Chapter 44: 44. Felons vs. Fellows Finale – Part 4

Carmen must have realized the main combat was happening in the void/rain forest region, and therefore decided that the furthest possible location in her territory, the border with the gothic house, was the safest place to be.

He spotted her around a hundred meters away, sitting seiza style on the cloudy floor. His aura was cloaked, yet she still shot her eyes open just a second after he crossed the wall of darkness. Almost instantaneously, Carmen summoned the crown of crosses she demonstrated against Brigid.

Alistair felt blessed that he was no longer running on water, and he easily dodged the barrage of the green bolts of Mana. They moved with incredible speed, yet Alistair moved even faster. He no longer had the 20% bonus to Agility and Intelligence because he didn’t view Carmen Romero as a true evildoer, but he was still faster than anything she threw at him. The kinetic booms they created upon hitting the ground where he used to be was more jarring and dangerous than the actual attack itself.

After seeing Carmen’s spell formation against Brigid, he recognized that the crosses were not just kinetic energy weapons, but also utilities in her other spells. Because of the danger afforded by a pentagram or another potential symbol, he carefully monitored where the crosses were going, [Mana Striking] with his foot anything that formed a loose pattern as he zig-zagged closer to Carmen.

He ducked as a cross flew over his head and turned away from the second one that came zooming at him just after the first. His [Fighter’s Instinct] alerted him to a third that was invisible, activating [Mana Strike] to parry it the slightest degree. Even through his [Mana Strike], the force jarred his shoulder socket. It looked like Carmen could manipulate her crosses in more ways than he expected, probably with the use of her arcane Dao.

Despite the injury to his shoulder, he pushed on, [Dashing] forward with just twenty meters left between them. He refrained from using his movement Skill before because of its linear and easily expected path, but he was close enough he felt she would be hard-pressed to intercept him.

Alistair was wrong. While he expected resistance, using a 15 Karma-powered [Hand of Karma] in one hand and [Mana Strike] in the other, he didn’t expect to be stopped right in his tracks. He was within a meter of striking her when eight chains rose out of the cloudy bottoms and wrapped two apiece around each of his limbs. Out of nowhere, eight pillars rose as well, each the source of one of the chains. Carmen had predicted the arrival of an interloper, and prepared accordingly.

“Dev’rox!” Alistair shouted. He activated [Spectral Summoning] as quickly as he could, accessing the imp’s spatially-attuned Mana. He dug deeper this time, since he sensed the chains were infused with Dao energy.

“I don’t have much left,” Dev’rox warned.

He just needed enough to bypass the chain’s restrictions. Using the borrowed Mana, he shifted forward, ignoring the Dao of a mere Foundation realm like slipping on ice. Alistair’s timing couldn’t have been more on the nose, as not even a quarter of a second after he freed himself, the Heavens opened up in the center of the chains and a titanic bolt of Heavenly lightning incinerated the spot he was just standing in.

Despite freeing himself, he was not immune to the blast, which temporarily deafened him and flung him several meters forward from the shockwave. Carmen ran away from the epicenter of the pillars in expectancy of her own attack, but she must have mistimed it or underestimated her own power, as she was also caught up in the explosion of lightning.

The flash of lightning was blindingly bright as well, forcing Alistair to navigate through his [Fighter’s Instinct] and aura sense as his eyes readjusted. He knew exactly where she was, using the last remnants of Dev’rox’s Mana to reposition himself close to her. While he wasn’t positive, he believed that Skills like [Fighter’s Instinct] and other danger senses were passives specifically designed for melee Classes to give them an advantage over ranged and magical classes who could bombard them from afar. That gave him the innate advantage in a sightless battle, which he took full advantage of.

His aura sense felt the general vicinity of where she was, and his [Fighter’s Instinct] covered the rest, causing him to swipe with his [Mana Strike] hand. Later, he would realize that he inadvertently sliced off a tentacle. With [Hand of Karma], he grasped at something that felt like a giant slimy noodle.

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As his vision returned, he almost let go of Carmen when he saw what he was holding. He grabbed onto the right side of her neck, which was normal along with the rest of her body. Her left side, however, was a mix of green and purple tentacles, vines, and assorted organic matter that looked mucous and pulsated. It seemed that he caught her in the middle of a transformation, and Alistair wasn’t keen on seeing what the end result was.

The Karmic energy he burned made its way through her body, interfering with her normal Mana pathways. He could feel the paths of Fate cut off from the direct contact of his [Hand of Karma] on her throat. There was a reason he used so much Karma for his Skill. It left him with only three left, but what good what extra positive Karma do if he got eliminated? For such a powerful individual, he needed to allocate a sufficient amount to sever her Fate and meridians. Alistair was about to finish her off with a [Mana Strike], when he collapsed to his knees, coughing up blood.

His sight grew blurry, and he felt a deep weakness in his core. After the partial vision loss came the pain. Alistair felt like his back was literally burning with the fury of a thousand suns. He was barely able to muster the strength to look back to see that his back was charred and smoking.

To make matters worse, Carmen struggled to her feet, though the internal mayhem his [Hand of Karma] caused still wrecked her. The problem was that while Alistair was actually injured, Carmen was only temporarily injured. If he managed to eliminate her while she was still suffering the damage to her meridians and lines of Fate, he would win, but she was otherwise physically unharmed.

With all the willpower he mustered, Alistair got to his feet, not letting the smoke from his burned back bother him. He could barely stand on his own two feet. The [Heavenly Lightning] affected him more than he previously thought. Like in medical cases where people who had their arms cut off didn’t feel the effects until after some time, the impact of the lightning was so great it took a couple of seconds to set in.

Carmen retreated as quickly as she could, realizing she just needed to outlast the effects of [Hand of Karma]. Alistair knew that his legs wouldn’t carry him fast enough on their own, so he tried [Dash]. Despite the weakness over his whole body, the use of the Skill forcibly activated his leg muscles with Mana, overclocking them far beyond what they normally would have been capable of, even if it wasn’t as fast as a typical [Dash].

His reactions were still slow, and so Alistair crashed into Carmen shoulder-first, knocking her over and landing on top of her. The purple and green organic vines were slowly taking over her whole body, her face transforming as well. She had a final trump card transformation. Alistair knew that if he let her fully polymorph, he was done.

Carmen weakly resisted him, her meridians still recovering from the Karmic attack. She was still able to conjure a small amount of Mana to create a tiny, ten centimeter cross that she sent at his stomach. Alistair grunted as the green cross fully penetrated him, but he didn’t let up his attack.

Using his weight to pin her down, he pummeled her face with [Mana Strike] after [Mana Strike]. Even though she had tried to kill him before, and knowing that she would be perfectly fine, Alistair still felt somewhat bad as his blows bloodied her face. He was used to a one-shot or two-shot kill, but Carmen was #3 in the world and he was still weakened. She wouldn’t go down easy.

After a couple of shots, Alistair switched to normal punches. He couldn’t afford to waste any more Mana, since he only had 53 left. And after his arms grew too heavy for normal punches, he resorted to clumsy headbutts. He only stopped because Dev’rox started shouting at him, both mentally and in physical for him to stop.

“You’ve already killed her! You’re going to crack open your skull, you idiot,” Dev’rox shouted.

Alistair barely heard him. His body only stopped because he was used to Dev’rox giving him instructions when he spoke. Finally, he collapsed with a mind void of thought.

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