Chương 110: Me & Vine VS Bane

Bane rushed at me and every single footstep he took had so much force that it was leaving craters in the ground. The defensive formations around us were flickering like crazy because they were desperately trying to hold back the raw power he was giving off. His newly transformed body was moving impossibly fast for a guy that massive, and he closed the distance between us in just a second. I threw myself out of the way as his giant fist smashed right into the empty space where I had been standing.

The sheer impact of it caused a spiderweb of cracks to spread all over the floor even though there were protective enchantments placed there. I took a quick look and confirmed what I was suspecting, the cracks were spreading out in a pattern that perfectly matched the jagged lines of the Arkos Rune. Whatever kind of transformation this was, it clearly was doing way more than just boosting his physical strength.

"Any insights?" I muttered out loud to Azure while I rolled back up onto my feet.

"The rune appears to be rapidly consuming his energy to fuel the transformation," Azure answered in my head.

"Extremely powerful but it's running on a timer." Well at least that was something. All I had to do was survive long enough for his transformation to run out. Although, judging by all the waves of crimson energy that were still pouring off his body, that could take a while. The vine wrapped itself protectively around my forearm right as Bane turned around to face us again.

His metallic skin was practically glowing underneath the lights of the training room and his burning eyes locked onto me with total predatory focus. Then he vanished. The air getting displaced was my only warning. I threw my body backward right at the exact moment his massive fist materialized where my head used to be. The wind pressure from him missing the punch alone was strong enough to make my eyes start watering. I wasn't just going to dodge though.

While I was leaping away, I commanded the vine to strike directly at his exposed flank. It shot out like a spear and its tip hardened into a sharp piercing point. Unfortunately, it didn't have the effect that I wanted. The vine just bounced right off his metallic skin and made a loud sound like steel hitting steel.

"Well, that sucks," I grumbled to myself, I was already moving out of the way as Bane launched his counter-attack. His backhand sweep would have completely taken my head off if I didn't duck under it in time. Even then, I still felt the wind from it ruffling my hair as it passed. The vine quickly wrapped around my waist and yanked me even further back just as he followed up with a kick that sliced through the air right where I was crouching a second ago. I needed a new strategy.

The vine's normal piercing attacks obviously weren't going to do anything against whatever that skin enhancement technique was. It was time to get a little creative.

"Try binding his limbs instead," I whispered down to it while I circled him carefully.

"Look for weak points in his joints." The vine uncoiled from my arm and started flowing through the air in a mesmerizing pattern. Bane's burning eyes followed its movements, but he looked more annoyed than concerned about it. Considering he just shrugged off its best attack without flinching, I couldn't really blame him for thinking that. He charged at me again except this time I held my ground. Right before he reached me, the vine shot forward and wrapped tightly around his leading ankle.

It wouldn't be able to hold a guy like him for very long, but it didn't need to. That tiny fraction of a second of interference was more than enough to completely throw off his balance. I stepped to the side of his stumbling charge and launched a fast combination of strikes right at his kidney area. My hits just bounced right off his enhanced skin, but I did feel him flinch a tiny bit. So, he wasn't completely invulnerable then, he was just heavily armored.

Unfortunately, my short moment of success ended up giving him the opening he needed. His elbow smashed right into my chest before I could retreat, and it sent me flying all the way across the room. Even with the Aegis Mark absorbing the worst part of the impact, the blow still knocked the wind right out of me. I managed to somehow turn the flight into a somewhat controlled landing and my boots skidded hard across the floor while the vine helped to stabilize me.

My ribs were screaming in pain, and I could taste blood in my mouth again. If I took one or two more hits like that, my body was going to give out.

"The transformation isn't finished," Azure pointed out while I was trying to catch my breath.

"Look at how the rune's energy is spreading." He was right. The jagged lines of the Arkos Rune were slowly reaching outward from Bane's chest and they were making this network of crimson channels all over his metallic skin. Whatever this technique actually was, it was still evolving into something else. I didn't have any time to stand there and analyze it though. Bane vanished again, but this time I was ready for it.

As soon as he Blink Stepped behind me, the vine shot out and wrapped itself around a nearby support pillar and it yanked me out of the way right as his enhanced fist pulverized the space I was a second ago.

"Too slow!" I taunted him. Maybe getting him angry would make him sloppy. I wasn't sure, but at this point, I was ready to try anything. It actually ended up working a little too well. Bane let out this inhuman roar that made the air vibrate around us and he launched himself into a berserk assault. His massive fists became a blur while he unleashed a crazy barrage of strikes where every single one of them could easily shatter solid stone.

I weaved my way through the onslaught and let the vine guide my movements for me. It was pulling me this way and that way, helping me stay one step ahead of his devastating attacks. Whenever I couldn't dodge an attack completely, the Aegis Mark flared up to life because it was trying to hold off against the tremendous force. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. I couldn't keep doing this forever though.

My energy reserves were dropping down to dangerously low levels, and even with the vine helping me, I was still taking damage from whatever the Aegis Mark couldn't manage to contain. The sheer concussive force from his attacks was starting to wear me down. It was time to change my tactics.

"Master," Azure warned me right as I directed the vine to let go of its grip on the pillar, "your energy levels are critically low. The next few enhancement techniques will completely drain your reserves."

"Then we better make them count." I let myself fall right into the path of Bane's next punch. His burning eyes went wide in surprise since it looked like I was just throwing myself directly into his attack. Right at the last possible second, I activated Blink Step and vanished right before he made contact. I reappeared right above him and the Titan's Crest was burning up the very last of my energy while I drove my heel straight down toward the crown of his head.

It was the only spot on his body that wasn't covered by that metallic sheen. Bane's hand shot upwards with impossible speed, and he caught my ankle right before my kick could land. Those burning eyes of his stared right into mine and I could see triumph hiding behind the madness while his grip tightened painfully around my leg. Then the vine, which had been quietly getting itself into position during our little exchange, finally struck.

It wrapped around his throat multiple times and its tendrils kept seeking out the tiny gaps in his armored skin. At the exact same time, I triggered the very last dregs of power inside the Titan's Crest and used the enhanced strength to violently wrench my captured leg sideways. The combined force of all that was enough to throw Bane completely off balance.

He let go of my ankle and staggered backward; his focus was split between trying to keep his footing and dealing with the vine that was tightening around his throat. I landed in a crouch while my body was practically screaming in protest. Since my energy reserves were empty, the Aegis Mark's protection failed completely. Every single impact and near miss that I took during the fight was making itself fully known right now. I couldn't stop right now though.

The vine was doing exactly what it was supposed to do, and it was constricting tighter and tighter around Bane's throat. His metallic skin stopped it from completely crushing his windpipe entirely, but the pressure was obviously still having a big effect on him. His movements started getting less coordinated while he clawed desperately at what basically became a noose around his neck.

"The transformation is weakening," Azure noted.

"The rune's energy consumption is exceeding his ability to supply it." It looked like he wasn't going to reach his final form today. Those jagged crimson lines on his skin started flickering on and off and the metallic shine was fading away in big patches to show regular skin underneath. I pressed the advantage and ignored all my body's protests while I closed the distance. Without any of my enhancement runes, I couldn't hope to match his strength directly, but I didn't need to.

I just had to target the weak points that were starting to pop up all over him. My first strike found a patch of normal skin right on his kidney again. This time there wasn't any armored protection there to absorb the impact. Bane grunted out in pain and his next swing went wild. It didn't have any of that terrifying precision from his earlier attacks. I slipped past his hit easily and hammered another punch right into an unprotected section of his ribs.

The vine kept doing its work and steadily tightened up while more and more of his transformation started fading away. Bane tried to fire off a Blink Step to get away from me, but the vine had such a tight grip on him that it stopped him from finishing the technique properly. He just popped back into existence a few feet away and staggered heavily, the jagged lines of that Arkos Rune were barely visible on his chest now and their crimson light was flickering out like a dying candle.

"Master," Azure warned me in my head, "you need to be careful since cornered opponents are the most dangerous." Like he was trying to prove Azure right, Bane let out another inhuman roar. The Arkos Rune suddenly flared up one last time and started pumping out this massive surge of crimson energy all over him. His metallic skin instantly regenerated and his giant muscles swelled up even bigger. The vine squeezing his neck finally made him snap and lose whatever self-control he had left.

He started thrashing around wildly and his super enhanced strength was sending shockwaves flying through the air every single time he moved. The defensive formations in the walls were starting to crack under all the stress of trying to contain so much raw power.

"This is the final surge," Azure told me.

"The rune is actually consuming his life force directly right now, so the transformation will fail in a few moments." I frowned while throwing myself out of the way of another wild swing. Something about all this didn't make any sense at all. Why would anybody burn right through their life force for what was basically a training spar?

The thought honestly bothered me since I'd read about this exact behavior in cultivation novels back home where crazy disciples were always ready to cripple themselves just to win a friendly match. Then it hit me. Unlike the cultivation world where there wasn't a good excuse for it, this was just how Skybound trained. Over here, every single spar was treated like a real death match, and every training session meant pushing each other straight to the absolute limit.

These people honestly didn't know any other way to fight, to them holding back meant you were weak and being weak meant you were dead. I could actually see the transformation physically eating away at him right in front of me. The crimson light coming from the Arkos Rune kept stuttering and big patches of his armored metallic skin were falling off way faster than his body could regenerate them. But those moments could still get me killed if I wasn't careful.

I needed to end this now, before he tried to take me out with him. It was almost like the vine could actually sense what I was thinking. It suddenly let go of Bane's throat, which made him stumble forward. Before the giant guy could try to catch his balance, it whipped right down around his ankles and violently yanked his feet straight out from under him. The giant crashed down to the floor with an earth-shaking thud.

The vine immediately began wrapping him up like a spider with its prey, taking advantage of his momentary vulnerability to bind his limbs. I didn't waste the opportunity. As Bane struggled against the vine's entanglement, I circled behind him. A precise strike to the back of his head, one of the few spots where the armored skin had completely faded, knocked him out. The transformation broke completely as soon as he lost consciousness.

His massive form shrank back to normal size, the metallic skin vanishing entirely. The Arkos Rune was now an angry red scar on his chest, its power completely spent. Exhausted, I let myself sink right onto the floor as the adrenaline started fading away.

"Magnificent!" Elder Molric's loud voice made me jump since I almost forgot we had an audience watching us.

"Simply magnificent! Such innovative use of botanical warfare! The way you conserved your energy and let his own power work against him... yes, yes, beautiful!" The elder was basically bouncing up and down with excitement while he walked over to examine me and the unconscious Bane. He seemed really interested in looking at how the vine managed to adapt its fighting strategies all throughout the spar. Speaking of the vine...

I looked down right as it unspooled itself from Bane's knocked out body and quickly slithered its way back over to me. It curled right up around my arm in that familiar way it always did, and I felt this warm feeling in my chest that had nothing to do with all the physical fighting that I did.

"Hello old friend," I thought to it.

"I've missed you." The vine gently squeezed my arm back, and even though I knew it couldn't actually hear my thoughts or remember the time we spent together in the previous loop, it always did have this weird way of sensing my feelings and knowing what I was trying to tell it.

"A fine victory!" Elder Molric declared loudly and finally remembered he was supposed to be an instructor.

"I should have mentioned Bane's unique capabilities before but still! The way you adapted to the situation! And your connection with my experimental vine is absolutely fascinating! Yes, yes, this opens up so many new avenues of research..." I sat there and let his enthusiastic rambling wash right over me while I focused on catching my breath.

"Master," Azure spoke up quietly in my head, "while it was slightly unorthodox, your plan appears to have succeeded perfectly. You obtained the vine much earlier than in the previous loop and you demonstrated enough skill to maintain Elder Molric's interest without raising any unnecessary suspicion." I gave a tiny nod to that while I kept stroking the vine that had now wrapped itself around my shoulders. Things hadn't gone exactly the way I planned them out, but the end result was all that mattered.

"Come!" Elder Molric's voice loudly snapped me out of my thoughts.

"We must document everything right now while it is still fresh in our minds! I want detailed notes on every single aspect of the fight and particularly your manipulation of the vine's combat patterns! Oh, and I suppose we should have someone take Bane down to the medical wing... eventually."