Chapter 6: Duel(II)-Awakening
Luituka moved first.
Not a step was registered.
One second she stood several meters away from K and the next she was right next to him again.
The ground beneath her feet detonated.
K barely raised his arms before her fist collided with him.
Boom!
The impact launched him through a barricade and into a vehicle hard enough to fold metal inward like paper. Alarms screamed from the crushed machinery as sparks burst violently into the air.
"K!" Lex shouted.
Finch immediately opened fire.
"ALL UNITS ENGAGE!"
Plasma rounds flooded the battlefield.
Luituka didn’t dodge.
The rounds struck her pale body and dissolved across a thin shimmering layer of bioluminescence surrounding her skin.
Then the rings around her wrists began vibrating.
The sound alone made K’s head ache.
"Oh stars..." Steel whispered over comms.
Luituka tilted her head slowly.
"I like your toys."
The air compressed.
Every soldier’s visor screamed warnings simultaneously.
Then she vanished.
A sonic crack erupted across Clarity.
Steel’s sniper perch exploded in a spray of concrete and blood before anyone even saw her move. The mechanized platform collapsed sideways off the building.
"STEEL IS DOWN!" Gusto screamed. His hands clutching his open stomach as he tried to hold onto his spilling guts.
"What the fuck just happened!"
Luituka reappeared upside down on the side of a ruined structure, fingers dug into the wall like claws.
Her rings glowing brighter.
Then dozens of thin glowing strands erupted from her spine.
The strands pierced directly through the wave of advancing soldiers.
Their bodies froze mid-motion.
Then split apart.
Metal.Bone.Blood.Everything.
Bursting apart like popped water balloons.
"Oh GOD—"
"KEEP FIRING!" Finch roared.
"Stop..." K groaned, the pain had begin to dissipate, his armor recalibrating.
Heavy artillery thundered from behind their lines.
Missiles whistled across the sky toward her position.
Luituka looked upward lazily. "Fools..."
The rings around her neck rotated.
The missiles stopped midair.
Complete silence hit the battlefield for half a second.
Then every missile turned around.
Finch’s eyes widened.
"TAKE COVER—"
The explosions swallowed half the district.
Fire consumed the streets.
Shockwaves shattered windows for miles.
K dragged himself out of burning wreckage coughing violently. His armor flickered with warning messages blaring across his visor.
CRITICAL DAMAGE.
NEURAL INSTABILITY DETECTED.
His heartbeat pounded harder.
The world around him distorted again.
Smoke became white walls.
Explosions became whispers.
That same layered voice echoed inside his skull.
Take her rings
K grabbed his helmet hard.
"Get out of my head..."
Then he saw her.
Not Luituka.
Another Vashki.
Much larger. Way larger than the average U’Kan.
Covered entirely in rings.
She was watching him, her face open but instead of the usual mandibles, bright lights sprouted scattering across the sky.
You must save your people.
Pain exploded through K’s spine.
His scream tore through comms.
And suddenly, his visor translated something automatically.
A familiar language he could understand but never speak.
...
HOST HAS MET ALL REQUIREMENTS!
K froze.
"What...?"
Luituka shook her blood stained fist scanning the area for those that had shot at her earlier, only to stop instantly.
The battlefield itself seemed to pause with her.
Slowly the female U’Kan turned toward him,
"Ah~I almost lost sight of my true target"
The bioluminescence on her body intensified violently as she launched at K.
Boom!
K reacted in time.
Her hand tore through the air where his head had been a split second earlier, the pressure alone carving a trench through the vehicle behind him and sending him flying.
WARNING.
HIGH-RANK VASHKI ENTITY IDENTIFIED.
SCANNING...
...
...
ERROR.
AUTHORITY LEVEL EXCEEDS CURRENT HOST LIMITATIONS.
REACH LEVEL 20 TO UNLOCK
FORCING PARTIAL INTERPRETATION.
ENTITY PROFILE
Name: Luituka of Kun
Designation: U’KAN
Classification: Royal War-Brood
Status: Active
Threat Level: Error
Ring Count: 17 Confirmed
Role: Error
KNOWN ABILITIES:
ERROR
REACH LEVEL 20 TO UNLOCK
K twisted mid-flight and drove his combat knife toward her ribs.
Clang!
The blade snapped instantly against pale white skin.
Luituka’s faceless head tilted.
"Cute."
Her knee slammed into K’s stomach.
The impact folded him in half and launched him across the battlefield like artillery fire. He skipped violently across the road before crashing through a building.
Pain exploded through every nerve in his body.
WARNING: INTERNAL BLEEDING DETECTED.
WARNING: SPINAL STRESS LEVELS CRITICAL.
...
REPAIRING DAMAGED TISSUES.
...
K coughed blood inside his helmet. He stood expecting pain and more warning alarms but his visor was dead silent and nothing hurt. It took him a second to realize his helmet had been damaged.
HEALTH RESTORED
NEW TASK DEPLOYED:Eliminate the hostile—(0/1) 0%
It wasn’t his helmet visor deploying these messages.
What exactly was?
"Holy shit..." Lex whispered over comms.
Finch gritted his teeth,"fall back. Now!"
"Clear the area!" K barked immediately, straightening himself upright. Flexing his arms as he tested his joints.
All the pain was gone.
He infact felt refreshed.
Luituka watched him calmly from the smoke.
The glowing rings around her fingers vibrated softly.
"You bloom so beautifully. It is my pleasure to fight you"
K ripped off his damaged helmet.
Dried blood streaked his nose.
"You talk too much."
Luituka vanished.
K’s instincts SCREAMED.
He ducked.
A pale hand ripped through the remains of the truck behind him instead, shredding reinforced metal apart like wet paper.
She vanished again.
Reappearing again, her fists aiming for his head.
K countered instantly.
He grabbed her wrist with both hands and twisted hard, throwing his full body weight into the motion.
Luituka stilled herself, returning the impact.Forcing K to let go else the rebound shatter his bones.
...
RESTORING DAMAGED TISSUES.
....
"Oh my stars..." Lex breathed as she and multiple soldiers cleared the area, heading to a safe spot away from the battlefield.
Shockwave after shockwave swept the area as K and the Vashki continuously collided.
The rings around her neck glowed brighter.
She vanished once again but K had already adapted to her trick.
As she appeared once again, K grabbed her incoming fist and slammed his forehead directly into her face.
Crack!
K stumbled backward blindly as blood exploded from his nose.
...
RESTORING DAMAGED TISSUES
...
She pursued immediately.
Fists.
Elbows.
Knees.
Each strike sounded like bombs detonating across Clarity.
K blocked what he could.
The ones he failed to block cratered the ground beneath him.
His armor shattered piece by piece.
Left gauntlet gone.
Chest plating fractured.
Neural connectors failing.
Yet with each hit he took, a new message popped up,
+1 endurance
+1 endurance
+1 endurance
+1 endurance
+1 endurance
Ding!
ENDURANCE has been upgraded to Lv2!
+1 agility
+1 agility
+1 agility
+1 agility
+1 agility
Ding!
AGILITY has been upgraded to Lv2!
Luituka swung again.
He was able to move a bit faster, seeing her fists before they landed, able to avoid and deflect them faster.
K caught her wrist, twisting his lower body and slamming her into the ground. The creature wailed and vanished again.
This time K chased, he was starting to find tracking her movements easier.
Luitika growled and stomped her feet into the ground, sending sand and broken blocks up into the hair, and kicking them at K.
K punched through each rock, sending some flying back at her.
Ding!
ENDURANCE has been upgraded to Level 3!
AGILITY has been upgraded to level 3!
DEFENSE has been upgraded to level 3!
More level up messages flooded his vision but he didn’t care, he wanted that Vashki dead!
...
NEW SKILL UNLOCKED
[SKILL]
BLOODLUST
click to view skill details
...
"Your head is mine!" She screeched, lunging forward. The air around her fists distorted tearing through the air with little sonic boom.
K caught the fist, shattering the bones in his arm.
...
RESTORING—
The ground beneath K’s feet exploded outward. Veins of pale blue light suddenly spread beneath his skin. Blood pooled around his eyes.
...
WARNING.
UNKNOWN ENERGY SIGNATURE DETECTED.
...
...
WARNING.
HOST IS GOING INTO OVERDRIVE!
Text began flooding across K’s vision.
"For fuck’s sake!"
...
GENETIC AUTHORITY CONFIRMED.
COMBAT STATE: ASCENSION.
This state lasts for 30 minutes and has a cooldown of 7 days. Host will be put into stasis once the duration is over!
Pain hit instantly.
K screamed. And it vanished as quickly as it came.
It felt like molten metal being poured directly into his veins.
His heartbeat thundered so violently the air around him distorted.
K slowly lifted his head.
The world looked different now.
Everything looked sharper.
He could hear every heartbeat nearby.
Every shifting grain of debris.
Every vibration from Luituka’s rings.
Luituka stared at him.
She wasn’t looking good either, cracks scattered across her body and silver blood bled through.
Then her entire body trembled.
Not fear.
Excitement.
"Demon child, you are such a fascinating one..." she whispered.
K moved.
The sound barrier shattering behind him.
Luituka’s body flew across the battlefield so fast it tore through three buildings before the shockwave even caught up.
Every soldier stared speechless.
"What the HELL—"
K appeared above her instantly.
His fist crashed into her spine. And a flurry of more rained down.
Luituka screeched loudly in pain for the first time as she smashed into the ground hard enough to split the street open for hundreds of meters.
K landed each blow more violently than the last. Blue-white energy crawling across his ruined armor. His breathing uneven.
Luituka slowly rose from the crater. Each blow sending her back and deeper into the ground.
One of the glowing rings around her wrist had cracked and was beginning to disintegrate.
Silver blood dripped down her smashed face.
And she started laughing.
The sound was horrible.
Layered. Ecstatic. Distorted from her damaged vocal chords.
"Is this how you almost killed him too?"she purred.
K blurred forward again, "no, but I will kill you!"
Luitika squealed and threw a punch forward.
Their fists collided.
The shockwave flattened the already crushed buildings close to them.
Windows of vehicles shattered across the city.
K and Luituka exchanged blows faster than human eyes could follow.
...
10/30minutes left!
...
Every impact sent tremors across the battlefield.
K drove his knee into her ribs.
Luituka retaliated by grabbing his face and dragging him through the ground.
K roared and slammed both fists into the back of her knees point blank.
A burst of blue energy detonated from his body. His armor still functioned a bit.
Luituka fell forward, her left leg shattered and bleeding profusely.
The rings along her legs slowed and began to dim
Luituka spread her arms slowly.
Bioluminescent strands erupted from her back like massive glowing wings.
"I won’t let you kill me so easily!"
The sky above Meredith began to crack with light.
"And now," she screeched,eyes closed as she summoned her last resort "I take your head home for my husband to—"
K boosted forwards, his thrusters spluttering. His hands slammed into both sides of her face. The remaining armor she had around her face shattered inward, silver blood showering K.
The strands she had summoned slowing stuttered before dying out.
...
SUCCESS! A task has been completed!
Eliminate the hostile—(1/1)100%
XP has been awarded to Host.
Items obtained:
x17 U’Kan rings
Would you like to exchange for XP or send to inventory?
...
K staggered, all the pain he didn’t feel throughout the whole exchange came crashing down on him. His vision swayed and blurred.
...
RESTORING DAMAGED TISSUES
...
Every soldier watched in horror.
Even Finch held his breath at the sight the holotv displayed.
Wild wind swept through the now silent battlefield but all the city of Meredith witnessed was the impossible scene of a staggering soldier standing in one piece towering over a dead U’Kan.
Silence.
"CONTACTS ABOVE US!" Lex screamed.
The massive Vashki ship hovering over Meredith suddenly split open. A smaller Vashki, shorter than K, descended with a folded linen tucked in its arms. A Miwa.
"Allow us retrieve her body"
K shook his head, "no...she...rots here"
The Miwa bowed slightly and returned to the ship,
"Tell her husband...I’ll kill...him too" he whispered enough for the retreating Vashki to hear before finally collapsing.
Static.
"Control to Medic on standby, retrieve K-0-0-1!"
"Roger that!"
Finch and Lex quickly cleared a road for medic to pass through,"split into two, recover whatever remains of Steel and Gusto"
"Yes sir!"
Finch stood above the dead Vashki,
"...killed the bitch with just his hands," he spat onto the corpse, "wrap it up and send to Lab, Thira would have a field day operating on his kind"
