Master of Combat
Master of Combat
Combat Art Final Perk.
A technique that had never existed in the game.
In the game, Combat Art functioned as a passive stat—granting various mechanical benefits—but it was a skill without perks.
After falling into Geladrion, however, Combat Art had developed a new perk.
Its name was Impermanence of All Things.
A term drawn from Buddhist philosophy, rare even within Eternal Dominion.
The effect was simple. And brutal.
First: weapon durability consumption doubled, but damage calculation doubled with it.
Second: any perk technique the wielder possessed could be used freely, unshackled from form or restriction.
Under that perk's influence, Aslan had thrown a fist wreathed in Thunder Call—a technique meant for archery—and loosed a bow-shot carrying Knight Slayer, which belonged to the sword.
Because it ignored form, anyone seeing it for the first time was guaranteed to take the hit.
Even knowing about it offered no real countermeasure. At best, wary vigilance only left you open to a blow from somewhere else.
It qualified as Aslan's most powerful tool—the signature weapon of the Master of Combat.
...Figures.
Even so, Aslan did not believe that last attack had put Ereta down.
High priests occupied a different physical plane from ordinary priests.
Vital points remained vital points, but striking one did not guarantee a clean kill.
Some gods granted their priests regeneration or resurrection. The high priests who served such deities were exactly that breed.
The Fire-weaving Spider counted among them.
Aslan watched Ereta slowly lower her thrown-back head and let out a dry, humorless laugh.
The bodkin-point arrow had punched clean through and jutted obscenely from the back of her skull, yet Ereta merely smiled as if nothing had happened and settled back into her stance.
No way it would end that easily.
Aslan reached over his shoulder, drew a fresh shaft from the quiver slung across his back, and nocked it. Draw, aim, release. The motion held not a shred of waste.
Twang!
A motion without waste became a perfect shot with no preparatory tell, and the perfect shot became an arrow streaking toward Ereta.
Clang!
Ereta swatted the incoming arrow aside. With one eye pierced through, lens and blood and fluid leaking down her cheek, the woman swung her axe and batted the shaft away.
Aslan showed no reaction, as if he had known it would be deflected, and loosed the next. Ereta deflected each arrow, or dodged it, or caught it. An arrow snatched from the air trembled faintly in her outstretched hand.
Here she comes.
Then she threw the caught arrow back at him. Watching death streak toward him, Aslan pulled mana up and flooded it straight into his eyes.
Enhanced vision caught the arrow—visible now like a ray of light—and let Aslan pluck it from the air. He nocked the stolen shaft on his bowstring and shot it right back.
Thud-crack!
The arrow no longer sought Ereta. It merely punched through the skull of a believer who had been regaining his composure and charging in beside her.
The believer had undergone partial priestification and possessed heightened regeneration, but with his head destroyed, he collapsed and died without resistance.
Aslan shouted the instant the body hit the ground.
"Fall back!"
The archers moved as one at the terse command.
They withdrew their bows, wheeled, and disengaged. Aslan, evidently intending to retreat as well, plucked several shafts and held them between his fingers, then fed them one by one onto his longbow and fired.
Twang, twang, twang!
Every arrow that flew killed a monster or a believer. Ereta marveled at the uncanny accuracy even as she ripped the arrow from her eye.
"Where do you think you're going!"
With that shout she hurled the arrow like a dart. Aimed straight for Aslan's head.
A shaft thrown with transcendent strength posed obvious menace, but Aslan calmly shifted his aim.
Twang!
Thwack!
Arrow met arrow mid-flight. The two shafts collided, spun wildly, and fell.
"Fall back! Keep falling back!"
Aslan fixed Ereta with a sharp glare and shouted again, and at his command the soldiers withdrew in disciplined unison.
They fired as they retreated. Their arrows were not as lethal as Aslan's, but every shaft that landed made monsters and believers pause or stagger.
Even Ereta could not close the distance quickly. Every time she tried, a shot from Aslan drove her back.
Just as they had emerged from the forest, Aslan and the archers returned to it. The soldiers cut through undergrowth and tree cover as they moved, with Ereta and her monsters and believers in pursuit—an abrupt chase had begun.
What's his angle? Cavalry support? Or mages?
Ereta chased Aslan and the archers deeper into the forest, increasingly deep, and tried to gauge their plan.
Forest made cavalry unlikely. It could be guerrilla warfare, but the treeline was not dense enough for that kind of engagement.
Whatever their goal—sound strategy or brilliant ploy—Ereta felt ready to meet it head-on.
Until Aslan and the soldiers split apart.
Aslan and the archers abruptly separated and began moving in different directions. Ereta tracked the split as she ran.
Her objective was Aslan, the Last Descendant of the Ancient Gods. And Aslan was heading elsewhere. Alone.
The likelihood of a trap was high, but Ereta felt little need for caution.
She was enough by herself.
If anything, she assessed that taking coordinated fire from those archers posed a greater threat.
Whatever Aslan was—Master of Combat, Last Descendant of the Ancient Gods—the fight in the Imperial Capital had proved he was not overwhelmingly strong.
Well-trained soldiers firing in volleys posed more danger than Aslan did.
So she misjudged. And acted immediately.
To deny the archers room to breathe, she sent her believers and monsters after them and pursued Aslan alone.
Aslan ran, weaving between trees and vaulting over them. An impressively practiced form of movement—but wholly inadequate for shaking off a high priest.
The distance shrank steadily. Aslan did not look back while he fled. Ereta did not grow impatient while she chased.
The chase ended in a clearing.
A space where the trees abruptly gave way. In that clearing, Aslan stood catching his ragged breath and tossed his bow aside.
"...Oh? Not running anymore?"
Ereta offered a sly smile at the man who had stopped fleeing, and Aslan gave no answer.
Instead of answering, he abandoned his bow and quiver and drew the executioner's sword—sheath and all—from his hip.
He flicked his wrist and shook the sheath free. It dropped to the ground.
Ereta watched and smiled brightly.
"Giving up?"
There was no reason to discard a sheath. After a fight, you needed somewhere to put the weapon. The gesture plainly disregarded the possibility of victory.
"The sheath won't survive the fight intact. And an axe doesn't need one."
Aslan, by contrast, was at ease.
He had thrown aside his bow and arrows, discarded his sheath—anyone watching would see a man resigned to death, making a final desperate flail. Yet his face was relaxed.
He even spoke as though victory were assured, saying he would take Ereta's axe for himself.
Ereta found his composure displeasing. Something about it rankled.
So she needled him.
"You must fancy your chances. Last time, if I recall, you couldn't win and had to run."
Aslan did not grow angry at the taunt. He did not sneer or argue.
He merely closed his eyes for a moment, opened them again, and nodded as if acknowledging a self-evident truth.
Perhaps the memory irritated her after all. Ereta's guileless face creased into a scowl.
Just as she was about to speak, the tattoo across the back of Aslan's hand flared with light. A voice rode the glow.
"Accelerate."
The spell stored within his tattoo blazed to life and raced through his entire body. Aslan exhaled a long breath inside his newly quickened senses. The heated breath met cold air and became a plume of vapor.
Only after the magic had thoroughly suffused his body did Aslan settle into his stance. He gripped the two-handed executioner's sword low and let his eyes gleam.
"You'll see soon enough."
Here I come. With those short words, Aslan surged forward.
He raised the executioner's sword and closed the distance swiftly.
His opening attack was a downward chop—a fast, heavy blow with his full weight behind it.
Ereta flinched at the sudden assault, then raised her axe to meet it.
Claaang!
Steel met steel and the ringing howl echoed. Aslan's wrist went numb; Ereta's did not. The gulf in raw strength was simply that wide.
As the thought flickered through her mind—perhaps she ought to simply overpower him and end this—Aslan disengaged the binding blades and swept the flat of his sword toward her throat.
Shhhk!
Ereta nearly blocked the slash aimed at her neck and countered, but the memory of the Knight Slayer technique that had wounded her earlier made her hesitate.
The blade shaved past her uvula by a hair's breadth, then shifted with the hand gripping the pommel outside the guard and came slicing toward her temple.
Scrrrrape!
She caught that strike on the haft of her axe and turned it. Ereta used the rebound from the block to snap the axe upward in a short, vicious rising cut.
Aslan twisted his body aside and dodged with a nimbleness far sharper than usual. The axe tore through empty air, radiating a fierce, seething heat.
The instant he evaded, Aslan slashed upward. The rising blade bit into Ereta's forearm. Flesh split with a wet sound, gouted blood, then knitted back together.
Before the pain of a split arm could even register, Ereta laughed brightly, her earlier irritation forgotten as if it had been a lie.
This is what a duel between Masters should be.
Technique meeting technique. A contest of accumulated skill and survival instinct. Even with her arm split and resealed, Aslan kept attacking without a flicker of hesitation. Ereta approved.
She turned aside every strike Aslan launched and hunted for openings to counter. Each time she counterattacked, Aslan answered with a riposte meant to nullify her momentum and seize control.
Crunch!
A down-chop, an up-slash, a thrust—all blocked—and then the pommel rising. At the close of the furious exchange, Ereta's jaw caught the blow and her head snapped back. In the gap that opened, Aslan tightened his grip on the pommel and brought the sword down.
He aimed for her skull.
But Ereta's eyes curved into a smile. She twisted her head just before the blade landed and took the strike on her shoulder instead.
The heavy five-kilogram blade plowed into her shoulder, crushing bone and cleaving flesh. She seized the embedded sword with that split shoulder.
"Got you!"
The wound regenerated rapidly, trapping the blade inside closing tissue. It was a grotesque trick only a high priest could pull off. Aslan froze for a fraction of a second.
Less than a single second, by the clock. But in a duel between Masters, it was more than enough of an opening.
Ereta snapped her leg forward in a front kick.
Crrraaack!
"Guh—!"
The kick drove deep into Aslan's abdomen. His body launched backward. The blade embedded in her shoulder snapped, scattering steel fragments as it followed its owner's trajectory.
Aslan flipped his body in midair and executed a breakfall. He hit the ground and a trench gouged into the earth beneath him. Blood he coughed up and fragments of the executioner's sword pattered down around him.
Ereta watched him land with practiced skill, and her eyes widened.
"Wow, and I meant to kill you with that! Nobody's ever stayed alive after taking that kick."
Aslan wiped the blood from his lips at her guileless remark.
"Is it because you're a Descendant of the Ancient Gods? You're ridiculously tough. I think I'll enjoy this."
Unlike the delighted Ereta, Aslan felt like death. He had reinforced his skin with wild magic and strengthened bone and muscle to absorb the impact. He had even thrown himself backward on purpose to bleed off momentum.
And after all that, the internal damage was severe enough that he could feel his organs crying out. Aslan snorted inwardly.
Thankfully, the plan had worked.
He scrubbed the blood from his mouth with his forearm and smiled faintly.
"I'm not actually a Descendant of the Ancient Gods."
"...What?"
When Ereta's voice lilted with confusion, Aslan flicked his eyes toward a corner of his vision.
Level-ups only occurred during main quests. That was why Aslan had been unable to level for so long.
But as long as a main quest was active, experience was earned regardless of who made the kill.
Whether it was a companion NPC, a temporarily allied NPC, or enemies destroying each other.
The moment an enemy died, it became experience points.
This fight, for Aslan, had been nothing but a stalling action.
Time for the margrave's soldiers to battle the monsters, to bring them down, to earn enough experience to fill Aslan's nearly capped bar.
Aslan watched the notification floating in his peripheral vision and let his lips curl upward.
[LEVEL UP]
[Active Main Quest]
[ ! Defend the Dein Margraviate or Flee]
While Ereta stood frozen in confusion, Aslan reached for the system window. He pulled up the character screen swiftly and pressed the name Angela Tail.
He dumped three points into Strength, then pressed his own name and invested three points into Fighting Spirit.
It was the prearranged signal with Angie.
A clear signal that could be felt no matter how far apart they were.
The instant the body underwent change—the signal to join the fight.
The trees suddenly began shedding leaves in whispering cascades.
Only then did Ereta sense something was wrong, and she moved. She surged forward. Raised her axe, ready to split Aslan open.
"I thought my neck was going to snap off waiting!"
Angie dropped before she could strike. The girl had been clinging to a high branch. She landed, steadied her tingling legs, and swung her spear.
The descending trajectory was visible. It was not shockingly fast.
Yet Ereta did not move.
She had already experienced this girl's blows firsthand.
What a laughable plan.
Ereta watched the falling girl and the swinging spear, and her lips curled upward.
Human growth was never abrupt. She could endure whatever hit landed.
So she chose not to dodge or block, but to absorb the blow and counter.
Take the swinging spear haft on her body, then reverse her axe into the girl's throat.
Shatter the scheme the Master of Combat had prepared. Deliver humiliation in return.
A line of thinking suited to her particular sadistic streak.
What mockery should she use? That was the extent of her deliberation as Ereta took the spear haft on her body.
The moment it connected, she realized the quality of the strike had changed.
And by the time she realized, it was too late.
Crrrack!
The spear swung like a club caught Ereta in the ribs and sent her flying.
Timber shattered. The trees Ereta plowed through splintered and collapsed in a crashing cascade.
Against that backdrop of destruction, Angie rolled her neck from side to side.
Watching the girl, Aslan tossed his broken executioner's sword to the ground and drew his twin blades.
"Regenerate."
The tattoo pulsed with dim light. Restoration School magic circled through Aslan's body, mending burst and crushed flesh, sealing cracked and fractured bone.
Ereta emerged from the wreckage of the shattered trees and saw Aslan's body visibly healing itself before her eyes.
Irritation was etched across every line of her face.
He had not used that healing during their frantic exchange earlier. He used it now.
Proof that everything had been planned. That he had not been fighting her in earnest.
A plan constructed on the assumption that she would not dodge but absorb the blow.
Ereta shoved aside the toppled trees, hefted her axe with undisguised annoyance, and glared.
Aslan read her irritation and answered with a sneer.
"Let's finish this."