Chapter 292: Two Eyes for a Win

A bit of a delay, so I’m moving the next chapter up to tomorrow to balance things out!
Enjoy!

PS: Priam Character Sheet (you can thanks the Discord guys!)

*

“I’m the one who taught him the double tap,” Jasmine boasted as the boss exploded under Priam’s assault. “With the nasty undead plaguing Oasis, you can’t be too careful.”

“Mmm.”

“Something wrong?”

Kazuki watched the aftermath thoughtfully. “Relying on a single attack is dangerous. Especially one so easy to dodge.”

A Breath was like a tunnel of flame racing at twice to thrice the speed of sound. Priam could guide it with a turn of his head, but it was far from inevitable.

“He knows about that weakness.” Jasmine was quick to defend her boss. “Besides, even without Promesse, he could’ve won.”

“How?”

“During our midnight dates—”

“Your outings to hunt undead.”

“—he showed me an experimental move,” she continued, ignoring the interruption. “If he slices his forearm bone at a bevel, the System recognizes it as a spear. Once boosted by his Mastery, Conquest Aura, and kinetic control, it becomes a destructive weapon. After he breaks his opponent’s defenses, a quick strike with [There is No Heaven] finishes the job.”

Kazuki stared at her. “I lack the words to describe the sheer stupidity of that technique.”

“It’s a last resort, obviously! But it works—he one-shotted a Tier 3 with it.”

“... Let’s assume that Priam is without his Mist Concept. Why not freeze his blood to create a spear?”

“Because he’d lose out on his constitution. Right now, his bones are tougher than Promesse.”

Kazuki opened his mouth, then thought better of it. He groaned as he got to his feet.

“Going somewhere?”

“I withdrew from my fight with Zelgius when it became clear winning would be a pyrrhic victory. I don’t regenerate like Priam, so I didn’t want to return to Elysium wounded if we were attacked. But if he is throwing caution to the wind, I won’t hold back, either.”

“Just admit you don’t want to lose to him!”

Kazuki pretended not to hear.

Jasmine glanced at Priam one last time before standing up herself. She would have to take risks if she didn’t want to get left in the dust.

*

The smile faded from Priam’s face as the beastman’s ashes drifted to the floor. Much as he relished surprising his foes, Zelgius had just shown him that Breath wasn’t all-powerful. While his new Concept, Conquest Aura, and Pyro could supercharge it, these were merely quantitative boosts, not qualitative changes.

“If I want real versatility, Promesse and a legendary offensive skill are the clear paths,” he mused.

Still, there had been progress. The purification of his bloodline had enhanced all his draconic talents. Beyond Breath, his instincts and parallel thoughts were proving invaluable.

[Draconic Vivacity: You possess multiple (two) streams of thought, each powered by 88% of your vivacity. Base: 73% +15% from Chimera.]

One percent from bloodline purity, and five percent for every upgrade in Chimera. Soon, Priam would double his effective processing speed, capable of simultaneously viewing situations from two perspectives. Maybe that was part of why dragons were so feared…

The gong echoed as Priam stretched. Around him, the dark fog receded, revealing a perfectly white, cube-shaped chamber. With its metal walls, rather than padded ones, he was reassured he wasn’t in a psych ward. Every boss has its own environment.

The arena, as long as two Olympic pools, had a spherical opening in the ceiling. Through it, a bronze cube descended heavily to the ground.

The object unfolded, revealing a kind of humanoid clockwork figure. Standing three meters tall and made of a bronze-like alloy, the boss studied Priam with multiple lenses. Briefly stretching, it used hundreds of gears and cogs to move its body. Steam hissed from its torso, giving it a steampunk aura, though the runes etched across its surface made it clear the machine was also magical.

Priam frowned as [Identification] returned an error.

“Clock the Cursed, boss of the eighty-fifth wave,” his opponent introduced itself in French. Its voice was that of a child, oddly contrasting with its mechanical bulk. “May I know my opponent’s name?”

Clearly, [Ciphered Record] was working overtime. 

“Priam Azura. How do you know my language?”

“I know what the System wants me to know.”

“... Were you a gladiator once?”

“As a Duke, I fear my freedom to speak is limited,” the boss apologized. “Shall we proceed?”

“What else could we do?”

“I have permission to wait until your condition is no longer critical.”

Priam frowned, inspecting himself. A quick [Diagnostic] assured him he was in peak condition, so why did the boss think he had an issue?

“What problem are you talking about?”

“... Shall we proceed?”

Was the boss lying to make him doubt himself? Priam wondered momentarily if his opponent was waging psychological warfare, then shrugged. 

“Yeah, let’s begin.”

The gears in Clock’s right hand shifted, forming a protective violet sphere around it, while its left hand aimed at Priam. Feeling his newly honed draconic instincts screaming, the warrior sprang backward. He wasn’t fast enough to avoid a purple ray piercing his eye. Already resigning himself to the loss of sight, he was caught off guard by a searing agony erupting in his pupils.

The world lost its color as Hecate New Moon stirred awake.

The headache of the decade didn’t stop Priam from recovering quickly. He turned directly toward his adversary, and was surprised to see a hundred purple projectiles frozen midair. A second later, they dissipated, erased by the suppression field of the mythic mutation. In the background, Clock watched the scene in silence.

Seeing his foe content to wait, Priam placed a hand over his right eye, wincing as he realized the mutation refused to deactivate. A kind of violet magical parasite was forcing his meridians to keep it fueled. Not only was it rebelling, it was draining a terrifying amount of aether to maintain a monochromatic zone that… Priam wasn’t exactly sure what it did. According to [Ideal Aether Perception], the ambient aether was oppressed.

Priam had acquired Hecate New Moon as a limited Colosseum reward. While potent, it was difficult to control. Its few activations had cost him his sight, which his regeneration couldn’t restore. Only his resurrections could erase the damage caused by his own ability.

As his eyes burned, Priam realized his opponent had forced Hecate New Moon to activate, seeming quite pleased to watch him self-destruct. The mutation would render him blind and drain his aether in moments.

[Aether Reserve: 87%
57 seconds until depletion.]

Gritting his teeth, Priam sprang into action. One parallel thought attempted to force his aether to bypass his eyes—with limited success—while he conjured a fireball to hurtle toward Clock.

The attack vanished after three meters, snuffed out by Hecate New Moon like a candle on a birthday cake.

Rolling his jet-black eyes, Priam lunged forward. Though [Kinetic Control] was sluggish, his powerful muscles let him close the distance between himself and Clock. The mechanical boss fired crossbow bolts wreathed in purple energy. The magical part of the attack dissipated in the suppression field, and Priam narrowly dodged the supersonic projectiles. Then, his sharpened instincts screamed, and he raised his elbow in front of his face.

BOOM!

The room shook as the bolts exploded.

“Argh!”

Priam landed with a roll, grimacing as he felt a weakness in his arm. Hundreds of shrapnel shards were embedded in his flesh, turning gray and violet. [Poison Body] was useless to neutralize the damage: something else was at play. Clock the Cursed, right?

Raising his head, Priam noted that his opponent had retreated to the far end of the room. Despite its clockwork appearance, the boss was some sort of curse mage. It wasn’t a resistance Priam owned, which meant that waiting around was playing into his opponent’s hands.

[Aether Reserves: 61%
Estimated depletion in 40 seconds.]

“Fuck,” Priam muttered, leaping forward. As Hecate New Moon’s influence encased Clock, faint cracks began to spider across its shield. Judging by their slow crawl, Priam would need to triple his energy reserves to have a shot at breaking through like that.

Only one option was left. Close and personal.

Unfurling his phoenix wings, Priam dodged two volleys of enchanted bolts, surging ahead at a speed that left the explosions in his wake. The air thundered as he broke the sound barrier, reappearing just in front of his enemy. Flexing Micro and every muscle in his body, Priam delivered a titanic punch against the shimmering violet energy shield.

A crack echoed. Priam winced as the impact left his hand numb. While he ducked a blade that whistled dangerously close to his neck, half of his attention was analyzing the fight. Clockwork wasn’t defenseless in close combat. Priam pulled back slightly and summoned an ice spear… which dissolved before it could solidify. His own mutation was crippling him. 

“The curse in your eyes is terrifying,” Clock complimented, a rune glowing on its cheek.

A heartbeat later, a violet wave enveloped Priam. Micro detected no physical damage, but a huge chunk of his vitality vanished. The rest felt locked down, and Priam was left gasping, like an asthmatic old man after a marathon.

Dropping to one knee, Priam pressed his hand to the shield’s cracks, ready to unleash Pyro. He nearly growled as Clock stepped back. This coward! Come back here!

Opening his mouth, Priam began to channel a Breath. The ambient aether resisted, trickling toward him at the speed of a centenarian on the highway. Hecate New Moon’s suppression clashed with his draconic attack. 

A fact that would be useful in the future but disappointing right now. Out of options, Priam fed his own aether into his dragon lungs. His energy reserves now dangerously low, it was do-or-die.

[Aether Reserves: 12%
8 seconds before depletion.]

Focusing on Clock, Priam activated his draconic talent when another violet wave rippled across the arena. As though he had lost control of his body, Priam’s mouth snapped shut. Even with Micro’s aid, his jaw refused to budge, the Breath welling up inside him.

Priam’s eyes widened, and he swallowed the attack. Letting loose a Breath with a closed mouth was a fast way to blow his head off.

As Clock continued its unrelenting analysis, anger surged within Priam. Flexing his formidable willpower, he dissipated the forced command. Still, he didn’t try releasing the Breath directly—no point when the cursed boss could just pull the same trick again.

The realization hit him: Clock might actually be stronger than him. It had used Hecate New Moon to turn Priam’s own power against him from the start. The clock was ticking, and all Clock had to do was wait until Priam ran out of aether to finish him off. Its defenses were terrifying, its magic unbeatable for now.

Still kneeling, Priam looked down at his hands. They were steady, with no trace of fear. He had faced stronger foes than him from the Tutorial’s outset, and most were dead now. Partly because Priam was hellishly hard to kill and partly because he was willing to do whatever it took to win. There was a reason his Patron had chosen him.

Priam rose slowly and grabbed his eyes without sparing a glance for his opponent. Then, with a sickening squelch, he wrenched his eyes from their sockets.

Hecate New Moon, deprived of a medium, finally halted—and with it, the siphoning of his aether.

“Round two.”

Without waiting for a response, Priam summoned a thick cloud of mist with the aether he had left. Fog shrouded the chamber, and he spread two liters of his blood into it. Enhanced by [Ciphered Record], the blood would warp his opponent’s perception.

A thousand crossbow bolts exploded in every direction, proof Clock was now truly blind. Priam dodged them easily as the mist’s perception was his.

Riding his Concept to keep his opponent lost, Priam opened his mouth, reawakening the Breath confined within. [Phantom] and his mist concealed him until the final moment. The aether explosion finally caught the boss’s attention, but it was too late. A tunnel of energy engulfed Clock.

As the laser died down, the sound of shattering glass rippled through the fog: the boss’s shield had finally cracked. Without hesitation, Priam teleported into range. Out of aether, with no Promesse, he had only Pyro and [Kinetic Control] to end this. Flames wouldn’t do much against metal in a short while, so he swung a slow punch. His hand struck Clock’s torso, doing nothing.

“Futile,” Clock remarked as his gears latched onto Priam’s arm.

Trapped in the gears, Priam grinned. “I don’t think so. With my resistances and constitution, my bones are tougher than your metal.”

The gears screeched, straining to shred the reinforced body of the Juggernaut. Before Clock could release him, Priam channeled every ounce of kinetic energy. His trapped hand exploded, sending bone, phalanx, and nail flying like shrapnel at supersonic speed.

The flesh grenade tore the clockwork boss apart.

Blind and missing a hand, Priam smiled as he heard Clock collapse to the ground. Once again, he had triumphed.

Reward: Perfect fight (Clock the Cursed).
Select one of the abilities that could have defeated your opponent. 
Observe how you could have defeated him in the most optimal way.

• Aether Manipulation

• Kinetic Control

• Pyro

• Spear Mastery

• Chimera

*

Which reward do you prefer Priam to choose? It’s up to you!