The Legendary Fool

157:

Tom pulled away from the scores of Deathless Sentinels, retreating in the direction they had originally been teleported into. The sentinel he had last engaged in battle, parrying a longsword blow before he had retreated, tried to lumber forward after him, only to take a block of crystal square in the ribcage that sent it tumbling backwards.

Aleph had made sure not to kill the sentinel as she stayed behind to cover his retreat, along with Zirel. Trying to detect their party’s assassin in the chaos of the battlefield was an exercise in futility, so Tom was content to leave him to his own devices.

He didn’t retreat too far from the battle’s periphery, coming to a stop about a hundred or so meters away from the fight.

Tom took a deep breath, before he pivoted so his blade was held in a direction parallel to the army of deathless sentinels. He hoped that by directing his attack away from the invaders, his actions would go largely unnoticed.

If not, well, Zirel was there to trigger their contingency.

He couldn’t help his gaze shifting towards the sky above the battlefield, now that he had some time to breathe. The void gazed back at him, a jagged, uneven fissure in the very fabric of space-time itself, a pool of infinite darkness that denied all traces of any hue or variation.

There was no seeing through it and no guessing how any forces seeking to gain entry into this world would react to his attack, so Tom pulled away and focused on the task at hand.

Well before they had decided to accept a Nexus Quest, Tom had made sure to charge Warrior’s Shardsong to its brim using the newly acquired Aura of Enhancement weapon skill, to the point where the longsword was teeming with frost energy.

Tom had refrained from using the frost scythe granted to him by the perfect conversion skill. Zeth had not been able to charge Warrior’s Shardsong and as Tom had discovered by practicing with Aleph, he couldn’t charge his longsword’s frost energy by simply sparring with a friend.

No, for Perfect Conversion to work, Warrior’s Shardsong needs to parry an attack from an enemy.

Following that line of thought, it wasn’t hard to guess that Zeth would rarely have gotten the opportunity to unleash a frost scythe with a full reserve of frost energy. If he had in the battle against Tom’s party, they would not have won without casualties.

However, Tom had seen the Stygian Titan’s capabilities and it was the Nether Shamans that were shielding them. If dozens of attacks couldn’t break through the Titan’s defenses, then neither could Warrior’s Shardsong had a hundred percent.

No, he needed something far more unreasonable than that.

Tom held his left palm before him, activating the Mirror World card that he had palmed.

The familiar card ability activated, summoning a smooth, polished mirror that was rectangular in shape ten meters before him, still running parallel to the sentinels. In case the scope of the attack ended up being beyond his expectations, he didn’t want to accidentally hurt Aleph, Zirel or any other climber in the vicinity.

Tom’s right hand began to tremble, as Warrior’s Shardsong’s blade turned progressively brighter hues of azure as each moment cascaded into the next. A few seconds later, Tom’s right hand was vigorously shaking, causing a pained grunt to escape his lips as he desperately held on to the increasingly chilly blade.

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His flesh tingled and burned from the sheer chill trapped within the blade and as Tom began to feel like he had made an error in judgment, he received feedback from his blade, a sense of heaviness that also conveyed a fullness.

Tom didn’t hesitate further as he slashed in the direction of the mirror.

The frost scythe blurred forward with such tremendous momentum that Tom only managed to get a glimpse of it.

Gone was the icy-blue frost energy he’d come to expect of Warrior’s Shardsong, in its stead a line of pure, unblemished white that blinked forward at a nightmarish speed before finding itself up against Mirror World.

The frost scythe vanished from view, but that didn’t stop cracks from spiderwebbing across the mirror’s surface.

Tom’s eyes went wide in astonishment as he felt an immense weight weighing down upon his left hand. Somehow, he managed to keep his grip on the Rare Mirror World card, before pulling his arm close to his chest for support. ʀ𝖆ŊοʙЁŜ

His gaze turned back towards the deathless sentinels, only to be confronted by the realization that his stunt hadn’t gone unnoticed. A dozen deathless sentinels tore formation and rushed towards his direction, the response feeling more like a probe than an assault.

Tom couldn’t help but be amused as he watched two deathless sentinels trip over seemingly nothing one after the another, while another three were entombed by a crystal dome that didn’t look like it came cheap when it came to SP cost.

As for the rest, well, they happened to be a part of the plan.

To an outsider, it would appear as though Tom was struggling with the onslaught of deathless sentinels and truthfully, he kind of was. Trying to fight while holding onto what felt like a hundred kilogram dumbbell wasn’t easy, but his decision to only parry the oncoming sword strikes and spear thrusts was very much intentional.

In a matter of five minutes, Tom was reduced to a panting mess, but perfect conversion had converted the strength behind his own blow coupled with the enemy’s kinetic energy into frost energy repeatedly.

After starting out from a bottomed out frost reserve, Tom had crossed the half-way mark and wanted to hold out for a little longer.

A spear tried to impale him from his right, forcing a ragged Tom to bat it aside with a swipe of his longsword.

A metallic clang echoed in the air and Tom’s sword arm began to tremble from the exertion. Normally, he wouldn’t be anywhere near this exhausted, but the strain bearing down on Mirror World was also weighing down upon his own soul, or atleast, that was what it felt like.

The reserves he’d managed to accumulate would have to be enough.

Tom didn’t hesitate any longer as he activated the Aura of Enhancement. His entire body was enveloped by an iridescent aura, the effects of which Tom chose to focus on his Mirror World deck card.

The frost energy reserves he had built up began to rapidly ebb, as Tom demanded that the Rare Card’s effectiveness be raised.

A quarter of his reserves were drained away before the drain on his frost energy ceased and Mirror World itself now shared the iridescent sheen that Tom was ensconced in.

The Greater Reflection Skill at it’s current level offered an amplification of 120%, but after he’d used the Aura of Enhancement, that number was increased by 50%, putting it at a total of 180%. But that wasn’t the only difference as the size of his mirror had grown and the cracks spider webbing across it faded.

Tom hastily retreated, no longer trying to engage the sentinels as he adjusted the line of sight of his mirror to aim in the general vicinity of the Nether Shaman. If it was aware of what Tom was doing, it wasn’t showing any signs of noticing his actions.

Then, he unleashed the strongest attack he was capable of to date.

Tom noticed the change in temperature before the attack’s effects itself, as the ground beneath him was enveloped in a layer of frost. He watched as a blur of white streaked across the landscape at a speed he could only describe as ridiculous.

He watched as the streak of white blurred towards the Nether Shaman, who pivoted just in time, with it’s staff hurriedly raised in the air. Then, the streak passed through the Shaman and into the distance.

It took Tom a moment to register what had just happened, as the small creature’s two halves started plummeting to the ground in opposing directions, only to be frozen solid before they touched it.

[14 Deathless Sentinels and one Nether Shaman killed as a party. Contribution exceeded thresholds. Teleporting to Nexus Node: Epsilon in 3,2,1.]

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