Knives & Levels - Chapter 105

Colt kept his distance from the monstrous Yeti. 

The more he played around with this creature and struggled back and forth in the icy wasteland, the better sense he got of the vast difference between them. Though he had loaded his Soul up and now crested above 200 points in it, he still fell short against the sheer gap in power between them. His saving grace was that he could keep spamming Movement.

Compared to when he first gained the Edict and his heart felt like he might explode, now it was like little sprints.

The main issue was that despite his enhancements in his Edict and sheer quantity of Soul he had, the Yeti had just as much endurance. Its blizzard rampaged through the space around them, casting crimson with the failing sun above. With it came the other Edict, Chill. A constant drain on Colt’s resources as he spent energy to use his Movement.

To him, this monster was a very effective and awful counter, and it didn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon.

Its third Edict hadn’t even come into serious play yet, ‘Rend.’ Once, Colt saw it gather on the Yeti’s claws when he let it close in. It slashed out with them, and he knew intuitively it worked on the same logic as Cut. Three invisible slashes tore through the air, and he’d dodged.

It left three gash marks in the ice and snow beneath them, but some drawbacks existed.

First, it wasn’t as strong as Cut. He felt it. Not just because the Edict was a step below what he had, but it didn’t have the pure and simple power of division as his own weapon. It would tear at him, but it wouldn't likely cleave him in two. Though the difference between that and having three large gashes causing him to bleed out was arguably minimal, to the point that they didn't matter. He understood that getting hit by it was too risky.

So he kept up his fight, darting in and out, throwing cuts, throwing his knife, utilizing his superior soul and capacity to keep fighting with at least those abilities, as much as he could for as long as he could.

Ten minutes passed, and he had broken into a sweat. Twenty minutes in, his heart started hammering in a way it hadn't in quite some time, as he utilized movement in quick bursts to throw himself away from the Yeti whenever the danger got too close. Thirty minutes in, and something changed.

The Yeti was getting frustrated. It wasn't used to prey like him being so maneuverable. To a creature like this, it no doubt had an inflated sense of pride as a hunter. And had thought he would be a simple meal to take down and tear apart. The fact that Colt could evade for so long, and prevent it from landing a decisive blow, was a direct insult to it.

Its sense of frustration was conveyed by the increase in the Blizzard around them, which raged as it reacted to the boss's emotions

After thirty minutes of struggling and not making much progress, something snapped, and an unthinkable thing happened: A second Yeti appeared. Then a third. They rose from the icy ground nearby, corpses raised from an icy grave. Colt noticed that these things were woven strictly of Edict. They were a condensed law of ice and blizzard, crafted by a skill that utilized both. Correspondingly, the blizzard that had torn around the Yeti itself also resonated with them.

Soon, about thirty feet around them, the gale and snow intensified, forming an almost impenetrable wall of white as the circling ice shifted into a higher gear. It was bad, Colt realized immediately, as the dynamic of the fight shifted. The Yeti's killing intent had focused, and now it was doubling down, intent on ending this fight as soon as it could.

Not only that, but the rampant mist around them swirled at hundreds of feet per second, filled with shards of ice as big as knives, threatening to shred anyone who dared step into that wintery gale. It had effectively made a barrier, trapping him in there with all three Yetis.

I waited too long, Colt thought, licking his chapped lips and coughing as he heaved for breath. He had drained his battery, thinking he could pull this fight out for longer and longer. And, sensing that its prey had begun to show signs of weakness and feeling frustrated, the Yeti had sprung its trap.

Maybe I could phase out of this wind.

If he ran as fast as he could... but no, it was impossible to tell just how thick the barrier was. From his perspective, it was just a swirling ball of snow and ice, dense to the point that he couldn't even see more than a couple of centimeters into it.

The level and ferocity of the raging storm around them surpassed anything possible on Earth. Yet here, with how they could manipulate reality and how these skills affected the world, he was now facing a storm that should have been impossible.

Colt spun his knife, eyes darting between the three Yetis. He threw it. And then, the Yeti reacted. It no longer had a blizzard directly around it since it had sacrificed the barrier to summon the storm, which changed the pace of the fight. It made it a viable target since he could get in close.

His knife soared through the air at the Yeti.

It, predictably, moved to counteract. Though it no longer had the blizzard, it was still coated in those dense plates of ice. Its armor was as good as a knight's. Impenetrable to a throw like this, and as it saw his actions, the armor condensed even further to raise its guard… But then, that hadn’t been the plan.

Colt snapped into existence next to his Knife with a heavy pull of Movement, grabbing it as it flew through the air.

Then he shifted, throwing away movement in favor of Momentum. If there was anything to be grateful for in this awful fight, it had driven home the skill of balancing his two Edicts and swapping between them with as little hesitation as possible.

Colt shoved his whole body forward while preserving the Knife's Momentum, maintaining the speed imparted to both his body and the weapon. All he did was alter the vector, flashing to the right, not directly at the main Yeti, but at one of the copies formed of ice.

His knife, thick with the golden energy of the cut edict, crashed into the side of the Yeti, cleaving down the entirety of its body and splitting the monster into two. As easily as it formed, the creature vanished into a slight twinkle of thousands of broken shards.

Colt wasn't done, though. He took this opportunity and vanished once more, the world slowing down to a crawl as he activated Movement. He could sense it as he moved, the way that the Yeti's mana and Edicts extended outward and formed a secondary copy again. Its goal, clear as day, was to create another problem for Colt by manifesting another troublesome monster.

But to do so was a distraction. With the way and effort it took to activate the skill and spend its mana, the monster was focused entirely on using its skill for the briefest half of a second. This afforded Colt the perfect opportunity.

In that half-second, he was there. His blade, thick with Cut, was going for the kill. He shifted the full weight of whatever force he could muster for Momentum behind the swing and went straight for the Yeti's gut. The combination of having reformed its armor to guard against where it thought that Colt's knife would hit it before, and the fact that the distraction of its magic and skills to summon another Ice Yeti had created this one barely perceptible opening.

One that Colt intended to make full advantage of.

His knife slid upward in a cut, sending a close-ranged wave of golden death straight for the Yeti. It roared. Barely having a second reaction, it did whatever it could. Throwing its claws and hands in between the wave of death and its vulnerable mid-section.

Not a bad plan.

Its claws wrapped with its third Edict—Rend. Infusing and reinforcing the weapon. In a way, it was like two swords clashing as Colt’s golden wave of Cut crashed against it.

There was a horrible second as his attack paused. Their wills contested; souls clashing against one another in close quarters. This was the tipping point—the closest moment he'd had in this entire fight to doing any real damage. And he knew after this, the Yeti's openings would close up. It wouldn't afford him another opportunity like this.

If anything, he'd learned throughout this fight that this creature's strength was its adaptability. It had surprising cunning that one wouldn't expect.

But, in the end, it was wielding Greater Edicts… And he was wielding a Superior Edict.

Inevitably, the Yeti gave as his will, and his Edict overran its lesser competitor. The Rend wrapping around the claws broke, and his knife cut through. Blood spewed from its hand as the knife slid in; it flung its arm outward as he cleaved through half of its palm.

There was a scream, and the ice condensed; it gave up on a second Yeti, instead piling on more plate-like ice and covering its torso. The rest of Colt’s Cut carried through, scoring the ice and getting deep enough to draw blood, but only a couple of inches. Not enough force to carry through and bisect the creature.

Still, half of its hand in the form of four fingers and claws was now decorating the snow below.

Not thinking, knowing that he'd just wounded the monster and it would buy him maybe a couple of other seconds, Colt hunched down, grabbed the claws. Then, infusing three of them with his Cut, he flung them forward like knives. Watching as they too slammed into the crack he’d left in the armor.

These went deeper, digging in like nails and bringing even more pain and blood on his enemy.

There was an earth-shaking roar as Colt grasped the last claw, knife in one hand and claw in the other, and darted back with a quick rush of Movement, pulling as much as possible. There was a rush of air; as the storm around them… Shifted.

Around him, the raging storm that had been in a collective barrier suddenly imploded, all of it condensing in a single second to rush into the Yeti's position as Colt threw himself through it, activating Phantom's gambit at the last second and relying on his burst of Movement to take him as far out of it.

He felt ice. Mounds and mounds of ice passed through his body, knowing that if he had been there for a half-second longer, it would have shredded him like shrapnel bursting from an explosive device. As it was, both the speed of his repelling himself away and the rush of the storm moving inward had been just enough time to find him suddenly outside the blizzard’s barrier.

This is it.

Colt thought. This was a singular opportunity in the chaos of the wounds and damage he dealt. Colt spun the prize of the Yeti's claw in one hand and, knowing that he'd at least done a little bit of damage to the boss, pulled ever more on his Movement.

He used every last bit that he still had in himself to rush away, vanishing into the night before the blizzard could catch up with him. 

There had to be a reason the Yeti hadn’t used that attack until now, and that dense ball of snow concealed Colt, which gave him the next perfect opportunity.

Colt ran for all he was worth.

He’d bought thirty minutes, but now his body was cold, frayed, and barely holding itself together. He had the feeling that the Yeti had just started getting serious. With him this exhausted, it was an inevitable death. Thirty minutes would have to be enough.

The second Movement ended, he pulled again and again, throwing himself as far as he could, moving as fast as he could down the slopes. He rushed towards the only destination that he knew would provide reprieve: the Academy. All Colt could hope was that his allies had found their cave, and were now safely tucked deep away. Hidden from this awful foe.

Each step brought him further as he pushed himself as far as he could.