Chương 31: Reverse Scale

The plan required four separate things to happen in the correct order, within a window Zero estimated at under two seconds, and he spent the time the Imugi gave them building that order with the same care he had once given to mapping his own channels, one variable at a time, until the whole sequence sat complete and certain in his mind. He did not give the commands all at once.

He had learned, across the last weeks, that a command issued was not the same as a command executed; that Miho's sword needed a half-second longer to commit than Yukito's shadow did; that Viria's space-severing cut, once triggered, could not be redirected mid-motion, which meant her cue had to arrive precisely when the angle would be correct, not a moment before.

"Miho," he said.

"When I say go, you occupy its claws. Full aggression, draw its forelimbs away from guarding the head." She nodded.

"Understood."

"Yukito. After Miho commits, reach for the reverse scale with a shadow tendril. Don't strike it, but threaten it."

"A feint."

"Yes. It will pull away from the threat, and into Viria's trajectory." Viria's expression sharpened.

"You want it to dodge into my blade."

"Yes. The Imugi has been reading our intentions and positions for the whole fight. If we threaten the scale directly, it will protect the scale, which means it will move in a direction it considers safe. We can choose where that direction leads." Miho looked at him for a long moment, the particular look she gave when his reasoning had assembled itself into something she trusted completely, even before she'd finished checking every piece of it herself.

"And after the cut lands?" she asked.

"It won't kill," Zero said.

"I don't believe anything we have will kill it in a single strike, not even on the weak point. But it should at least stun it. Badly. That's the window we're aiming for. The moment it staggers, Yukito restrains it, and I finish the job."

"You," Yukito said.

"How?"

"The Silent Mantis Dual Strike," Zero said.

"It is precise, fast, and the technique I have the most practice with." No one argued with that.

Three minutes after Team Zero had regrouped, Zero gave the signal. Miho moved first, breaking from cover with an aggression that drew the Imugi's attention immediately and completely, her sword raking a shallow line along one of its forelimbs that registered, by the creature's sharp recoil, as genuinely painful for the first time in the fight. Its claws came up to meet her, exactly as Zero had calculated, the angle of its head shifting just enough to track the threat.

The reverse scale, for a fraction of a second, was no longer fully shielded. Yukito's shadow lashed out toward it, dark and sudden, at the edge of the Imugi's vulnerable point, and the creature's instinct did exactly what eleven years of a journal's careful study, and weeks of Team Zero's collective pattern-reading had predicted it would: it recoiled from the threat, pulling its head sharply away. Directly into the trajectory Viria had already prepared and committed to before Miho had even begun to move.

Her space-severing cut found the reverse scale precisely. The impact dealt heavy damage and staggered it badly, the Imugi's massive form convulsing, a sound tearing from somewhere in its throat that shook dust from the hall's distant ceiling, its coils thrashing in directions that, a half-second earlier, would have been impossible to predict and were now, finally, slow enough to read. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Yukito, Now!" Zero shouted over the Imugi's roar of pain. Yukito's shadow surged forward in full, no longer as a feint, but a binding, wrapping around the stunned, thrashing length of the Imugi's neck and forelimbs with everything he had left to give. It held, barely, the strain visible in the way his own shoulders shook with the effort of containing something so far beyond his usual scale. Zero was already moving.

He shifted as he ran, the configuration settling into place with the ease of something practiced a hundred times since a courtyard full of junior disciples had first watched him reproduce a form he had never been taught: fingers lengthening, wrists hardening, the angular precision of a praying mantis's forearms resolving from his own flesh in the same clean transition it always took. He reached the stunned, bound length of the Imugi's neck.

The Silent Mantis Dual Strike was not a large technique, because it had never needed to be large; it had only ever needed to be exact, two blades moving in a pattern that covered each other's angle so that nothing properly caught between them escaped both edges at once. But against the Imugi's massive size, Zero needed to compensate a bit. His arms rapidly lengthened and sharpened enough until he felt confident that the size was sufficient. Then, he brought them down.

The Imugi's head separated cleanly, the enormous body beneath it convulsing once more before going entirely still and quiet. The hall, after the violence of the fight, settled into a silence so complete that Zero could hear his own pulse for several seconds before anyone spoke.

"Did we," Viria started, then stopped, breathing hard, staring at the stillness where the dragon had been.

"Did we actually just—""Yes," Miho said, equally breathless, lowering her sword slowly. Yukito sat down where he stood, his shadow visibly thin and depleted, the strain of the restraint having clearly cost him more than the rest of the fight combined.

"I am never doing that again," he said, to no one in particular.

"You may have to," Zero said, "if we encounter something else this size."

"I. Said. Never."

"I cannot promise that. I apologize." Miho approached the fallen creature's neck, where the core sat exposed at the base of what remained, and knelt to extract it with the same careful precision she had used on every kill since the Silver Wind Serpent. When she lifted it, all of them went quiet. It was larger than any core they had collected. Its color a deep, layered jade-green shot through with veins of something that glowed faintly silver, like captured moonlight held in stone.

Even without using Identify, Zero could tell its quality was a cut above every other core that they had harvested so far.

"The quality is noticeably higher than anything else we've taken. By a significant margin." Confirmed Miho, as she slowly turned the core over in her hands.

"Give it to me," said Viria.

"I'll store it away safely." Miho nodded and handed her the core.

The system windows arrived in a rapid sequence none of them were fully braced for. Hidden Boss Defeated: Imugi EXP awarded for defeating a monster Bonus EXP awarded for defeating a monster above Level 50 Bonus EXP awarded for completing a hidden quest Bonus EXP awarded for defeating a boss monster Level Up! Miho: Level 32 → 41 Viria: Level 33 → 45 Yukito: Level 29 → 39 Level Up Zero: Level 24 → 32 (Growth modified: Race Evolution trait) Viria stared at the numbers for a long moment.

"Whoa. That's… big" A final window appeared befofe anyone else could respond. Quest Reward: Nephrite Key Function: Used to skip the final task at the Gate of Ascension. Note: Locating the Gate is still required Miho read it twice.

"We don't have to complete the task," she said.

"Whatever it would have asked of us, we skip it entirely."

"We still have to find the Gate," Zero said, reading the note carefully.

"The key excuses the task. It doesn't excuse the distance."

"One problem at a time," Viria said.

"And I've had more than my fill of problems for today. I need some sleep." She closed her hand around the Nephrite Key, looked once more at the still, vast shape of the dragon that had waited eleven years for someone who never came, and considerably longer to be finally, properly claimed, and then looked at the rest of them, exhausted, upright, but still defiantly alive. Miho was already moving towards the exit.

"We leave, then rest," she said, turning around to address them." Then we find the Gate."