Chương 81: R&R2 Ch. 20 — My Cursed Spear

Jasmine hadn't expected Twister to be keeping up with them so well, not that Twister was weak or anything but after the wave and the train Jasmine had been under the assumption that she and Nicholas were so far above the competition it wasn't even fair to put them in the same rank. That was quickly proving to be a false assumption; Twister wasn't exactly the same as them in terms of power and skill. But she was definitely someone Jasmine couldn't say she could effortlessly crush.

Jasmine would win in a duel; Twister wasn't great at dealing with multiple enemies, which her swords basically counted as. But that didn't change the effectiveness of a towering tornado tumbling terrifying demons up into the air." Up" Jasmine hadn't been expecting up. She had been expecting down; she had practiced with him often enough to know that down was more cost-effective against an enemy this size. She put that out of her head as the storm formation formed in the sky.

Part of her wondered if she was ridiculous going full cultivation flying sword woman with this armor set, but nobody had called her out so far. And it was fun. Bolts of several colored lighting shot down, spearing the monster at the same time Twister's tornado and Nicholas's command vanished. Both of them, she had just burned out everything Nicholas had to give with that attack. She looked over to see, but he was fine and checking their bond.

He still had power; at some point, he had to have switched maximize to a pool.

"It's not dead, but it'll be hurting. Prepare for round two," Nicholas said, his ever-present calm a relief. She had been more than a little worried that he was going to fall back on fear in the face of this, but that had been foolish. Oh, no mistake, fear was certainly rippling in their bond, but focus was the predominant sensation.

"If you give me a second, I can make a wind blade that I think can cut through the muscles of that thing," Twister said.

"I can do that, Jasmine, make sure you have the follow-up attack ready on my signal," Nicholas said, his power building. Jasmine prepared her swords; she couldn't go for another thunderbolt, but she could definitely have them follow up on blades of wind.

"What's the signal going to be?" Twister asked desperately. Jasmine realized at that point it was probably something they would need to work on. They had worked together long enough that neither needed to know the why; they trusted one another, and signals were obvious.

"The moment it freezes, attack." Jasmine said quick. Nicholas was gathering more power than usual to buy more time, probably so that even if this happened, they had time. Or because he wasn't certain how he was going to do at punching through the defenses to make it pause. The monster charged towards her friend, but Jasmine held her blades back. Twister did too, but Jasmine wasn't sure if that was because she trusted them or if she hadn't been ready to throw the attack yet." Hesitate" The world trembled.

The world obeyed. If Jasmine and Twister hadn't been specifically selected not to be targeted, Jasmine was pretty sure it would have made her stop too. Three things happened at once. A blade of wind capable of cutting through metal buried itself in the monster's shoulder, almost severing one of its arms. Nicholas shot backwards on the sword, rubbing his throat as more power built in his spirit. And blades spinning like a pinwheel of death slammed into the wound that Twister had provided for it.

More than one shattered against the monster, but that was fine; Jasmine could fix them eventually so long as it died. And so long as she survived. The swords weren't even individual items, not really, so long as a piece of the collective remained, she could fix it. A visceral scream nearly shattered her concentration as the arm fell to the ground. That wasn't the worst part, though. Strands of muscle from both the arm and the shoulder were reaching for one another."

Burn" Silver flames licked up from the ground, filling the space between where the two strands were reaching. The screams became so much worse.

"Will stop it from healing, but that might be all I'm good for, Jasmine spear time," Nicholas said, orders filling the space. He was right, even if bringing out the spear made her feel a little sick. It wasn't as it should be; it was her soul, but so much malice and desperation had been placed into it that she couldn't quite deal with it well. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Twister, I need two seconds." Jasmine said the portal to her forge opening. The spear came out angry and ready; normally she preferred using it like the flying swords, but this was something she was going to have to do up close and personal. Her hands wrapped around the spear, and instantly malice ripped through her heart. How dare this thing target her and her friends? She was going to make it so that not even a stain remained, nobody would cross them and nobody would try to dissuade her path.

She would stand at the top, and all would be too afraid to dare cross her. Nicholas's river of calm pushed back the thoughts, and Jasmine almost dropped the spear on reflex that had been way worse than she had thought it was going to be. She'd heard stories about how soul weapons with powerful emotions were a struggle to use, but she was supposed to be immune to that. That was what her body did.

The answer was only a second behind; it wasn't an attack, and it was her own soul; she was actually even more susceptible to that than anything else.

"You're good, you have time," Nicholas said, weaving through an attack as Book released a bolt of dragon's breath. Jasmine hadn't realized Book could use a command like that. She knew that Book and Quicksilver were smarter than they should be and were getting smarter, but still. Now calm and spear in hand, Jasmine pushed her blades towards the enemy before flying down there herself; she wasn't going to lose. At least not to her own soul; she could lose to someone else's soul, but not without a fight.

Energy rocked the battlefield as more imps came out, but the other defenders were finally doing their job while the weakest among them fought the worst battle. But from the cast-off energy, her spear gained even more power, and once she was in melee with the exposed muscle monster, it started charging so much faster.

"Twister she's going to be focused on fighting so we're going to keep it on the back foot as much as possible and on my signal we'll blast it with as much power as we can so she can hit it hard," Nicholas said. Jasmine was glad he knew what was going on; she wouldn't have been able to explain it herself. She was currently in the abyss, focusing on drawing out as much power as possible.

It wasn't the hardest fight of her life, not by a long shot; the one where she wasn't sure if Nicholas was going to survive or not had been so much worse. This was easy in comparison, and while she didn't want to be a hero marked by malice for this battle, she was feeling perfectly alright to let that hatred have a target. Ugly as it was, it's her hatred, and she would use it. She slipped to the side as one of the bulbs on the monster exploded, releasing a glowing liquid.

While she had no idea what that was, there wasn't a chance that she was going to let herself get caught in that. It had to be part of superhero 101: don't get strange glowing liquids on your body if you want to keep it, and Jasmine was partial to her body. The moment her spear was full, it bucked, trying to stab anything in range, but her grip held firm. The rest of her not so much, as she was focused on containing the rage from the spear to attack or dodge anything.

"Now!"" Barrage"" Impact" Twister said nothing, but her own attack lanced out with the force of a tornado. The combination of attacks not only blocked the one that had been coming for her in Jasmine's moment of weakness but also opened the way for the perfect opening. Not willing to touch the spear any longer, Jasmine thrust forward, releasing the weapon last second as it shot into the sky, an angry black and red comet as it used all the power it had consumed to destroy everything in its path.

Jasmine, with all the dignity of a drunken mule, lunged out of the way of the falling demon and to safety. Nobody said anything for a long moment before Jasmine started laughing. She couldn't tell you why; she just had to laugh about all of this. Nobody had prepared her for that. Her own soul had almost consumed her. Of her dozens of flying swords, she was down to the last twenty-three, and they had no word on how much longer all of this was going to be. How could it not be funny?

Otherwise, she would be afraid she was going to die.

"I'll get the next big one," Nicholas said as Jasmine stepped onto her own flying sword and joined them in the sky.

"You wish I'll take it down before you do," Twister teased. Jasmine didn't need a connection to her soul to figure out she was not being serious, but it was nice to hear. But that reminded her. With her spear now sated and running on empty, it wasn't going to fight her, so she called it back, putting the object back into the soul forge. It would be better if she had a way to lock it up, but she hadn't made anything to hold cursed items.

She thought she would never deal with them since it was her soul she was working with, though apparently that had been a foolish thought. Thankfully, the only demons that streamed out for the rest of the mission were more of the little imps, which at this point felt like bullying. Sure, they had the power to hit like someone in E-Rank, but they were as vulnerable as a regular human, so it wasn't exactly sporting now that they knew how it worked. Nicholas seemed to enjoy the target practice, though.

She wouldn't blame him. By the time the final imp was gone, all three of them were running on empty power-wise, and Jasmine could feel herself dragging physically. She was exhausted, and less from the fight and more from the raw emotional exhaustion she was feeling from everything. This had all been way more than she had expected. But the moment they got the all-clear to go, they were rocketing through the air back to the train. Originally she had wanted to go find somewhere in the city to eat. But now?

Not a chance, and the other two had been content to follow her decision. If she hadn't had proof about what he was doing during this time, Jasmine would have been convinced this was all a ploy by Nicholas to not go out to eat.

"So are you two actually dating, or are you two just playing it up for the cameras and others? I promise I won't share," Twister asked as they touched down.

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, I really wanted to go and get dinner with you all cause you're my friends, and might be the only ones I keep long term, but I don't want to intrude on a romantic dinner if you guys actually are dating." Twister rambled. Jasmine had been ready to answer right away that they were dating, and it was complicated so she should come, but her brain was stuck on the only friends she might be able to keep long-term. That didn't make sense at all.

Twister and all of her friends had seemed pretty close, so why was she going to lose them?

"We are dating and doing so exclusively, but we're still figuring out our relationship," Nicholas explained, moving on.

"And dinner certainly won't be romantic; we invited you to hang out with our friend." Jasmine was reeling at his words. What was so complicated that they bound their souls together and decided to try dating, since dating other people would be awkward for both of them unless they found someone that was in love with both of them? As Jasmine thought that through for a bit longer, she could concede that it was a little bit complicated.

Twister was looking at them strangely, but Jasmine finally had the mental capacity to talk, and she needed to know.

"What do you mean we're the only friends you might be able to keep?"