The Lone Wanderer

The sight of the colossal crow appeared to give Machaon pause for the briefest of instants, though his apprehension didn’t last. He resumed raining destruction upon the already-ravaged forest, probably having determined that his opponent’s transformation hadn’t truly changed the situation.

With a single flap of its enormous wings, the construct crossed the distance separating it from the plasma mage, just in time to intercept the indiscriminate attacks. As a side-effect of its new position, the bird’s hulking frame blotted out the ominous glow of Machaon’s mana, casting a vast shadow upon the entire battlefield.

Archibald couldn’t see how much damage his grandson had taken from the spells, since only the underside of the crow was visible from his lower vantage point. However, the cacophony of booming explosions that reached his ears a couple of seconds later didn’t bode well.

Clearly not one to take the hits lying down, Percy flapped his wings once again, closing the remaining gap and trying to clamp his beak down on something. The purple sun revealed itself once more as Lord Asclepius dodged to the side of the crow’s head, barely avoiding being shredded by its scythe-shaped fangs.

While Machaon’s barrier could stop a few: or even several: weapons and phantoms, he didn’t seem confident in taking the entire abomination head on. Like a buzzing firefly, he danced around the bird, firing scorching columns of plasma from every angle, mostly aiming at its joints.

Percy was able to return some of the pressure by reorienting himself and continuing to peck at his opponent.

Archibald couldn’t see what was happening inside the construct’s body, but he assumed that it owed its passable agility: relative to its size: to its ability to phase parts of its mass into and out of existence, as well as the countless lightness runes engraved along the magical silk.

Unfortunately, the crow’s bulk was Percy’s only defence against the lethal plasma, on top of being his only means of protecting the forest. He couldn’t turn too much of the construct’s flesh incorporeal at once, thus severely restricting his ability to catch the pesky White.

Every bolt of plasma striking the abomination’s body exploded with a blinding flash that forced even Archibald to avert his gaze. The Greens and Blues on the ground probably didn’t have the luxury of paying attention to Percy’s battle, but the constant environmental changes undoubtedly affected them even more strongly than Archibald and the Violet-level combatants.

A few of the weaker mages even gave up on their fights entirely, seemingly doing so after reaching a mutual understanding with their opponents. They all had their hands full just surviving the aftermath of the high-level clash, and it wasn’t like the outcome of their own battles would have much of an impact on the war.

In theory, the Greens could assist the Blues if they won, who could then help the Violets. Finally, the Violets might be able to play a role in their leaders’ fight. The problem was that, at the rate Percy and Machaon were going at it, one of them would probably die long before the smaller outcomes had the chance to trickle up to the top. With either of them dead, the war would lose its meaning. At least, this was the logic that Archibald ascribed to his subordinates’ actions.

Unaffected by the choices of the Greens, Machaon continued pelting the giant bird with devastating attacks. Whenever the purple star disappeared behind the creature, Archibald was given a chance to examine the damage on the other side of its body.

It wasn’t pretty.

Countless deep craters had eaten into the frozen silk, with parts of the plumage still ablaze or emanating thick plumes of smoke. The wounds constantly squirmed, a sea of roiling fabric greedily drinking ambient mana and expanding to fill in the gaps, though not nearly as rapidly as the enemy patriarch inflicted them.

Despite consolidating their accumulated mana into a single, hulking form, Percy and Micky hadn’t solved the fundamental problem of their resources being consumed at an unsustainable rate.

Elated by the creature’s shrinking body, Machaon unleashed his destruction on the forest with renewed vigour, forcing Percy to eat more and more blasts by the second.

The howling winds and eerie cries around Archibald grew quieter as his grandson seemingly retracted part of his domain, enveloping his construct. The potent willpower mixed with the ambient mana to form frigid gales that further shielded it from the damage and allowed it to spin even faster through the air.

With a violent revolution, the crow managed to finally land a savage blow with the back of its wing.

“Stop fucking up our home!” the chorus of voices erupted once more, the ill-concealed fury in their words sending a chill down Archibald’s spine.

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Machaon was able to cushion himself with a timely burst of plasma mana, but he was still sent flying outside the western boundary of the forest. Turning the bird entirely incorporeal, Percy and Micky shot behind him at a speed that was difficult to fathom.

Archibald considered chasing after his grandson, but many of his subordinates were still fighting, with the strongest ones in dire need of assistance. Sighing, he returned the rest of the attention to his clones.

***

Machaon came to a halt close to the ground, the forest beneath his feet replaced by hills and grasslands. Reaching their opponent, Percy and Micky opened their cavernous beak wide in an attempt to swallow the bastard whole, though the latter didn’t have much trouble dodging.

They consoled themselves upon realizing that their opponent had taken some damage from their latest attack. It was difficult to peer through the thick wall of plasma enveloping Machaon, but they could swear that there was a red vertical stain connecting the corner of the patriarch’s lips and his chin: hopefully an evaporated trickle of blood.

Without any weaker mages nearby, Lord Asclepius had to abandon his previous strategy. Flying closer to the ground: almost stepping on it: he tried to rob the bulky crow of even more of its limited agility.

Percy and Micky could work around that by partially phasing through the obstruction, but that would only destabilize the construct further, making it easier for their opponent to hit their actual bodies.

Having no intention of playing the patriarch’s game, they willed the crow to transform once again.

Their short, stubby legs grew several times longer, their talons crashing onto the ground with enough force to leave deep impressions and crack the nearest hill in half. Their torso rearranged itself into that of a humanoid, complete with a set of bulging abdominal and pectoral muscles.

Finally, their wings split into two pairs of arms that ended in clawed hands not too different from their talons. Each grabbed a fistful of debris that rapidly merged and expanded into long shafts, lined with hundreds of normal-sized scythe edges.

Shifting his stance, the hundred-metre-tall giant looked down on Lord Asclepius, pointing the upper pair of weapons at him while crossing the other in front of his chest.

Deciding to take Percy and Micky up on their challenge, Machaon shot straight toward them, slipping through the gaps between the jagged cleavers.

The giant responded by pivoting on his feet and spinning his torso just enough to strike the incoming meteor of plasma with his upper right shoulder.

Bouncing against the frozen silk without taking too much damage, Machaon flew above the construct’s head, shooting half a dozen columns of mana into its back. Having clearly learned from the relative inefficiency of his earlier attacks, he focused the plasma into narrower beams that actually managed to pierce all the way through the giant’s body.

The dance of the colossal gladiator and the firefly began anew, though Percy and Micky had a much easier time keeping up with the disgraced patriarch than before, due to having solid ground beneath their feet to use as leverage. Keeping Machaon in front of their body most of the time, they bent their elbows and phased their weapons through one another, trying to land another blow.

Lord Asclepius also seemed content with his newfound means of threatening their lives directly.

Percy and Micky could easily predict the patriarch’s movements, so they were able to swim inside their construct to avoid being hit by the deadly pillars of plasma. The problem was that their body was still too sluggish to keep up with their senses or their opponent’s nimble flight and reflexes honed by millennia of experience.

Every spell that Machaon cast shaved away a chunk of the giant’s magical flesh. On the flipside, the frigid winds accompanying every swing of the cleavers peeled off a layer of plasma from the patriarch’s barrier, causing the purple sun to shrink at roughly the same rate.

The crescents of soul-freezing ice continued on to carve deep ravines into the grasslands, with layers of grey frost spreading along their walls, while the stray blasts of plasma melted entire hills into magma that hissed as it poured into the frozen trenches.

Lord Asclepius had nothing to gain from his thinning defences, while Percy and Micky kept growing faster in exchange for their lost mass. Eventually, the cleavers moved fast enough that Machaon had trouble dodging them. He was forced to leap back to avoid getting cut in half, setting his sights on the forest again.

Percy gritted his teeth inside the construct when the patriarch fired several giant bolts of plasma at his relatives. He had no idea how good the man’s aim was, but he knew that he couldn’t risk it.

The giant’s left side swelled before exploding into a murder of normal-sized crows. The flock of hundreds of birds turned ethereal as they chased the projectiles, overtaking and blocking them in no time.

Sadly, Machaon had already accomplished his sinister goal. Unleashing a new volley of purple blasts at what remained of the giant, he left Micky and Percy no choice but to abandon the crumbling construct.

The Lone Wanderer and Lord Asclepius didn’t rush to resume their battle, opting to examine each other for a moment.

Percy and Micky were down to half of their reserves. Had this been a year ago, they would have already been on the verge of losing control of not only their boosting art, but even their artificial advancements. Thankfully, the promotion of their other three cores had lowered their floor to about a third of their total capacity, so they still had some leeway.

Estimating that the effect of their Blue trollsfury tattoo was about to expire, they reached into their spatial seal, emptying a few more vials directly into their bloodstream. Grabbing two intact scythes, they focused their willpower on them to ensure that they would last, their edges igniting with cold flames.

Machaon wasn’t in a much better state, his own boosting art also close to coming undone. He was forced to shrink the barrier of plasma to about a tenth of its size, to the point that it now closely tracked the shape of his body instead of the previous sphere. Touching the scorching mana would still be deadly, but Percy and Micky now stood an actual chance of cutting through it to reach the patriarch’s flesh and soul.

Seemingly happy with their mutual analysis, the two figures shot toward one another, fully intent on burying each other here today.