LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 524: Eratemus
An Avalanche
Eratemus followed Nayra as she charged at the new arrival. Ra’azel, the yeti, a being that had been born in a previous iteration of the Framework. Eratemus wished that the situation was different, that the shade wasn’t who he was. What secrets did a being like him hold? What could Eratemus learn from someone like him?
It was no use lamenting what was not reality. Their fate was to fight, and Eratemus could do no less. He had failed Anatalien once before. Failed to find her when she was injured and in need. He was not going to fail again.
He summoned his formations and activated them, the storage devices vented Death Essence into the air, fueling his and Nayra’s power both.
Ra’azel repeated his previous move. Six constructs orbiting him lanced out with light, spearing straight through her. Eratemus had only a moment to realize that the attacks had just passed through Nayra, not doing anything because it wasn’t really her, just a mirage. A moment later Nayra appeared, shimmering into existence closer to the yeti.
He reacted immediately, his hand rose and a rune flashed in the air in front of him. A massive wall of water coalesced, then fell forward on top of Nayra.
She beat her wings, attempting to evade, but the wall was too large to get out of the way fully. It hit her, and fire met water. Steam exploded all around her, the resulting explosion blasted her through the air.
Eratemus knew that she would be fine, so he continued. Walking on a road that appeared in front of him as he put one foot ahead of the other. He couldn’t completely control Zenker’s Image. It almost seemed like it had a mind of its own, but it reacted to his thoughts too. Perhaps there was some truth to what Ryun had spoken about before, about a meaning of one’s Soul and the connection with their power.
With [Necrotic Blink], Eratemus closed the distance. A wave of black energy moved ahead of his arrival and washed harmlessly over a sphere of light that sprung around the yeti.
Ra’azel’s head swung to the side where Eratemus’ had just arrived, but Eratemus’ vessel was fast. He swung his fist, his {Bone Shaping} reinforcing the already improved bones of his vessel.
He triggered his vessel’s perk, Critical Strike. It was a pale imitation of the real thing, but with Eratemus’s modifications, it was enough. He targeted a joint in the yeti’s armor, his fist piercing through the shield surrounding him with pure stats alone.
He struck the armor and felt it give beneath him, but quickly the yeti flashed away—obviously an emergency countermeasure. He wasn’t fast enough to react on his own, it had to have been already prepared measure.
Nayra rose in the air on the other side of Ra’azel, her weapon extending and spearing toward him. It struck an invisible wall, and Ra’azel pulled out more constructs, a floating shield that was the size of a house and that spawned eight smaller versions of it. Nayra’s attack pierced through the invisible barrier, then encountered the big shield which stopped it cold. The smaller shields rapid fired bolts of energy, each one a different color, forcing Nayra on the back foot.
Eratemus took advantage to run toward the yet, a path through a forest appearing in front of him. Ra’azel summoned another shield, but Eratemus didn’t stop moving. He triggered the formations that he engraved on Zenker’s scales, and a dozen layers of energy shimmered around him, protecting him from the blasts sent by the smaller shields.
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Seeing that he wasn’t stopping, the shields moved in front of him, presumably to block him from passing through. He didn’t even slow. He triggered None May Stand In My Way, and triggered one of the battery formations he had implanted within the body, spending the entire charge to boost its physical stats by a factor of 4x. He smashed through the shields, everything he hit suffering an insane amount of physical damage.
The shields splintered to pieces on contact, and he reached Ra’azel again. The yeti tilted his head, a series of runes already shining in front of him, he added another and a cage sprung into existence around Eratemus, but his skill perk still filled the vessel with power. The cage glowed and Space trembled around him, attempting to teleport him somewhere else, his physical might disagreed.
He took a step and the cage splintered around him.
This time he detected surprise coming from his foe. Eratemus reached him in less than a second, his claws extended, and he focused, deciding to spend a skill. Activating a skill that his vessel had was harder than activating a perk. They weren’t as strong as they were supposed to be. They were just echoes of the real power, pieces that had warped the body in the image that the Soul that once inhabited it used to be.
Eratemus had been surprised by that. Usually, bodies didn’t retain nearly as much of the power after death. His vessels only held the physical changes, and no other powers. Physical perks were easier, they had a place within the body, they changed it in a real way.
But Zenker’s body was different, for a time, it had almost given Eratemus hope that he was still alive. Or at least that his Soul was. But all his tests came back with a disappointing result. He assumed that his body retained so much because he reached the peak of his focus, or perhaps that his Image had something to do with it.
It took a long moment for Eratemus to force the body to remember a skill, but it triggered. |I Arrive And Lash Out| pulled him through space, and next to Ra’azel, his claws coming down and tearing a gash through the helmet and then torso of the armor the yeti wore. He tasted flesh and blood, and then a blast of blue exploded out of the yeti, sending Eratemus flying back through the air.
He focused on wishing to stop, and a hill manifested itself behind him, and he hit its ground, rolling, and coming to a stop as the Image flickered. He stood and looked ahead at the yeti, who glared at him from the gash his claws had left in his armor. With one hand he touched his helmet and it flowed away, revealing his fur covered face and ringed eyes.
“You are…” the yeti started; his expression thoughtful. “Very interesting. I can’t wait to see what secrets you hold.”
Eratemus knew better than to try and argue with a shade, but they were here to buy time, so he indulged it. “My secrets are too much for the likes of you,” he said, aiming for his pride.
The yeti grinned. “Oh,” his eyes flashed with light. “I see, I see, you steal, you take what belongs to those who are your lesser and make it yours.”
He spread his arms wide as his grin showed sharp teeth. “Just like me.”
“I am nothing like you,” Eratemus said.
“You are worse,” Ra’azel chuckled. “You wear the dead, oh you poor thing…” He then closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, there was something in them that Eratemus didn’t like. “You don’t even know what you are doing wrong. Such a waste of resources, you can barely handle what that body is capable of. I can sense it. The power within that body, the scents of so many different things. Oh, I’m looking forward to taking it apart.”
Before Eratemus could respond, Nayra was there. Ra’azel’s armor repaired itself, his helmet reforming around him. He drew runes as Eratemus moved forward and Nayra swung downward with her spear, it elongated and then the tip grew, becoming as large as a boulder. It smashed down on top of Ra’azel blasting through all of the shields that sprung in the air around him and sent him flying to the ground.
Eratemus followed. During his fall, constructs appeared, and Eratemus focused. The world around him shimmered and a dark mountain loomed behind him, the heat rose as the volcano blew, lava poured over cliffs and drowned on top of Ra’azel’s constructs, the Image of a place that Zenker had once visited burned them to nothing.
Ra’azel had taken the time to draw symbols. A blast of dark lighting lanced forward, and Eratemus felt the danger. Even if he hadn’t, he remembered the description of that attack, lightning that obliterated anything it touched.
Eratemus’s control over Zenker’s body was a moment too slow, so he didn’t rely on it. Instead, he pulled out formations from his ring, and activated them.
White light met with dark lightning, and the world exploded.