Chương 321: AF Chapter 320 – Servitors and Signat

I raised my hand, and the Bulwark of Stone rose out of the ground I couldn't Shape, turning into a three-foot thick, five-foot wide wall of granite blocking off half the corridor, allowing only one of the creatures within to get to the Mick at a time. The enruned Signat there put its sleeves together and bowed its head, magic converged powerfully… and my Fastcast Dispel shattered it to multicolored sparks.

The Hollow Lightning Servitor with a big gaping hole in its chest did its strings-cut, puppet-like dance of movement, the Mick's eyes never leaving it as he braced for its erratic charge. It raced up on him, flailing with two glittering chorozite stumps moving in joint-less ways living creatures could not, yet Clan rose to smash into the blow coming from overhead, and he actually flashed forward two feet, inside the arc of the fist smashing in from the side. Archer Stands Thrust. Steadfast. Hold the Line.

The braced crit went off with devastating impact and explosively acidic fury yet again, blowing off the top of the Servitor's head instantly. Its powerful fist cracked deafeningly against Clan's boss and nearly broke, and the Mick merely grunted at the force of the other blow slamming its forearm, not its fist, against his Armor.

Then the Mick stepped back and executed the smoothest Flurry I'd seen out of him yet, six intersecting arcs of swordwork that bubbled and burned as they hacked through crystalline flesh and bone, as well as metal mesh. Abruptly that Servitor didn't have any limbs remaining intact as it tumbled to the ground. There was literally no let up. The second Servitor moved in murderously to the attack from behind the first, while the Signat sat back there and tried to get off another spell, which I Dispelled.

Chorozite fists caromed off adamantine deafeningly, and there was a crack and shearing squeal of protest as the right fist of the second Servitor broke apart, spraying glittering fragments of Null Aluminum all over the floor and walls rather explosively, notably sticking into my Bulwark there as if it were made of rotten cheese. The Signat kept trying to Cast spells from well behind the Mick, and I kept Dispelling them, keeping my Fastcast spell on reserve just in case…

There it was, a lashing and mana-intensive attempt to Counter my Dispel, which actually worked, tons of mana doing what it was not precisely matched up for… except my Fastcast Dispel in reserve finished the job, anyway.

The Mick devolved to defensive fighting, a whirl of precise One Strikes and the free attack from Clan his primary attacks, except that Defensive Sweep triggered when it didn't move, Deft Opportunist added +4 to his Attacks of Opportunity, and Expert Tactician added +2 to hit and damage for a round after he landed an AoO… and even if it only missed one attack in five, that one was enough for Riposte to trigger into the opening.

Its naturally tough Damage Reduction already rendered brittle and taking +75% damage from the Acid Vuln IV, the Hollow Servitor was cut apart with amazing speed, despite the Mick not making any full attacks at all. Clan was there to meet the surviving Hollow pummeling attacks, and while he didn't manage to break it, the threat it posed was minimized as he proceeded to hack and stab back into it for incredible damage, the explosive Bursts of the crits blowing right through it as Bunita did what she was meant to do.

The Signat was trying to outlast me with mana, but I could Dispel over twenty times from III Slots, let alone my Mana Pool or higher Slots. It tried to Counter me twice more as the Mick dueled the Servitor, gained the upper hand, and finally stabbed completely through its arm as it delivered an uppercut that rang off Clan, sending its own arm tearing free of its shoulder.

His feet flowed and shifted, and there was a blur of swordstrokes, three arcs culminating in a plunging thrust that broke its Core and nailed it to the floor, shrieking once in alarm and failure, and then it went still. The Signat paused in its Casting as the Mick pulled out Bunita's glowing green length and glided towards it, sparks of Silver lightning crackling about him as he accelerated before it could say anything. Well, it finally spoke anyway!

"Barbaric things of meat! Do you think that your actions here will go unanswered?" its stereo two-tone voice thrummed, flicking adamantine sickles sparking with thick and nasty purple lightning out of its sleeves as the Mick's charge slammed into and through it, Bunita going fully into its chest and Clan interfering with the strike of its right arm.

It lashed across and down, and he spun just right to let the blow go by, wrenching Bunita sideways to half-spin it, open its wound, and send its sickle out just wide enough to gouge his Armor instead of crashing down on his breastplate, lightning dancing up and down his arm. The Triadspell Dispel Item Magic flashed across both adamantine sickles, and the gleam on them dimmed and faded somewhat, while the hissing purple lightning went out completely. You might be reading a pirated copy.

Look for the official release to support the author. The Mick gave me a mental thumbs-up for the move as he began to Flurry the absolute fuck out of this virindi at Hasted speed. It did try to Dispel the Haste, and I straight up Countered that with my own Dispel, amused it would even try. Once it realized it wasn't going to get a spell off, however, it really got serious with the melee. There was basically almost no break in its attack sequences.

There was nothing new, nothing I and the Mick hadn't seen before from virindi, but there was less than a second between those different attack patterns, which meant the Mick had to be fast and on the ball. He was a full Paramount Melee under Haste. He was definitely both of those things, and buying up Favored Enemy bonuses against the virindi and their servants had definitely been something he'd been doing a great deal of.

His feet flowed back and forth with fantastic speed and ease, whirling around the virindi as it tried to spin around him and find an angle he couldn't block sufficiently or attack from. It definitely had some telekinetic version of strength to help try to force him around, but the Mick had some very impressive heavyfoot, and it simply couldn't budge him when it tried to press him back.

Clan cracked and clashed against sickles, and if they hadn't been Dispelled, likely would have soon been covered with gouges and scrapes from the things. As it was, the Shield was still being scored by the tremendous force of the sickle-hands of the Signat, but that wasn't enough to stop it from crashing back against that very force, destabilizing the virindi and threatening to break the sickles from its grip entirely.

It might have been waiting for me to try something, seize an opportune moment to cast a spell, but it didn't seem to get the idea that trying to evade the Mick and go for me might be a viable strategy. It certainly didn't think about retreating, despite the unwhite fire that was rapidly breaking apart the reinforced crystal of its minions' bodies and turning them into sparkling, sparking powder on the ground.

The Mick grinned fiercely, enjoying the enhanced reflexes, anticipating its moves and moving with and through them with deft speed, emerald arcs seeming to manifest out of nowhere, beginning and ending in eyeblinks with Bunita back on point. Melted and corroded metal soon crisscrossed the front of the Enruned armored robe of the Signat, bright purple virindi light leaking through the openings, and I watched its movements become looser and more erratic as it lost structural integrity.

Acidic energy tore at the metal of its armor, lashed across the energies inside, and it recoiled as the vivus riding the Lost Light's motes flared and ate of the energies within it.

"What power is this? What energy do you wield? Where did it come from? This is unnatural, this is an abomination!" it shrieked as it felt the vivic energy eating away at its very essence, not just disrupting its shell.

"It is the fire of the Mortal World, virindi, and it feeds the Land. The Land… is hungry!" I replied to it, holding back, trusting the Mick to finish the job. I was immediately rewarded as one of its sickles was sheered off at the sleeve, whipping past the Mick's ear and plunging six inches into the stone floor.

The Signat's attack sequences were now sending it wildly off-balance, which interrupted its movement and made it simple for the Mick to keep it in place, which triggered Stand Still, Thorned Hedge, Defensive Sweep, Riposte, and Combat Tactician all over again, Attacks of Opportunity accelerating the kill speed magnificently as his cutting and Flurries only grew faster, faster… The Signat's scream of despair and fear echoed forth as it was disrupted entirely.

Rather than escaping to its Quiddity, vivic flame blew completely through and devoured it. It was louder than even the Fulgurists had been as it exploded across the floor of the room, instantly covering it in calf-high mist and painting everything in the room pure white, even the arcane device. The Haste spell lapsed, and the Mick promptly sat down back against the Disk I had moved up behind him, breathing hard and even blowing a Vigor use to regain his stamina faster to recover from the exhaustion battling at him.

I hadn't physically exerted myself, so the effects on me were much less. I just continued breathing and standing mostly still there.

"Ho, that were a lot of Stamina gone quick there," he noted after a couple minutes of just sitting there and breathing.

"It was eating it away from you at probably two per second," I confirmed.

"Good thing you've got so much of it."

"Gor, I didnae think there'd ever be a time I actually needed five hundred Stamina to get through a single fight." He took another deep breath, shaking his head.

"Right, what's the haul?" I lifted up a glittering Virindi Amulet that was plainly a degree above those of the Fulguris, rainbow lights playing inside a large diamond.

"Level Four version. +4 in some fashion…" I reached out to touch it, letting my Bloodline awareness spread through it.

"+2 War, +2 Life Magic."

"Yours." I opened my mouth to refuse, and he just waved it away.

"We both know ye've the chops to cast Sevens, and ye can't because of how yer magic combines. Well, now ye can, once ye figure the way." I considered that very relevant point, and then brought the Amulet down over my head. It rested on top of the Tat-Mark that was my Arcane Focus, halted there, and was bonded to the Chakra point immediately. I could immediately feel the enhancement of some limit, pushed back by the virindi magic.

It did make me reliant on the Amulet, but I couldn't find it in myself to complain once I got it working properly. I'd still have to pay the full mana cost to unleash a Platinum-tier spell, but at least I'd be able to DO it. Wow, bad guys had better look out when that happened. The Platinum Debuffs were MURDER. The Vulns were a whopping +185% increased damage by Element… for a base 70 Mana, modified by Mana Conversion. Ouch. I really wanted to find my path forward for the Isparian magic system now.

As it was, it was useless to me now. Still, a good problem to have, as it were.

"Everyone an' their mother is now goin' t' be wantin' to kill a Signat fer a little toy like that," he remarked from experience.

"We only need one more, and I can break it down and learn how to replicate it… or we could potentially ask Martine to do the same."

"Rather not be relying on the Prodigal Human as the only source o' something so useful," the Mick commented, as the Enruned mask of the Signat rose from its remains and floated past him to the Disk behind him. Its Sickles soon followed, already starting to spark again faintly.