Chapter 292

Trial of Cruelty (III)

What Cain didn’t account for when briefly imaging his fight against the woman was just how sticky she would be. No matter how many times he Blinked or in which direction or even just how much space he gained, she would reappear near him within seconds. He realized that she was made this way--they didn’t care for how well he could shake off melee combatants and fight from the range, they wanted to see him perform as a melee combatant.

Though a bit annoying, it wasn’t something that shook his confidence. As such, rather than wasting his Mana on the ever-increasing costs of Blinks, he used a much milder version with the same idea--it limited his movement to just sidestepping a few feet, but it was instant and it cost virtually no Mana. The reason he didn’t like using it often was that it shared a cooldown with Blink, omnidirectionally. That meant that if he sidestepped left, all of his Blink-charged skills would go on a cooldown.

A hefty swing of a blade phased just by his side as he retaliated immediately. Since he was fighting in melee, he made skills up on the fly with the main notion in mind being that they had low Mana costs. As such, they were mostly short-burst, low-damage and low-cooldown jabs that aimed to disorient more than to harm.

The two remained aflight all the while, nimbly weaving around each other in the ever-widening circle, their speeds progressively increasing. The woman roared lowly, slamming her blade against the shield as a crack of thunder boomed out, hundreds of bolts like serpents blowing out from the shield and dipping toward Cain. The latter pulled back aggressively, projecting hexagonal, transparent shields in front of him--six in total, all forming a semi-circle around him.

Some bolts washed over and some squeezed by, but none managed to hit Cain squarely, affording him a second of respite as the woman rushed back toward him. He unchained a flaming blade with a singular motion of his arm, jerking it back before bringing it forward, the magnified, forty-feet long sword made of fire following the trajectory, descending toward the woman.

She stopped abruptly and heaved her shield up, blocking the strike but clearly taking some damage as she was pushed further down. The sword dissipated in the gushing wind as Cain took the opportunity not to create distance, but rather to close it--dipping right behind the woman while she still appeared disoriented, extending his palm and injecting a massive surge of Mana for a newly-created skill.

Tapping the woman’s back with his palm, the energy expanded and molded into a fiery haze, pushing outward as the imprint of his palm was laid out into the woman’s armor, managing to just barely touch her skin before she recovered and dashed out. She didn’t cry out in pain, but her movement clearly grew slightly more languid as she spun around, staring deathly daggers at him.

Even if her movement grew more languid, her speed, however, increased--something Cain noticed quite a while ago. Bit by bit, she began to overtake him until, inevitably, a few of the previously-stray hits... began landing. First it was a mild cut, then a deeper one, then a stab, and then a proper slice that nearly cut his left forearm off in one sweep.

Despite his trickery and experience and utilization of magic, the reality of things was that Cain... was a Mage. Not only that, but he doubled-down on his class by choosing a Spellweaver. The fact that he could match a full melee fighter for this long was already a miracle in and of itself. It was, really, just a matter of time before he was unable to keep up and started losing.

Due to this, he had to adapt--and he had to adapt quickly. By giving up even more firepower, he poured even more Mana into maintaining high speed and agility for longer periods of time. Unlike damage skills, however, which the Tower tolerated greatly when it came to costs of using them, utility skills were... different, especially mobility-associated ones.

The Mana costs, rather than remaining static, would ramp up, and there was even a hard-coded ‘threshold’ of sorts, a point at which a person is entirely disallowed from using any and all skills--not just utility-charged ones. That was also why Cain was careful not to speed-cast too many skills and instead bob-and-weave, so to say, between his rotation.

The moment he’d gain at least a hundred yards of distance, he knew that he had a 2 seconds long window for a buffer--he’d use a high-damaging skill with high accuracy, but limit the cast time to, at most, a second and a half. By the time he was done casting the skill, the woman would be virtually on top of him, and he had a fraction of a second to dip away.

While being within twenty yards of Byrna, he exclusively used mobility skills, mostly dodging her swift and precise strikes--but always trying to dodge diagonally and away from her as to create as much distance as possible between the two. Once he crossed fifty yards distance, he’d continue utilizing movement skills to try and reach the hundred yards, but would weave in some defensive ones as well, to offset the need for mobility skills and try and reset the ramping costs.

By the tenth minute since he started doing it, a single usage of Blink cost him nearly 2000 Mana since he was no longer able to reset it. She was too fast, too precise, too unforgiving--it was like fighting an A.I. program that was perfectly coded to defeat the player. She had pinpoint-accurate instincts, clairvoyant-like prediction skills, and seemed to outmatch him in virtually every statistical category... but just by a margin.

Even if he often ended up on the losing side of things, Cain didn’t feel overwhelmed--not once in the battle. Just when it seemed she would take over, her pace abruptly evened out and he found himself with some breathing room. If he didn’t know any better, he’d swear there was someone in the sky with a controller playing her and then stopping when they were about to win just to torture him.

Nonetheless, he used this to his advantage, spacing out skills more and more and recovering Mana swiftly while the woman seemed to refuse to land a killing blow, mostly stabbing around the non-lethal regions, as though poking and prodding.

“Examination finished,” the woman came to an abrupt halt, surprising Cain as she immediately created nearly half a mile of distance between the two. “Assessment acquired: threat level... Guardianship. Potential: Classified. Adjusting sensors... Stats--greatly ahead of the pace, inordinate number of high-end Skills present; melee combat... beyond a Mage’s structure, further assessment required.”

“...” Cain stared blankly at the woman that was spitting out a genuine report on him with such an emotionless voice he almost wanted to get choked up a bit on her behalf.

“Further readjustments will be proposed during the External Evaluation,” the woman’s countenance shifted abruptly yet again and, for the first time since ‘meeting’ her, the look in the woman’s eyes looked... human. She even cracked a coy smile at him as she slowly floated over. “Good job, Conqueror Cain. You have impressed many of us.”

“... and who exactly did I impress?” Cain asked back, genuinely confused and curious.

“Though many did have a certain level of expectations for you, thievery and all, you still surpassed our initial, internal assessment,” she continued, ignoring him and stopping some ten feet away from him. The reason why Cain didn’t back away was that she’d already put her weapons away and stopped using Mana completely. “Your current state will be taken into account for the future challenges.”

“I’d rather you don’t do that,” Cain said, smiling sheepishly.

“Ha ha, we’re sure you’d rather,” the woman laughed coquettishly as she replied. “But that is simply how things go. The Towers are supposed to be challenges, means of testing an individual’s entire assortment of skills, body, psyche, and everything in-between. If someone can simply walk through the challenges... well, they wouldn’t be much of a challenge, now would they?”

“Fuck, are you implying I haven’t been challenged?! Shit, I don’t care who you are, I’ll fight you!” Cain retorted angrily, thinking back to all the times he nearly died.

“No, of course not,” the woman replied calmly. “You have managed to overcome all the challenges before you, some of which nobody believed you would. But, if I can admit that, then can you admit that you were also appropriately rewarded for your troubles?”

“...” Cain mumbled something indiscernible, hating to agree with the woman, but he had no choice but to.

“And those rewards have made you quite a few times stronger,” the woman continued. “And that strength kept ballooning. In your mind, I believe the phrase ‘power creep’ dominates?”

“...”

“We have to adjust that on our end,” the woman’s smile had the power to disarm. Cain winced, since he felt even himself being reeled in like a fish. “Not to worry--we will not use against you the external musings of the bored ones,” the woman winked knowingly, causing Cain to sigh. “Take the Trial of Cruelty for example--normally, the Trial is merely a test of luck. If you’re a physical fighter, you got lucky with an easy Trial. If you’re a Mage... well, you had to abandon it and run. Unequivocally. And yet, you, a Mage--an Awakened Mage no less with zero physical damage in his skillset--managed to easily complete the trial. While having that weapon is in part luck, it’s mostly because you know how certain trials are conducted.”

“... and that’s not cool?”

“And that’s not cool,” the woman chuckled. “Not to worry--none of your friends or any of the other Conquerors will feel any difference. The Tower, for them, will remain the same as intended. However, when you’re joining them, instead of one, you will be treated as three people.”

“... and the difficulty will increase proportionately?” Cain asked, nodding knowingly.

“Yes,” the woman said. “But, I’m sure we’re still being quite lenient. After all, you do fill the shoes of far more than just three people.”

“... yeah, you lot are the epitome of lenient. Oh, wait. You forced someone who did not Awaken to fight a twice-Awakened...”

“Shouldn’t the fact that you defeated him be far more concerning, then?” the woman’s smile seemed to widen further even when it seemed impossible. “Nonetheless, as our apology for disrupting the Trial, we have prepared a small gift for you. I hope you enjoy it, Conqueror Cain Gregory. And we wish you the very best and hope to one day see you among the Crowned. Good luck!” the woman’s last words trailed for a long while after she had vanished in the bout of white smoke, the sole trace she was ever there the wanton destruction of the world below, and the eerie silence that seemed to whisper her indiscernible name.