety of the battlefield was covered by Framework.

Upon contacting my Aspect’s manifestation, all the steam broke apart. Already energized, the Oxygen and Hydrogen atoms split apart, the breaking of their bond radiating out the sparking energy needed to combust the resulting, highly volatile mixture.

I grinned at the Vaunted’s frown.

Then the entire volcanic vent was smothered in a true eruption.