Chapter 73: The Terror and The Tyrant
Joro’s next swing came faster than anything he’d shown before, the axe humming with the same red energy that had gathered around him a moment earlier, and Eleanor barely got her blade up in time to deflect it, the impact rattling straight through her bones.
"Argh!" She let out a yelp as she stumbled back.
She gathered her bearings as fast as she could as Mark skidded towards her.
"Skill?" Mark asked, gauntlets raised defensively as he circled wide.
"Has to be," Eleanor said, retreating a step her eyes narrowed on the axe. "Everything about him just got faster. His reactions are sharper reactions too."
[You have activated Skill: Axe Proficiency.]
The notification confirmed it half a moment later, and Joro grinned, swinging the axe in a wide, arc that forced both of them back several steps.
"Hahaha, now you’re actually fighting me," he said, voice rougher and more animalistic than before. "Let’s see how long you can last."
Eleanor extinguished her blade’s flame entirely, and Mark shot her a questioning glance.
"Elle, what are you doing?"
"Trust me." She pressed both palms together and stone began gathering along her forearms instead forming gauntlets from raw earth, the same brute force approach she had used against beasts before. "The blade’s not going to cut through whatever that is. We just have to fight fire with fire..."
Joro surged forward, his movements faster now and the axe carving an arc aimed at Eleanor’s shoulder.
She caught it on her stone wrapped forearm this time instead of trying to parry with a blade, the impact vibrating but she held, her reinforced arm absorbing the blow that would have shattered through her defenses before.
"There we go," she muttered, driving a counter punch into his exposed ribs with every ounce of strength she could muster...
Joro grunted, staggering half a step, and Mark used the opening to slam his own gauntlets into the man’s other side, the double impact rocking him visibly.
"His skill is making him hit harder and move faster," Eleanor called, ducking beneath a wild follow up swing. "But it has to cost him something. Nothing works for free."
"So we make him keep using it," Mark said, catching the axe’s return swing on raised gauntlets, the force pushing him backwards.
"Wear him out faster before he gets a chance to end it. End us I mean..."
"Exactly." Eleanor said, dodging another swing. "Force him to keep the skill running. Don’t give him a single second to catch his breath."
And with that, they shifted tactics. They were no longer trying to land clean blows but instead pressing constant, pressure — Mark absorbing strike after strike, refusing to give him space, while Eleanor darted in and out with stone enhanced punches aimed at forcing Joro to keep him active just to track them both at once.
"You’re not actually landing anything that matters," Joro snarled, swinging wide to keep both of them at arms length. Sweat was beginning to form along his forehead by now...
"Don’t need to," Eleanor said. "We just need you tired."
The fight dragged on, brutal and never ending. Joro’s swings growing considerably slower with each passing minute, his breathing became rougher and the red energy around the axe flickering.
Mark took blow after blow, gauntlets and [Bastion’s Oath] straining harder to compensate as exhaustion crept into his own body.
"Now!" Eleanor shouted, catching the exact moment Joro’s guard finally faltered.
Mark drove forward with everything he had left, gauntlets crashing into Joro’s exposed chest hard enough to lift him briefly off his feet, and Eleanor followed instantly, stone wrapped fist connecting with his jaw and tearing into his face with a blow that finally dropped him to the ground.
Joro didn’t get back up....
Silence fell over the hall, broken only by their own ragged breathing, and Eleanor sank against the wall for a moment, stone gauntlets dissolving and revealing her skin...
"That," Mark said, wheezing, "sucked."
"Yeah," Eleanor agreed, laying on the ground. "It really did."
***
In the other hall, Lucas stopped trying to predict when [Ignition] would work.
He simply swung.
The flame stuttered around his fist as he threw the punch, dead one instant and roaring the next, and it connected with Ryker’s forearm mid flicker, catching just enough to burn through fabric and skin both before swinging the sword and hitting him with the hilt.
Ryker hissed, recoiling, and Lucas pressed forward immediately, not waiting to see if the next strike would burn or not.
He didn’t bother anymore...
"You’re fighting blind," Ryker snarled, blade flashing in retaliation.
"Yeah," Lucas said, dodging the swing and swinging back. "Turns out that works fine too."
He stopped trying to time his strikes around the glitch and instead simply attacked constantly. Whethere [Ignition] would catch or fail didn’t matter.
Some strikes landed cold and useless against Ryker’s guard. Others caught mid flare, burning through his defense with enough force to make him stagger.
The unpredictability which Lucas had realized at a point was actually working in his favor.
Ryker’s [Sword Proficiency] countered technique with technique, it read patterns and gave a viable solution. But there was no pattern to read in an opponent whose attacks might or might not be on fire at any given moment.
"This isn’t... this isn’t how fighting works—" Ryker’s composure cracked further with every exchange, annoyance becoming harder and harder to hide under the sheer chaos of Lucas’ uncoordinated assault.
"Yeah, well... fighting with a glitched skill doesn’t exactly leave you with many options..." Lucas said, driving a flame caught punch into Ryker’s ribs that doubled him over before striking with the blade in his other hand.
The clashed again, sparks flying with every exchange.
Lucas struck with the sword when his fists were cold, then he struck with his hands when they were hot. He alternated between the two and it gave Ryker no room to predict his next moves.
[Ding!]
[Skill; Ignition has been activated]
Suddenly, [Ignition] flared to full, stable strength for one extended moment, and Lucas seized it without hesitation, tossing the sword completely aside and driving Ryker backward with a flurry of burning strikes that finally, overwhelmed his failing guard.
He had to make this count...
He caught Ryker’s sword arm, twisted and drove Ryker’s blade into his side.
He did it once, then again, then a third time, each strike landing with the accumulated fury of everything the last loops had cost him.
"You have no idea," Lucas said, voice raw with fury and driving the blade home a fourth time as Ryker’s knees finally buckled beneath him, "how many times I’ve had to die just to get here."
[Player is not allowed to reveal Regression ability. Violation means death.]
Lucas ignored and kept stabbing him. "You. Actually. Killed. Me. More than once..."
Ryker collapsed, blood pooling fast beneath him, and for one long moment, no one moved.
[You have died.]
The notification bloomed into Ryker’s vision, addressed to him alone.
[You have been killed by the Terror]
Lucas staggered back, chest heaving and blade slipping from his fingers as he was too exhausted to hold it any longer.
Then, throughout the fortress, something changed.
[Ding!]
[You have been freed from The Tyrant’s Hypnosis.]
Distant voices rose in confusion. Survivors blinking awake as all of their eyes began to clear.
The people that had the tired expressions on their faces rubbed their eyes as it widened in surprise.
Some doubled down, clutching their heads, others just stood in stunned silence as the effects of The Tyrant’s [Hypnosis] started wear off.
Eleanor blinked once, then again. Her eyes scanning the hall and the dead man in front of them. "What? What’s happening? Why are we still here?"
Mark who was sitting on the ground scratched his head.. "Oh man... I’m gonna die from this headache."
Eleanor’s head snapped upwards. "Lucas..."
[Ding!]
[The Terror has challenged The Tyrant...]
[...And won.]
Eleanor stared at the notification with wide eyes and snapped her heads towards the open hall in front of them.
Lucas lay down on the ground, chest heaving and exhaustion gripping him harder than it ever did.
He breathed hard, staring at nothing, exhaustion and relief tangling together into something too heavy to properly process, his hands and part of his face painted red with blood...
He had won... he had actually won... without having to die to come up with any kind of strategy...
He blinked, his eyes fixed into the ceiling. "Fucking bastard..."
[Ding!]
"Hm?" he turned to the crimson screen...
[You have killed The Tyrant.]
[The legend of The Terror has began to spread.]
Lucas couldn’t help but laugh. A dry tired laugh escaping his lips...
"So you’re just going to let everyone know about it, huh? You got no respect for privacy..."
The notification hung there, silent as it had always been, then another screen bloomed in his vision.
[Player is not allowed to reveal Regression ability. Violation means death.]
Lucas stared at it once and rolled his eyes tiredly, too exhausted to care about the warning...
"Shut up..."