Chapter 178: Snort

Jaxir settled on 10 meters after watching the 3 black shields swat away another spread of Casts. Any farther, and the barriers had too much time to reposition before his Hexes could slip through. Any closer, and the Black Gem Alpha would have almost no room to dodge the ancestral spirit’s beams.

10 meters was still far closer than Jaxir liked. However, with the timer still falling, comfort had stopped mattering.

"Take us in."

The Black Gem Alpha surged forward beneath him. Its paws struck the crystal floor so hard that Jaxir felt every impact through his legs.

One of the black shields shifted toward them as another beam started gathering in the ancestral spirit’s maw. Jaxir immediately sent a spread of Casts out ahead of them, forcing the defenses to split up before they reached the danger zone.

The 3 barriers peeled apart exactly as he’d expected.

Fracture.

Jaxir drove the Hex through the opening between two of them, forcing it back into the crimson weaknesses Unmaking had already carved across the Sovereign’s body.

A second shield snapped around before he could follow up. So, he hit it with several Casts and knocked its angle farther out.

While the ancestor’s attention was split, Drain slipped through from the opposite side.

The ancestral spirit snarled.

"Keep moving!"

The junior wolf changed direction as black light erupted from the spirit’s maw. However, at 10 meters, it had nowhere near the freedom it had when they were fighting from across the cavern.

The beam caught its hindquarter before it could fully clear the line. Black mana flooded into its gemstone coat, and the whole body beneath Jaxir twisted from the impact.

The wolf dug its claws into the ground, fighting to seize control of the attack before its ancestor could turn the pathways inside its body against it.

Black light burst outward in several directions.

Jaxir flattened himself against the junior’s back. One redirected stream tore over his head, while another carved a glowing line into the cavern wall.

Before the wolf had even finished catching its footing, Jaxir was already pulling another mana potion out of his Inventory. He popped the cork with his thumb and drained the whole thing, his other hand keeping the staff aimed forward.

His own MP wasn’t why he was drinking it. The first hit from the ancestral spirit had ripped an enormous chunk out of the Aegis reserves he had only just finished filling. Every stray hit since then had kept eating away at what was left.

He had no intention of waiting until the defensive layer hit zero before doing something about it. Especially not now that he had deliberately moved within 10 meters of something that could erase thousands of HP with one casual beam.

Another 500 mana flowed into the Aegis while Jaxir kept firing.

Casts hammered into the rotating shields one after another.

By now, Jaxir had stopped caring whether any of them did meaningful damage. Their only purpose was to make the barriers commit.

Every time one of the shields moved to intercept a Cast, a narrow line opened up somewhere else.

Wither slipped through one of those openings, and Unravel through another. Then, Fracture went right back into the same crimson fault line it had already widened twice.

[00:58]

The timer kept burning at the edge of his vision.

Jaxir swallowed another potion and tossed the empty vial aside as the Black Gem Alpha lunged left, carrying them around another beam with barely any room to spare.

Somewhere along the way, the Sovereign had stopped looking contemptuous. Its 3 shields were moving faster now, as Jaxir layered one ability after another into the gaps between them.

The next beam caught the junior wolf across the shoulder.

This time, it didn’t stumble.

Light flared beneath its gemstone coat as the Black Gem Alpha seized the invading mana and forced it sideways. The beam broke apart into jagged streams before the ancestor could fold the energy back through its body.

Cracks still spread along the wolf’s shoulder, and several chunks of black crystal broke loose. Yet, it kept charging forward, as though the damage had only given it another reason to move.

Jaxir looked down at it, and a grin tugged at his mouth.

The creature he’d met yesterday had barely cared enough to lift its head. That emptiness in its eyes had made every movement look like an inconvenience. Now, its paws were bleeding black light onto the ground, and half its coat was fractured. Every beam it absorbed threatened to rip off another piece of its body.

None of that slowed it down.

"That’s more like it."

However, the ancestral spirit had picked up on the pattern too.

2 of its shields shifted high at the same time, leaving what looked like a clean opening near the lower half of its body.

Jaxir almost pushed Drain through. Then, something about the arrangement bothered him. His attention caught on the third shield. It was sitting farther back, where it wasn’t protecting anything obvious.

It wasn’t defending anything. It was waiting.

"Move!"

The Black Gem Alpha leapt just as the first beam fired, letting the attack skim along its side instead of burying itself in the center of its chest.

Black mana still flooded into the gemstone pathways, forcing the wolf to fight for control. Almost immediately, though, Jaxir felt another disturbance.

The ancestral spirit was already preparing a second beam.

His stomach dropped. The first attack hadn’t been the real opening.

The second beam struck the junior wolf square in the chest while it was still forcing the first one out through its flank.

Black light flooded through two separate routes at once. For a moment, the Black Gem Alpha’s entire body turned translucent under the pressure.

Cracks raced across its gemstone coat, from its chest to its shoulders.

"Get out!"

The wolf didn’t move. Its front legs buckled under the attack, then straightened again as it forced itself to stay between Jaxir and the ancestral spirit.

The empty resignation Jaxir had seen in those eyes yesterday was completely gone. What had replaced it was raw enough that he understood it without needing a single word.

The stupid bastard wanted this badly enough to suffer for it.

Jaxir tightened his grip on the staff. "Fine."

He jumped.

The Black Gem Alpha dropped beneath him as Jaxir cleared its back, and the ancestral spirit’s shields immediately shifted toward him.

He let off 4 Casts before his feet touched the ground. They forced 2 of the barriers aside, while the third got ready to intercept what should have been the fifth attack.

Jaxir never sent one.

"Haunt."

The Hex rose from below.

Darkness crawled through the crimson weaknesses already covering the Sovereign. It buried itself in the damage left behind by Unmaking, Fracture, Wither, Drain, and every other ability Jaxir had stacked over the last few minutes.

The ancestral spirit’s body shuddered as Haunt settled deeper, making every existing weakness that much harder to shake.

Jaxir hit the floor shoulder-first and rolled. Crystal scraped beneath his robes as his momentum carried him far closer than he’d meant to go.

He came out of the roll on one knee and looked up. He was only a few meters from the ancestral spirit’s front paws, close enough that even the idea of dodging felt ridiculous.

[0:03]

The timer was almost up.

The ancestral spirit lowered its head.

The contempt returned to its eyes as black light gathered in its maw, denser than any beam it had formed so far. At the same time, all 3 shields folded inward to block every path Jaxir could use.

He could already tell what would happen if that attack touched him. This time, the Aegis wasn’t going to make enough of a difference.

Jaxir still smiled. The whole fight had been building to this moment.

Fracture had opened up the weaknesses Unmaking created. Wither had poisoned the mana trying to repair them, and Drain had stripped away whatever strength it could reach. Now, Haunt was buried throughout the damage, holding everything together.

Jaxir raised his staff and finally released the ability he’d been building toward from the moment Unmaking landed.

"Entropy."

The stacked Hexes reacted.

For a fraction of a second, the ancestral spirit’s entire body seemed to fold inward, as every weakness Jaxir had planted began collapsing toward the same point.

Then, the Sovereign snorted, and a black symbol appeared across its chest.

The symbol pulsed once and Entropy vanished.

Jaxir’s smile disappeared.

The ancestral spirit’s eyes narrowed with something that looked almost like satisfaction as the beam in its maw finished forming. Jaxir had just enough time to realize the Sovereign had hidden an ability for exactly this moment.

Then, the black beam fired straight at his head.