Chapter 230 Reapers vs Golems - Magic against metal
"Show them hell"
Rio finished his words, and the reapers bowing to him obeyed his order. Their forms started to rise in the air, floating above the surface. The floor beneath them started pulsating with an eerie energy. Their scythes started to shimmer with a malevolent force. Their presence alone exuded an aura of death that could send shivers down the spines of the living.
Yes, using reapers against golems which don't have souls wasn't a nice idea. As half their skills focused on targeting the souls of the enemy and taking it to the underworld. But this was the first time Rio was using this skill in a fight and he wanted to test the limits of these reapers under his command.
Call of the underworld, a blessing given by Hela to only her avatars. As the Queen of Niflheim, the realm of the dead, Hela has full dominion over the souls of the departed and the spectral entities that dwell in her realm. With this blessing, her avatar gains the ability to call for the reapers of the Netherworld to do their bidding. As one masters this blessing, its power, range, and the number of reapers he can summon increases. With more mastery the level of power and spectral abilities of reapers also becomes more formidable. One can also call forth other entities of the netherworld to his command too.
At its core, this blessing allows Rio to summon spectral reapers from the Netherworld. These reapers are ethereal entities, wreathed in black fog, and wielding ominous scythes. They are bound to Rio's will and follow his commands with unwavering loyalty.
The blessing grants Hela's avatar a fragment of her authority over the realm of the dead. This enables him to exert control over souls, manipulate spectral energies, and even access the knowledge and memories of the departed under certain circumstances.
[Hela nods her head at you, saying you should learn her skills soon so you can summon your own legion to fight for you.]
'Let's see how long they last.'
Seeing the notification from Hela and the reapers flying towards the golems who surrounded him, Rio thought in his heart.
This blessing has a huge mana consumption, and the more reapers he summons or the more complex the tasks he assigns them, the greater the mana drain. Once he exhausted his mana pool completely, all these reapers would disappear, and he won't be able to control or call for them again until he recovers his mana.
For now he could summon 12 of these reapers on his command and maintain them for 5 minutes, before losing more than half of his mana.
Rio watched as his reapers floated towards the twenty or so golems all around him, and engaged in combat.
The golems made of rare metals and materials, fought against the reapers without backing off. Their bodies glistened with a bluish hue that covered their arms and feet giving them boosts in their strength and agility. Their bodies, marked with runes that increased their resilience, making them highly indestructible. Each golem wielded a unique enchanted weapon, from blades wreathed in frost to spears crackling with lightning. The elements of enchantment bolstering their effectiveness. They moved with an eerie grace, their every step sending tremors through the restaurant's floor.
Rio watched as he noticed the collision of their weapons. Each strike sending sparks flying across the hallways. The air crackled as the scythes covered by the death energy collided against the weapons covered in different elements.
The reapers were spectral entities who passed through their attack and phased through the bodies of those golems. Their aura of death corroding the magic cores of golems hidden beneath the surface. Each time they passed through the golems, their touch was like a chill of death, sapping the very energy that powered the metal constructs.
While the golem were exactly opposite of his reapers. Instead of avoiding or dodging the attacks they took those attacks while trying to kill those reapers. Their resilient bodies making them indestructible to the scythes of reapers.
The arcs of ice, fire and lightning left their weapons tearing through the air, colliding against the fog of darkness that surrounded the scythes and the reapers.
None of these opponents roared in pain or shouted in ecstasy, both were constructs made to fight silently. As some say action speaking louder than words, then these two were constructs which only let their actions do the talking.
The restaurant which was once famous for its cuisine lay in ruins. The tables and chairs were flying everywhere, while the walls and chandelier cracked everytime an attack missed its mark and roamed free. The once beautiful artistry around them was scattered on the floors, showing the chaos that was happening all around them.
The reapers moved with a supernatural fluidity, their movements a dance of death. They weaved through the onslaught of enchanted attacks, their smoky forms evading strikes that would have felled any mortal. The scythes cutting through the very elements golems wielded. Black fog met fire and ice, resulting in steam and frigid mists that obscured the battlefield.
As the battle raged on, every now and then a blinding light would show up on the battlefield with a loud sound of boom. The cores of energy which powered the golems would shatter in the shards of light and disappear in the air, leaving their bodies to fall down.
The hooded man standing behind the barrier that separated him from the ongoing battle, took his magical glute out. A sinister smile played across his face, as his heart felt fascination and frustration watching the battle.
Fascination for the battle of magic vs metal happening in front of him, while frustration that he was losing.
He placed the flute on his lips, and started blowing on it. Soon a haunting melody began to emanate from it. The eerie notes seemed to command every golems, with a signal of his hands they all gathered together and four new golems came forward, standing on every corner of their formation. These golems had a red magic circle drawn on their chest metal plates.
They were all marked with magic which seemed to stop the ethereal phases of reapers. The reapers who were close to the golems failed to pass through them, and fell to the attacks of those golems. Their forms dissipating into the shadows, disappearing from the realm of living.
Rio looked at the golems which came forward and killed three of his reapers in a few moments. Feeling the loss of connection, his expression darkened. It took him nearly two months to learn the basics of this blessing. And increase the number of reapers to 12 , from the initial 10 that Hela gave him. Meaning two months of his hard work gone to waste in just a few moments and even more so.
He grabbed the long ominous scythe floating behind him and waved it towards the golems. Sending an arc of death energy that pushed the golems back. He ordered his remaining reapers to fall back and not confront them until he destroyed their formation or killed them.
He moved forward, dragging the scythe along the ground, leaving sparks and cracks trailing in his wake.
"Got you." The hooded man, still playing his magical flute, directed the golems to encircle Rio. The four golems swung their weapons at him from all sides, hoping to kill him at once. Rio looked at the incoming attacks, and bent his steps, readying his stance. He swung his scythe in a precise circular motion, intercepting and deflecting the arcs of energy the golems launched at him.
"My turn"
Rio muttered under his breath, and moved towards the golem in front of him, leaving his back open for the remaining three. One of the golems seized the opportunity and advanced, ready to strike him down from behind.
But just when the golem closed in on him, Rio moved his aura at full course. The aura avatar bound with the skill of gluttony came out of his shadow. It lunged at the golem that had come from behind, clamping onto its upper body with a sinister form of a large mouth.
The hooded man, startled by this unexpected turn of events, attempted to trigger the golem's self-destruct mechanism, a desperate attempt to take Rio down with it. However, the skill of gluttony acted swiftly, destroying the magic circle that controlled the golem's detonation. The magic core within the golem exploded with a blinding flash of light soon, but the insatiable hunger of his aura avatar consumed the destructive force, leaving no trace behind.
Meanwhile, Rio's scythe cleaved through the golem he had been moving toward, slicing its figure in two from the waist up.
With two of the anti spectral golems gone, the reapers joined the fray again. Fighting against the remaining few golems gathered in one place. They surrounded all of them and phased through them in fluid motions. Their scythes constantly cleaved the bodies of golems, destroying their magic cores.
With the reapers rejoining the fray and engaging the normal golems, Rio turned his attention to the two remaining special golems. With a sinister grin, he raised his hands as black chains of darkness emerged from the ground, and entwined the golems instantly, immobilizing them. Before the golems could free themselves, under the eyes of the hooded man Rio waved his scythe. In one fell swoop, his scythe cleaved through their midsections, scattering enchanted fragments and leaving them in pieces on the floor.
The battle was soon over, the once-numerous golems were now a scattered heap of enchanted debris. Rio stood there holding his scythe, his breathing heavy and ragged. His spectral reapers hovered triumphantly behind him, making him look like a God of death.
-thud-
Rio bashed his scythe on the ground, creating a loud thud sound that echoed in the now silent hallway. The impact sent cracks spreading on the floor like a spiderweb. The scythe disappeared from his hands, leaving just the fog of death in the air. The reapers disappeared too, each one fading into nothingness one by one.
"Now shall we talk?" Rio said, as he ran a hand through his sweat-dampened white hair, swatting away the perspiration that clung to his face. Turns out using more than half his mana in one big spell and channeling aura while getting suppressed by the poison leaves one feeling a little tired.
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A/N - was this battle okay. Good, mid, bad or just plain stupid - please tell me, ok.
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