Chương 60: The Agony of Victory (part 2)

Ch. 60 - The Agony of Victory (part 2) The blade didn't have time to process those words because even as its wielder lurched sideways to take the elf's head off with a wild haymaker, the knight was already gone, and so was his blade. Instead of staying where they were, the lightning arced out from the tip to a spot twenty feet away, and the elf reappeared there. -43 Life Force. The Ebon Blade was stunned. It had seen Altharia cast a few spells.

It had even seen her use her strange molten fire-lightning, but it had been nothing like this.

It was like the knight had traveled along his own lightning bolt. -39 Life Force. While it struggled to understand that and figure out the best way to fight its foe, its wielder struggled to heal. Even with its newly increased healing powers, its magic struggled to heal wounds that had been cauterized by magic. It took several seconds for the scorched green heart to mend enough that it started pumping again, even spasmodically. -33 Life Force. For a moment, Var'gar staggered and looked like he was about to fall.

Everyone else stood back, waiting to see what would happen, which was good because he was healing from the inside out, and after a few seconds, that healing was advanced enough that he could once more move, breathe, and act. -22 Life Force. He roared in pain then and charged the nearest knight, thrusting the Ebon Blade right through the man's wooden shield and hardened steel chest plate.

The warrior dropped his sword from slack fingers and vomited blood as the orc picked him up and flung him off the blade at the elven knight. +44 Life Force. +1 Human Soul. No matter how hard he flung it, the corpse made for a poor projectile. Still, the elf only barely dodged it before he pulled his cloak back up and began to fade from view. So that's the secret, the weapon hissed. The cloak!

The hex blade allowed him to move quickly and maybe even to blink across the room, but it was the garment that allowed him to vanish. -19 Life Force. While the blade considered these things, its wielder was already swinging wildly in an effort to scythe down the invisible knight. He was nearly healed, but he'd come close enough to death to be pissed off about it, and the blade only helped to guide his strikes a little. It could have improved them more, but it did not yet wish to reveal too much skill to their foe.

+221 Life Force. +3 Human Soul. Let him underestimate the orc, it thought to itself. It's certainly an easy thing to do. The orc swung wildly to keep their enemy at bay, turning almost at random to attack the air as much as the remaining knights. It seemed to be working, but the blade was distracted by something else. Instead of guiding Var'gar's strokes, it reached out with its Aura of Hunger in a desperate bid to find the elf in an unconventional way. It should be possible, it told itself.

If the man has a heartbeat and gets too close to me, then I should be able to consume him. It could feel the slender thread of connection to all the other nearby knights, and each time the orc killed one of them, the number of souls it could reach out and latch onto shrank. Still, it wasn't until the elf reappeared that the blade finally felt the elf's soul and greedily latched on to it with its power. +344 Life Force. +2 Human Soul. This time, his first blow didn't land.

The orc, with luck more than skill, happened to be swinging wildly, and when the enemy's sword faded into existence, the blade was able to adjust the swing ever so slightly, bringing the pommel down to block the strike. That prevented the elf from stabbing Var'gar a second time, but it did nothing to stop the lightning magic that coursed through the orc via the sword in that instant.

That half-second delay of muscle spasming was something that not even the Ebon Blade's control of its host could completely overpower as limbs warred with themselves. That gap allowed the elf to get in a thrust that became a slash, However, the weapon forced its wielder to recover slightly faster than their opponent anticipated, and he was forced to make a dramatic backflip to keep from being cut in two as the Ebon Blade cleaved through the air. -56 Life Force. What followed next was closer to mockery than combat.

The orc recovered moment by moment and swung ever faster in a barrage of strokes that were as powerful as they were fast. Half of them used its Amplify Blade power, shattering the air as they just missed their target, but each of them would have killed even a minotaur in a single strike. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Unfortunately, none of them managed to land on their slight opponent.

Sometimes, this was due to skill, and other times, it was because of the strange spells the man used to fight. -31 Life Force. Sometimes, he would duck a blow or sidestep a thrust to land a blow of his own, even if there was no power behind any of them at the pace of the current fight. Other times, the elf would use a lightning-charged attack to halt Var'gar just long enough for a more brutal blow or use his superior speed to bound around to attack from an unexpected quarter.

Nothing he could do could shake the Ebon Blade's grip on his soul. Even if he blinked into nonexistence for a few seconds now for another surprise strike, the blade had his scent now, and he could not escape. Still, it frustrated it that it had yet to land a blow on its opponent. This was its first foe in living memory that it couldn't quite touch, and though it enjoyed the challenge, it also hated it. -49 Life Force. No one is better than me, the blade thought bitterly. No weapon. No wielder. No one.

Both upgrades were cheap, so the Ebon Blade purchased Amplify Wielder 2 and Accelerate Wielder 2. Combined, they were less than 1500 Life Force, but it had been approaching 5000 again, so it needed to purchase something. This combination added Parasitic Link 3 to its list of upgrades, which meant that it had increased its burden on its wielder enough to be noticeable. That made sense, of course, given just how much power was churning inside of it now, but it was a problem for later. -37 Life Force.

For now, the blade concentrated on the fight at hand, and on the way, its wielder was faster and stronger than ever. It wasn't enough to close the gap. It couldn't be. The elf was fast enough to run on the walls, and it often taunted the orc with words neither of them could understand in its strange musical language. Even when he wasn't using magic to leap across the room in a bolt of lightning, he was still devilishly fast. +9 Life Force.

It took almost two minutes of non-stop, berserker action to even cut the elf's cloak as he moved a little too slowly and was almost cut off at the knees. Still, that brief moment of shredded cloth was enough to bring up another message. You have connected to Cloak of Disguise. You have learned False Image. 0/3 Secondary Ability slots remaining. Additional Secondary Abilities will replace an existing one.

False Image 1: Blur and alter your appearance making it slightly harder to parry your blows or that of your wielder, making it slightly easier for them to dodge attacks at the cost of 1 Life Force/minute. The idea of being able to turn invisible interested the blade, but as it stood now, the power of the new runes that had burned into the center of its hilt was a far cry from that. I don't have time to experiment with this, the blade cursed as it focused on the fight. +11 Life Force.

It had been draining the elf steadily the whole time, and it was starting to show. His movements were more sluggish than they'd been up to this point. Sometimes, he held back to catch his breath rather than strike back out with a vicious riposte as he would have done only the minute before. That was when the blade decided what they needed to do. Act like you're getting slower, the blade counseled its wielder, but slowly. You need to… The blade stopped when it realized the orc's only response was confusion.

This was not a human wielder. It was not clever enough to hold back, so the blade held back for it. It couldn't restrict the magic that powered its wielder's strength and speed, but it could work against it. So, moment by moment and attack by attack, Var'gar's attacks slowed under that internal resistance. The blade paid for the subterfuge with more Life Force and healing, but that was fine. It was happy to let the elf believe that he was winning until the right moment. -76 Life Force.

With every slash and pivot, Var'gar's movement slowed until the elf was almost always dancing in and out of his blind spot. Unfortunately for the strange knight, though, the blade didn't have a blind spot, and it waited for its opponent to step a little too close before it finally struck. The elf lingered too long in an effort to hack away the orc's spine. He got a little too near the orc's empty left arm, and in the end, that was all it took. The weapon didn't lash out with itself.

Instead, it just continued the swing and elbowed the elf in the side of his hooded head. That was enough to stagger him, even as he faded from view. +10 Life Force. Such a blow wouldn't have been enough to do more than stun him, but that was just the warm-up act. The blade stopped trying to fight its wielder's every strike at that point. Instead, it took nearly full control over the blade and guided its motion precisely along scything paths. One, two, and three, they woosh-ed through apparently empty air.

The blade could feel its hold on the elf, though, and while it couldn't pinpoint that location exactly, it was a good directional indicator, and it continued to pursue him, time and time again, until finally, the slippery bastard was pinned with a wall to his back. The blade felt the elf's location starting to move up as he tried to run up the wall and flip over its wielder.

Unfortunately for him, when he was in the air, and his course was irreversible, the blade flipped itself into a reverse grip in the orc's hand and then thrust straight backward with enough force to pierce even its opponent's fine armor. +35 Life Force. +1 Elf Soul. That was it for him. The fight ended just as it had started, with a blade through the back of the other man. The only difference in this case was that the elf couldn't heal from any wound.

Still, even as his blade fell from his fingertips and he struggled to retrieve and open a healing potion, the orc turned, and with a final twist, he pulled the blade free, sending blood everywhere from the wounds in his back and chest.