The Lone Wanderer

Chapter 602 – Brittle

Locating Lord Parnassus amidst the chaotic battlefield suddenly became trivial for Micky. No matter how fast the Violet moved or what obstacles separated the two combatants, his soul simply stood out too much from everything else.

Unfortunately, there was a limit to what Micky could learn through his blurry senses. Perfectly predicting his opponent’s moves or generating accurate projections of the future were out of the question.

Still, the influx of information helped Micky adapt to the patriarch’s rhythm.

Instead of slashing randomly at the burning tongues and hoping he dispelled some by accident, he had a much easier time targeting them deliberately. Micky was able to preserve his mana and stamina, only unleashing a barrage of grey crescents whenever he felt that it would eliminate enough projectiles.

His Mana Sense and domain had already helped him aim at the incoming whips even before his most recent breakthrough, but catching glimpses of his opponent’s flaring soul further improved Micky’s reaction speed, allowing his scythes to sever more of the patriarch’s whips.

The vastly reduced number of attacks that landed on Micky also meant that he no longer had to randomly move his cores around his body and hope that his luck didn’t run out, giving him some breathing room. In turn, it sharply slowed down his accumulation of damage and minimized his mana consumption, while also allowing him to push his boosting art to the limit again.

Micky was still very much in a pinch, as sensing and parrying the patriarch’s blows stretched his already tired mind thinner, but he was finally able to redirect much of his mana and attention into repairing his fourth scythe.

Lord Parnassus must have realized that he was about to lose his advantage, because he promptly intensified his assault to put pressure on Micky, clearly not caring about his own consumption.

Thankfully, Micky managed to hold on just long enough to replace his missing weapon, immediately putting it to good use. Unleashing his Turbulent Lotus over and over again, he increased the number of soul-cleaving crescents by a meaningful thirty-three percent while eliminating his previous blind spot.

Overall, his mana expenditure didn’t necessarily decrease, but Micky certainly preferred channelling the excess into his counterattacks rather than into regenerating his body. His newfound senses only improved the situation further, allowing him to put Lord Parnassus on the backfoot for the first time since the start of the battle.

‘Hmmm… it’s nice that I’m finally able to resist properly, but I’ll never win like this,’ Micky realized.

He doubted that the Violet would be able to breach his defences again anytime soon, but he also didn’t see any of his own grey crescents landing on the nimble patriarch.

This wouldn’t do.

With neither side having a way to break the stalemate, the battle could easily last for hours – maybe even days. In theory, Lord Parnassus would eventually need to sleep or eat due to the limitations of his human body, but Micky was pretty sure that they would be interrupted long before it got to that point.

Sooner or later, the Violet-level battle was bound to catch the attention of the local nobles. Should that happen, the owners of this province would respond in one of three possible ways: they would stay out of the fight entirely, help Micky in the hopes of ingratiating themselves to Percy, or assist Lord Parnassus – mostly to avoid getting on Machaon’s bad side.

Admittedly, the final scenario was the least likely, but Micky didn’t want to leave his survival up to the whims of a third party. Besides, there was also a small chance that the disgraced White or his associates were nearby and would notice the commotion by themselves – which would be catastrophic.

‘I need to end this, disguise myself and reach Twilight City as soon as possible,’ Micky reminded himself.

Objectively speaking, Micky was growing faster than his opponent, since this was his first time exploring the limits of his malleable body and improved boosting art after his fusion and subsequent separation from Percy.

He’d already developed a whopping four new techniques in the last few minutes, and he was confident that he would come up with even more given enough time. While he’d admittedly been at a complete disadvantage at the start of the battle, it was fair to say that he was slightly ahead by now.

Sadly, small, incremental improvements weren’t enough in this case – especially because Lord Parnassus had also improved noticeably over the course of their fight. Perhaps not as much as Micky, but the patriarch’s gains were undeniable.

As old and experienced as he was, it was clear that the shrewd Violet hadn’t had many opportunities to face off against worthy opponents over the centuries – and certainly not in a long time.

That might have to do with the fact that his House used to be sponsored by the Divine Order – by his own admission – thus deterring their rivals from attacking. Or it might simply be due to how rare and ill-advised it was for a Violet to leave their territory and fight against another Violet.

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Whatever the reason was, it would take Micky a while to widen the gap enough to win, leaving the door open for outside interference. Even if nobody showed up, Lord Parnassus wasn’t a fool. He was bound to realize that the tides had turned against him long before Micky backed him into a corner, at which point the patriarch would simply escape. Should that happen, Micky would be stuck having to guard his mind against the Violet’s insidious bloodline until their next meeting – or Micky’s advancement.

‘I can’t afford to let him get away. The last thing we need right now are more enemies,’

Micky realized, the corner of his beak shifting into the closest thing to a frown.The problem was that Micky wouldn’t be able to keep up with the Violet if he tried to fly away, unless he shrank or transformed into a crow – both of which would expose him to his opponent’s counterattack once again, thus bringing him back to square one.

By turning his body incorporeal, Micky could vastly increase his speed enough to catch up without shapeshifting, but that wasn’t a great idea either. The patriarch would only need to launch a few attacks to force Micky to materialize again and protect his cores, which would slow him down. No matter what, it looked like the Violet was going to get away.

‘Not on my watch,’ Micky thought, scrambling to come up with a way to win.

If Micky wanted to get rid of Lord Parnassus once and for all, he would have to prepare a trap. Admittedly, that style of fighting was more up Percy’s alley, but Micky still had access to many of his friend’s memories, as well as all the other tools necessary to make it work.

Happy with his plan, Micky carefully restricted his counterattack to give Lord Parnassus the impression that he was a little weaker than he actually was. That way, Micky would be less likely to scare his opponent off – not to mention that his trap required him to receive some controlled damage anyway.

Methodically conceding ground, Micky gradually let the burning tongues closer, eventually allowing some to breach his defences again. However, he made sure to guard his vitals and limbs this time, unwilling to lose another weapon.

The Violet’s attacks shaved chunks of ice and strips of grey cloth off of Micky’s body, littering the ground as he retreated. The ice melted and evaporated before it even landed, leaving nothing behind. Unbeknownst to Lord Parnassus, Micky carefully phased a few pieces of magical silk through the dirt, hiding them underground.

He still had to leave most of them on the surface to prevent his opponent from noticing anything, but the number of hidden constructs slowly accumulated as Micky led his opponent in circles and used his phantom mana to regenerate his Cloak as fast as he could.

Enchanted with concealment runes and separated from the patriarch’s domain by several metres of dirt and rock, the pieces of grey fabric that Micky had planted underground remained firmly outside the old man’s notice as he continued to chase Micky around.

It was a pity that Micky couldn’t replicate the constructs nearly as fast as Percy, otherwise he would have produced enough within a couple of minutes. As things stood, he would probably need over half an hour to prepare everything. Even so, he persisted, patiently saturating the ravaged battlefield with mana as his opponent unknowingly accelerated his own demise.

Eventually, Micky felt that he had scattered enough pieces.

Giving Lord Parnassus a false opening, he waited for him to unleash a storm of blazing tongues, the poor fool probably hoping to sever another limb or two. Obviously, Micky had no intention of letting that happen.

Concentrating on the projectiles, he used the Turbulent Lotus to shoot dozens of grey crescents in every direction, shredding the patriarch’s constructs to harmless motes of orange.

Lord Parnassus took a step back in shock, probably realizing that Micky had been suppressing his skill for a while. Sadly for him, it was way too late to do anything about it.

Countless discarded pieces of silk sprung up, the soul mana embedded inside the fabric helping Micky control so many of them remotely. He made sure to keep them invisible for as long as possible too, though it clearly didn’t take Lord Parnassus long to discover them with his domain. The man leapt upwards and backwards, trying to fly away with his willpower.

Undeterred by his opponent’s attempt to flee, Micky had the constructs cannibalize themselves, feeding the ice mana of the other runes into the heating enchantments and unleashing a wave of chilling air that specifically targeted a person’s soul.

At the same time, he unfolded his own domain, forcing the fraying strands to interlock with one another even faster than they already were, forming a second layer of heating runes. Finally, he arranged those into an even larger version of the enchantment that spanned over a hundred metres across.

Worse still – for Lord Parnassus, that was – the components of the enormous formation turned incorporeal, flying alongside the patriarch at a ridiculous speed and preventing him from escaping its boundary.

Not that he didn’t try.

The poor man emptied his core, releasing his remaining mana through his palms and soles. Seemingly not even caring about his incinerated shoes, Lord Parnassus shot four narrow columns of condensed flames from his extremities to accelerate beyond what was possible with just his domain.

Assuming that the patriarch’s reserves could last for a couple of seconds, there was a small chance of him outrunning the giant enchantment. A hundred metres wasn’t that much to a Violet and, despite how fast Micky’s ethereal mana could travel, his control would decline steeply if it moved too far from his body.

Luckily, Lord Parnassus didn’t have a couple of seconds.

A grey, translucent sphere appeared at the centre of the formation. It started off no larger than a watermelon, but it expanded to cover the entire enchantment in an instant.

The orange jets propelling the patriarch away fizzled out like candle flames on contact with the grey region, the enormous bubble filtering every strand of light passing through it.

From where Micky stood, it looked like a circular patch of sky with Lord Parnassus at its centre lost all colour, appearing like a dull, charcoal painting. Time itself seemed to crawl to a halt as everything inside the grey bubble stop moving entirely.

That only lasted for a fraction of a second before a series of loud cracks formed on the enormous sphere. Then, it shattered into countless pieces larger than houses, which continued to disintegrate into smaller and smaller fragments, eventually turning into powder that faded away.

Micky ignored all of that, his gaze locked onto his opponent’s body that was already falling. On the outside, Lord Parnassus appeared entirely unharmed. Other than the bottom of his shoes that he had destroyed by himself, the patriarch hadn’t suffered even a single physical injury throughout the battle.

However, Micky finally relaxed upon failing to spot even the faintest hint of silver inside the man’s frame. The Violet’s soul was gone. Destroyed without a trace.

‘Symbel of the Savage Gods, Fifth Toast, Brittle Globe.’