Universe's End

Chapter 219: Regicide Redux Pt. 2

“So, clones or summons?” Zoey asked as she took in the sight of the two wyrms quickly heading in their direction.

“I’m going to go with clones,” Rory answered. “They look exactly the same, just ghostly… and orange.”

“I take one, and you take one?” Zoey offered.

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

Splitting apart, the two separated as the dual clones followed their lead, one chasing after each of them.

Putting space between himself and Zoey, Rory readied himself; the roots were so large that there was more than enough space on a single ‘ridge’. Raising his staff skyward, Rory pointed at the orange clone as electrical discharge built up, blasts of basic lightning forking forward a moment later, fast as… well, fast as lightning.

Unfortunately, they didn’t do much, a polite way of saying they’d done nothing.

Not surprised. Rory mentally sighed. While lightning was great for high durability targets, conjurations that were partially sustained by energy were less affected.

Not to mention that lightning shared several concepts with fire, meaning that fire resistance granted some degree of resistance to lightning as well. If he whipped out some actual named lightning magic that was a different story, but for probing lances of lightning, forked like a serpent’s tongue? They washed over his designated clone with minimal reaction.

“Somewhat annoying,” Rory sighed. One thing he’d learned over the two weeks of trekking in search of Zoey was that in the world of titanic roots that were the size of skyscrapers on the small end, Earth Soul was useless.

Alright, not totally useless, but damn close. The roots were organic matter, and Earth Soul didn’t translate through the material; there was no earth equating to nature-styled benefit of the doubt with these concepts.

Lightning magic, no bueno, Earth magic, no bueno. I still suck at liquid magic.

Technically, he would have been exceptional at blood magic… if it were actually a thing. Unlike a video game where you had unlimited blood to fuel blood magic, within a few flung spells, Rory would find himself bled dry.

Though, as a tier eight, there might be more worth in revisiting that… But not for the time being.

There was still his tried-and-true projection magic, which was looking to be his only real option, but it was always worth considering one’s options. The main downside of projection magic was that it didn’t really have any ‘favored’ matchups. Lightning was great for high-durability targets, and heavenly was great for corruptive or toxic concepts. Earth was great for heavy mass attacks, overwhelming things that normally had high magic resistance but lower physical resistance.

Projection magic was just projection magic; its matchups were only ever as good as your understanding of what item to project in the first place.

Also have Singularity Point, but that’s not one I want to make a point of relying on, too much of a crutch.

Rory’s thoughts were disrupted as a wave of smoggy black fire spewed toward him, a nearly equal mix of fire and corrosive concepts.

A red crystal barrier sprang into existence as Rory projected a basic shield wall. Within moments, the smoggy black smoke began to chew through his wall, as Rory scowled.

Corrosive isn’t the same as toxic, which feels like annoying semantics.

Had it been toxic flames, his use of heavenly energies would have worked well against the wyrm's breath, but that wasn’t in the cards. Corrosive was a physical concept, whereas toxin was a conceptual… concept.

Redundancy is thy name, Rory.

Deciding to employ the mystical art of getting the fuck out of dodge, Rory let the breath attack breach his wall as he pulled his hand back, an arrow appearing next to his head as if resting on a bow. Releasing the projected arrow, it shot forward, only for the King clone to spew a small burst of the smoggy black flames.

Hmmm.

Raising his hands like he was holding akimbo pistols, Rory unleashed a salvo of pneuma bullets. Once upon a time, Rory needed to store the ‘blueprint’ of the pneuma projection bullet in his mind palace to fire off the rapid-fire salvo effectively, but by now the sheer simplicity of the projection meant he could do it without even needing a moment of thought; it was literally reflexive.

It was also incredibly weak for that same reason.

Everyone knows energy barrages never work.

The point wasn’t to actually inflict damage.

It was to watch the clone’s reaction.

Well, that’s interesting.

The actual King would have ignored the attack, unable to hurt it, no matter how much he fired off.

The clone, meanwhile, spewed more of its smoggy fire to incinerate the bullet barrage.

“Zoey!” Rory shouted, knowing she’d be able to hear him even from as far away as she was. “They’re operating off anima rules!”

While it should have been obvious given their phantasmal appearance, plenty of monsters could summon clones that still operated using durability. Being both energy summons and relying on anima bodies, tactics like damaging their wings would be useless, but, conversely, physical damage would be super effective.

“Look at that, one of the few instances Projection Magic actually is the counter,” Rory chuckled.

Having figured it out, the King clone flew higher, as meters began to rain from its wings with every beat of the giant things, its smog flames mixed in as well.

Doesn’t seem capable of igniting the sky or establishing a domain, which is nice, and doesn’t seem to be able to summon- oh, never mind.

Just as he’d been thinking it, a small army of phantasmal maggots and wyrm newts sprang up, meant to bog him down as it rained death from above. While there were a lot of the summons, it was far less than the literal endless deluge of maggots they’d been facing the last two weeks, and even fewer wyrm newts than what they’d just dealt with. It was the clear difference between the clones using the summon skills and the real King using said summon skills.

Well, how do I want to handle this?

Thinking for a moment, Rory smirked, raising his hand and beginning to chant, a dome appearing around him that the summoned monsters fruitlessly hammered up against.

“Time for a real meteor, and a real extinction event. Form of Violence, Stage One.”

Calling through the chant, only a moment later, an oversized magic circle appeared above, as a giant rock in the shape of a dragon head crashed down, slamming upon the root and temporarily obscuring his view in the cloud of charred woods, flying splinters, and exploding rock. When the cloud cleared, there was a rather large crater in the root, with not a single phantasmal summon to be seen.

Ignoring the King clone that is.

After that, for nearly an hour straight, the clone and Rory kept their distance, exchanging ranged assaults. Summons would only be wasteful on the clones' part, and direct assault would risk taking too much damage given their anima body.

Rory was happy to play along as he changed between tactics, a bit of an opportunity to stretch his muscles. The falling meteors and smog-fire were annoying, sure, but coming from a clone rather than the real deal, the output was far lower.

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Growing bored, Rory held his hand out as if holding something upside down. Not wanting to be disturbed for this part, several barriers appeared around him instantly, a few gems tossed out to reinforce them as he focused, ignoring the clone even as it attempted to burn away the barriers with its smog-fire.

Shouldn’t backfire, in theory at least.

Surrounding the space below his hand in a bound space, Rory began twisting, weaving, layering, and folding pneuma the same way he would when creating liquid pneuma.

Except, it wasn’t just liquid, as he carefully sculpted the liquid in a physical object, a coiled, spear-sized arrow with a forked tip.

It was…. Not easy. Had he attempted to ‘flavor’ the pneuma in any fashion, it would have failed. He was just good enough that neutral liquid pneuma was within his capabilities to project. It wasn’t exactly quick, but hey, proof of concept and all that jazz.

At last, Rory held the oversized arrow up, inspecting it.

Nathair. It was his most damaging ‘single-point’ magic he had in his arsenal. Oh sure, his Singularity Point strike and Empyrean Fulmination had far more overall energy. Conversely, they were far wider in the net they cast, wasteful if he wanted to be somewhat conservative with his reserves.

Dragon’s Fall was… well, it was dropping a big ass rock on stuff. Effective, but finding less and less usage over the years as monsters simply got out of the way.

Going to need to hash out some improvement there, but that’s not a today problem.

Projection of Nathair finished, Rory opened up a back exit out of his barriers, something he’d spent a lot of time practicing ever since the day he’d lost his original hand due to trapping himself in his own barriers.

Vision obscured by the smoggy fire, the King’s clone never even noticed Rory making his escape from his own self-erected prison. His old illusion spear would have let him hide in plain sight, but Rory had decided to never remake it, even during his time back in Ehkorrus, a chance to turn the page and try new things.

Either way, the clone wasn’t paying much attention as Rory withdrew an actual bow from his inventory; a projected bow wouldn’t be able to withstand the force of what he was about to unleash. Nocking the arrow, Rory sighted the clone flying overhead, waiting for the perfect moment. Seconds passed until the flames banked, the summoned clone needing a moment to rebuild its flame as it petered out.

Mouth still open, Rory saw the clone inspecting the scorched earth –scorched root— as it searched for Rory. Rory could almost perfectly spot the moment that it realized something was off, the smoggy flames obscuring the battlefield fading to reveal that Rory was no longer in his little dome, only a single shield wall remaining.

It was just too bad for the clone that even mid-realization, it didn’t just shut its damn mouth, the flames building back up within its throat.

“Get fucked,” Rory said as he released the arrow. The shockwave of the force exploded the bow, as Rory was knocked off balance, sprawling on the ground.

Nathair, traveling faster than a hypersonic boom, the oversized arrow, crossed the distance in an instant. As fast as the reaction speed of tier eight was, the King clone noticed the attack, eyes widening.

But, unfortunately, reaction speed didn’t always translate into movement speed.

The arrow struck through the back of its neck, through the building flames, and into the very core of the clone. That on its own would have been cataclysmic levels of damage. It was only made worse by the sheer density of the pneuma used in the arrow's projection, which dragged the rapidly growing flames with it, before a whomping thoom of noise radiated outward, the clone momentarily expanding from the internal explosion.

And then it exploded into a shower of orange goo, which Rory wisely protected himself from by projecting an utterly basic dome around himself. Not because the goo was dangerous, but because he didn’t want to be covered in orange goo.

Also, it's funnier that way if only Zoey gets covered.

“Speaking of,” Rory muttered, as he squinted for a moment, the battlefield far away suddenly ‘zooming in’ as he witnessed what must have been the ending of the battle.

Oh, she’s got the ‘I’m really god damn annoyed’ face going.

The ending of their fight came within moments of Rory ending his fight. Zoey ran straight up the side of the root, ignoring gravity with her speed alone as she reached the apex of her sprint, launching herself down at the clone that had been lording over her, flying outside of her effective range.

When her blackened fist struck the back of the clone, it was ripped from the air, launched into the oversized root as Zoey rode it the entire way down. Crashing into the root, Zoey took advantage of the moment, her blackened fists pummeling the clone until, unceremoniously, the entire thing exploded in a shower of orange goo.

Completely covering her once more.

Snickering, Rory’s vision returned to normal as he patiently waited for an annoyed Zoey to tromp her way over.

“Fuck you,” Zoey said, the moment she saw Rory.

“What?” Rory asked innocently.

Rather than say anything, Zoey gestured to herself, coated orange, whereas Rory didn’t have a spec of orange on him.

“Hey, that’s your fault for not having any long-range attacks,” Rory pointed out.

“It ignored my taunt,” Zoey muttered, scuffing her boot on the ground. “That’s cheating.”

“It was a clone, what did you expect?”

“Fuckin’ rainbows and unicorns, asshole,” Zoey said, flicking orange goo at Rory.

“You know just as well as I do that it will fade as the remanent energy disperses.”

“Still gross,” Zoey said, hands on her hips. “Clones dealt with. Yo, E.O.N., this is getting boring, or maybe Aelia, whoever is responsible. Can we just beat the King’s skull in already and call it a day?”

She was shouting into the air, and just as Rory was about to question when the last time such a plea had worked, the regularly scheduled titanic bolt shot downward. As it dissipated, a glassy-orange platform remained in place, the energy having solidified. Zooming in, Rory nodded.

“It’s there,”

“Yeah, could have guessed that one,” Zoey snorted.

“Also, it doesn’t look like it's in the best shape.”

“Sure, I’ll take it,” Zoey nodded. “Can we just kill the fucker and be done with it?”

“What, not having fun anymore?” Rory teased.

“I was literally lying down for two weeks straight, and now I’ve been covered in goo. Multiple times.”

“You know, I always heard-”

“Don’t,” Zoey raised her finger, shaking her head. “Just…. No quips. Or I swear to god I will rub all this goo on you.”

“Not usually how I prefer a woman offering to rub her body on- ick!”

Rory’s mistake: Quipping in tackling range.

A minute later, when both of them were covered in orange goo –Rory looked far less smug, and Zoey looked far more smug– the scenery changed, and the oversized roots began extending root pathways toward the floating central platform.

“No more riding the lightning,” Rory said with a relieved expression.

“What was that like anyway?” Zoey asked.

“You know the feeling when you’d get a static electricity shock?”

“Yeah?”

“That, but imagine you can even taste it,” Rory sighed. “Anyway, let’s get this over with.”

Nodding in agreement, the two of them waited for their root pathway to finish extending as they traveled along it, in no real hurry, even though they spoke of wanting to be done with their most recent adventure.

Finally stepping onto the glassy orange-colored platform, Zoey whistled.

“Wow, what’s got your ass looking like it went through a blender?”

The King was in far worse shape than they’d last seen it, which was a bit curious given it had been endlessly regenerating last time. Now, its body was torn up like it had taken a bath in barbed wire.

“The Eternal and the Great Mother. I made an agreement for further power once, but it bound me in shackles I did not understand at the time,” The King said, a tone of regret in its voice. “In place for expedited power… rules were placed upon me. I am now a puppet in a play that I can see the ending of already.”

Ahh. I see.

Monsters came in different forms as Rory had learned over the years. There were natural monsters, monsters that, rather shockingly, were born naturally. They were bound only by what they tended to want to do, instincts aside. Then there were spawned monsters, monsters that would appear due to Aelia and Eon's fuckery. That category itself had two variants: ‘random’ spawns, monsters that spawned but otherwise had no greater purpose, and ‘scripted’ monsters, monsters that would behave in ways predetermined by Eon or Aelia for… whatever reason. The banes were perfect examples; however much they may have wanted to kill their individual founders, they were unable to do so until certain criteria were met.

If Rory understood the situation correctly, the King had once been a ‘random’ spawn that had risen to prominence. In doing so, it caught the attention of Aelia or Eon, though Rory had money on it being Aelia, who offered extra power. Eon was probably the one who ‘balanced the scales’ afterward, ensuring the power wasn’t freely given.

Thus, a monster that had once been able to do as it pleased had been turned into a glorified boss fight, with a scripted sequence of events.

“This is why you don’t make deals with shady women,” Zoey pointed out, arms crossing for a moment.

“Do not DARE to call the Great Mother ‘Shady’ insolent pest!”

It was interesting to see it play out. The Queen hadn’t been nearly as intelligent; the compulsions placed upon it likely weren’t even noticed. The King, meanwhile, with intelligence and an ego of its own, was being mentally torn apart by the internal conflict. Even the way it spoke, sometimes natural, sometimes like scripted dialogue.

“You, who shattered my domain, instilled with the aspects of power as well as fragments of my own soul!”

Not sure if that’s actually what happened, or some flavor dialogue.

“Hey, Rory,” Zoey waved him over, the monster ranting all while being ignored.

“Yeah?”

“Do you… feel a little bad for it?”

“We are not getting a pet wyrm.”

“Fuck no,” Zoey spat. “Not what I was getting at. I was thinking that we should probably put it out of its misery. Let it be ‘reborn’ as a genuine scripted monster rather than existing torn between the two.”

That was the interesting bit of info Rory had learned over the last few years, from Zoey herself: The Queen had ‘respawned,’ something Zoey had learned when she’d randomly received a notification about it some time ago while hanging around the volcano. Out of curiosity, she’d made her way to the Deep Chambers when she had been given an option to teleport directly to the Queen. Doing so, that’s when Zoey had discovered the ‘Queen’ wasn’t the same Queen they fought, downgraded to a peak-tier-seven Alpha variant from the tier eight Alpha Variant it had once been, only around as strong as post-oblivion chain weakening.

“Yeah, I think I agree,” Rory said after a moment of thought.

Not like he was going to say, " Hey, or we could just give up and leave for the plot twist.’

“The King of the Molten Peaks,” Rory announced, dragging the King out of its manic ranting. “Let us finish this!”

For a moment, Rory swore he saw a look of relief pass through its beady eyes.

“Let us!”