Universe's End

Chapter 236: Architect of the Precursors Vs. Born of Brilliant Feathers Pt. 1

Vexing.

Dozens of beams of prismatic light rays fired toward Rory as he swept his staff outward, red-crystal mirrors appearing and distorting the rays.

It wasn’t enough; two managed to pierce through and strike Rory directly, who winced as the prismatic energy scorched his armor.

Very vexing.

It was the entire theme of their battle so far.

Vexing.

Rory hated to admit it… But he was outclassed for the first time.

Not in the sense that the Bird was outright more powerful than he, but magically speaking. Oh, sure, in the past, there had been higher-level monsters or Territory Alphas or whatnot with more raw magical muscle than he.

But for a peer to clearly be so distinctly superior? It was the same feeling as with Apostolos, who actually invested in Pneuma, except that the Bird had not just the investment; it had the talent and practice to back it up.

“Solar Chariot!” The Bird cawed out, as a blend of prismatic magic and solar magic shot outward, fusing into the shape of a stallion rampaging toward Rory.

Tsk.

Drawing his hand back, Rory muttered a single stanza chant under his breath as he released a spear-sized arrow.

“Nathair!”

The oversized serpent arrow struck the charging stallion, as the two attacks cancelled each other out.

Vexing.

They’d been clashing for some time now, and Rory believed he’d gotten a solid grasp on the kind of attribute load that Bird was displaying. Physically speaking, it was inferior to Zoey, with her attributes inverted; otherwise, he and the Bird were comparable as far as speed went. Agility was a different case; the Bird clearly had a surprising degree of Flexibility investment given how it seemed to bend and dodge in ways that disregarded physics or logic. As far as Cognition went, Rory had to assume an average investment, if only because there were only so many attributes to go around, even for a monster.

Leaving Durability and Pneuma as monsters didn’t seem to touch Growth, if it were even possible for them.

Pneuma was obvious, a large degree of investment. Durability was the problem.

Because it cheated.

Flying through the air, something that was only possible after more than a decade of practicing using his Coordinate affinity to travel linearly through space and not always through flicker teleportation, Rory whipped his hand out. As he did so, his inventory emptied partially as several weapons flew toward the Bird, who conjured a barrier of prismatic light to block the careening weapons.

Exploding them, an acceptable expenditure given the caliber of foe, Rory used the momentary distraction to flicker behind the Bird as he slashed downward with his hand, a whip composed of liquid Blood Iron, a rather new creation, slashing straight through its wing, cleaving the appendage from its body.

A rather catastrophic injury, proving the lack of durability investment… Only for it not to matter, as it instantly healed.

“You cannot win,” The Bird cried out. Its body shook, and what seemed like tens of thousands of feathers shot outward, solid light that could cut as easily as they could burn, all racing through the air after Rory like heat-seeking missiles.

Vexing. Rory mentally repeated for what felt like the millionth time.

Had Rory not known better, he would have assumed the Bird was the one capable of drawing from Ehkorrus, given how its massive pneuma reserves were constantly being refilled. The mystery of how would have lasted longer, had Rory not recognized it from having seen it before, similar in effect to Apostolos, who had a solar affinity and was slowly topped off simply by standing in sunlight.

Except at a much higher level.

Its body even seemed to operate like Apostolos’s anima body, with the few key differences being that it was still a physical body, relying on durability, given that it took physical injuries, which just happened to heal instantly.

And to make everything that much more vexing? Rory could distinctly sense Stigmata radiating off the Bird, the power of faith.

Bullshit.

All of it together meant Rory had been forced ever so slightly to release the natural limits on his attributes, a band-aid solution to the real problem.

It has a point. How do I win?

It clearly wasn’t all-powerful; Eon would hardly allow for that, nor would it have needed to bring in such an army or wait for wave one hundred to attack.

There must be some weakness. Fight at night? Hardly, it can pull back at that point.

The solid light feathers continued to hound after Rory, who’d been using several mental threads to focus on the battle, all while his ‘main’ mind considered the problem.

A singularity point attack would probably work; the erasure of concepts from Oblivion energy would surely do the trick if even Zoey can’t eat one of them without activating her damage nullification.

Except that hitting such an agile opponent who was also magically inclined would be impossible, it would instantly sniff out the danger of such an attack.

“Solar Chariots!” The Bird called out once more.

Plural?

Having noticed the slight distinction, Rory’s eyes widened only a smidge as the prismatic and solar energy fused into several stampeding brilliant stallions.

Enchain might work…. Actually, with its magical capabilities, I’m not sure I want to gamble on such an expensive skill; it might burn free before I can land a Singularity Point.

Rory felt like he could see the blueprint of a win condition, but as of now, it just seemed too far out of reach.

Teleporting, Rory unleashed a barrage of exploding weapons, some nothing but ordinary projection magic, with several being physical weapons that Rory detonated the significance within, tearing apart several of the brilliant stallions stampeding after him, all the while the hard light feathers also chased after him like a pissed off hive of wasps.

And yet, even with the counter barrage, two of the stallions remained, slamming into Rory and launching him several miles away as he crashed into the ground like a fallen meteor.

“Fuck,” Rory muttered, spitting out a tooth as he wiped blood from the corner of his mouth. “That hurt like a bitch.”

Glancing around, Rory momentarily saw a man about to be overrun by a pack of squid-shaped hounds. Cocking two fingers, Rory took sight.

Pow.

A beam of energy ripped through the heads of the monsters as the man turned around, staring at Rory with wide eyes.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“You might want to get back behind friendly lines,” Rory said.

The man nodded frantically, scrambling to his feet. Smiling, Rory raised the same two fingers to his brow, giving the man a quick salute before flickering back into the sky where the Bird was, the entire event having taken no more than a few seconds.

“You are strong, I will give you that.” The Bird said, his expression harder to read than a human, given the lack of human facial reactions. “But you cannot win.”

“It’s all the Wheaties I eat,” Rory said, rolling his shoulders.

“What are these ‘wheaties’ that grant strength?”

Bah, so much better to banter with an actual Founder rather than a wannabe replacement.

Staff in hand, several metal rings appeared along its length, electrical discharges crackling from them. Within moments, Rory forced the Bird to dip and dodge through the air as hypersonic rails were fired from his staff.

Avoiding attacks means that it doesn’t want to needlessly take damage, meaning there is a regeneration limit.

Absorbing information as quickly as he could, Rory felt like he was in the middle of solving a puzzle while sitting atop a speeding bullet train. The Bird was dangerous, more dangerous than just about any other foe he’d faced that wasn’t outright stronger than he was.

“Judgement from High!” The Bird suddenly called out, as the temperature ratcheted up a good hundred degrees in an instant, cuts appearing all over Rory’s body like the light surrounding him had suddenly turned to glass.

The problem with fighting so high above the ground was that one of his strongest tools, Earth Soul, was far less effective away from the earth

.Flaring his aura, Rory copied a trick he’d learned from Roxy, folding and layering it like a second layer of protection. She had a skill for the purpose of folding aura and pneuma, but Rory had a good few decades on her, so the application hadn’t been too hard to adapt into freeform magic.

Between the flared and layered aura, the serrations stopped appearing all over his body as Rory swapped from staff to whip, lashing out once more even as the Bird seemed to invert its body to avoid the hypersonic whip crack.

A domain might work.

If the Bird really were drawing its nearly endless regeneration from the sunlight, the only way to cut off that connection would be through the establishment of a domain.

Easier said than done.

The problem was the parameters. Establishing a domain took time, time that the Bird definitely wasn’t going to give him. Altering the parameters could circumvent that problem, but only to an extent; there were only so many parameters.

Time is probably the easiest one, but a delayed activation isn’t enough in itself.

Location was one of the strongest parameters; the self-restriction that one couldn’t move was extremely potent. Except, once more, the Bird definitely wasn’t going to make that possible.

Still debating the best set of parameters to alter, Rory’s head suddenly swiveled as he felt something.

What the hell?

The battle below had clearly been going on long enough now that, at last, the wave boss had appeared, the aura of a tier eight making itself known.

But that wasn’t the real issue. It’s that another tier eight had appeared alongside it.

“Too late.”

The moment distraction was enough that the Bird suddenly appeared above Rory, wings sweeping with scorching prismatic fury as Rory was launched directly toward where the wave boss had appeared.

Oh, look, Iasilisk.

One of Rory’s mental threads briefly noted that the wave boss was none other than the Iaslisk he had faced decades ago. He’d always expected the wave one hundred boss to be the Iaslisk returned, but the fact that next to it was a group of what could have only been referred to as shamans, all chanting, while the second tier eight monster he’d sensed was currently assisting in pinning it in place, was a bit odd to say the least. As for the second tier eight monster, it looked like a cross between a frill-neck lizard and a Komodo dragon, covered in serrated chitinous scales and a dorsal spine like the teeth of a saw.

They also clearly weren’t here to help; that much was obvious. Pinning the monster, the shamans finished their chant as the lead shaman, a level seventy-nine Varasian, jammed a rainbow colored feather into the Iasilisk’s eye.

Shaking, the Iaslisk suddenly began sprouting rainbow-colored feathers, as Rory’s eyes widened.

Oh, that’s not good.

Iasilisk Reborn of Undying Grudges- Brilliance Touched

Level: 81*

The augmentation of the little shaman troupe, alongside whatever that feather had been, had taken the level eighty Iaslisk with no allegiance and empowered it enough to increase in level, as well as clearly handing control over to the Bird or the Bird’s faction.

Not good. REALLY not good.

At worst, Rory had expected a battle where there was the Bird to face, and a tier eight alpha variant that wanted to crush them but wasn’t specifically working with the Bird.

Now it was the Bird, the weird lizard monster, and a Brilliance Touched wave boss.

“Attack!” The lead shaman yelled as Rory grit his teeth.

Things turned chaotic after that. Even with all his mental threads pushed to their max capacity, Rory felt like he was being spread thin. All at once, the battle had turned into a group jumping, the Bird flying down and preventing Rory from escaping into the sky, the Iaslisk happily charging at him with a reborn vengeance, the group of shamans continuously chanting as they fired off group magic toward Rory, and lastly the lizard monster –apparently named Eidos based off a quick examine Rory got off– protected the group of shamans.

The Bird rained down radiant blasts of brilliant prismatic light that scorched the terrain like an orbital laser. The Iaslisk showed off the true extent of the abilities it had been prevented from using so many decades ago as bone spikes erupted from the ground like karma for all the times Rory had used that same type of attack against others. Chains shot through the air from the shamans working together alongside glowing support magic, and even the monster ‘Eidos’ would stamp its six legs on the ground and fire off black needles from between its scales.

Flickering and dodging, Rory was on a defense that he hadn’t been fully prepared for.

Do I do it?

The situation was rapidly deteriorating, forcing Rory to consider a plan he really hadn’t wanted to consider, uncapping his attributes beyond what he’d ever tested before, as well as drawing upon the reserves of Ehkorrus. Both were options he wished to avoid. Uncapping his attributes could backfire, too much for his unaccustomed body to withstand. Drawing from the reserves of Ehkorrus was less directly harmful, but they were in the middle of a damn warzone. Ehkorrus ' reserves were massive when considering day-to-day activities. Still, if he began flinging magic around on the scale that a tier eight could alongside the drain of the defenses, well, the tier eight core supporting Ehkorrus would rapidly drain.

Dodging a bone spike, Rory flickered out of the way, only to appear directly in the way of a cloud of black needles. Most pinged off his armor, but several managed to find softer flesh as Rory convulsed, pure pain ripping through his body.

Later!

Shoving the pain into a secondary mental thread, Rory forced himself out of direct danger, only for glass-like light to once more begin slicing through his skin.

Later!

Again, Rory teleported, gulping down air, or trying to until the group of casters sent a swarm of rainbow-light falcons chasing him.

I need some space!

The problem was that there was no space to find a single moment’s reprieve. It wasn’t as if he could teleport away; someone needed to occupy their attention. Two tier-eights alongside the Bird were too much for anyone in Ehkorrus –even the city working together– to hold back. If it were just a single tier eight, Rory genuinely believed that Apostolos, with support, could have prevailed.

But a boosted tier eight boss? Or that Eidos creature?

It has to be me.

With no other option, Rory was a moment from taking the risk of releasing his attribute limiter past what he’d ever attempted before, as well as pulling from the reserves of Ehkorrus, when two auras suddenly flared to life, two more tier eights.

Except this time, Rory was the one to smile.

Rory clearly wasn’t the only one to sense them; there was a sudden pause in the action as the Bird whipped around to stare up into the sky.

“Seismic Impact!”

A red meteor was crashing down toward them, what felt like a gift from the heavens themselves, as the short, heavily armored woman smashed straight into the Iaslisk, launching it half a mile.

“Sorry for being late,” Zoey said with a grin before flipping off the Bird. “Hey there, KFC.”

Zoey wasn’t the only one to suddenly make an appearance, as the Eidos monster was launched upward as the ground beneath it ripped open. Flying out of the hole in the ground, Rory momentarily felt like his eyes were acting up, almost imagining the Khan of Blue Lightning had appeared.

It was only for a moment, though, as Eia’s aura was unmistakable, even ignoring the obvious size difference, as Eia was only large enough to swallow a thirty-foot crocodile and not ‘Fit an entire bus in my mouth’ large.

How she was flying, Rory had no idea, but he appreciated it, nonetheless.

“As she said, apologies for our late arrival,” Eia said, her tongue slithering out before she turned to glare down at Eidos. “I believe this one will be my opponent.”

“Try me!” The Eidos monster hissed back at Eia, revealing itself as a talking monster. “Legless spawn!”

“Snappy,” Eia purred. “You will feed me well.”

As appreciated as the two newcomers were, one final face appeared, a man in golden armor breaking through the backlines of the monster's assault on Ehkorrus. Clear of the crowd, it was as if his body condensed into a ray of light, crossing the distance in an instant before crashing into the pack of shamans, scythe locked against a great axe that the lead shaman had suddenly taken up.

“Sorry,” Apostolos huffed. “I tried to race over as fast as I could after I felt the appearance of two extra tier eights attacking, but there are a lot of monsters out there.”

“Hah,” Rory laughed before his eyes landed on the Bird. “It’s fine.”

“It does not matter the-”

“Shut up,” Rory interrupted as he flickered in front of the Bird, catching it by the beak and yanking it through space as they flickered back into the skies above. “Now, where were we?”