Chapter 1655: Battle Royale (2)
...Meanwhile, Nepherage’s arena...
"You dare to try and use my own [Astra] against me?!" Galban shouted as the gyroscopic flail head of [Bonekneader] stopped inches in front of his face.
At the same moment this occurred, Galban simply dropped the handle of his [Astra], allowing it to dangle in the air for a few moments before fully retracting inside the gyroscopic head.
[Oh ho? Now that’s interesting,] Nepherage praised as she took on a fighting stance.
It was a bit of an open secret that once someone had mastered their [Astra] to a certain degree, one of two things could occur.
The most common case would be that the initial abilities and stats of the [Astra] would simply get stronger. Since they’re a representation of a person’s [Creed], one would assume that living up to and growing thanks to said guiding principles would lead to one wanting to strengthen them.
The other case that could occur, though, is that the [Astra] in question develops new abilities altogether.
Not everyone can live up to their personal creeds to the letter, and some have to change in order to grow.
For most people, it’s not a big deal.
To aether warriors, though...it’s a little trickier.
Failing to live up to one’s creed can cause an [Astra] to develop weaknesses and become outright weaker to use in battle.
In some extreme cases, when a warrior consistently breaks their creed over and over again, it can cause the [Astra] in question to outright break and undergo a reformation.
Such a process can take an immense amount of time depending on the warrior, with some being unable to regain the power they had lost.
However, in the cases where one is able to readjust their creed at the right time, that they manage to incrementally change their belief system without radically breaking who they have become as a person, their [Astra] undergoes an... evolution, aka, the second case scenario.
In this case, the [Astra] develops abilities that are tangentially related to their original function or entirely new ones in incredibly rare cases.
Galban’s [Bonekneader] used to be a straightforward weapon whose purpose was to destroy people’s bones from the inside out, or, to put it in a more general manner, ignore defenses in order to deal damage in an internal manner.
However, this initial ability was conceived back when Galban thought more with his heart than his head.
A bad conflict encounter forced Galban to reevaluate his life choices and his doctrine of battle so badly that the man’s [Astra] almost broke. Instead, he managed to reinforce and add a new function.
One where he didn’t even need to wield it to cause mayhem.
"That lack of reaction from when you grabbed my [Astra] suggests you don’t have any bones for it to pulverize," Galban noted. "That’s fine by me...but I don’t think for a second you’re immune to the effects of gravity!"
Under his direction, Galban’s gyroscopic-like [Astra] slammed into the ground and began to spin and twist at breakneck speeds.
This, in turn, caused the area around Galban and Nepherage to feel significantly heavier. The force was actually so intense that both Galban and Nepherage felt the ground beneath slightly collapse as the gravity intensified.
Evidently, Nepherage couldn’t help but to quirk a stoney eyebrow at the sight.
[I thought warriors weren’t affected by the abilities of their own Astra,] Nepherage commented as soon as she saw the cracks forming under Galban’s feet.
"That’s usually the case, but I learned that if you want to maximize the power of an [Astra], you have to make it so that its abilities can also affect you to a certain extent," Galban clarified with a strange hint of madness to his voice. "I wasn’t psychotic enough to make it so that the original effect would hurt me, but this second one I made sure to make as potent as possible."
After explaining this, Galban took a heavily practiced step that broke the ground further.
"Now get ready to feel the full weight of—"
Crack!
"Wait, what the fuck?"
Before Galban could finish gloating and monologuing, Nepherage used an aether art to dive directly into the arena like it was water and not solid stone.
"Wait...is she stupid?!" Galban declared with disbelief.
Galban had tested this before, so he knew that his gravity field could affect not just the surface but the ground beneath him as well. As such, Nepherage wasn’t just dealing with increased gravity on her person, but increased gravity from the very stone atop her head as well.
Nepherage may have been some kind of monster from the ancient stories, but she wasn’t strong enough to support that much stone pressing down on her head...right?
As this thought played out in Galban’s mind, the aforementioned Kaijin popped up behind him with an aether art at the ready.
[Magma Claw!]
"Fuck!"
... Yeah, it ain’t looking better for the soldiers either...
[Bahaha! Come on, come on!]
[What’s the matter? Can’t keep up with our attacks?]
BANG!
"AH!"
"FUCK! Olban, are you okay?!"
"Sort of?"
"General, what do we do?!"
"I’m thinking, I’m thinking!"
Despite being able to defend themselves and being able to visually keep track of the strange doll-like protokaijin harassing them, General Legante and his elite warriors were unable to do anything other than that.
[Hey, should we ease up on our assault?] Corpse Doll asked loud enough for the Erupting Dawn warriors to hear at the same time as her sister.
[Pfft! No,] Porcelain Doll answered. [If the situations were reversed, they would press on the advantage too!]
[You’re right!]
The reason why Porcelain Doll and Corpse Doll were able to keep up this absurd momentum of theirs, though, was due to a combination of three factors.
First, the warriors of the Erupting Dawn Empire had more or less concentrated themselves into a single spot in the fighting area. This may have protected them all possible sides, but it also left them a sitting duck for those who were mobile enough to take advantage of the weird terrain. Evidently, this led to factor number two.
The room in which the Doll Twins were facing General Legante and his men was made to resemble a necropolis but with headstones and tombs the size of buildings. As such, the twins had an ample amount of surfaces to literally bounce off of like rubber balls in a theater.
The final factor was more personal, though, and that was the fact that the Doll Twins had polar opposites of affinities for each other.
Corpse Doll was aligned with darkness, death, and curses.
Porcelain Doll was aligned with light, life, and blessings due to various circumstances.
The twins had learned from practice that if they timed their attacks just right and channeled their innate energies at the right moment, they could repel off of one another at speeds greater than when they collided with each other.
This didn’t seem practical, at first, until the curators and Zhen Liu had pointed out that such an ability could be used in close-quarters combat to make their movements unpredictable as all hell.
Combining all three of these factors made this encounter between the warriors of the Erupting Dawn Elite and the Doll Twins less of a battle and more of a one-sided slaughter.
As this farce of a fight went on, General Legante couldn’t help but to notice something...a little off about the way the Doll Twins were attacking him and his men.
"Wait..."
More than once, Legante could see moments where either one of the twins could finish him or his men off in an instant. One stretched-out limb, an opening that lasted long enough for another attack to follow through and take a life in an instant, and more than once he could see a gap in his own men’s defenses that the twins seemed to acknowledge but actively ignore.
It was when he added up all of those small moments together in his head that he realized the truth of the matter.
"We’re...being toyed with," Legante said aloud for all to hear. "These fucking monsters are playing with us!"
As soon as this declaration was made, the doll twins paused their assault in order to land on headstones opposite each other but in close proximity to the Erupting Dawn warriors.
The twin protokaijin had smiles on their faces as soon as they heard Legante’s revelation.
[That’s technically correct,] Porcelain Doll confirmed for Legante’s sake. [But it’s more accurate to say that our Caretaker said that we aren’t allowed to kill you.]
[That’s right! That’s right!] Corpse Doll concurred. [Otherwise, we would’ve taken your hearts and heads ages ago!]
"What? What?!"
As elite warriors, they couldn’t help but feel a little miffed over the fact that they were being treated less like proper opponents and more like...training dummies.
The following comments didn’t help this feeling in the slightest.
[Caretaker said we have to soften you up so that the others can have a proper fight against you. So try not to die before then!] Corpse Doll said with a snicker.
"..."
It was one thing to be toyed with by a superior opponent; it was another thing being treated like someone else’s practice dummy.
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