Stargazer was a unique existence. Superior in both rarity and power, the glaive had aided him greatly since he had obtained it. No matter the monster he was facing, the combined physical and magical might had always been enough. The few times he had been nearly overwhelmed, it was simply because he could not fully unleash the glaive’s potential, and not because it was lacking.
It had, however, given him a lot to think about. Lev’s class was an enigma throughout the plains, a combination of skills so potent that a human Master simply could not make full use of it. Even right now, he was certain that it would continue to surprise him, regardless of how abnormal his strength already was.
Stargazer, though, wasn’t even a part of that class. She was connected to it indirectly through the use of his barriers and a general skill, and yet, the glaive was arguably the strongest tool in his kit.
That discrepancy was the roadblock he had to deal with. He could aim for an Extension General Skill, the likes of which were nearly impossible to obtain after evolving to Adept. He could also try to keep the glaive completely separate from his class and treat it like a tool.
Even as pain wracked his body from the rapid healing and electrocution, he made a face. The second option was truly distasteful.
The chances of forging an Extension General Skill in any reasonable timeframe were impossible, so he ruled that out as well.
Which leaves using it as a focus for all my magical attacks, or to elevate it higher and alter the direction of my next evolution entirely.
The former would be a massive disservice to the glaive. Stargazer was a bladed weapon, one meant to cut and pierce. No matter how potent all the enchantments were for using her as a casting focus, it was never the true purpose of the weapon.
This is it, huh? No longer a pure mage, but a hybrid mage who would be weakened without his glaive.
That was… acceptable. Lev had observed the ins and outs of Stargazer for a long time now. If the worst came to pass, he could recreate her from scratch, albeit only as the lower Epic rarities. Creating a Superior weapon was still decades, if not centuries, away.
This really is it, then.
With a sigh, he let himself be dragged along the lightning blast. It failed to damage his armor meaningfully, letting him create distance and mentally prepare himself for what was to come.
Over several long seconds, the explosion died down, revealing a Night Hunter that still stood on both legs. Dark blood dripped down its forehead where the lance had impacted directly, the wound writhing like maggots struggling to rejoin.
Lightning had damaged the flesh enough that restoring the charred area into a usable form took priority, negating any attempts at regeneration. It was yet another insight into evolving the element, which Lev banked for later.
He didn’t rush in and instead looked inwards, searching for any regrets or uncertainties about what he was going to do.
Nothing stood out. Lev had known for far too long that, regardless of how much he tried to slow it down, his talents would eventually fall short of the class’s power. Solutions demanded more than just resources. He needed something that wouldn’t hinder him in any way, something that would only empower without downsides.
A potential answer had been presented in the form of Stargazer. Initially, he had asked for a glaive to be useful in melee combat. His hand-to-hand combat skill was no longer useful unless he made some drastic changes to his armor, and that wasn’t viable.
Over the years, the glaive had stopped being just a glaive and instead had become an aid in everything related to his class.
Forgotten knowledge resurfaced, clicking into place. Four different Exalted had seen Lev ask for a glaive that would grow with him, and none of them had batted an eye.
Why was that? He now knew the answer. Their experience had already revealed that Lev would eventually struggle to control his class, leaving potential power on the table. Or they had simply discussed it in advance, which was also fine.
Either way, the Exalted had secretly encouraged him with their silent approval. They knew better than anyone else what taming an extremely powerful class entailed. Even Hakim, the strongest human by a long shot, used a greatsword of an unidentifiable rarity.
Drakys had his massive collection of runes, which no doubt hid many secrets. He had urged Lev to train more, to not let any skill progress linger. The Exalted could rely on his absurd runes and his physique to bring out his class’s potential, but the barrier mage had no such advantages.
Lev was now following their footsteps, an unstoppable force in the making. That realization alone sent sparks of inspiration buzzing into his brain, making it discard any notions of staying a mage purely any longer.
He had a lot of power to claim, and he was going to seize every last bit of it.
Stargazer’s blade thrummed with suppressed potential as all of the currently absorbed and converted lightning was teleported into the blade. Backed by the vast enchantments, the blade vibrated but held, refusing to break down.
Lev straightened and started redoing the enchantments on his armor. No longer did he need the runes focused on lightning. Kinetic Absorption appeared on all of the platings. They weren’t connected to any converters, either.
No, he planned to use all of the absorbed force for himself.
With a thought, all of the absorption pillars in his vicinity were uprooted. His bubble lowered in a split second, a hole opening on its exterior to let the pillars be safely tucked away, while dozens of prepared shieldwalls floated out of it.
All of his reserves for the strongest defensive constructs were deployed in a roundabout way. They remained invisible, hovering mid-air with their weight momentarily reduced.
Ahead of him, the Night Hunter stood still, healing and waiting. Anger, rage, pure bloodlust wafted off it in waves, telling Lev in no uncertain terms what kind of chaos would ensue the moment he made a move.
Just to be certain, he made the armor turn passive for a brief instant. Giving it the cockiest grin he could manage, he turned up his nose for a split second while displaying the same emotions through his aura.
I mean, I know it’s more than enough durable to be a good dummy, but that won’t mean much if it doesn’t have the aggression to make me truly exert myself.
At least he knew that the monster was sentient enough to recognize the taunt for what it was, especially the spirit in which it was delivered. The shriek that followed was equal parts physical and ethereal, exploding outwards in tandem with the monster’s aura that lay claim to all of the moonlight in the air.
Time to finally evolve this skill. He grinned widely, realizing that the trial in front of him wasn’t nearly as easy as he wanted it to be.
His preparations began with bringing all of his willpower to bear and infusing both his armor and Stargazer with it. The training orbs had been designed specifically to let him improve his control over smaller quantities of mana, and while he wasn’t going to use actually tiny amounts, it was still time to make good use of that practice.
With willpower assisting his manipulation, Lev moved at the same time as the hunter. He started large, teleporting a chunk of converted fire mana into his armor before evolving it to blue fire.
Lightning joined the fire imbue, amplifying his speed severalfold. Man and monster reached each other in a blink, and he made use of the excess mana types infusing his armor.
Remembering the feeling of using kinetic energy to empower his movement, Lev copied it during the clash. From the soles of his feet that pressed against the ground hard enough to leave deep footprints, fire and lightning traveled with all of the generated force.
The former was to empower his strength, whereas the latter was to make it happen fast enough to keep up with his Perception. Both of the blue elements worked in a beautiful harmony due to his passive skills, traveling through the barrier armor from his feet to his arms, all of it in a blink.
Stargazer blurred diagonally, smashing into the hunter’s palm. Claws stopped dead long before they could reach his neck, pushed back from the rebound. Lev’s glaive met the same fate, bouncing away just as much as the monster’s arm.
We’re evenly matched…
That made his smile a tad more manic. The Night Hunter, an abhorrent nearly a hundred and fifty levels higher than his own class, actively using moonlight to empower itself, had just failed to overpower him.
While remarkable, the achievement wouldn’t have been so impressive if Lev hadn’t just gotten started.
The impact of the strike coursed through his armor, a part of it absorbed and stored as kinetic energy. Again, the dual destructive elements surged in his armor, both infused and imbued to trace his move.
Taking a step back while wreathed in lightning, he stepped forward while blazing with blue fire. Stargazer blurred in a straight line, almost catching the hunter’s side.
The thrust was loud enough to rival cannonfire due to the sheer power packed in it. It missed by a hair’s breadth, leaving the monster exposed for a blink.
Lev turned things up a notch in that instant. On top of fire and lightning, the lump of kinetic energy in his armor was applied to the overall movement, giving him yet another small boost as his fist buried itself into the hunter’s gut.
It went through a shieldwall before stopping against a second. Lev was already moving, noting how his skills benefited from each element.
Lightning had the most profound effects. While the armor was overloaded, it became more receptive to enchantments and infusion. Controlled Enhancement formation operated constantly in the background, creating a baseline for the elements to work on.
Surprisingly, both of the elements had a similar effect on speed. Heavier lifting was the culprit, using the speed and strength from lightning and fire, respectively, to empower his flight.
With kinetic energy mixed in, the speed was almost too much for him to handle. A single dash was enough to cross the dozens of meters between him and the hunter, one that wasn’t caught unprepared.
Stargazer vibrated from the blue fire infusion, swung diagonally. The hunter dodged the telegraphed swing, thought the shieldwall right behind it limited the options. Seeing no way but forward, it lunged, only for a kick wreathed in lightning to slam into its chest.
Once again hurled into the shieldwall, the monster just barely brought its arms up in time to block the bottom of Stargazer’s haft that followed his kick. It smashed into the locked limbs from below, pushing them upwards and opening up the hunter for a clean strike.
Blue fire and lightning worked in equal measure as the glaive’s twirl completed and the blade returned to the forefront. A thrust went out, executed to the best of his ability, and empowered from beginning to end by both elements and kinetic energy.
The attack exploded forward, catching the monster directly for the first time. Blade and flesh battled for a moment before the latter gave in. Stargazer sank several inches and released a payload of mixed elements inside.
That was the most Lev could do, however. His defensive construct, used to pin the hunter, shattered. It escaped, but that didn’t matter anymore. He knew what had to be done.
With every passing moment, the Night Hunter was gaining strength. The new wound used up a significant portion of the absorbed moonlight, but just like Lev’s armor, its body was a weapon molded for carnage. It would overtake him in strength in no time.
Again.
A burst of lightning, and he reached the monster. Blue fire for the opening move, focusing on maximum weight and strength. The diagonal slash was evaded once again, and this time, the monster was wary of the upcoming kick.
Instead, four combined ropes smashed on top of its head. It didn’t fall to the ground, stubbornly remaining on its feet. Bent as it was, however, Lev dumped lightning into his armor and closed in.
Once there was no longer a need for increased speed, blue fire empowered the full force of his kick as it rose from the ground, charring it in the process. The flat of his foot landed on the Night Hunter’s chin with a satisfying smack, launching it straight upwards, directly in the path of a lance.
Again.
Darting inside the explosion, his eyebrows rose when the hunter somehow spasmed hard enough to dodge his downwards slash.
No matter.
It was still mid-air, and the follow-up did its job. The hunter hit a floating shieldwall, bouncing into the path of another lance.
Before it even hit the ground, Lev was already there, noting how the monster’s wounds healed even more quickly. It righted itself faster, too.
Again.
A net formed a small distance behind the creature. He didn’t look at it, not wanting to give it away. Instead, he redid the same predictable diagonal slash, watching as the hunter took a step back, only to find no shieldwall blocking its path.
The slash dodged, it warily scanned its surroundings while waiting for the next move. No ropes descended this time, and when Lev twirled the glaive once again, it became bolder, rushing in to disrupt the motion.
Its foot landed on a barrier spike that erupted out of the ground, hidden in advance with the help of his plates. The construct cut deep enough to draw blood, letting Stargazer’s pole slam into the side of its face, launching it towards the net.
Lightning streamed into the threads, stunning the monster for a split second as the element looked for all cuts and blood on its body.
Lev was on it in an instant. The same diagonal slash was repeated, except it was done with all of his attention this time. The attack was aimed at the hunter’s chest, putting as little pressure on the net as possible while also cutting as deeply as possible.
The resulting groove was carved with a spray of blood. Stargazer’s momentum stopped halfway through the durable flesh, only to get stuck.
Lev was flying through the air before he could react, but that was fine. An orb materialized where he had been a moment before, releasing a big payload of lightning.
Again.
Each clash ended in his victory. The hunter refused to give up, healing with its endless supply of moonlight. It gained two levels in the process, reaching a total of 445.
They didn’t matter. Whenever the monster retaliated, a lance or an orb thwarted its advance. Over and over, Lev opened with the same moves, improving them with each attempt while learning from his mistakes.
His mana dwindled, slowly enough to observe in excruciating detail how the hunter empowered itself. The monster’s strength was rising almost exponentially, on the cusp of overwhelming Lev entirely.
And yet, he didn’t stop or make any moves to end the battle. He simply waited, feeling his skill evolution slowly click into place.
The thirty-second exchange began with the diagonal slash, which, to the monster’s credit, was evaded with minimal movements. It had learned, too.
Stargazer’s twirl was also avoided, momentarily confusing the creature as no constructs tried to impede its assault. Seeing no reason to hesitate, its claws soon raked across his armor, slashing deep enough to disrupt some of the platings’ enchantments.
Its hand exited the other side of the armor’s chest, landing into Lev’s waiting palm. His fist closed around the claws hard enough for them to cut into the barrier construct and into his flesh, but he paid that no mind.
Yanking the hunter forward, he headbutted it with a truckload of lightning. Guided by his manipulation, Stargazer spun by itself, slamming into the hunter’s back.
Unbalanced, he grabbed it by the neck and, with an infusion of fire, tossed it into his assembled flood of floating constructs.
The hunter bounced off a shieldwall and right into an orb. Disoriented, another heavy shieldwall slammed into it from below, launching it upwards, where barrier ropes grabbed it and threw it towards Lev.
He waited on the ground, glaive held by the edge of her pole. Tracking the hunter’s flight, he swung Stargazer in a full circle. At the start of the swing, the glaive connected with the hunter’s torso, and her momentum made it fly along the move.
When it ended, the hunter retained all of the momentum from the earlier toss and flew into a massive construct. Three shieldwalls had been melded together during the earlier exchanges, forming an insanely durable block that the monster crashed into. Cracks formed from the impact, but the same damage locked it in that position for long enough for two orbs to do their job. One near its feet, the other above its head. All of the released lightning provided Lev with one singular instant, the fruit of his efforts.
Time seemed to slow down. His entire class came together for the final move. Lightning mana flooded his glaive, for it would form a sharper Fracturing Wave.
Perception skills let him see the exact location of the hunter through the twin blasts, and he tweaked his lightly held glaive’s position in preparation.
Barrier Manipulation began the throw. Clasped by his armor, Lev made minor adjustments to Stargazer’s trajectory as it flew out of his hand, its weight and angle perfectly calculated.
All speed and sharpness bonuses were activated for that throw. Now a projectile, Stargazer’s momentum was altered slightly by his mind. It slowly turned horizontal instead of tracing its trajectory like a thrown spear, aligning the blade’s length with the hunter’s neck.
Meanwhile, fire, lightning, and kinetic mana were running rampant in Lev’s armor. With a surge of willpower, he brought that ridiculous amount of power under control, if only for a moment.
That was enough. His skills, his body, his mana manipulation, and every other eligible part of his status came together to empower the dash.
The very air was set alight from his instantaneous acceleration. Not a single drop of mana leaked from his armor as he crossed the distance to the immobilized hunter in the same moment as his glaive.
Just before Stargazer’s blade could connect, his hands closed around the edge of her pole. With one last surge of strength borne of his body and armor, the glaive accelerated even further, and yet he could only watch with his eyes wide as saucers as two beastly hands rose just in time to catch the blade.
In that slowed moment, Lev felt the impact from the collision roll through his very bones. The blade bit deep into both the palms and the neck, but that also sapped a chunk of the strike’s momentum.
That was unacceptable. Pure mana roared into his armor, overloading it until hair-thin cracks appeared on its limbs. His arms underneath trembled from the physical exertion, so Stargazer could cut just a little deeper.
And it did. The blade slid further a smidgen, finally releasing the prepared Fracturing Wave inside the neck.
A small shriek escaped the Night Hunter’s throat before it was charred. Gurgles sounded through the expanding lightning, falling on deaf ears as Lev completed the same diagonal slash he had repeated dozens of times during the battle.
The Fracturing Wave was the final piece of the puzzle. Almost on its own, willpower transferred from his glaive and armor to the mana slash, manipulating the slipping mana back into shape to make the wave thinner, sturdier, and deadlier.
With a crack loud enough to be heard from kilometers away, the Night Hunter’s spine shattered, finally relieving its body of its head.
The passage of time returned to its normal flow. Lev’s momentum carried him further as the glaive easily tore through the giant shieldwall. By his side, the empowered Fracturing Wave also flew in the same direction, so he hastily formed a few walls in his path.
Each construct he barreled through lessened his momentum with painful collisions. After twenty or so, he stopped and flopped on the ground, too tired to move.
The slash carried on, angled downwards due to the direction of his strike. It tore through the ground and kept digging deeper and deeper, already several dozen meters below the surface.
With a sigh, Lev called his bubble and grabbed his body with a rope before throwing it inside. Protection enchantments came alive as he used the last bit of mana remaining inside Stargazer’s core, primed to resist the inevitable explosion.
****
Author's Notes: Alright so, this chapter was had stumped me for a while. I finally finished it at 3 am, so some of the events might be a tad confusing. To simplify, Lev had to make use of everything in his class at once, and the final throw was to make Stargazer serve both as a projectile for all the speed bonuses and as a melee weapon. Combined at the final key moment, he didn't exactly need to go that far, but it wouldn't have been enough otherwise.Anyways, give me your thoughts? Does it read fine? Anything too confusing or out of place? Thanks for reading, as always.There's a special shoutout today, the second ever I'm going to post on patreon. Check out my half-mentor's fic that just launched, see if it's up your alley.https://www.amazon.com/Magical-Engineering-Logic-LitRPG-Adventure-ebook/dp/B0G27XVL28 https://www.audible.com/pd/Logic-Gates-A-LitRPG-Adventure-Audiobook/B0G21FSG94