Plasma (3)

The ground erupted as if a bomb had gone off.

"Kh!"

Salmus threw himself clear of the blast and bit down on his lip. Every single one of those attacks packed the kind of force you'd expect from an ultimate skill. No wonder this was a 7-Star Fairy.

"...Hah!"

One slip and he was a dead man.

"Heh heh heh! HAHAHAHAHA!"

The thrill of it ripped a laugh straight out of his throat.

Yes! This was the thrill I'd been craving!

He lived for combat — especially fights against the strong, the kind where you had to put your life on the line. He was the one who always charged to the front the moment a battle started. He was the one who kept swinging even as his body was carved open and blood sprayed across the dirt, grinning the whole time.

For the last few years, though, he had been forced to choke that instinct down.

He was the boss of the Snake Bandits now, but originally he had been nothing more than a mid-level officer in the organization he served. The higher-ups had seen his potential and appointed him commander of the operation to take Baidu. The order that came down was simple: gather forces in secret near the city, and do it without the Witch Queen noticing.

Orders from above were absolute. Defiance meant death. Salmus loved a good fight, but he had no interest in dying like a dog. The organization was full of people far stronger than he was — Masters and Fairies ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠both. If even one of them came to kill him, he would have to offer up his neck without a scrap of resistance.

So he had swallowed it and followed the order to gather troops in secret. It was a command that sat wrong with him in every possible way, but taking charge of an operation this important had come with plenty of support. He had been 5-Star. With the organization's full backing he had climbed to 6-Star, and his Fairies had risen with him. The hideout the higher-ups had designated sat near the Kutlanka Ruins, and there was a dungeon close by — enough, at least, to take the edge off his urge to kill.

"KHAHAHAHA!"

He didn't need to hold that urge back anymore. If he didn't pour out everything he had, he was going to die.

I'll throw everything I've got at him!

"Plasma!"

Salmus roared the name and charged the figure coming down off the hill.

Sand hissed and spiraled, drawn to his body the way metal flies to a magnet, and wrapped him from head to toe.

His second skill. The sand that had plastered itself to his skin shifted and locked into the shape of a full suit of plate. That was why he wore nothing but cloth — armor that offered no defense of its own. Out here in the desert, sand was everywhere. As long as his Magic held out, he could forge a new suit as many times as he wanted.

Salmus launched himself into the air and brought his sword down on Plasma with everything he had.

Clang!

"Nngh..."

Plasma raised his blade and caught the blow. The fact that Salmus had come down from above, combined with a Strength stat higher than expected, dragged a low sound from his throat.

But not enough that he couldn't stop it. Not enough to strain him.

Plasma shoved the sword aside and sent Salmus staggering back.

"Hah!"

In the same breath, Salmus's Fairy Sitri came flying in from the side and thrust her blade. A shimmering haze coiled around the steel, warping it until the sword itself looked bent.

Clang!

Plasma turned in place and swept his sword across, knocking her attack aside.

He ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had dodged her blade once already and still taken a cut across the neck. That single exchange had been enough. Her sword's reach was wider than what the eye could see.

Which meant the answer was simple: stop the blade before it ever touched him.

He kept his sword moving, catching every one of Sitri's strikes.

Electricity crackled in his empty left hand. The sparks swelled, feeding on themselves, and in five seconds a long, massive spear had taken shape — the kind of weapon a medieval knight might have carried to war.

Plasma's second skill. A Swordsman, by nature, could not use magic skills. But he had evolved the Swordsman class — a class that only showed its true worth with a blade in hand — into Magic Swordsman, and with that evolution had come the magic skills that were supposed to belong to mages alone.

"Oh, fuck—!"

Plasma hurled the enormous Thunder Spear at Sitri. She went white and slammed her ultimate into existence.

Most powerful Masters and Fairies set their fourth skill — their ultimate — as the single most devastating attack they possessed. The strongest technique you had, the one that could flip a losing fight on its head. That was what an ultimate was supposed to be.

Sitri had done the opposite. She had set a skill with no offensive power whatsoever as her ultimate.

Lightning screamed through the air.

"Phew! I thought I was dead!"

"...What?"

Sitri had barely slipped the Thunder Spear. She dropped onto the sand and let out a long, shaky breath of relief. Plasma's brow furrowed.

By all rights, she should have been dead. If not dead, then at least a charred husk. That was how these things worked.

Sitri had taken a Thunder Spear and come out of it fine. Her pale skin was singed. That was all.

And that was exactly why she had made Haze her ultimate. The skill wrapped the caster in a shimmering haze that dragged down the accuracy of incoming skills and, once per activation, let her evade every attack thrown at her. The ultimate survival technique.

Thanks to it, Sitri had been run through by a spear of lightning and walked away in one piece.

"....."

"Eek! S-save me! Switch! Switch! Switch!"

If she was alive, he would simply kill her. Plasma closed the distance and swept his sword at her. Sitri rolled, the blade missing by a hair, and scrambled backward, screaming for her allies to take over.

Plasma went after her.

"Die, you bastard!"

"Don't get cocky, you damn Fairy!"

"Haaaah!"

The rest of them piled in, and Sitri managed to slip his pursuit.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Swords, axes, spears, and arrows came at him from every side. Plasma moved like water, turning each attack aside as it arrived.

"I'll pin his feet first!"

Salmus had put some distance between them. He made his call and thrust out his left hand. Magic coiled in his palm, and his ultimate roared to life.

Sand began to spiral around Plasma, turning faster and faster, sucking him down — and Salmus's own men with him.

"Urgh!"

"Wh-what is this?!"

"Ah, fuck, Boss! We're still in here — what the hell are you thinking?!"

"....."

The ones who knew what Quicksand did screamed at him. Salmus, half-gone on the high of the fight, did not care. The resources he had sunk into raising those men were a shame to waste, sure — but if it meant taking Plasma down, it was a profitable trade.

His subordinates tried to claw their way out of the vortex even with Plasma standing right in front of them. Somehow, though, their movements were sluggish — painfully so, for 5-Stars. And the sand was swallowing them faster than they could climb.

It was not long before the bandits were buried to the knee.

"....."

At the center of the vortex, Plasma's situation was worse. The bandits were in to their knees. He was already in to his thighs.

Heavy.

His body felt as if someone had hung lead weights from every limb, and moving was like trying to swim through deep water. The ultimate carried a debuff. He could feel it.

"Nnngh!"

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

"Turn this off already, you son of a bitch!"

This was not something you could power your way out of. The bandits who had been sucked in alongside him were thrashing with everything they had, and the sand was only pulling them deeper.

"....."

The sand had climbed to his waist. Plasma closed his eyes.

Switch.

He activated his trait.

Swimmer was a peculiar trait. It held four combat styles, each named for a swimming stroke — Freestyle, Breaststroke, Backstroke, Butterfly — and each one raised different stats and granted different effects.

Until now, Plasma had been running Freestyle. Five points to Agility, and a thirty percent boost to both attack speed and reaction speed. That was how he had slipped Sitri's Wavering Blade — a Common skill at Lv.48 that bent the path of her sword. Animal instinct, plus that thirty percent jump in reaction speed, had been just enough to get him out of the way.

Now he was about to change styles.

He had already figured it out. You did not claw your way out of quicksand that behaved like a bog. You used Magic.

Backstroke.

If Freestyle was an offensive style, Backstroke was a magic style. It raised his Magic stat by five points and boosted both the power and the cast speed of his magic skills by thirty percent.

Multiple elements. Multiple combat styles. Plasma was a Fairy of endless variation.

With Backstroke active, his Magic sat at a staggering 152 — 136 plus 16. He had been burning skills throughout the fight, but he still had more than enough left to get out of the sand.

Magic began to shimmer around him like heat off a forge. The swirling sand caught the current of it and lifted into the air.

He decided that was not enough.

Trinity.

His ultimate.

His original plan had been to fight Salmus and his pack the way a tortoise fights — slow, careful, waiting for a clean chance to kill. That chance had arrived sooner than expected. And the one who had handed it to him was Salmus himself.

Water roared. Lightning screamed. Flame erupted.

All three bloomed around Plasma at once.

Masters and Fairies were supposed to wield a single attribute out of the six. Every so often a rare one came along ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠who could handle more than one — but even those outliers had a limit. They could switch between attributes. They could not use them at the same time.

Alan was one of those multi-attribute users. He swapped his primary element to counter whatever stood in front of him, but he had never unleashed every attribute he held in a single breath.

Plasma was different.

Or rather — Plasma with Trinity active had stepped completely outside that limit. The skill let him wield Water, Fire, and Lightning simultaneously. And while it was running, his Magic stat climbed another five points.

Pushed to his absolute peak, Plasma's Magic sat at 157. Close enough to touch the Witch Queen herself — his own Master.

A violent explosion tore through the quicksand, and a scream came with it. A man burst from the heart of the vortex.

Plasma.

"...What?"

Salmus stared, unable to believe what he was seeing — Plasma coming straight at him, scattering three attributes in his wake like a storm given a body.

Plasma's sword moved.