Chapter 116

Cast of Iron (II)

Cain charged Creation, Aether, and the Element he unlocked after clearing the First Floor -- Ruin. Though he’d eventually gained access to it in his previous life, it was fairly late, good thirteen years into the descent of the Towers, and as he used it little since he didn’t want to alter his battling style too much, he was entirely unfamiliar with it.

Just as he saw the swirl of energy coalescing on top of his palm, his Mana temporary went berserk right at the tips of his fingers, and blew back; the backlash blew up his entire left hand into a shower of blood and gore as he was tossed back, coincidentally dodging a double slash of the armored creature.

He flew some sixty yards before landing, gritting his teeth and trying to numb the pain by cauterizing the entire hand -- with little success. Shit, did I really forget?!! Creation and Ruin!! How can those two merge together?! FUCK FUCK FUCK!!

Cursing himself out inwardly, he heard Senna snickering in the distance, though had no mind to pay attention to her. He charged Earth, Aether, and Ruin into his feet and slammed it against the ground; a mere moment later, a crevice began emerging, starting at his foot and lounging toward the charging creature. It was made in quite an eerie way, as the ground didn’t ‘crack’ and ‘shudder’, per se, but... dissipated into ash and dust.

The creature nimbly dodged sideways, its cape flopping in the surging winds of fire, as it charged coral-dyed Mana into its blades, crossing them upfront and readying an attack. Cain groaned and rapidly cast Elemental Shield, Blinking back to gain some distance. The easiest use of Ruin isn’t in attacking, he confirmed what he believed in his past life. It’s in defending as it’s a good nullifier of Mana since it doesn’t ‘destroy’ it, just dissolves it. It’s kind of useless against melee attackers, though...

The creature sped up abruptly, swirls of Mana appearing around its shoulder blades, as it heaved both its sword straight up, dislodging good chunks of the ground beneath through unleashing two arrays of bleeding bladelight. Cain quickly charged Earth, Aether, Water, and Blood, forming a string of barriers fueled by the strength of his own blood, testing it. As he suspected, they were immediately crushed since his Vitality was terrible, but the reason he chose this route was specifically to fight the creature he was fighting -- 'Wandering Knight' -- since the creature had immense endurance and wasn't too speedy, despite its battle style.

Cain continued to dance around the creature nimbly, never entering within forty feet of the armored beast, mostly dodging wind-up strikes and trying a combination of Elements. He’d also tried to go for hepta-attunement but quickly learned that it was impossible. Not because he didn’t know how or was incapable of it -- since, through forcing it the first time, he uncovered what the flaw was in the way he charged the Elements -- but because his body was simply incapable of physically enduring the strain.

I’ll need to at least Awaken first before actually being able to pull it off, Cain mused. The First Awakening didn't just shuffle around the Class and diversify it further but also reinforced the body considerably. For instance, his method of charging Mana -- through veins -- would become much quicker as his veins would expand slightly and solidify further. This meant that he could pour out far more Mana within shorter bursts, generating far more force and traction and ensuring some Spells that required instant outpour of energy could be used.

That was also one of the reasons why he held back on creating Spells and stuck with the two he was kind of forced to Create; most of the spells Elementalist could create before the First Awakening were fairly rudimentary and could be executed through a raw combination of Elements, even if their efficiency was on the lesser side. Following the First Awakening, however, the potential for created spells would explode -- and most superstar-level Elementalist in Cain's previous life would create at least 4 mainstay spells that they would use even after the Second Awakening.

What Cain mulled over at the moment was which direction to take with his Awakening. In his previous life, to be on the safer side, he went the Elementalist plus Vanguard combo. It increased his defensive capabilities considerably but limited him in terms of damage he could output. This was in part due to his style of fighting, but that has changed considerably since he returned.

He'd started taking on far more risks and began battling frontally, going head-to-head with opponents with far more raw strength than him. This also resulted in a better understanding of how to combine the Elements, which meant that choosing the Vanguard route again would dampen his potential and force him back into his previous style which was unnecessary -- the party he'd strung together was extremely good, with almost zero holes outside of Support.

There would be no need for him to almost ever take the front of the battle, and could just leave it up to Emma and Lukas. Should I go with the Reaper? No... it’s too lenient on the offensive end of things... it basically has no utility.

The number of options, as far as he was aware, he had was 8. Most, however, were entirely useless -- like the dual-Elementalist option. Though it would boost all his Elementalist skills, he'd become too one-dimensional. While it may not matter too much if he ever fought other people and lesser bosses of the Tower, most of the really difficult bosses would be able to easily exploit his lack of diversity.

I guess... that leaves either Stellar or Spatial combo... he landed squarely onto the ground and Blinked to the side, dodging a beam of bladelight and retaliating by charging Creation, Fire, Aether, and Wind, summoning a fiery tsunami that swallowed the creature, though didn’t seem to do a lot of damage. Cain purposefully didn’t use Water and Frost as it would wear the creature down too much too quickly.

With Stellar, my offense would explode and I’d still have some utility through Mirrors... Inferno, one of the most famous Elementalist in his past life, went this route as far as Cain knew. Dragon, another one of them, on the other hand, went Spatial. If I’m being honest, I always preferred how Dragon fought, he sighed inwardly, dodging yet another strike. However, by now, even Senna had noticed that he wasn’t in it, and that he was just messing around. Though my damage would be more dependent on items... I can procure those with some luck. In terms of utility, probably only Shade for the Assassins provides more raw utility after the First Awakening.

True to its name, 'Spatial' Awakening would afford him another Element to play around with -- Space itself. Furthermore, the 'Tree' that it would unlock was chuck-full of options that expanded on the utility of both raw Elements and created spells. He'd also gain access to the penultimate form of 'Blink', essentially allowing him to teleport around however much he wanted as long as he had Mana. The skill had no cooldown, had no charges, but consecutive uses would increase the Mana demands more and more. It’s probably the best, Cain summarized as he decided he’d had enough, charging Creation, Water, Frost, Aether, and Earth into a twenty-feet long, spearheaded spike of ice that he shuffled at the creature from its blind spot, easily piercing the skull and smashing it into countless tiny shards, felling it. Ah! He’d just then realized he hadn’t touched Senna’s created cannonballs as he intended to do some experiments with them. Oh well... next time...

It felt as though a huge burden fell off his shoulder as he made his decision. It was irreversible, after all; once he made a choice, he was locked with it until he either Conquered the whole thing or died. I guess... I now have to go after the Infernal Orbs here. Ugh... I really don’t wanna fight that dog...

“... what the hell was that?” Senna asked coldly. “That looked like the easiest fight of your life!! I could have totally killed that guy on my own!”

“Well, yeah,” Cain shrugged. “I just wanted to test something out.”

“Test what out?! How much you can fuck up?!” she exclaimed. “Besides, did you forget Diya is not with us?! Your hand is done until we meet up with them!”

“It’s all good,” Cain smiled dismissively. “I just accidentally used Creation and Ruin at the same time. You’d think, I mean, you’d think, after two lifetimes... I’d know not to try and combine two literal opposites.”

“... oh. Wow.”

“Those eyes hurt, I gotta say.”

“Good, I meant for them to hurt,” Senna said. “Just... just how dumb are you?”

“Well, I know I’m not very clever,” Cain replied. “I think you misunderstood something.”

“What?” Senna quizzed.

"In my last run," he explained. "I... I was not good. Rather, I'm pretty sure I didn't even qualify to enter the top 100 in the ranks of my Class or those just qualified as 'Pure Magic Classes'. And that's me being very optimistic over how I ranked against others.”

“... yeah, I pretty much figured that out.” Senna shrugged.

“Huh?”

“You always seemed childishly insecure when it came out our stats,” she pointed out with a sigh. “Knowing that, it’s kinda obvious you sucked the first time around.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say I sucked--”

"But it's cool, isn't it?" she interrupted, smiling faintly. "You surprised me if nothing else. You didn't rest on what you already know, and instead want to improve, already. You could have also monopolized this whole place for yourself and took the best rewards... but realized you'd go nowhere fast, and instead focused on looking to surround yourself with others. That's pretty cool, in my opinion."

“... did... did you just compliment me?”

“N-no! Of course not! You weak dumbass! You talentless scrub!”

"Pfft, ha ha ha... wow. It feels really refreshing. Especially coming from you. Do you know that you were one of the strongest people last go-around?"

“Aaaaand now I get why you wanted me to join so badly...” Senna sighed.

“God, no,” Cain shook his head. “You were nuts the last time. And I mean... nuts. You’d kill anyone who tried talking to you, you outright refused to party up with anyone, you once set half of L.A. on fire ‘cause some dude hit on you... and that’s just scratching the surface.”

“Wait--what?!! I--no way! You’re lying!!” Senna exclaimed in disbelief.

“I guess,” Cain grinned. “You didn’t have me to steer you along the right path like now! Haah, to think I saved the world from the catastrophe... I really am amazing. All else aside,” he added quickly, his eyes dulling as he reached into his memories. “You... you really were amazing. As far as I know, you were one of four people who managed to clear a floor Boss solo. But...” he added, glancing at her. “I very much prefer this Senna over that ape.”

“... did you just call me an ape?”

“You’re a bit brash, headstrong, and have no respect for your daddy--”

“--DUDE!!!!”

“--but you are also far more confident, secure, and just... far more beautiful. The one from the future... she was an ugly woman,” he added. “Who disregarded human life as though it’s livestock.”

“...”

“To be fair, I was far more like her than I’d like to admit,” Cain sighed bitterly, looking up at the smoke-filled sky. “In many ways, we’re helping each other remain grounded. It’s funny... how different people tend to be if they feel loved and accepted.”

“What’s funny is that you think you’re loved and accepted.” Senna snickered with a grin.

“...” Cain turned toward her and smiled, patting her head. “Give it time.”

“H-huh?”

“I’ll get that ‘I love you’ outta you just yet.”

“LIKE HELL YOU WILL!! BESIDES, YOU’RE CREEPY!! SOOO CREEPY!!”

"... yeah, khm. The sheer confidence that I said that with to a sixteen-year-old girl... man, I've got issues. Oh well, at least I've got Lana."

“What about Emma?” Senna asked.

“...”

“Oh? You still didn’t re-say it to one another?” Senna grinned, elbowing his ribs gently. “Maybe she doesn’t feel the same way? Maybe she moved on?”

“... and maybe I tell Emma you developed a crush on her?” Cain winked.

“DUDEEEEEEE!!!!”

With the cries of the young girl and the snickering laughter of a man twice her age, the dead landscape was revitalized -- if but briefly. Beyond that veneer, however, there were several pairs of eyes keenly observing not just Senna and Cain, but other pairs as well, as though scrutinizing them inside-out and biding their time in dreaded silence.