Chapter 65
The air around Martin and I is so thick that not even my sword could slice it. On the outside I appear calm, cool, and collective. Inside though, I'm more scared than I've ever been.
I'm not sure how Martin is right now, he has the same look plastered on his face all the time. But even he has to have fears. Maybe if we live through this I'll ask him some questions.
"Grrr…" The person standing before us sounds more like a beast than he does a man.
His head turns between Martin and I, deciding on who he'll attack first. It's pretty unsettling just thinking about. Both of us are just playthings in his eyes.
Sweat drops down my avatars face just from the anticipation and fear. His gaze feels like a predator stalking its prey. It's only been about half a minute, but this waiting feels like an eternity.
"I choose… you!" He dashes towards Martin with his blades raised above his head in an X formation.
"You're far too predictable." Martin takes a stance and slams his staff to the ground.
In the Bound Deities path a rune appears on the ground. Before he has a chance to stop his dash, he ends up going over it.
*Boom!* *Zap!* He set an electric rune.
He's blown several feet back, stopping himself by planting his blades in the ground. "When did you place that?" I ask him.
"Around the time he cut the boss in half. I expected us to get into a fight with something tonight. Turns out my preparations were needed."
I'm glad I have a guy like Martin around. His ability to read the opponent and plan ahead may give us the edge we need.
True enough, that rune took out about 12% of his health. Maybe it won't be as bad as the last fight we had to endure.
"Did you think something like that would stop me?" The Deity pulls his blades from the ground and stands up strongly.
"It'll take more than that to take me down!"
With immense strength, he jumps high into the air before slamming down in front of me. The shockwaves from the impact stagger me and cause my balance to falter.
His scissor blade retracts as far back as it can go to build up energy. It was about the time I fully regained my balance that the blades were at their maximum output.
"Shit…"
*Schwing!* Both blades come to my sides at high speeds.
I drop my sword quickly and place a hand on each blade. It's my only option, and it's better than getting cleaved in two. The pain in real life would be worse than what it is now.
"Ugh!" My left arm doesn't feel anything since it's cybernetic, but my right arm is under a lot of stress right now. In real life, it feels like my palm is being cut with a hot knife.
As I keep holding the swords at bay, Martin finishes charging up one of his spells. "Flame Barrage!"
A cascade of fire comes hurling towards the Deity. He turns his head to see what's coming at him. Using his mechanical enhancements, he calls off his blades, relieving my arms of this burden.
Before he can dodge however I kick up my sword to my hand and mount an attack.
*Swing* *Break* *Crack*
My strike goes through his blade connector, separating the two swords. It goes a little further, cracking and breaking through a portion of his chest armor.
He feels the pain of my strike, and only sits there in response. I lower myself a little more to push my sword deeper into him, as well as shield me from the fiery blast.
The entire wave of flames burns his armors shielding to cinders. In terms of defense, he just lost about half of his.
I pull out my sword and back up from him. But to my surprise, I don't see any blood coming out of the wound I just made.
"Haa… Haa… You both got me… I misjudged you…" He can still form coherent sentences after what he just went through?
"However," he picks up his second blade. "It's still too little!" He doesn't sound like he's felt pain through any of our attacks.
*Zap!* *Zap!* *Zap!*
Martin starts to twirl his staff around; casting small level spells to keep him on his toes. "Then let's change that attitude of yours!" Martin calls out.
As if being silently cued, I run up to him and swing my sword attempting to strike vital areas.
With one hand he deflects my attacks, and with the other he deflects Martin's. In the short amount of time we've fought him, he's been great with both defense and offense.
"Is that all you got?" He taunts us.
"Like hell it is!" With one look to Martin, he knows what to do.
Martin slams his staff into the ground. A rune appears right by him as he tries to keep me off of him. From it, a chain shoots out of it and wraps around his arm, pulling him towards the ground as well.
This moment of weakness with him is the chance I've been looking for. I pull out my revolver from my side and take quick aim.
*Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!*
All three bullets hit his exposed arm and chest. Staggering him more as a result. Seeing this as another opportunity to deal some extra damage, Martin and I go in for another assault.
Martin runs towards us, having been in the sidelines casting spells for the duration of this fight. He holds his staff at the middle and twists the upper and lower half in opposite directions.
*Click* *Schwing*
He pulls both halves apart to reveal that his staff converts into dual blades. I didn't know that weapons like that existed in this world. I'll study up on them later.
*Clash!* *Clash!* *Swing!* *Crack!*
Three blades slice away at the Deities cyborg suit. It's able to reflect most of the damage away, but it cracks after enough punishment has been dealt to it.
All the while he can't move at all. Because every time we hit him he becomes staggered again. At this rate with the stamina we have, we may end up killing him.
Two Bound Deities in the span of two days sounds pretty good. We'd knock out half of the problem so quickly. For once, things are starting to look up for us.
"Haa…Haa…Haa…"
"Haa…Haa…Haa…" Both of us are out of stamina from our onslaught of attacks. The Deity is fairly low on health at this point, so it's safe to say that the small recharge time won't be enough time for him to make a comeback.
"Haha… hahaha… hahahahaha!" Even while he's chained to the ground he's still laughing.
"Not bad Jack! Not bad at all! You two scared me for a minute!"
After all we've done he still can poke fun at us? He's the most insane person I've ever met in my life. If he can't see that he's lost then there's no hope for him.
"But didn't I tell you…"
*Bang! *Crack!* He pulls the chain on his arm up, destroying part of the earth with it and creating a banging sound that's loud enough to make anyone's ears bleed.
"It's not enough!" The sheer force of his rising up knocks both Martin and I on the ground. Before Martin can get up, something awful happens.
"Ah!" He impaled Martin to the ground with one of his large blades. He even went as far as to twist it a little while it was in their. Martin puts both of his hands on the sword to try and lift it out, but to no avail.
"That look in your eyes… brings a big smile to my face!" He drives the blade further into Martin, only increasing his avatars pain. Even though the real Martin can't feel this, the artificial life that is his avatar is in hell right now.
"Stop! Stop it!" He begs for mercy, but the Deity doesn't care about what he thinks. He pulls his blade out of the ground, holding it in the air with Martin's avatar still on it.
With one swing, Martin's sent flying to the other side of the arena.
I look at Martin in fear, the blood coming out of his mouth, his body broken from smashing into several tombstones. Unlike him, I can feel real pain that comes from this.
My avatar starts crawling away quickly, trying desperately to flee the area. Right as I'm about to get on my feet, I'm stopped by him grabbing my ankle.
"Don't think you can get away from this!" He picks me up and slams me back to the ground. In reality my body starts aching everywhere.
Once again, he picks me up and slams me down, even harder than last time. Instead of aching, a burning sensation is felt around my body.
"AH! Make it stop!" I say right before I'm slammed into the ground for a third time. The effects in reality this time are even more pain. It hurts so much that my vision is beginning to blur.
My avatar lies on his back just waiting for it to end. That wish, like many others isn't granted.
"Mmph!" My voice is muffled from the large hand grasping my head. A large grey and silver palm is all I can see. His grip is causing my vision to become even worse than it already was.
I'm starting to black out… Damn Sharacite connection…
"Ahhh!" He starts running at his maximum speed towards I don't know what. With each passing second it gets harder to concentrate.
*CRASH!* He slams my entire body into the stone wall with the force of ten giants. My avatar passes out from the pain, and my real body gets a new shock wave.
"Argh! Kill me! Just kill me!" I say out loud in reality. Everyone around me becoming worried.
"That was fun I suppose, but hardly worth my time." He lets my go, but he's still mounted in the wall however.
"Tell you what, Meet me on the roof of the tallest building in Lastation at the end of January. We'll fight again there. Oh, and bring your friends, so they can watch you die for real this time."
With that, the Deity walks away. I can't tell where he went because of my lack of sight in game. But reality is a different problem.
"Jack!" Martin gets up from his computer unharmed in this world. I'm glad he doesn't have the Sharacite… it's becoming hell.
He turns my chair around to get a good look at me.
"…" I can't hear him. I can't see him all that well either.
"J...k! Pl… B… Al…" More of its coming in, but it's still hard to make out.
"Jack! Snap out of it!" I can hear him more clearly now. He's the only one who's doing anything. From what I can see, everyone else is horrified at the scene. I can't blame them for being in shock right now.
As my vision returns slowly, I lift up my hand just to see if I can feel anything anymore. Suddenly the smell of iron catches my attention. I touch my upper lip to find that it's wet.
When I look at the fingers I see blood on them. Shit, I must've gotten a nosebleed from the immense pain.
My heart races even more at the sight. I can't believe that I'm even alive right now. It's getting darker, but I can still fight.
With what little strength I have left, I push myself up from the chair and try to walk towards the bathroom to clean up.
I take one step, and suddenly my entire vision goes black, and I pass out.
"Jack? Jack? Jaaack!" Martin calls out to my knocked out body. That's the last thing I hear before drifting off into darkness.
A/N: I blame Megadimension Neptunia VII for the absence. Well not entirely, I've had a pretty busy schedule as of late actually. Still, my spark for writing is brighter than ever.
On a side note, I'd like some comments on how I am when it comes to writing fight scenes. For some reason, I feel like I'm sub-par with them. Although this could just be my imagination.
I'm sorry if I don't update as much as I used to, you guys deserve better than that. But I promise to keep this up until the end, for the loyal readers out there.
As always, feedback is heavily requested, and just idle chat is accepted as well. But until then, I'll see you in the next update.