Chapter 4399: From the Same Cloth (Part 1)
Chapter 4399: From the Same Cloth (Part 1)
Conquering Batara not only gave the Undead Courts a foothold in the Gorgon Empire, but it drove a wedge between the Organization and the underworld. Dawn leading the Courts into battle restored part of the lost trust between the Horseman and her loyalists.
It sent everyone the message that the undead were back, and they had a powerful protector who dominated sunlight instead of being weakened by it. Defeating two of the Master’s vaunted hybrids was the icing on the cake.
"Stay back and don’t interfere!" Acala yelled. "You wouldn’t last a second against this creature."
"He speaks!" Orulm laughed, charging forward with Fellbane as he ordered the Maw of Bytra to weave a Break Annihilation.
"Only when it matters." The Chiropteran encased the Twilight Blade into a hard-light construct that made the sword match his size and met the Breaker’s weapon with his own.
"Tell me, human, did you become a Vampire to have your blood core in your heart?" Orulm asked. "To keep it close to Dawnie’s crystal and not have to worry about protecting yourself?"
Acala grunted, conjuring a multi-layered construct around the crystal in reply. Without the crystal armor and Morning Star, the undead Ranger needed to consume most of the life force stored in his blood core just to match Orulm’s physical prowess.
Eldritches possessed bodies that could go toe to toe with white cores, and hybrids were much stronger than that. Despite his humanoid size, a thrust of Orulm’s spear could pierce through a mountain and still have enough strength left to level a building.
Acala needed to time his blocks to perfection and strike the spear at the right angle to deflect it without Fellbane shattering the construct or being sent flying by the shockwave that accompanied every attack.
The Chiropteran didn’t hesitate to sacrifice his left arm or any other part of his body that wouldn’t compromise his mobility to launch counterattacks whenever he spotted an opening.
Alas, Orulm created most of them on purpose, to bait Acala into a position from which he couldn’t dodge a Break spell aimed at his chest. The Chiropteran avoided death by an air’s breadth time and time again, twisting his body just enough to avoid the fatal blows.
"I like you, kid." Orulm nodded, impressed by Acala’s seamless shifting from attack to defense. "You don’t have much talent, but your grit is in a league of its own. It’s rare to meet someone so tenacious."
Truth be told, Zepho Acala was a talented man, but he was no genius. He lacked both the combat instinct of a natural-born warrior and the intuition of a powerful mage.
"I’m just lucky." The Chiropteran grunted, recalling Sunrise to him but keeping the mage tower far enough away to escape the Breaker’s senses.
"Don’t underestimate yourself, kid. No one lasted as long as you did against me with just luck." Orulm nailed one of the Chiropteran’s feet to the ground with Fellbane and struck with a Break-filled hand at the crystal on Acala’s chest.
The undead Ranger cut his own leg with a sweep of his blade and hit the Breaker’s extended arm with a palm strike. The impact sent him crashing against the wall and destroyed his left arm up to the elbow, but the wound was already regenerating at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"Luck is relative." The Chiropteran snarled.
’Orulm using a spear is proof that Mogar has a twisted sense of humor.’ He actually thought. ’I trained for so long to counter spear arts to deal with Orpal that I’m sick of them. There is no other weapon against which I’m so proficient.’
Red crystals burst out of the stumps, allowing Acala to jump at his enemy before Orulm could weave a single rune with his mind. Life Vision showed Acala the Chaos Annihilation taking form, and he knew that time, among many other things, wasn’t on his side.
Dawn provided him with endless light element and the tower with mana, but his blood core also needed life force to sustain his existence. Healing so many wounds and increasing Acala’s mass drained the blood core’s reserves of life force, and soon it would be empty.
Orulm knew it and exploited the weakness of the undead Ranger by infusing his attacks with huge amounts of Chaos and a sprinkle of Break. Even when the light element reverted the Chaos into darkness, the Chiropteran would still be injured and suffer the effects of the Break energy.
Flesh and bones disappeared into dust, and even though the Chiropteran healed almost instantly, his fighting abilities were greatly diminished until the regeneration process was complete.
Acala was constantly on his back foot, and his disadvantage grew with each wound he suffered.
Despite that, the undead Ranger didn’t let anger and frustration affect him. Each strike of his blade was as precise as the first, and Orulm couldn’t afford a single moment of distraction.
Acala pushed back with all his might and only needed one opening to turn the tides of the battle.
’I don’t know how it is possible, but this guy fights as if he’s possessed by a bunch of old monsters.’ Orulm thought. ’I’ve read the file about Zepho Acala. He’s a nobody born thirty-something years ago.
’How can someone so young last for so long against me without Dawn’s help?’
The answer to his question was simple.
Ever since the day Acala had bonded for the second time with Dawn, he had never stopped training and learning from her to rebuild the foundations of his magical knowledge from scratch.
He had also integrated her swordsmanship into the fighting style he had learned from the army first and then developed during his tours as Ranger of the Kellar region.
Being the host of a Horseman granted him nigh-immortality, and he exploited it to fight against Baba Yaga’s Firstborns at their full strength.
Vladion and his siblings didn’t hold their punches against Acala, allowing him to experience hundreds of fights to the death in a single day. Each Firstborn had a unique weapon and fighting style, and they all had no qualms about pointing out Acala’s mistakes.
They offered him no solution, giving him the time to reflect on what he discovered about himself and find an answer on the battlefield. After Acala had turned into an undead, he had started to study and fight even while the rest of Mogar slept.
It was an intense, frenzied training regimen that no living being could endure. The undead Ranger rested only when his mind was so full of new notions he had to assimilate and mistakes he needed to fix that he couldn’t process more.
Acala had lost his thirst for power and glory after realizing the extent of his crimes, so all that study was torture to him. He missed the taste of food, the smell of flowers, and all the pleasant feelings that now only his thirst for blood could arouse.
The transformation into a Vampire had taken away many things he treasured, yet he didn’t regret his choice. Becoming an undead had given him a core stronger than Orpal’s could ever become.
It had made Acala into the warrior that he needed to be to protect Dawn from her mad sister.