System Change

With a thought, Derek activated Sweeping Slash after quickly channeling what void energy he could into Harbinger in a short moment. The duke hadn’t been able to take a regular strike to his organs well, and now the King of Astrus was in prime position to take a full on hit with Sweeping Slash. Derek was still going for the capture route, but he wouldn’t be too broken up if his attack accidentally killed the king.

The arc from Sweeping Slash shot out toward the king, who was still in very close range. The king, to his credit, saw the attack and managed to bring up his own defense—putting one wing up, then another in an attempt to block. The king was able to block the blow, though, that wasn’t the only thing that came with Derek’s use of part of his favorite combo. He knew that even with the multiple feet of black ice, the energy from the arching slash made out of the void would still find its target.

To his surprise, however, Derek didn’t hear any of the noises or see any of the scenes from behind the wings of ice that he had expected. Usually, when his enemies were hit with the void, they’d at least cough or groan from their internal organs being shaken up or destroyed, or even blood would fall to the ground from their mouths. Even the most powerful of beasts showed signs that they’d been hit by it. He was confused for a second, but moments later, he saw the reason—or at least what was most likely the reason.

First the front wing opened up, then the other, making the pair of wings move back to their normal place behind the king. In the middle, Derek found a very interesting scene. Before, the wings connected to the man’s back and into his normal human flesh—if Avery’s dragon wings were anything to go off of. Now, the wings of ice connected to even more ice. Other than the man’s clothes, his entire body was a dark crystalline blue color—including his face and hands.

Now this is something new, Derek thought. I wonder if all his organs have turned into ice as well. Hmm… I never did get to see what my void infused Sweeping Slash did to those trees back in the raid dungeon. Unfortunately, our sparring and training ended up decimating the entire part of that forest before I got to see if they survived or not. This situation is different, but surely not too different.

Both he and the trees are alive… I think, but both of them are mostly solid now. Well, at least much more solid than a normal human. Interesting. I wonder if his organs are going to rupture when they thaw out. Derek’s grip tightened on Harbinger and he smiled. After getting four of his stats to the 1500 point threshold, he had believed that other than some abnormality, like the Starfury Leonarus, he would be able to crush most people from Cydaria and the surrounding kingdoms quite easily.

This was further proven when he had his quick fight against the elven commander of the combined armies. One good swipe with a void infused Harbinger, and one of the strongest people in Indria had been incapacitated so badly that their skill had even stopped functioning. Well, I assume he’s close to the top when it comes to people in Indria. Then again, I could probably take Edward and Edwin out with relative ease how I am now, but there are still people in Cydaria like Edgar, Avery, and especially Alanah.

“That’s a pretty neat trick,” Derek said. “I wonder how much damage it really negated. What’s going to happen when you thaw out and you need your blood to start pumping again?” What if his full ice body is acting like pure armor, and my skill just completely passed through it without causing any harm? Just like it would have normal armor. It could be like attacking golems anywhere other than their energy filled cores. Does he have a core in this form that I could hit?

“That is not something you need to concern yourself with, Mr. Hunt,” the king replied with a toothy, frozen smile. His voice was very muffled, and it sounded like someone was speaking through a pillow.

“I’m flattered that you know my name. No, really, I am. I’ve literally never met anyone outside of Cydaria, other than the duke’s daughter, that is, yet the king of a country that I’m not one hundred percent sure what the name is actually knows who I am. It’s Asterisk? Right? Or Astrus or something. I’m close, I know I am.”

The man did not look amused. “It is Astrus, and you would do well to remember it.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” Derek shrugged. “I think Asterisk would be a much better name for your country. You know, because that’s the only way it’s going to be mentioned in the history books, as an asterisk. This country was formerly known as Astrus until its royal family got greedy and bit off more than they could chew. You know? Something like that.”

“No, I don’t know,” the king spat. “I’m sure the history books won’t even remember your name at all.”

“Fine by me,” Derek said. “I’m not one for all that honor and glory for the ages and all that crap. Who cares if someone remembers me a millennium after I’m dead? I’ll still be dead. Anyway, I’m tired of thinking about you as the King of Astrus. Since you know my name, how about you tell me yours?”

“My name? You do not know my name?” The King of Astrus glared at Derek in silence for some time. Actually, it was long enough for his Spatial Rend to come off of cooldown and for him to regenerate a decent chunk of his mana through Greater Meditation. “I am Tivarian Sinclair, the King of Astrus and soon to be ruler of this entire continent.”

“Ty, huh? I thought you seemed more like a Gerald, but I guess that’s whatever,” Derek laughed. “You have quite the ambitions for a man that’s not going to make it through the month.” What day in the month is it, anyway? Wait, what day is it?

“You will not cause me to lose my cool with words. I am no fool,” Tivarian said.

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Derek asked. There was no way that pun was unintended. “Also, didn’t you literally come to the front lines of a war that will be completely lost if something happens to you just because you were angry?”

“That…”

“See,” Derek said. “You are a fool.”

“You…” The man started, but instead of saying anything else, he attacked.

The pair of ice wings flapped hard behind his back, creating a freezing gust in their wake. Tivarian shot forward with his fist draw back to punch.

Derek quickly raised his left arm to block the attack that was coming and prepared to Void Shift if the situation called for it. He hadn’t thought the man was going to have many tricks up his sleeves, but he’d already surprised Derek once. He wouldn’t let himself be caught like a deer in headlights.

The man’s fist rushed forward, but then it stopped inches from Derek’s guard. “Hmph,” the man snorted. Then he opened his fist and reached out to take hold of Derek’s empty hand.

“What?” Unexpectedly, Derek was grabbed by the king instead of attacked. As the man’s hand made contact with his own, Derek felt a blistering chill radiate through his pinky—where the man’s grip was focused—then to his hand and up his arm, stopping just at his elbow. He tugged backwards hard a few times, but the king’s grip was like a vise. Soon, Derek’s eyes found his pinky, and he saw that it had turned completely blue. This may be bad.

He wasn’t overly worried, as his pinky wasn’t a vital part of his body, and from the crease in the ice statue-like man’s brow, whatever he had planned hadn’t happened the way he’d expected it to. With one last tug, Derek finally freed his hand from the man, before kicking off the void and gaining distance between the two of them.

Unfortunately, his pinky hadn’t come along with him and was still in the grasp of the king. The king smiled at Derek, which Derek found quite creepy looking. Then, with both hands, he crushed the pinky.

Shit! Derek inwardly yelled. I just grew back my foot, now I have to grow my pinky back. And that pinky was my second favorite. Also, I wonder if this guy would be able to survive inside the void from Void Travel in his ice form. Derek held his left hand out in front of his eyes. His enormous vitality and endurance had already started working on his wound before he even stopped moving backwards.

The chill in his arm had already subsided, and Derek could even see the makings of new flesh starting to grow from the rapidly healing frostbitten flesh of his hand. Derek frowned and looked past his hand and into the dead-looking eyes of the king. Then he pointed Harbinger at him and fired off a shot of Void Lightning. The lightning crashed into the man’s chest, but he just smiled.

Damn. He’s got to be basically a living inorganic object. Wait, would my void abilities have trouble fighting against robots and stuff? That was definitely one thing Derek didn’t want to test out. Though, he couldn’t think of a robot being able to harm him with his pure stats. Damn. Derek shook the irrelevant thoughts out of his head. He needed to focus on his current fight. He shouldn’t be able to keep that form for long.

“So, you see your mistake in making me your enemy?” Tivarian said.

“Uh. You made me your enemy, not the other way around,” Derek said. “It’s you and Indria that attacked where I live.” Then, Derek held his hand up and showed the man his pinky, that was already at least twenty percent grown back. “And no, I don’t regret it. You can’t do anything to me that I can’t fix, and the second your ice statue skill runs out, you’re dead or at least captured—just like the duke.”

The eyes on the man’s statue face widened at Derek’s regenerating limb. One digit was much easier to grow back than an entire foot and ankle, and even without a healer’s support, it was growing back at a rate visible to the human eye.

“You!” The man shot forward once again.

This time, Derek covered his hands and every other unarmored part of his body, even his head, with a layer of void armor he made from Void Creation. He didn’t know how well it would work, but when he used the skill to make armor, like when he was fighting the whale, the void became physical. So, it should provide at least some protection.

Before the man arrived, Derek sliced Harbinger through the air and activated Spatial Rend. Instantly, the space opened and moved rapidly toward the incoming man before landing on his shoulder. Derek cursed his inaccuracy, but the attack still caused damage. His energy based void attack may not have caused damage, but when the physical properties of space landed on the man’s shoulder, it immediately vanished a big chunk of ice from him.

The man stopped and shouted painfully before clutching his new wound. This time, Derek was close enough to see the lingering effect caused by Spatial Rend. Small things that he could only call spatial tendrils looked to be wriggling around the edges of the injury. It was not a pretty sight.

Derek wasn’t going to let this opportunity with the man, currently unmoving and clutching his injury, pass him by. With his left hand, he focused and activated Spatial Collapse. He had an idea of how it worked, but Dave’s warning that it started small was still ingrained in his mind. A hand for a pinky, Derek thought. Soon, a very small transparent black cube appeared on the man’s current immobile hand.

It was only about two inches by two inches. Okay, a pinky for a pinky, then.

Tivarian noticed the small spatial attack too late, and by the time he went to move his hand from the cube—which Derek felt he could easily break it out of—the trapping part of the skill changed to the collapsing part. Instantly, two fingers of the man’s left hand shattered, and some even disappeared with the space. Derek was happy that he had two skills that worked quite well on the ice man before him, but he had one more trick up his sleeve that would work even better.

‘Edgar,’ Derek sent, but he had traveled too far away from the prince to reach him with his low level of Telepathy. Dammit. ‘Silvi, can you hear me?’

‘What?’ her voice came through, which made Derek happy.

Yay for bond Telepathy over my normal, low-level Telepathy, he thought. ‘Could you ask Edgar if it’s okay to kill this king, or if he would rather we capture him?’

A reply didn’t come for a short time, but finally, she got back to him. ‘Kill him. Big Sparky said you got the shield guy. He’s enough.’

‘Great,’ he sent. ‘Can you come do it? I’m pretty sure he’s not so good against fire.’

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