Chương 35

The Ice Warg crashed against his sword, and its force rippled through Alex's body. With his new Level the impacts were manageable, but even with Pure cycling, his fingers were starting to lose feeling. Still, his parries and Mana Shields were sufficient to ward off every strike so far, and by this point his mental model of the creature—his understanding of its habits—also felt relatively high.

And Beckett was alternating between almost collapsed and bursts of sharp motion, but Alex felt the guy would be fine holding his own for a few exchanges, at least. He considered the Ice Warg with fresh eyes, and he almost felt like— I feel like I could force a finish if I wanted. But maybe there's a chance here. He was also thinking about what Beckett had just accomplished. Swordforce on his spear felt like the tip of the proverbial spear in terms of what he could accomplish with Force.

The Ice Warg swerved to avoid a Mana Spear to the face, re-engaged with a swipe, and Alex caught its claws with his sword again; it seemed visibly frustrated. As its claws were locked like this, he shucked sideways, hard. At the same time he applied a little Force mana behind his upper arms, and to his hips and shoulders. The Ice Warg lurched sideways; he slashed at it as it fell, and was able to score a thin, bloody gash. He evaluated it clinically. Decent? He was thinking about applying Force to his body.

He'd briefly considered applying it to a few key points of his body directly at the moment of impact—such as reinforcing his wrist and shoulders—except like with applying Force to his sword, it felt incredibly timing-dependent. There was too much potential to accidentally throw himself way off balance. Thinking about precisely when and where to apply force to his body, on a moment-to-moment basis, also felt a little much. He caught another strike, shunted off the Warg again with a little Force assistance.

A little better, since it wasn't so timing dependent; he was applying Force externally to his body, after the clash. It was still quite willpower intensive, and required him to think constantly about Force directions and where to place these Force 'assists;' the idea was way too finicky. It also didn't result in anything all that damaging; sure, he landed a slash here or there, but that was all.

It meant, at least, he was starting to tinker with Force; he could sense he'd barely scratched the surface of all it was capable of. What I want, Alex supposed. If I want to make this work, is something that can brace, without requiring exact timing or exact placement. A Force absorber, kind of? He glanced again at Beckett and the Gelid, just to keep his sense of the battlefield up-to-date, before continuing his thinking.

There was a concept he'd been playing around with in his mind, an element he knew Force mana could achieve. He'd been hesitating on trying it for a while, in part because he wasn't 100% sure how to achieve it—he'd wanted to try it in a v-Station first before debuting it live. Except maybe a little live pressure could be helpful for growth. He glanced back at Beckett. Okay—not to the level of whatever that was.

If Beckett screwed up whatever that was, Alex wasn't sure he could've saved him with all the Mana Shields in the world. Alex was of two minds; on one hand he respected, and was somewhat in disbelief of, the fact that Beckett willingly put himself under those conditions to break through. On the other hand it seemed utterly insane as a long-term strategy. If you entered ten scenarios like that, Alex had to imagine you only needed one to go slightly wrong and you'd be finished.

Alex wasn't against risk-taking, necessarily, but something told him Beckett tried that on pure instinct; he'd probably done it because it felt right in the moment. Ultimately Beckett's mentality was his, and possibly his Guild's, to think about. Alex's assumption was they'd train him out of it. At least give him a life-saving treasure. What it did do was force Alex to reconsider his relationship with risk and progress. There might be a balance here that's productive? The Ice Warg slashed at his head.

Alex juxtaposed a Mana Shield between the two of them. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. In between the Warg's slashes, a thin, dark-blue layer flowed over the surface of the Mana Shield. He felt he could time it pretty well, but he still felt he had to be vigilant. It was still true he had zero armor, and he was still sporting a half-healed wound in his side, as well as a bunch of pinpricks of ice in his body.

He did time it right, luckily. The Warg's claws slid a few feet, and the shield shattered. Alex parried, and fended the Warg off with two Mana Spears. The dark-blue layer wasn't quite right, but he'd been observing it quite closely; it'd brightened and flexed slightly when the claws struck. He hopped back two steps, setting up a second Mana Shield.

A second dark-blue layer, thicker this time—and he could tell was a little easier to inflect this bit of Force mana than it would've been an hour ago; his new Willpower, from his circlet and his new Level, certainly helped. He watched the Warg strike again, and saw its claws slid significantly less. The shatter patterns they left on his Shield were also noticeably smaller. Another exchange, another shattered Shield, and he saw the new results; it's time.

This time he allowed the Ice Warg in closer, bracing himself to accept a slash against his sword. This was the potentially risky bit, but he felt sure—of his ability to defend himself if it went wrong, if not his ability to perform the maneuver he was intending. He dropped his Pure cycling, and an instant later a little dark-blue mana surged through his arms, and a little in his spine and legs. CLANG!

Outwardly, it didn't seem like much had changed—Alex supposed from the Warg's perspective, it would've felt like it'd hit something a little more unyielding than it'd expected. Alex was surprised, since he genuinely hadn't expected it to work first try. It was his first try after a few test runs, and it was a relatively small amount of mana, but still—he was used to his first tries failing quite spectacularly. Even with Pure mana cycling, which he'd gotten almost instantly.

Except he supposed he'd only failed at that because he hadn't realized how intentional he had to be; here he was very intentional about what he wanted from the start. It was like a fraction of the Ice Warg's force had been soaked up by the mana. He'd read it was somewhat analogous to the way water acted as a sink of heat. Except here, Force mana was inflected to act as a sink of force. Quite useful for absorbing Ice Wargs' attacks, but also for absorbing recoil from skills like Force Cycling.

If he was sufficiently practiced at this aspect of Force, and wielded a lot more inflected Force mana, it was entirely possible for the Ice Warg to charge at him full-force, and then bounce off him like it'd struck a steel wall. Its Force totally 'sunk'. It was also supposed to be possible to reuse this force as Alex's own, but that idea was a ways away.

As the exchanges continued, it did feel kind of weird to him how his perception of the Warg changed; it didn't seem as much a growling, menacing creature that very much wanted to kill him, which it still was. It was like his increasing understanding of it was neutralizing its menace. A few exchanges passed, with Force mana sinking a little force every time. There was a cry above, and the Gelid brightened—except it didn't have enough mana for another of those barrages, he could tell. A single icy diamond flew down.

A Mana Shield was sufficient to stop it. It still shocked him out of his mentality. Okay, let's finish this. He'd had a sequence in mind for a while, and the Ice Warg was also noticeably slower; it was smarter than the Slimes, in that it didn't attack mindlessly. Like here. The Ice Warg went 270 degrees around Alex in several pounces, forcing him to turn twice, before lunging and trying to sink its teeth into his neck. It'd tried this tactic a few exchanges ago and nearly succeeded.

Unfortunately, this also meant Alex was watching for it. Force mana braced his muscles, about twice as much Force mana as he'd used so far. Its eyes widened; his sheer rigidity, or maybe the sheer speed of his reaction, seemed to shock the Ice Warg. He deflected it hard sideways, helped by a little Force, and crushed two Swordforce-laden Mana Spears into its face. He accelerated these Swordforce-laden Mana Spears about 20% faster than he'd accelerated all his others.

The creature gave up what he needed it to give up, and he finished it with a thrust and a slash. To his right, he saw Beckett get out of the way of two Claw slashes. Lightning flashed through the guy's body twice, accelerating his dodges, although it seemed like the after-effects on him were increasing; after the surges he always seemed to stagger, like his muscles all went limp for a split-second, and his body was also spasming with occasional aftershocks.

Which might've been concerning, except the Ice Warg he was facing was stumbling so much it seemed drunk, and he saw Beckett proceed to spear it right through its heart, and then channel the lightning he'd been cycling straight into it. Yeah, that'll do it. Which leaves— Alex glanced up. Beckett was leaning on his spear, shivering; fingers were incredibly shaky, and it looked like they could barely close around it. The Gelid seemed to have sensed its chance.

It screeched, and two ice-diamonds whipped right for his back. Two Shields intercepted them easily.

"It r-really burned its entire mana pool on that o-one thing?" said Beckett, seeming amused. Two Mana Spears, and two fire lances—nicer-looking ones—materialized.

"Congrats on Uncommon Mana Manipulation," said Alex.

"Thanks." Beckett's grin made his teeth chatter.

"Finally unboxed Pure. H-have I caught up?"

"Depends if one of my pings was a Mana Manipulation support," said Alex.

"Ah. Well." The Gelid glanced at the two of them, and at their respective projectiles. It took to the skies." Fuck that!" said Beckett, who was still very much laced through with its ice—and Alex was surprised he was capable of an outburst like that. Beckett was still grinning, but in a somewhat menacing way. His eyes were honed on the Gelid. Fire lances screamed out. The gelid dodged one, a second, found itself between two. The two lances promptly exploded. The Gelid started spiraling; screeching.

"That's my part," said Beckett. He turned to Alex.

"Dude, if you miss—""I won't," said Alex.

"Let me focus." He was focusing on his Spears—more specifically, the Force mana he was applying to their ends, and holding in stasis. With his proficiencies in Mana Manipulation in both Force and Pure, there were certain limits to how much Force he could apply to a Pure construct. But you could, with significant willpower expenditure, force a little beyond those limits. Alex willed as much as he could without a breakdown in the construct; the Spears trembling mid-air, like they were shivering with the tension.

He released. Two beautiful arcs. A shattering, mid-air; Alex slightly adjusted the trajectory of the second spear. A second shattering. And silence.