The Legendary Fool

153:

As a sword art, Flowing River’s Rupture was rooted firmly in the realm of the supernatural. Focusing heavily on the proprioception stat with a secondary focus on the mental stat, to allow the mind to keep up with the body’s movements, Flowing River’s Rupture was far more advanced than the spear art he had taken from Jayce Andiroh, namely, Titan’s Sequitur.

There were four forms in the Flowing River’s Rupture sword art and unlike Titan’s sequitur, where the spear forms had their distinct purposes, the Flowing River’s Rupture’s forms were interlinked with each other.

The first form, the lull, was a defensive sword form that retreated in a rhythm, offering ground to an aggressive opponent, tricking them into a battle at your own tempo. Focusing on clever deflections, the lull sword form was designed to allow it’s wielder to defend itself without expending a significant amount of energy.

Of course, it was not a sword form that could be used in all situations, especially with cards in the mix of battle, but it didn’t have to be.

The second sword form could either be employed directly, or after the first sword form had been in active use for a few minutes. It reclaimed the ground lost through the lull sword form by unleashing a flurry of slashes in the rhythm of rapids, as the wielder’s body language, stance and fighting style itself changed into one of momentum.

The flow of the rapids was as fast-moving as it was turbulent, but there was still a natural rhythm to it’s motions. The flurry of strikes were seemingly wild and flailing, but there was an intent behind them, a directive to reclaim the lost ground that served as the core directive.

When the flow failed, it gave way to the guard breaker sword form, the third sword form in the Flowing River’s Rupture Sword Art.

This form required supernatural proprioception to perform, as it focused on a sequence of relentless thrusts that tried to sneak past the opponent’s guard and land a killing blow, the trajectory of each successive thrust following up from a novel angle without holding back any strength in reserve.

Like the relentless nature of rapids, Guard Breaker sought to overwhelm the opponent in a seemingly unstoppable barrage of attacks that sought to give them no breathing room.

The third form was supposed to be used until the opponent made a mistake and let the thrust through or one’s stamina flagged down to dangerous levels.

The fourth form, rupture, had drawn inspiration from a river’s might, its potential to carve through the very earth itself into a gorge, if given enough time. After the third form had broken through the opponent’s guard, rupture was a final, overhead strike that cut diagonally along their vitals, a single slash that had every ounce of strength the wielder could muster charged behind it.

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Tom had wondered where the nearest river was, only to remember that the sword art was something that Lorcan’s father had pulled out from his family’s records. It was entirely possible that the sword art was created back on the surface, on Artezia instead of the Aerinaculumn.

Could rivers even form naturally within the first floor of the tower or would they be created by the Divine System?

Tom had no idea and thankfully, his questions were irrelevant to the sword art he’d inherited. With his own stats far eclipsing Lorcan, there was no doubt in Tom’s mind that he could do some serious damage with the sword art once it was paired with his Pseudo Epic Artifact, Warrior’s Shardsong.

He was practically giddy at the idea of using it in real combat, but Tom had suppressed that desire.

Warrior’s shardsong had become his weapon, the Deathforged Remnant Armor would protect him in battle and the Flowing River’s Rupture would become the sword art that he used.

His preparations had progressed rapidly, but there was still one key piece of information that he needed to acquire.

Namely, what exactly were the challenges the Nexus Quests offered?

After learning that even the independent climbers within the Nexus City: Bulwark had a silent pact with the Neem Guild, Tom had no intention of trying to seek alliances with them or ask for advice. ʀ𝐀ℕ𝔬ΒÊş

Though he could only ever use Maya once on any person, but considering that he had no long term plans on settling within the city, he had no reason of being judicious with its use.

If the other independent climbers weren’t going to play fair, then Tom had no reason to either.

A fight against a contingent of two-headed serpents that were capable of spitting globs of paralytic poison, a fact Tom got to know when a climber next to him was splayed across the ground, his eyes wide with panic yet his body not moving in the slightest.

A siege against a Nether Energy powered giant skeleton that resembled the Nether Lich but lacked in it’s cunning, flailing about with a large mace that it was funneling it’s Nether Energy into. There were hundreds of climbers fighting the creature, a group blinking away every few minutes only to replaced by a new group that accepted the Nexus Quest to do a certain amount of damage to the hulking monstrosity. Each time the giant skeleton’s mace crashed against the ground, the very earth itself around them cracked and rumbled. A few died, but most who had accepted the quests were either agile enough or had artifacts that let them evade the telegraphed attack.

A hunt for a creature that had infiltrated a Nexus City, a particularly agile Nether Beast that looked like a diseased panther with two fleshy wings that let it fly to evade the long range attacks, it’s eyes glowing a vibrant purple and it’s veins seemingly more like deep violet cracks that ran across the surface of it’s skin.

To his disappointment, Tom realized that there was no telling what awaited them on the other side of the Nexus Quest besides the little information they could glean from a vague description.

But there was a way to gauge difficulty and it was surprisingly far easier than he had expected, almost laughably easy.

The number of nexus points offered as a reward for completing a quest were directly proportional to the difficulty. The more the nexus points offered, the greater the difficulty spike.

With that final discovery, Tom was ready.

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