68

Zeniyon II

Rian sprinted toward where Zeniyon had most recently fired the shock wave—where the waters had been displaced and were only gradually returning—and started dashing forward. With less water to impede his movement, Rian was back at full speed on the ground.

When Zeniyon fired again, Rian nimbly dashed out of the way, then weaved back in and resumed sprinting down the opened path through the shallows. Zeniyon seemed to catch on, and he lowered his arm.

Antennae popped up from hidden compartments in his smaller arm. Arcs of electricity surged up and down it.

Rian already knew what was coming. He dashed backward, deciding he’d rather get hit than make himself an airborne target again.

Zeniyon plunged his smaller arm into the shallows, and lightning shot through the waters in a wide, rapidly expanding circle. It only began to fade just before it struck Rian. The damage wasn’t bad, but what worried him was the stun effect: he couldn’t move for several seconds, and it was enough time for Zeniyon to run into range.

The electricity hadn’t affected Zeniyon. Rian was glad he hadn’t built his offense around that element.

Rian regained control of his body just as Zeniyon swung with his massive arm. Metallic knuckles the size of cinder blocks headed for Rian’s face.

But despite its speed, that oversized arm was a huge target, and good timing was one of Rian’s core strengths. He parried, knocking all the momentum from the attack aside, which was enough to cause Zeniyon to fall sideways as if he could no longer compensate for carrying around so much weight on one side.

Knowing he’d found an opening, Rian went in—only to get shot through the back with a laser, chunking off a fourth of his health. Again. It pierced his body with transient heat like someone had put a magnifying glass in front of the sun.

He had only enough time to turn around to see what had done it: the floating metal sphere that Zeniyon had summoned. It had a short barrel glowing with blue light and was hovering far out of range.

Rian crouched, feeling all the power gather in his legs, and leapt to punch it from the air. He could almost feel the ground cracking beneath him with how hard he jumped.

Of course, the sphere zipped away as soon as he left the ground.

As he reached the apex of his ascent, he found himself wishing he had some range. Monks didn’t seem like the best class for this encounter.

As he spent a few seconds falling, he slowly spun to see Zeniyon righting himself and the sphere returning to him. More rifts were opening: one around Zeniyon’s shoulders, and one around the metal sphere.

Four small fins resembling solar panels emerged from the sphere, and it split into two mirror images. It had duplicated itself.

Appearing on Zeniyon’s shoulders were a minigun turret on the left and a short cannon turret on the right.

Rian landed and wasted no time closing the distance again. He couldn’t afford to stay back with those lasers threatening him, and he’d have to deal with all the guns up close anyway.

The spheres, more like miniature satellites now, twirled in place before firing again, but not at Rian. They shot into the ground and sent up an explosion of steam, obscuring Rian’s vision.

Out of the mists came Zeniyon’s gigantic hand, too sudden for Rian to line up a parry. All he could do was dash away.

Damn, he’s adapting to my class skills.

A laser twice the thickness as before cut through the steam horizontally. Rian saw it coming in time and ducked. It was a blind move on Zeniyon’s part, which told Rian enough: he’d have to use the cover to his advantage if he had any hope of getting into range.

As soon as the steam was cut through, revealing each of them to the other, Zeniyon opened fire.

Gunshots and the ka-thunk of launched projectiles filled the air. Bullets pocked the shallows next to Rian like a hundred rapidly approaching footsteps. To his other side landed a grenade, which detonated on the water and turned everything near it to ice.

Rian tanked the bullets as he ran toward Zeniyon. He’d wager his survival on that than get rooted in place by the ice. Spirit Fists had worn off by now, and the bullets bounced off him as they struck, feeling more like fingertips flicking against his chest and face. They chipped away at his health, but his Charge Punch meter was also approaching three-fourths full from all the damage he’d taken.

Once Rian got close, Zeniyon grinned maniacally and plunged his smaller arm into the water again. Then he raised his larger arm, made a fist, and brought it down.

With forward momentum Rian back-flipped into the air and kicked, deflecting Zeniyon’s descending fist and dodging the electrified water. The endless stream of bullets, now that Zeniyon had a lock on him, was pushing Rian back a little through the air—and it was enough for him to lose any chance of a follow-up attack.

Rian was below half health now. Corvis’s healing spell kicked in again, but it was only slightly outpacing the continuous damage of the minigun. Corvis had an instant full heal, but he was likely saving it for when Rian was in danger.

I’m glad you have enough faith in me to think that half health isn’t in danger, Corv.

But also: oh shit, I’m at half health.

Rian landed and dashed away just as three lasers converged on the spot where he’d been. Another eruption of steam clouded everything. He hadn’t even noticed the third satellite showing up.

The bullets stopped coming. Zeniyon’s minigun made a repetitive clicking sound: he was out of ammo. And the lasers had just fired. Rian had a moment to think while both of them were hidden by the steam.

Carefully, silently, Rian waded through the fog and the shallows toward where he’d last heard Zeniyon.

He had to wonder how anyone could solo this guy. It seemed like he had an answer for everything. But Rian had accepted the risk of going forward without a party. If he couldn’t defeat Zeniyon like this, then he didn’t deserve to face Ogrot.

His Charge Punch meter was an inch from full. The Ethereal keyword on his hand-wrap would reset soon.

In an instant, he saw it, formulated the skill combo he needed to maximize his burst damage. The timing would be extremely precise. Almost impossible.

He just needed one opening. If he could get that, it meant he could win. Finding one opening meant he could find another and try again.

But he also needed to end the fight in time. If Zeniyon kept summoning more orbiting modules and creating more enhancements to his body, eventually he’d become strong enough to one-shot Rian. Then none of Corvis’s healing would matter.

Rian halted, spotting Zeniyon through the mists. He was facing the other way and slowly turning his head side to side as if to look for Rian.

There was the opening he’d been waiting for.

Twenty seconds until Ethereal activated on his hand-wrap. He was at max health again from Corvis’s passive healing.

Rian sprinted forward, and the three laser satellites immediately turned and shot him. The beams were virtually unavoidable, having no targeting tracers like the Pyceian weaponry in the future. Three-fourths of Rian’s HP vanished.

No, Rian thought in despair, I’ve been baited.

Even the weaponry on Zeniyon’s back swiveled in an instant to aim at him. The minigun revved to life. An ice-grenade shot out of the shoulder cannon.

Adrenaline surging through him, Rian parried a bullet.

He hadn’t even needed to time it. There was a continuous stream of bullets flying at him from the minigun. All he’d had to do was swat his arm toward them for a free Parry.

Time slowed to a crawl—enough for Rian to leap and precisely kick the incoming grenade back at Zeniyon, who was beginning to turn around to face him. The minigun and shoulder cannon appeared to not move along with him, as they swiveled in place to remain locked upon Rian. The bullets were unceasing.

The INT boost from Parry only began to wear off, time resuming its normal pace, and all Rian could do as he fell from his jump was watch Zeniyon pivot with frightening speed and catch the returning ice grenade with his smaller arm.

Rian felt like he was still in the slow time of the Parry, watching it all play out, his thoughts moving so fast that it felt like he could see into the future. Zeniyon was going to thrust his arm into the water and detonate the grenade. The moment Rian would land, the shallows would freeze over and electrocute him, doubly immobilizing him. And then Zeniyon would finish him off.

Rian kicked the ground as he landed, jumping again as fast and lightly as he possibly could. He touched the ground for what must’ve been a millisecond. It was so fast that it felt like his foot had displaced no more than a droplet of water.

Intertwined ice and lightning swept across the shallows. It crept up Zeniyon’s legs, rooting him in place. Electricity crackled through his body, but he didn’t even wince, his gaze steadfast.

Rian landed on top of the ice. He’d avoided getting his ankles frozen, but the lightning remained for a few seconds, and his body locked up the moment he landed.

It was the longest second of his life, helplessly standing there, getting pattered with bullets and watching his health creep toward 10%.

Your HP, MP, and Stamina have been restored!

All status effects reverted!

Corvis, you’re a godsend.

Literally.

There was at least one more full heal ready if Corvis used his cooldown reset on himself. But Rian had other ideas.

Free from the stun debuff, he re-cast Earthen Resonance, remembering that it had worn off a while ago. He pulled a tesseract from his pocket and crushed it, encasing himself in heat haze.

Then he dashed across the ice toward Zeniyon. He didn’t even need to worry about slipping, as Dash always put its user slightly above the ground.

There were seven seconds until the Ethereal keyword activated.

Zeniyon’s minigun ran out of ammo and the lingering electricity in his body faded just as Rian got into range. As if to greet him, Zeniyon threw a far-reaching punch with his massive arm. But something about it told Rian it was a trick.

As he’d thought, it was a feint. The punch never came. Zeniyon quickly reached forward with his smaller arm, fingers splayed—not to strike Rian but to grab him. Rian threw his fist into the open palm to halt it, and the collision burst through the air, cracking the ice.

They both stood there for an instant, their gazes murderous, teeth gritted. Rian’s heart skipped as he heard and saw the pistons draw back on Zeniyon’s other arm.

And yet Zeniyon had hesitated. He hadn’t immediately clocked Rian the moment they were stationary. Because he knows I can parry, Rian thought, but he doesn’t know how often.

Parry was off cooldown by now. At level 5, it was available every nine seconds and would grant +50% damage to everything Rian did for an entire second.

A second was an eternity in a fight.

In fact, there were three seconds left until the Ethereal keyword activated.

Zeniyon’s huge fist hurtled forward, and as Rian had anticipated, it was another misdirection. Zeniyon wasn’t aiming for him.

Instead, Zeniyon curved the punch into the ground at their feet, and the pistons on his arm fired.

Rian lost sight of everything. The surface of ice below them shattered, a thousand shards of glass exploding into the air.

What defined an attack was intention, which was the same way that nullshards selectively altered physics itself, and the same way that a loosed arrow or a bullet was considered an attack. Intention was a property of everything a person interacted with.

So it was no surprise to Rian that he could now parry the airborne ice all around him. Time slowed as he swept his free hand against the rising shards.

It would’ve been hilarious, he thought, if he could just parry anything. Like the air itself. Though, in hindsight, he actually could’ve parried the shock waves from Zeniyon’s piston arm.

One second to Ethereal.

Your skill cooldowns have been reset!

That almost caught Rian off-guard. Corvis had chosen now to reset him? But in the slowdown of a successful Parry, Rian had plenty of mental processing time.

He understood.

He parried the ice again.

Time slowed even further. The effect of doubling up on the skill didn’t simply reset it—it was stacking.

The final puzzle piece had fallen into place.

Rian backed away, slipping his fist out of Zeniyon’s grasp.

With the rest of his skills off cooldown, he re-cast Earthen Resonance onto the Earthen Resonance he’d already cast earlier. The speed bonus was now doubled. The skill surrounded him in a momentary whirlwind that was more like a subtle breeze in the time-dilation, carrying away some of the airborne ice in slow motion.

Rian Dash-canceled right into Zeniyon, hurtling through the slivers of ice so fast that dozens of cuts opened across his body. He felt each one individually.

Just before his fist met Zeniyon’s body, Rian opened a parallel universe with Mirage: Cancel and split into two instances of himself. Seeing double, his pulse quickening even through the slow-down, Rian planted his feet, retained momentum in his upper body through Dash-Cancel, and threw everything he had into two punches overlapping each other in space but timed apart by a fraction of an instant.

The first hit connected, and one of Rian’s perspectives vanished into oblivion.

There were no damage numbers against Zeniyon, but Rian couldn’t help but wonder. He had +50% bonus damage twice from two Parries stacked on top of each other. He had Mirage: Cancel bestowing another +150% damage, the momentum of a double-Earthen-Resonance-assisted Dash-Cancel—all of it flowing into a +160% damage level 4 Charge Punch. He'd only wished that he could Charge Punch twice in a row with Mirage: Cancel, but both versions of himself would lose the meter if one or the other used it, as if his selves were entangled with each other.

In that infinitesimal sliver of time between the two punches, the Ethereal keyword activated at the moment Rian had intended.

The second punch landed, and Rian unleashed the fully metered Charge Punch into Zeniyon’s ribcage.

Then something else clicked: a flicker of sensation passed through Rian’s fist as if he could feel the bones breaking in Zeniyon’s body at the moment of impact.

Rian already knew what it was.

A critical hit.

Counter Critical had activated with only a 20% chance when his target was attacking. Rian had caught him off-guard with the Parry trick, so Zeniyon had only been standing there. But with all the ice shards thrown into the air, the System had treated Zeniyon like he was attacking continuously.

As Rian’s INT plummeted back to normal, time accelerated so suddenly that it felt like everything happened at once.

The mechanical half of Zeniyon exploded into a spray of shrapnel. His smaller arm and one of his legs broke off, severed. Both the minigun and the shoulder cannon shattered. All three of the satellites dropped out of the air.

Zeniyon keeled over, landed on his back in a splash of water, and groaned.

Rian screamed, “YES!”

It was over.

He had never felt so powerful. A sense of pure strength suffused his body in a wave of elation. The sheer emotion of it all, the adrenaline, the stress, the anger, the battle-driven lust for destruction, the overwhelming confirmation of knowing his decisions and tactics were good enough, that he was good enough to win—it felt like he had complete control over the entire universe in that one fleeting moment, and it poured out of him as a guttural scream that resounded through the gorge.

He was out of breath and shaking. The high of victory remained, but he was just as exhausted. He felt like he was drenched in sweat, but it was all the steam and water that had settled upon him during the fight.

When Corvis hovered over to him, Rian high-fived him.

“Let’s fucking go!” Rian shouted.

“Yes,” Corvis said, grinning. “Let us proceed forth.”

Oil spread into the shallows below Zeniyon, a steady wave of black. Rian looked closer.

For a second, the oil in the water looked like blood.

Rian shook his head, then got distracted by the level-up chimes playing. This time they were different: not just the sound of wind chimes, but an entire orchestra surrounding him with fanfare.

He eagerly glanced at his System text.