Accidental Reaver

Chapter 202 - 201: Spar

Luke's arctic gales clashed against Annika's torrential rain.

His Golden Stigmata pulsed against the Domain and tier advantage Annika held over the Reaver. The rolling grasslands turned into grassed mush and mud. The two opposing forces cut out all illumination but thin light beams. Unaffected, the Golden Stigmata glowed brightly enough to be visible underneath the part of Asani's Jerkin covering it.

Annika's recently developed serious demeanor nearly shattered when she saw that. The intellectual lust clashed against the decision to teach. She spasmed, then muttered low enough that not even Luke made it out, covered up by aura and pouring rain.

Visibly pained, Annika argued with herself. "Ignore the Golden Mark changing again. Ignore it. Ignore it. We can examine it all later…" She pulled at her hair, then stamped her foot once in accusation. "When are you going to act normal for once?" Her gaze honed in on the glow, to which the owl etching began to examine. "The Golden Stigmata? Scholar's Wit says it is…" She mumbled again, going on into incomprehensible ravings.

Luke quizzically deflated. Every Defier had mental issues in one way or another. Came with the whole slaughtering man-eating Divinity blessed monsters, he guessed, or maybe the pressure fundamental to the position.

Snapping his fingers a few times to get Annika's attention, he said, "You mentioned a primer earlier, Annika? On what?"

Called out, Annika brightened, she pointed at a small pool that formed in a dip in the grasslands. "Freeze it over, expand it until one of the elemental marks appeared."

Elemental marks? Luke internally questioned, but did as told anyway.

Expelling frost essence, the small water gathering froze over and developed rapidly with so much moisture to latch onto. One of the gray runes that formed sometimes on Luke's ice ever since he became an elemental human etched itself onto the center of the piece.

Commanding the water around her through Cedric, Annika contained the ice. "That elemental mark lends a permanence to your element. It's a whole level above in resilience, power, and sustains itself without your resource once it exists. When you're fully matured, you'll be able to materialize up to seven simultaneously."

Thinking back on it, the Reaver never remembered more than three of those sigils coming out in any terrain of his. Sometimes the runes that spread from Xera through Essence Bond might conflict with that image, but in general, those elemental marks—as Annika called them—appeared up to a set of three, often fairly far apart.

Out of curiosity, Luke asked, "How many can you do, Annika?"

"Five. With your ascension, four should eventually be possible for you."

"Can I do anything with those elemental marks? How are they important?"

"They're more a representation of staking your territory and sustaining it for you. Think of it as an anchor for your body to fully ramp up your elemental control. You're not a human anymore, Lukey. Gaining this mastery over an element is like an additional limb, one you're learning about all over again, now that you fundamentally evolved to handle it better."

Gradually, five white elemental marks appeared within Annika's Domain, often at random locations. Luke's own pockets of control summoned three similar-looking gray runes. When he concentrated on it, indeed, his mastery over ice honed to a razor edge. Any mental capacity to control it minimized. The elemental marks whispered secrets for the next rank of mastery.

Pointing Cedric at Luke, Annika made a small circular motion with the staff-spear. She said, "Iona, and the others, even Musai, we're above them in elemental control. Just the two of us evolved using Elementalization as the basis. Musai used another method, fascinating as it is." Annika paused her thought, eyes glancing at a patch of frost that glinted with gold, actively eating away at her torrential downpour. "A Concept?" She risked going into another raving, but bit her lip. "You would've ended up understanding all this by yourself if you had time. As the city drains itself, none of us nine do. Today's probably the last day where we can move freely, expect to be called to the walls as soon as tomorrow afternoon."

"The marks are a warm-up indication that I'm operating at full capacity? Can the marks be consumed? What happens if I use up ice with a mark attached?" Luke just went ahead and moved ice that held one of the marks, and crushed it to create force, blasting apart the rain, disrupting Annika's Domain. Another mark reappeared on a different suitable piece of ice.

Overall, Annika won out against him; she had her Domain for support and more marks. Her mastery over control equaled the Reaver's. She also produced a greater quantity of an element to work with. Which led to a final question before scratching the building battle itch.

"What use is having additional marks?"

"Each mark upgrades the toughness and quality of the element you use." She cut her palm with Cedric, rushing water restored it in the blink of an eye. "Every additional mark you're able to muster ends up reinforcing your elemental body. Better regeneration, senses, connection. Without a different means to bridge the gap, like a Concept or higher mastery, the only thing equal between us as elementals is our raw control."

Testing Xera out with a strike to the side, a fissure of ice lathered onto the puddles all around the Reaver. Annika, with superior tier, mark quantity, and experience as an elemental, seemed to have every advantage. Except he could tell she followed the path of integrating her second highest elemental affinity. In comparison, he chose to listen to Ceridia and apply the Greed Concept to ice, forgoing any secondary element for the time being.

Coming at Annika using irregular zig-zags, the Reaver aimed to throw her off to create an opening. The usual raw attribute, or technique superiority methods, would fall short against this woman. With the agreement to withhold any class abilities—and therefore the majority of the Legacy of Greed—less used tactics like this came back to the surface.

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Spacing herself perfectly, Annika kept up. The owl etching on her cheek pulsed against the rain. Streams struck Luke, some freezing on contact, while others pierced through, slowing him down. Annika pierced precisely where Luke would go next, like she calculated every move. Her water control became increasingly skilled at countering Luke's freezing, but the opposite was also true.

The two entered into a symbiosis, heightening the abilities of their respective element. The practice duel was for sharpening themselves, rather than to risk life and limb. That didn't mean Annika held back much—if at all. Her Domain pressured every inch of ice or frost Luke produced. It hindered his movements, control, and tore into the ice elemental. Their two different mists clashed.

Under the obviously losing side, the Reaver became reliant on plastering the Greed Concept to frost. It tremendously drained his mental fuel tank. With no other choice, he paced himself, interrupting Annika's flow, and retaking momentum to prevent being permanently on the back foot.

Over the dozens of minutes, the two blurred, uprooting entire mountains. Their clashes blasted apart hilltops or created new muddy craters. Xera blurted in excitement every ten or so collisions against Cedric. Otherwise, the two Defiers fought against each other in silence—concentrating. Every time the Reaver adjusted, Annika slightly upped the ante, a woman with oceanic depths. Rain started to pelt Luke vertically. His breathing elevated. Nicks appeared. Annika read the Reaver exquisitely. The owl imprint scanned him multiple times a second. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Xera deflected Cedric. Bits of metal came off her blade.

Through regenerating the metal with essence, Luke kept up, but it was an additional tax Annika didn't have to pay. Their tempo sped up again, the frost cracked against water, the water rushed against the frost. As the clashes became more vicious, water and frost burst out, creating a zone that pushed back the rain and turned the soil into wasteland.

"Faster, Luke. An Envoy doesn't relent. They eat an average tier 2 without breaking a sweat."

Deeper wounds appeared all over his body. Annika delved into realms of speed he struggled to adapt to, overcoming his agility attribute and Infusion's passive speed boost. Flush with ice, the wounds smoothed over and closed up. Vampiric regeneration assisted elemental regeneration. Blood Haze went in and out of effect. Annika's tier advantage seemed less an issue. The real difference came from her superior mastery over a second technique.

"Studier than expected, Scholar's wit says another factor is at play—even accounting for being an evolved. I've heard about the Golden Stigmata making its host greater than usual."

"Something like that, Annika. I'm adjusting to it. Ever heard of the Origin Path?"

Exposing weaknesses in Luke's stance and strike paths, Annika nearly dismantled him. She spoke while trying to skewer him, "Just the words, not the meaning. Musai questioned it once or twice. Old blade refuses to expound upon it, drives me crazy."

There went another hilltop, sliced apart by water, then frozen solid. Subsequently pierced through by Cedric into pieces, and cut into finer shards by Xera. Faced with someone overall superior in attributes, battle experience, tier, technique mastery, and even a higher level artifact, the list lengthened the more the Reaver accounted for it. A wide smile bloomed. Weather worsened, hail joined in, mists thickened to the point a normal tier 1 wouldn't be able to see their nose.

Annika began to curve Cedric to impossible lengths, water spiked out, cutting out a piece of Luke's ribs. Similar events repeated dozens of times, he'd become adept at using the elemental power to heal. When the constant pressing became too much, he Triple Stepped to land a real blow of his own, shearing halfway into Annika's shoulder.

She acted perfectly composed. Cedric thrust through the Reaver's thigh. Force freezing Xera's contact point, Luke shattered it to create counter force, slipping the blade out, and toward Annika's exposed neck. She stopped the strike with the spear shaft. Continuing the exchanges, the Reaver refined his battle style, better integrating the sheer vitality he obtained. He could trade much more vicious wounds than normally tactical prior to the evolution. He aimed at her heart, and Annika skewered his stomach.

Condensing her Domain, pressure cracked Luke's living ice. He found the ether in the air became extremely hard to suck in. Annika used the Domain to obtain near-complete control over it. Unlike against Calista, she also matched Luke in elemental control, negating that method to fight the Domain.

"Scholar's Wit has examined all your patterns, Luke. You're solved."

"Am I? Let's add a new variable."

He bound the Greed Concept more fervently, beyond sustainable levels. The ether tore away from Annika's control, streaming into Luke. Frosts expanded, eating away at Annika's waters. Their interchanges sped up further, each forced to refine to keep up.

"You've nearly reached Aruna's level already. I'll send her a sigil recording if you don't mind? Should light up her pride again."

"Go ahead." The Reaver diverted another spear strike, concentrating frost essence to freeze the oncoming water. "Why exactly can I not use Sooty again?"

Skillfully using Cedric, Annika disengaged the two of them, then gestured for a pause.

"She's part of your class, silly student." The Water Domain lifted, and the liquid vanished, returning the rolling grass hills to normal, well, except for the missing hilltops and new craters. Small details. Following the suggested pause, the Reaver thawed all the frost and ice, clearing the last of the mists. Gentle sunlight settled back at the scene of cataclysm.

Careful footsteps came from behind, passing through the barrier splitting this realm, even this far out. Iona appeared roughed up, magma sizzled against a wooden skin she adhered to herself to protect against the deadly substance. She slowly inspected the devastation. Meanwhile, Lulu dove off to rendezvous for bird time with Sooty. Timber sat on his rear end, clearly exhausted.

Whistling in appreciation, Iona said, "If you said two experienced tier 3 hunters fought here, I'd believe it." Striding confidently over to Luke, Iona noticed the glowing Golden Stigmata. "Your body mark improved again." She reached out to touch it, stopping for a second, she asked, "May I?"

Exposing his neck somewhat, Luke said, "Get it over with." He flicked with his chin at Annika. "Do your observations, and no, vials are off limits."

The runewarden floundered, then scampered over, taking out some sort of examination crystal. Iona felt the mark and marveled, "Completely transcribed to your skin, a bloodline-deep imprint. To think a reward like that was hidden in one of the three subsidiary dungeons."

"I don't remember telling you how exactly I got the mark, or did I?"

"You've never set foot in the Tower, and that sort of reward is near non-existent there as well. Where else would you get it?"

Looking up at the clear skies, Luke said, "Got me there. Power of deduction can tell you a lot. What's got you coming over, Iona?"

Wrists against her hips, pointed outwards, Iona said, "An elf can't come and greet a friend for no reason at all?"

"Not when time is this precious."

Caught with too cold a logic, Iona coughed. "Ice suits you, Luke. Just make sure it doesn't consume you. I needed a break, and Lulu wanted to play with Sooty. There's a good chance we won't see each other during the Tide. People like Annika or me will be assigned to the center, where the Apostles and Diplomats tend to languish. While you and Aruna—"

"We get pushed to the sides, there to handle any errant Envoys?"

"Glad you see it so clearly."

"Pieced it together from Eldacar's talking to, between his mention about making…never mind."

The elf chopped Annika in the back of the neck when the woman brought out scrapers to chip off a section of skin the Golden Stigmata imprinted upon. She scowled, "The world sure is a twisted place, making you the strongest Defier under Musai. Experiments after you toughened him up enough to live."

Muttering owie a handful of times while covering the afflicted spot with both hands, Annika sulked. She sat down, knees close to her chest.

Rolling her eyes, Iona ignored the dramatic runewarden. Cedric started one of his education sessions with Xera about finding a different identity outside of the baseline imprinted by the divine craftsman that made her. Amused at the emotional range, Luke smiled slightly. That wiped off a moment later, though, as Iona brought up a different subject that needed attention.

"Since it's come this close, let's talk about Envoys, Luke. While each one is different, there is always a handful of things they have in common."