System Change

Derek and the duke squared off in the air—Derek using Void Steps to keep himself in the air, and the duke looking like he was standing on nothing. Derek wasn’t exactly sure what the man’s method of flying was. Probably something to do with his barriers. It was easy to tell how the two royal members of the Astrus kingdom stayed afloat, though. They weren’t big, but obviously it had something to do with the near static wings on their backs or the small blizzard orbiting around them… or both.

As for the last person—the general that the two royal members brought with them—Derek had absolutely no clue how that person was able to stay in the air. Maybe there’s something underneath all that armor they’re wearing. Come to think of it, how is Alanah flying? I’ll have to ask her about it later.

Wings seemed to be the normal skill method for most people—whether it was wings made out of ice or fire or electricity. Some wings, like the ones that the pair from Astrus were wearing, seemed to only be there for a visual effect, and didn’t require any movement from them at all to keep the users in the air.

While Derek was slightly lost in thought, he saw the duke finally make a move on him, which was exactly what he was waiting for. Derek’s overall fighting style hadn’t changed much. He still liked to figure out what kind of damage an enemy could output before going all in. Of course, after a couple of realizations, he chose to go about this a little more carefully than before by doing his best to avoid getting hit in the head or heart. Actually, with the way my foot healed, it’s possible that hitting my heart wouldn’t be as bad anymore.

Derek wasn’t sure what the man was doing, so he raised his left arm in front of his face to protect that vital area as best he could. Almost as soon as he brought his forearm up, it was hit by something. Derek was pushed back in the air a couple feet and had to adjust his Void Steps again. Once he was stabilized, he brought his arm out and examined where he was hit.

On the side of the left forearm of his Dark Wyvern Scaled Armor, there was an indent, and a white mark around half an inch wide and three inches long. Derek quickly switch Harbinger to his other hand and rubbed at the blemish on the armor. The mark faded some, but it looked like it was there to stay. The small sacrifice made from his armor let Derek knew that if whatever the man just used was his best attack, he was in no danger of being hurt.

He wasn’t entirely sure, but he put his own skin close to the same level of protection as the armor itself, and since his evolution, he had a feeling it may be even better than he thought. The only real attack he’d taken after the evolution was from the Starfury Leonarus, and he couldn’t count that as a real test—the thing wasn’t from the Great System, after all.

Derek looked up from examining his armor and smiled at the duke, who almost looked surprised. While he was smiling, he was hit three more times by whatever attack the man was using. Two hit his chest, and the other hit the palm of his hand as he raised it just in time to block his head from being hit. On his palm, he was left with what looked like a paper cut that barely went deep enough to cause him to bleed. Before his eyes, it healed almost instantly. Dammit, I hate paper cuts. Bastard’s sting like a son of a bitch. He shook his hand and met the eyes of the duke once again.

This time, the elven commander was actually surprised—his eyes were round as saucers. Taking a hit to armor was one thing, but taking it with a gloveless open palm and only shaking the sting off afterward was another. Derek’s smiled grew even wider. It looked like he wasn’t a very good match for the duke. I bet he’s not too great against Alanah, either. With all that endurance from the Void Beasts, plus the strength, I bet she’d overpower him pretty quickly in a one versus one situation.

Derek switched Harbinger back to his dominant hand and mouth two words at the duke. “My turn.” He knew the man couldn’t hear him, but those words were pretty easy to understand.

Today was a day of firsts for Derek. It was the first time he used his new Spatial Redirection skill—which worked pretty well, all things considered. The two-minute cooldown timer on it kind of sucked, but hopefully that would get better as he leveled it. Now, it was time for a different first: Spatial Rend.

This skill only worked with a bladed weapon, which was perfect for Derek. He searched for the skill and activated it, then channeled the void into Harbinger for a little extra attack power. He didn’t have a ton of mana, so he went easy. Then, he felt how to use the skill, and slashed out with Harbinger. What he noticed when he used the skill was that his void was still inside Harbinger. It hadn’t been unleashed with the attack. The attack didn’t actually start at Harbinger, and more so appeared out of thin air.

As Derek grinned at the duke, the duke glared back at him with confusion in his eyes. To the man’s eyes, it probably looked like Derek was taking a light practice swipe with his glaive. However, while the elven man was staring at him, Derek pointed over to Alanah’s battle.

His first real attack in their fight hadn’t actually been directed at the elven commander. Derek figured Alanah could use a little help in her fight, and it looked like those two royals were being pretty annoying by buzzing around so much. So, he helped her. The man with the short hair—the one who had been yelling at Derek, even though no words came out—seemed like the perfect target. He’d already been so kind as to lend Derek an ice spike to use, so why not return the favor?

As it was his first time using the skill, Derek’s aim wasn’t all too good at the moment. So, instead of going after somewhere vital, he instead had directed the attack at the man’s body. Luckily he did, because it still almost missed. Instead, once he made the attack, Derek watched out of the corner of his eye as what looked like a small tear in space appeared almost directly on the man, then traveled forward just enough to catch him in his side.

A six inch long and maybe two inch wide space was taken out of the side of the armor the man was wearing, along with the chunk of flesh the same length underneath. The man’s flesh and armor wasn’t cut, like it would have been from a blade, but just removed. With the removal of part of his armor and flesh, the man began bleeding profusely. Drops of blood flowed out of the newly made space in his armor before freezing and dropping to the ground like little blood icicles.

Derek couldn’t see the wound all too well, but after focusing hard, he thought he could see an odd darkness around the edge of the hole he put in the man’s armor. That must be what Dave was talking about when he said the wound wouldn’t heal as easily as others. Overall, Derek was satisfied by the attack. He had another ranged attack to work with now, which was something he had needed. He still had Spatial Collapse to use, but he didn’t really have a guess on how that worked yet, so he would save his mana for now.

With some of his void still channeled into Harbinger, he went ahead and pumped more into it, causing the void image to appear over it, making it visible to all. That was enough to bring the duke’s attention back to him. Edgar basically told me to not worry if I killed anyone of these leaders, so I guess I shouldn’t hold back.

Derek kicked forward off the void and charged toward the elf. After pushing off three separate void ripples and drawing close to the commander, he was stopped by what felt like an invisible wall. What now? Derek wasn’t a big fan of invisible attacks. Of course, he didn’t really know he wasn’t a fan until now, though. So, Derek pushed Void Sense back to its limits, which he had adjusted once he exited from the portal made by Void Travel.

It was his only sensory type skill, and the only way he would be able to maybe see the man’s incoming attacks. Surprisingly, it worked—not great, but it worked. All the void ripples became much clearer to him, but if he looked through the invisible wall before him, they were slightly distorted. He wouldn’t be able to see things perfectly, but with this, he could at least get a general sense of when the man attacked and where they were coming from.

At that time, Derek felt another invisible wall crash against his back. Oh, so he’s trying to trap me now. The two walls pushed together harder and harder, squeezing him ever so tighter in the process. It was another attack that didn’t do much against him, but annoying, nonetheless. Derek raised his head from examining the void ripples through the barrier in front of him and stared at the elven commander with a skeptical look.

Finally, he used his Telepathy skill to try to connect with the duke. Telepathy wasn’t an attack skill, so it wasn’t something one could force the other into—which is why Alanah hadn’t already made a mess out of everyone with hers. It was like a phone call from Earth. A person didn’t have to answer the call if they didn’t want to, and they could even block the attempt from certain people with a thought.

Derek had pretty much always kept his Telepathy skill wide open. Anyone who tried to connect with him would instantly be able to get their message to him. It was a good idea, especially in battle against beasts. He and his raid team had used the skill often during their time together. Now, Derek was trying to connect with the duke.

“Answer,” Derek mouthed at the duke. Then, with his trapped hand, he pointed at his own head a couple of times. Surprisingly, after getting another glare from the elven commander, he felt his skill go through. ‘Oh, wow,’ he sent to the man. ‘You actually picked up.’

‘I’m not worried about your mental skills. You’ve already shown what attacks you possess,’ the man said.

‘True,’ Derek replied. ‘Anyway, let’s get straight to it. You’re the commander of the army. The army is scattered. Our entire raid team is back, and are all somewhere around the same strength as Edgar. You’ve already lost, so you should give up.’

Derek waited for a reply while the walls continued to squeeze him. Finally, after some time, the man spoke. ‘The war is not lost. We still have the numbers. Do you think that’s our entire army? Once the Dawn Siren is taken care of, the war will be over. But it will be our side that wins.’

‘You’re pretty delusional, aren’t you?’ Derek said. ‘Reminds me of your daughter. I thought something was up with her, but she was the first elf I met, so I didn’t think anything of it. All of you have some sense of superiority to humans, but she and you seem to have it worse than the others that I’ve met.’

‘Sabrina did say she met you briefly,’ Ryven replied.

‘She also stalked me a little, too,’ Derek laughed. There were a couple of times in Savannah when he caught the elf staring at him from a distance. He always ignored her for the most part—he didn’t consider her worth his time.

‘Stalked? How dare you!’

‘What? She did.’ Derek shrugged his trapped shoulders as best he could. ‘Anyway, like I said. You should surrender now, and maybe I can talk Edgar into letting your countries off with a less harsh punishment.’

‘And like I said. You’ve only a couple people that we need to immobilize and the war is ours. We have the numbers,’ the duke replied.

Derek sighed and used Active Void Shift to appear directly behind the man. ‘You don’t seem to get it,’ he sent to the man as he slashed out with his void covered glaive. His attack bounced off of another one of the shields, but he knew that didn’t matter. Silvi had killed one of their princes, and Derek was quite sure that the shield wouldn’t block his void energy.

Sure enough, the void attack passed through the shield and landed on the commander’s torso. Whatever skill the man was using broke and Derek heard a sound come from the man for the first time in the form of a grunt, before a mouthful of blood poured out of him and he began to fall to the ground.

‘You’re only alive because I haven’t killed you yet,’ he sent to the fallen man. Damn, it’s fun to fight against people who can talk back again.

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