Information requested: [Updated] Combat solution against Endbringer Leviathan
[Synchronization set at 81%.]
Beginning report…
Lindon flies straight at Leviathan, Soul Cloak active. He switches Paths halfway through and opens with two beams of arm thick Dragon's Breath, one going where Leviathan is and the other going where Leviathan is going to be after he dodges the first beam.
Yerin, Mercy and others keep the Endbringer occupied, who won't be alert to Lindon's presence until Lindon is inside his guard.
Dross accelerates Vista's mental faculties so she can keep up with the battle's speed. The ground condenses and Lindon is in touching distance of Leviathan.
Another forged Empty Palm strikes Leviathan, who shrugs it off with minor difficulty. But the split second allows Lindon to grab hold of the Endbringer flank with his Dreadgod arm.
The arm starts Devouring.
Leviathan's uses his arm and his tail to get Lindon off of him, Yerin is there every time to intercept. Lindon holds on. The Dreadgod arm continues to devour.
Lindon opens two void keys; first one is empty to vent whatever excess power he Consumes from the Endbringer, second one is to bring out a Death Madra construct.
The floating cannon targets Leviathan's wounds with artificial but potent Death Madra already imbued with Lindon's Intent to kill. It stops/slows down the Endbringer's accelerated healing. [synchronization required]
Legend's laser beams are more effective when Leviathan's healing is interrupted. So are the long-ranged attacks from other capes.
Leviathan gets weaker with Lindon's arm Devouring from him. [synchronization required]
His movement is slower compared to before and he has to defend against attacks from no less than half a dozen enemies, all of whom pack a punch.
Leviathan unveils a new ability.
[Synchronization reduced to 54%.]
Lindon does not let go of Leviathan. Dross concentrates to further accelerate Vista's processing speed, slowing down time to a crawl for her. If the center of the new ability's origin proves to be Leviathan, she stretches the area inside Mercy's cordon up to half a mile in radius all around the Endbringer, or as close as she can, to keep the city safe from its effects. [synchronization required]
Eidolon has a [possible] direct counter for Leviathan's new ability. Yerin supports him until that happens.
Mercy locates the cape who….
Error…
Report Incomplete
Dross couldn't really stumble, but if he could, then he would have. Lindon was on his way to Leviathan, he was meant to strike the Endbringer with a forged Empty Palm roughly in the next half a second. Lindon had also most likely realized Dross's split attention but didn't say anything and stayed the course.
The anomaly came up when Dross tried to accelerate Vista's perception, something felt off. The closest sensation to it was like when Dross tried to attack or reach out to someone else with a Presence. But there had been no sign so far that Vista had any Presence, as she had displayed no extraordinary mental acumen outside of base human capabilities.
He managed to enhance Vista of course, he would had to keep some of his attention constantly on the brooding young cape from now on, but with the upgrade, she could process everything around her and contribute when called upon, he told Lindon to test her anyway.
"Hey Vista, you okay? Anything feels different? Better perhaps?" Lindon asked while firing a Dragon's breath, a slight amendment to their combat plan but nothing egregious.
The girl slowly nodded, looking around in what could only be described as a weird blend of suspicion and fascination.
"What did you do?" She shouted.
"Temporary mental enhancement. Tell me, what is happening with Leviathan?" Lindon said, twisting in the air a little to look at the young cape for extra emphasis.
Vista complied, and as expected, she was fully cognizant of the details of the battle.
The battle would go as planned. If only in the beginning.
But Dross's interest was piqued by something else. He revisited his memories, and analyzed the exact moment that had been odd enough for him to interrupt his combat solution report. He reviewed that oddity again several times.
His conclusion demanded more information, if there was anything like a Presence attached to the Cape, and it was a substantial if, it felt dormant. The only moment it had felt anything other than dormant was when Dross first tried to affect Vista's mind.
Ruby's input was needed. He contacted her.
[Hey rookie,] Dross itched for mischievousness as he hailed her, [did you notice this… layer, this blocker, when you worked with Eidolon. Can you send me those memories?]
Dross had let Ruby borrow his power to show Eidolon how the wall should be made, but he'd had no direct interaction with the cape. He needed to know if this phantom Presence was noticeable in all capes.
As he waited for an answer, the battle continued to rage. Leviathan was already faster than he was estimated to be in the last simulation Dross had ran. The Endbringer was fighting more intelligently as well, using his tail with better control and more importantly using his water echo to strategically to block the majority of aerial attacks.
But that discrepancy was within acceptable limits, as Lindon well knew. After all, Dross's combat solution was only 81% accurate.
Ruby replied back, [Sending you the packet now old timer.]
[Did you analyze mine? What'd you think? Does anything stand out to you? Tell me. There is something I'm sure.] Dross asked, conveying his eagerness.
[You're probably right, there's something, but not obvious. I didn't pay attention to it at the time because, as you know, I was busy. Let's discuss later.] Ruby replied and shut off the connection.
Dross reviewed the memories, nothing out of the ordinary unless you knew what to look for. There was a slight delay when Ruby made connection to Eidolon, another layer of… not consciousness, but something like a filter. The rest was normal.
It was understandable why Ruby chose to ignore such a minor anomaly, she was talking to multiple other people in the moment, if not in as detailed a manner she did with Eidolon. Time was short when she made those connections, and the distance from Yerin would have be straining her connection somewhat.
He stopped analyzing and stored the memory packet for a later discussion with Lindon and the rest.
It was time for him to devote most of his attention to the battle. Some of it went to the Death Madra construct once Lindon brought it out of the void key and ceded control to Dross. Most went to processing the remarkably alien power Lindon was Consuming from Leviathan.
Unlike most other beings Lindon had Consumed from, there weren't really many memories, most were animalistic impressions of prior destruction the beast had caused. Dross kept it all away from distracting Lindon's focus, although that wasn't a tough ask these days.
The well of power healing and recharging Leviathan felt endless from what Dross could gather, it existed deep inside the Endbringer. It meant the theory of their being a core inside these beasts was also correct.
The vast majority of the power was just wrong, reeking of chaos and not useful for Lindon in its raw form, they managed to break down a little bit of it so Lindon took it for his own, somewhat strengthening his Bloodforged iron body but the stolen power required more work to be usable so it went into the scripted void key.
The prevailing impression coming from the Endbringer was to cause destruction. In another time, with access to the Way, they could have perhaps used that in some capacity to defeat their opponent. Lindon overwhelmed Leviathan's Will with his own, continuing to Devour, but the healing well somehow empowered the beast's Will too so it kept functioning while Lindon was devouring from him.
Back in the real world, Dross noticed the efficacy of the Death Madra cannon. It wasn't really Death Madra, it was a lethal essence used on one of the Abidan-controlled ascended worlds for different purposes and Lindon had transformed it in a workshop to act as Death Madra.
The weapon had been effective but not as much as they had hoped it would be. It had not stopped Leviathan's regeneration, but at least slowed it down to its level at the start of the battle. The stump where one of his arms was growing back had remained the same for the past several seconds. This 'Death Madra' was effective at counteracting one of Endbringers' advantages, that was good to know. Lindon very like had a few more of these constructs, actually he certainly had a lot more.
Dross simulated events from the disjointed bits and pieced together a history of the Endbringer, periods of dormancy with no thoughts and no activity marked by brief bouts of violence and destruction. That complimented what the PRT officer had told them before the battle.
And a man, whose arrival meant Retreat.
That was intriguing. The golden figure, presumably a cape, was too powerful for Leviathan to confront in a head-on battle. But where was he now? Did he only defend his own land? Did they have Monarch like factions in this world too? Dross was inclined towards disliking the parallels to Cradle, he found newer challenges to be more interesting, not the same old problems and politics.
No, that was only a hypothesis, he should wait before jumping to conclusions based on an animal's impressions, he reprimanded himself.
Dross noticed Leviathan gearing up for a more robust solution to get Lindon off of him. [He is trying to fall on top of you.] He told Lindon.
Thanks for the warning, getting desperate then. Stay alert for anything. I'll let him crash and get around to the other side. Lindon replied.
In what could only have been called an ill-judgement, Leviathan flung himself to the ground, attempting to crush Lindon, and Vista, who had mostly been a spectator so far. By the time the Endbringer hit the ground, Lindon had disengaged and flown out from under the momentarily fallen Endbringer.
Flying closer, Lindon raised his hands. Bars of Blackflame left his palms and hit Leviathan right in the chest, vaporizing layers of flesh and leaving dangerously deep gouges. An arrow from Mercy fell like a dark star and impaled Leviathan's leg to the ground, Legends's lasers were non-stop, and Yerin was a constant whirlwind of blood and steel opening up Leviathan from all sides and not letting his water echo hit any other cape.
Dross paid close attention to Leviathan's chest wounds. He fired some shots from the construct to keep them from closing, Leviathan shifted to avoid the attack, opening himself to even more attacks from other capes, but one of Dross's shots landed, disrupting the regeneration of flesh and giving Dross, and Ruby and Suu, he admitted to himself, more time to analyze the Endbringer.
Dross let the battle play out and revisited Leviathan's memories and his own conclusions, the Endbringer was generating matter from somewhere, some other dimension perhaps? That would explain the seemingly endless healing factor.
Dross couldn't wait to talk to someone who knew something about these Endbringer, the girl calling herself Tattletale had shared good information but Dross wanted more.
That is when Leviathan made his next move. Lightning flashed above, and the clouds thundered, raining bullets.