BANG
One of Pele''s walls slammed its great hammer down towards Skyzo''s head but he simply raised his palm and caught it in his bare hands. Though the earlier explosion had thinned out the Volcanic Veterans there were still more than enough to keep Skyzo''s Sanction up and running to a degree that made him incontestable. He kicked out with his foot and sent the wall spiralling into two shriekers that exploded on contact and made another series of explosions ring out across the arena. Skyzo''s next order of business were the standards surrounding him so he turned on his heel and launched a roundhouse kick to the chest of one of the soldiers. His foot sunk into the standard''s body, allowing him to pull it towards him and grab its head before tossing it around like a rag doll, flinging it into another group. Dealing with soldiers one by one would take forever and so leveraging their volatile bodies for his own gain was Skyzo''s plan here. That didn''t mean he was giving up on finesse, however, as he dodged a spear thrust by shifting to the side before stabbing the soldier in its eye with a rusty dagger. As there were other soldiers encroaching upon him he didn''t have time to kick away the body but that was fine because he had a different plan for it altogether. With a small hop, Skyzo placed his feet firmly on the chest of the stabbed soldier and crouched down low.
BOOM
The explosion was utilised by Skyzo to propel him forward through the air with incredible speed. He flew past countless other Volcanic Veterans and slashed them all as he twirled through the gaps in their ranks. Skyzo tore through a line of nearly fifteen soldiers and landed flawlessly on a single foot at the end of his flight with all his foes crumbling behind him. Though normally he was a lazy and constantly uninterested individual, right now he painted a picture of an experienced and deathly silent assassin who left his targets in the dust with the greatest of ease. A standard attempted to ruin this visage by charging at Skyzo with a sword and committing to an overhead swing but Skyzo simply grabbed the soldier''s raised elbow, took one step behind it, kicked out its knee and forced it to the ground, and ended the interaction with a roundhouse kick to the face that treated the soldier''s head like a football. He punted the makeshift bomb into a group of standards advancing towards him and wiped out the congregated enemies. A thrusting spear came from his blind angle immediately after but he managed to catch the unexpected attack underneath his armpit and lock down the weapon. The soldier tried pulling it back with all his might but that failed completely as Skyzo''s strength from multiple, simultaneous Sanctions wasn''t something the soldier could beat out. Skyzo gripped the tip of the spear with his free other arm and yanked it forward. The rest of the spear came sliding through the gap between Skyzo''s arm and his side but the soldier, still clutching the weapon, obviously couldn''t fit. Instead he was reverse clotheslined and laid out flat on his back as he skid past Skyzo who used his stolen spear to finish the job with a precise stab to the dome. before the standard detonated, Skyzo hopped back a short distance and grappled a nearby soldier, swinging him around to be between Skyzo and the blast.
BOOM
The previous soldier burst in a ball of lava which, in turn, sent the spear buried in its skull hurtling in Skyzo''s direction. Or that would have been the case provided he hadn''t shoved another Volcanic Veteran in its path a few seconds earlier. The flying spear pierced yet another head while Skyzo kicked off a nearby standard to jump into the air and gain height.
BOOM
The second detonating soldier blasted the spear upwards, straight into Skyzo''s fully prepared hand. He was actively using the blasts to his own benefit. This spear wasn''t a personal treasure but he could return it to his grasp by effectively making use of his opponents inherent traits. This took talent and raw skill which Skyzo had aplenty, as demonstrated by his ability to do this on repeat no matter what situation he found himself in. Flanked, outnumbered, none of it mattered. He was able to calculate how much time he had to make his move as well as what move he needed to make next in order to keep moving and not get bogged down all in the moment. Even now he wasn''t stopping as he buried the spear into the ground while landing to have it act like a pole. Instead of touching the floor, Skyzo spun around the embedded spear in a crescent shape and turned his jump into a dive kick with enough force to outright break apart the chest of the standard he kicked.
BOOM
The force behind the explosion of the kicked standard was sufficient to dislodge the spear, sending both it and Skyzo sailing backwards towards a nearby wall that had been desperately running around and trying to catch up to the ever-nimble Skyzo. On one hand, his target was now coming towards him. On the other hand, his target was coming towards him at a speed that was inconcievable with his spear ready and primed to pierce a hole through his stomach. Less than a second later, before the wall could even catch up with Skyzo''s movements, that was precisely what had happened. The wall was left staring forward blankly with nothing in its fading sight while Skyzo had charged straight through its stomach region, ending up behind the Veteran, and left a gaping gap about the size of a toddler. The wall collapsed to its knees and exploded shortly after.
In this manner, Skyzo kept bouncing around from enemy to enemy, taking them all down with smart manipulation of his opponents'' positioning. Even though his Spectator''s Sanction art became gradually weaker due to the lower enemy count his pace of destruction didn''t slow down in the slightest. This was how much leeway he had to spare and how much of his skill he''d been keeping in reserve since the start of the fight. Even when there were only five soldiers left he kept moving like a machine. Dodging dangerous attacks, pushing around his foes to put them right where he wanted them, and taking advantage of every misstep his volcanic nemeses made. With one final crush of a skull underneath his boot, Skyzo was now ready to take on Pele herself who''d already gained a decent amount of strength from her own unique art. The shrieker at his feet blew up and shot him forward to meet Pele head on as he pulled out a few tools he had on his person. What was an assassin without various Knick knacks to aid them? One such tool was the tiny grey bauble he''d just chucked at Pele''s feet which erupted into a could of thick smoke the second the glass shattered.
Skyzo''s action put Pele in a rough situation as now she had no idea where his first attack would come from. Yes he was still barrelling towards her in the air but if he stopped himself short and ran to the sides while she was prepared for a frontal showdown that would be a deadly mistake. The reverse was also true as Skyzo would outright kill her on the spot if she didn''t block his flying attack, loaded with lethal momentum. It was a hard spot to be in and she had to make her choice quickly so, although it limited her options after the encounter in terms of where she could move, she chanted to launch the following art. "Coulee Curtain."
Coulee Curtain, like Volcanic Veterans, was an art of the lakes of lava aspect that came underneath the fire pillar. It was an aspect that specialised in spewing lava literally everywhere. tsunamis of the stuff were common with this aspect be it through volcano generation, soldiers that exploded and scattered lava everywhere like the Veterans, or lava rain that that hit frequently but was more of an inconvenience and took a long time to start racking up damage. As for Coulee Curtain, it was similar in nature to Guesswork under the magma mastery aspect. It raised up two curtains wherever the user wanted, made of lava and not magma, that acted like pseudo walls. The goal of these two arts were different though. Guesswork was impossible to see through for a start and that really enforced the guessing aspect of the art on the victim''s end. It was also far hotter so jumping through it would cause burns if you weren''t defensively prepared. Coulee curtain, on the other hand, wasn''t so obstructive. Both sides of the curtain were visible and could be seen through if you peeked at certain angles. It also exploded if you ever tried to step through it, dealing more immediate damage than any burns would over a longer period of time. The one other upside to it over Guesswork was that it marked any opponent who jumped through it recklessly and hitting that mark would, yet again, cause another explosion. Magma mastery typically hurt more but less often whereas lakes of lava hurt less but more often. Lava arts were very good at bursting outward and spraying the damaging lava everywhere, covering a wider range than magma mastery arts that bundled all of its hurt into a single spot. Overall, the two aspects were frequently compared to one another as, more often than any other aspects, they tended to share a lot of arts. They weren''t the exact same but, like Coulee Curtain and guesswork, they were essentially just variants of one another. Yes stuff like Lightning Strike and Flash Thunder existed but they were both part of the same aspect so it was a categorically different situation. In this regard, though between them there was very little that could be considered unique, they stood out from the rest of the aspects and were regarded as sibling aspects. If you could find an art for one, you could almost always find it for the other, albeit with a different name and slightly different use case.
Magma monologue and lava lecture aside, Pele was now guarded on all fronts. She had her curtains preventing an approach from either side, without at least facing serious consequences should they be brute forced, and she''d raised her spear horizontally in preparation to fend off Skyzo should he take the direct route to her... But nothing was happening. Skyzo wasn''t appearing from the left, the right, or directly ahead. The smokescreen surrounding Pele was fading but yet Skyzo was nowhere to be found... Did he run off to go help a teammate after bamboozling Pele? That was a poor choice to make if so as Skyzo wouldn''t be able to contribute more to another fight than Pele would with her lava affecting a decent range. In a two vs two Pele held an advantage over Skyzo provided her teammate wasn''t looking at him. Also, she wanted the one vs one fight! She was having fun messing around with Skyzo and would be pissed if he just left her alone like this! Her complaints were unfounded and proven unnecessary when the smoke faded a little more and Pele caught sight of Skyzo standing idly, deeper within the grey cloud. he wasn''t moving towards her, he wasn''t moving away, he wasn''t attacking. Nothing. Just standing stock still and staring at her... Pele thought this was strange and decided to prod away at him and force a reaction. She inched closer, making sure to keep an eye on her surroundings inside the smoke to prevent an ambush. It wasn''t unthinkable that Skyzo hadn''t gone to a teammate because one had come to him instead! If he was luring her into a trap things could get messy but that didn''t appear to be the case as nothing was sprung even when she was standing a few feet away from Skyzo. She narrowed her eyes, raised her spear, and thrust into the unmoving, unnerving man opposite her.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Shatter
The illusion crumbled and bits of ice fell to the floor in a bundle that slowly melted away. The ''Skyzo'' had been nothing more than a mannequin of sorts? No, that wasn''t right... It didn''t feel like she''d struck a clone or an ice sculpture. It felt like she hit a wall of some kind that broke instantly when touched... Pele didn''t understand what was happening as Skyzo shouldn''t have known an art like this. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, as the smoke faded completely, her questions were answered as she found herself trapped within a series of long hallways.
Thud
Correction, the hallways were not ''long'', they simply appeared as such. Pele had walked a single step in the wrong direction and smacked her head against a wall she hadn''t even been aware of prior to her misstep. After collecting herself and standing up straight, she caught movement out the corner of her eye and turned to face it while launching a pre-emptive attack.
Shatter
Once more a fake Skyzo crumbled into tiny cubes of ice before her and, now that she was surrounded by fake Skyzos on all sides, she was starting to comprehend the situation she was in right now. This was a hall of mirrors and she was but a lost soul, trapped in here and subject to the whims of a revenant. The fake Skyzos were just reflections in a mirror of the real one, hiding deep within this labyrinthian maze and waiting for the perfect time to strike. Pele would be thrown off her guard by the movements of all the fakes while the real Skyzo could creep up on her in full view and still remain undetectable. Although an entirely new experience for Pele, it was not one she appreciated as it gave her the creeps. She''d never stared at her enemy, unable to accomplish anything at all before. She could reach out and touch her foe but it meant nothing. She could walk ''towards'' him and still somehow be putting distance between herself and him. It made her every action and reaction feel pointless. Was she detecting the real Skyzo or was it just an elaborate bait he''d set up? The answer would never be clear up until the very last moment when she struck, by which point it very well may already be too late.
The maze stretched on and on and, no matter how many carefully approached turns around corners she made, it never seemed to end. She couldn''t even tell if she was walking in loops or had made any ground at all. The one thing she did know is that the number of mirrored Skyzos was increasing for some reason... Why he''d chosen to do this was obvious, Pele thought. The more distractions he creates, the more likely he''ll be to succeed when he launches his attack. That was her line of thinking. It wasn''t wrong per se but there was more to it she''d yet to fully realise. It was only when she rounded yet another corner, and found herself in a hexagonal junction, that she finally comprehended how deeply screwed she was right now if she couldn''t escape soon for find a way to fight back.
She''d felt a presence in this maze from the start, one that intermittently grew stronger before becoming weaker like a pulse. Only now that this presence was at its peak, and bearing down on her heavily, had she connected the dots on why this was happening. The presence was the real Skyzo growing more powerful depending on how many of his mirrored reflections Pele could see at any given time. He wasn''t increasing the number of fakes to create a distraction, he was doing it to increase his own power and unless Pele closed her eyes she couldn''t help but inadvertently, drastically raise his strength at all times. If she closed her eyes, however, she was practically inviting him to come and stab her unguarded self. It may have seemed like a poor option but, as she was sitting in the middle of the junction, with potentially around 100, if not more, reflections all within her peripheral vision, she knew it was one she needed to make before she bit the dust. Skyzo, at this level of strength, would be able to take her out without a sweat and yet still he''d waited. He was patient and knew better than to foolishly rush. If he struck at the precise second Pele closed her eyes there was potential for everything to go atrociously wrong. She would catch a glimpse of him, reduce his strength, and be able to fight back against him in this limited space. He would very likely die if everything went wrong in such a fashion so patience became the virtue he embodied. There was no reason to strike before she closed her eyes, it simply wasn''t worth that risk as far as he was concerned and, the worst part, was that Pele knew it. She knew this was what he was after. With her eyes closed he held the advantage in combat and, if she opened them, that advantage would skyrocket explosively. Rather than let him be strong and then take that strength away, she was in the exact reverse position and could do nothing about it.
He''d cornered her like a rat.
Still, there was one hope here and that was the fact that her cultivation was, originally, at the 10th stage of mental accumulation. This meant her salvation was close at hand as her Feel The Heat! could raise that cultivation into Sensory Enhancement. Divine sense wouldn''t help her as, if anything, it would make this situation worse. Using it would give her a full third person view and cause her to take in even more fake Skyzos so that was a no go. The real benefit here was the general enhancing of her senses. These benefits were seen as inconsequential in comparison to the attainment of divine sense but that didn''t mean they didn''t have their uses. Her improved sense of smell would help her locate Skyzo amidst the icy, odourless mirrors. Her heightened sense of touch would allow her to detect changes in the air and vibrations in the ground to pinpoint the direction of incoming attacks and Skyzo''s location respectively. Her bettered sense of hearing would enable her to chase him down if she started winning the fight and turning the tables causing him to retreat. But in order for all of this to actually come true, she needed her Feel The Heat! to reach its limit and there was still time before that happened... Until then, she was going to have struggle to fight back with her eyes closed and suffer countless injuries in the meantime. Skyzo wouldn''t over-commit to anything and would try and whittle her down. The question now was, could she hold out until then and pay him back? Only time would tell and there was still a lot left on the clock.
While Skyzo and Pele were playing a game of 100 cats vs a single mouse, the outcome of which was not as crystal clear as one might think, and while Verv was still running down Deimos on his bike, Venus was toying with Phobos with a brilliant smile on her face. This wasn''t quite sadism but it was close. Palioxis had made an attempt to intervene earlier but was currently being held down by Fate so, right now, Phobos was on his own and the thought of that was enough to scare him witless. He was quaking in his boots and every shot he fired was slightly inaccurate due to shakiness of his bow handling. Venus made no attempt to kill him though and instead just played along with his pathetic showing. If anyone could read her mind they would find out that the reason for her doing nothing despite having victory almost assured was because she was savouring his shy and nervy appearance into a folder in her brain that should never be opened by a human who wished to remain sane. Basically, Venus enjoyed bullying shotas... Well she enjoyed pretty much everything about them, and no one reaction was ever favoured over another, it''s just that right now this was what was happening. Confident shotas, scared shotas, happy shotas, sad shotas. Shota shota shota. That was all this woman had in her brain. She''d even spent most of her time in Red Sun haunting playgrounds and creeping around schools. There was a non-zero chance this woman had made it onto a watchlist somewhere.
None of that mattered right now though as there was a fight going on and that stuff could wait until after she was done here, at which point she could return to her shota hunting ways. Her current thoughts were as follows: Overwhelm the shota, mock the shota, beat the shota, take advantage of the weak shota and hug him, protect the shota from the rest of her family for the last few minutes of the match and have the shota fall in love with her. A very simplistic mindset that effectively made her some kind of hero figure in Phobos'' eyes after she had her fun with him... And it was very clearly never going to work but that was her own problem... As for the actual ''fight'', every time Phobos fired an arrow at her, she shot one of her revolvers at it to force a collision and send it flailing away from her. These revolvers she owned had the effect of passively reloading whenever not in use and had an infinite supply of ammo which was perfect for the style of combat Venus stuck to. The Lock ''N'' Loads, her two revolvers, allowed her to fire off a couple of bullets and focus on controlling them in mid air. By the time she was done throwing the bullets around wherever she wanted them with her magic, the guns would already be reloaded. The Lock ''N'' Loads were pretty useless to anyone who wasn''t Venus as their upside of reloading when not being used was irrelevant to anyone who didn''t have something else to be doing while they were reloading. Whether or nor the gun reloaded for you meant nothing other than saving the user some effort but for Venus specifically it smoothened out her ability to rotate between firing the bullets and controlling them without pause.
As for the art that let her control the bullets after pulling the trigger, that was called Unpredictabullet and came under the gun aspect in the weapons pillar. Its main use was for snipers to readjust their shots during flight instead of compensating for wind beforehand. It might seem lazy but sometimes being able to take the shot quicker prevented the loss of what would have otherwise been a invaluable opportunity. Plus there were all sorts of obstacles that could come into play unexpectedly after firing so having that backup plan to enable curving the bullet was never a bad thing. Few gunmen ever really used this art with any type of gun other than rifles but there was an exception to every rule and here was one such exception in the form of Venus. Her affiliation for the gun aspect was pretty non-standard and she could control multiple bullets at the same time. This was an astounding feat, actually, it''s just that she was such a massive degenerate it was hard to ever take her or her prowess seriously. Even the gun exemplar would be impressed should they see what Venus was capable of, it was that noteworthy. It also meant the art, Unpredictabullet, transcended its typical use case and now had value with weapons that could put out a higher fire rate. Going from pestering an opponent with one heat seeking bullet to swarming them with around 7 or 8 at the same time was a huge step up and made the art much more applicable in a wider range of scenarios. If Venus so chose, she could prevent Phobos from firing even a single arrow by blasting them out of his hand over and over while running him through repeatedly with the extra bullets, turning him into Swiss cheese on the spot. Of course Phobos wasn''t actually cheese but that didn''t mean Venus wasn''t playing with her food right now and, judging by the gleeful look on her face, she found her main dish to be scrumptious and delectable down to the last bite.
Despite Phobos falling behind, of the Legions, only Palioxis was really concerned and her worry wasn''t even because of him potentially losing. Pali was more on edge about Venus'' intentions than anything because, although it didn''t look like it right now, Phobos was more than capable of fighting back. Whether he''d win or not was a coin toss as a lot of the fighters here today were evenly matched but there was a chance and it was a respectable one too. His main issue was finding the spring in his step, at which point he would be good to go... The only real question was how to get him pumped up and have him really feel the stakes of the match? Though various other members of the Legion clan were giving this some thought, they all knew they really needn''t bother as right now Palioxis was considering every possible method available and would no doubt solve the problem herself. When it came to Phobos, there was no better cure for whatever was ailing him than to just leave him to his sister. How was Pali going to fix her brother while she was in the middle of an intense fight? Well... Maybe the fight was actually just the thing she needed for her plan to work!