Sorcerer, Ray Starling
I was in the box that Marie had reserved for us, watching the matches of the final day.
There was enough space here for everyone in the clan, but the only one with me here at the moment was Marie. Figaro was one of the contestants. Shu and Hannya were on security duty. B3 was still in college—her classes were keeping her from leaving like I did. Rook was leveling to prepare for when he’d challenge his UBM. Kasumi’s trio were simply in school. Nemesis was meditating again.
Because of all that, Marie and I were the only Death Period members watching The Tournaments.
“So that’s a Caldinan Superior... Man, he’s strong.” King of Termination’s Embryo had a really powerful skill.
He’d been matched first with Bishmal, who definitely wasn’t a pushover. He was specialized in hand-to-hand combat empowered by fire, and the destructive force it delivered had kept him high in the duel rankings for a quite a while at this point.
However, it was precisely because he was so specialized that he was a terrible matchup against King of Termination.
The same could be said about the bout that followed. Even though these Masters excelled at what they did, there was simply nothing they could do.
“It heals him, gives him resistance and a new means of attack...”
It could be roughly categorized as a counter-type Embryo. Considering that its effects relied on the opponent’s damage, you could even say that it had some similarities to Nemesis.
“What do you think?” I asked Marie.
“Weeell... Based on the stats, either the skill can only be used near death, or it gets stronger the closer he is to dying. Regardless, it’s probably combo’d with Rear Soldier.”
I nodded. Rear Soldier’s Last Stand was a skill that let you survive with 1 HP for five seconds even if you took fatal damage or had damaging debuffs on you.
I had learned about it after taking Death Soldier and had even considered using it myself. However, it was a choice between five seconds alive and being active for ten times that long after death, so I’d picked the latter.
Picking both was also an option, but I’d prioritized jobs with other useful skills rather than the extra five seconds of action.
Another notable thing about Last Stand was that it had a five second cooldown. Last Command could only be used again after a resurrection—a rather harsh condition—while Last Stand would be ready again after just some healing.
But whatever flaws he had, defeating KoT after he was fully healed and granted resistances was a huge challenge.
“I think that healing power must have a limited number of uses,” said Marie. “Do you have a guess how many?”
“Seven. Eight at most.”
“Well, that was a quick answer.”
“The skill names are a dead giveaway,” I responded. The words KoT said right before healing were “Dubhe” and “Merak.” Those were the α and β stars in the Big Dipper constellation—sometimes called the Septentrion.
If the skill names and the Embryo as a whole were really based on that, he could use the skill a total of seven times.
Even if you included that one star that was often mentioned alongside the seven, eight would be the absolute limit.
“It’s the strict use condition and use limit that allows the skill to be as powerful as it is,” I said. “Though, it looks like the resistances he gets cover a pretty wide range. Probably that’s the most important factor when he’s pushed to the edge of death, not the specific means of attack.”
“Yeah, probably.” When Bishmal almost killed him by breaking his neck, KoT gained resistance to not just strangleholds, but physical attacks as a whole—including Bishmal’s kicks. It might have even covered more than that.
“It’s really powerful in duels,” I said. I would guess that normally, after he gained his resistances, some time needed to pass before the number of uses and resistances he’d gained reset. Nemesis was another counter-type, and her Counter Absorption recharged one use per day, so it was fair to assume KoT had something similar.
However, duels were special—once the matches were over and the barriers undone, the fighters returned to the state they had been in before the duels. Even if KoT fought multiple matches in a row, he could start each of them with all the uses of this skill available, and every one of his opponents would have to overcome his healing and buffs at least seven times, maybe more.
Experienced Masters had their ults and other aces up their sleeve, but usually not too many of them. In most cases, they just had two: their Embryo ult and a job ult. Only a small portion of them had MVP rewards and other things on top of these.
However, defeating KoT required a minimum of eight, if not nine different means of delivering lethal damage. While this was possible if you fought him as a group, that was really difficult to achieve in a one-on-one fight. Even all-rounders like Xunyu and Juliet would struggle.
“And I... I don’t actually have enough either, do I?” I had one attack with fixed damage from Vengeance and the like, two with Purgatorial Flames, three with the lethal debuffs from Hellish Miasma, four with Shining Despair, five with the holy element from Grand Cross and Purifying Silverlight, six with physical damage from either Gardranda or copying KoT’s STR using Chaser, and seven with a risky swing of my still-cursed axe.
Huh? Wait, I’m actually kinda close, I thought. My Wind Hoof bomb trick was physical damage, so that would overlap with some of the others, but...didn’t I have something more?
...Ohhh. If the axe’s element selection worked right, that might actually give me the upper hand against KoT.
“But...” I mused. That was really just if I was the only one attacking. I’d still have to withstand KoT’s attacks and bring him down while my own attacks were being rendered useless too. “The way he’s fighting in these matches isn’t how he usually fights, right?”
“No, it’s not,” said Marie. “The way he normally fights is uhhh... Oh, he’s like your brother’s battleship, but human-sized.” An unpleasant expression crossed her face as she remembered getting bombarded by Baldr in Noz Forest.
All that firepower in a human form, though? A wide-scale extermination type...the very thought of fighting like that inside a city like Gideon was terrifying.
That must’ve been why he’d fought Bishmal mostly empty-handed.
“When dueling in Caldina, that combat style allowed him to win without even using his healing and buff skill,” said Marie. “He never lost a duel... Though, he also never had a public match against his biggest counter—The Fight.”
I guess they settled who was stronger within the clan and didn’t want to reveal their cards in a public match? I thought. Though, that makes me wonder about The Fight’s combat style too...