Chapter 151

Lykan

Clash With A Titan

The wind billowed their warnings. On the air Lykan could hear his element, the very wind itself speaking to him. The wind warned of impending dangers and of monsters long since forgotten. Just seeing the monster sent shivers down his spine, as he remembered the last time, he fought such an opponent. Last time the monster, a Titan, had been near death. Blood and other liquids poured from the various wounds of the beast that had never healed, not even after thousands of years of isolation.

All Lykan could do last time was wait out and hid from the monster. He had been so weak back then, so inexperienced with the perils that truly existed in the world. But now he was better.

“Jump!” He said, a slight glance back towards Kosha the only warning she had.

Lykan of course had used this time to go lower to the ground, to make sure the impact was not that deadly. He also made sure to go close to a dense cropping of trees.

Within a second Kosha did as instructed. That lack of weight was all Lykan needed, one second, he had been slowing his decent. The next he quickly arced up, while gaining speed. Then choosing an angle of attack, he lowered his attack angle and began charging forward.

Rustle. Snap, pop.

Kosha landed and as Lykan had hoped, she used the branches to slow her decent. Hopefully the branches would be enough, her attributes were high. High enough that if she knew how to properly fall, she would easily be able to avoid injury. Still there was little he could do about possible injuries now.

Within a second he was charging forward, wind whipping at his ears as he readied his mithril bo-staff in a charging attack. This was an attack he found himself doing often. This would be the same thing as trying to stake an opponent with a spear. Instead, he just used the blunt end of his spear as an entry point. In most cases the speed Lykan could generate from doubling his speed by circulating mana through his meridians, while also creating lift from circulating his cores in a vortex pattern meant he could gain phenomenal speeds.

Thwack!

He landed his attack against the unsuspecting Titan. That or the Titan had been aware of the attack but thought the method of approach to be contemptable at best. Whatever the monster’s reasoning, it just stood there.

Lykan saw the moment the monster summoned forth dense formations of qi to act as shielding. Shielding that Lykan reached out with his own Qi Control and Qi Alteration abilities. Abilities that should be beyond any human. Judging by the look of shock on the monster’s face, this was likely beyond most Titans as well.

Splurt.

The sucking sound of his bo-staff sinking deeply into and through the skin of the Titan sounded in his ears before the sonic boom of his attack caught up to him.

BOOM!

Dust and debris shot up from the speed and impact of Lykan’s strike. Still the Titan was quick to recover.

Smack!

With a backhand blow, Lykan was sent flying. Instant pain and anger swelled in Lykan as he felt the stinging pain of the blow that landed against his cheek. Against a lesser person, someone who didn’t see the blow coming and thus try to roll with the punch the blow would have been fatal, or at the very least his jawbone would have been broken. Instead Lykan just had a giant red welt from where the blow landed. Even now Lykan could feel his massive Regeneration abilities coming into place and trying to heal the damage that the blow caused.

While his body began the natural restorative process, he went on the offensive. Trading blow for blow, with each strike he took, the monster deflected with their massive forearms. Each strike generating a spark in the dust cloud.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

For every one of his strikes, the monster struck out in kind causing Lykan to also parry or block the counterstrikes. The two seemed to be evenly matched. Lykan had a slight speed advantage, while the monster had strength and toughness in spades.

Still the monster seemed to be sluggish and slow. There was a disconnect that Lykan noticed. It almost seemed to take a millisecond of processing time for the monster to perceive a threat, then react to it. Such a minor distinction in speeds would be unnoticeable for most. In fact, the watching Ezma was powerless to observe any opening in the form. But to Lykan, the differences in reaction times was apparent. Within a few exchanged blows, Lykan began striking and delivering powerful blows repeatedly to the same spot. The spot on the monster’s chest where he made his first impact.

Click, clink, clack.

Each successive strike caused more and more qi to well up in the area. Qi that Lykan was able to call forth to aid him. While the qi was unable to be pulled from the monster’s body, he could move it elsewhere. Qi, the component of power that had been used to enhance the speed of the Titan, now acted as a mild hinderance. Again, the differences were minor, and almost non-existent, but they did add up.

Better still, the longer the battle went on, the more control Lykan seemed to gain over the qi within the monster. Its muscles and frame were composed of densely woven layers of qi. That was impossible, or at least previously impossible for Lykan to penetrate. He was still gaining ground and felt that he could make progress if he kept pushing that advantage. But he didn’t need to press, at least not that way. He had learned from his battle with the leviathan and his time with Brenna.

He would work smarter not harder. Rather than brute forcing the problem away, he decided to attack this monster from a different angle. One that it was least expecting.

Whoosh!

The Titan gave a monstrous swipe of its arm, one that caused the wind to part and a shockwave to send the flying Ezma stumbling away.

There was the all too familiar rustling of leaves and branches. Then a voice called out, letting Lykan know the calvary had finally arrived.

“Lykan!?” It was Brenna, that she was ready to join was no doubt. She had often spoke of how she wished to have been more help during the battle with the Leviathan. Unfortunately, water was the ultimate counter to her element, the earth. She could only watch on, while Lykan lured the monster out of its terrain and into his domain, the sky.

“Hold.” Lykan said. He knew this would only last for a time. Despite the pace of battle, she could not see what he was doing. Still, she trusted him enough to know that if he told her to wait, there was a purpose for the waiting.

This was good as it gave Lykan the final few seconds he needed to weave his control over the qi flowing within the Titan’s body. Once he was ready to execute his plan he called out.

“Now!”

Brenna didn’t have to be told twice, or what was needed. They had practiced this two-pronged attack combo so often that it was almost instinctual at this point. Lykan kept the attention of the Titan, while Brenna came from behind and hacked and slashed at her opponent, while they both began imbuing their attacks with their elements. Lykan began super heating one end of his bo-staff, while draining the heat away from the other. This meant one strike would land with a [Searing Strike] only for that blow to be followed up by an [Arctic Strike] on the tail end. Each strike would land at the exact same place on the monster’s chest.

While he did this, Brenna would send out her own earth charged attacks. Over and over, the two struck, each creating gaps and holes in the defenses of the opponent.

This went on for a matter of ten strikes, or what was less than a second’s worth of time. Still this only caused the Titan to become enraged. It had already been losing the battle of speed to Lykan previously, now with Brenna in the mix it was losing more. That is when the monster dug deep, and then began to glow a dark red color.

Glowing red-qi formed on the various holes and wounds of the Titan. Everywhere a mark had been made in the monster’s carapace, bright red qi formed. The qi formed, and then proceeded to glow hot like magma as the Titan prepared for one of its ultimate attacks.

While the Titan’s qi began to glow red, its cores began to thrum and pulse violently. This was when Lykan used his ultimate trump card.

Rather than letting the cores move about unimpeded, Lykan took control of the circulating qi. That was what he had been doing after all. The more the battle went on, the more of the Titan’s qi Lykan was able to gain a loose control over. That was why when the Titan tried to summon forth all the qi it could to one node, the qi failed to respond.

Fizzle.

While Lykan was unable to control all the qi within the Titan’s body, enough did get through to let something happen. A small trickle of red magma hot blood poured from the wounds. Normally this should have been an explosion of force, a last-ditch attack meant to incapacitate the enemy forces long enough to either kill them or flee. What happened instead however was something far less impressive.

Burning qi flowed gently down the open wounds, causing smoke to rise as the heat of the qi-blood began melting away outer layers of woven qi flesh.

“AHH!” The monster cried out, losing focus on its attack. This only made Lykan’s task that much easier, as the more the monster stopped its attacks due to pain. The more qi Lykan was able to gain control over, thus increasing the difficulty of the Titan’s attack.

What had been meant as a devastating attack, was now little more than a minor light show.

Thwack! Thwack! Splash!

While this was going on Brenna herself was not standing idly by. Instead, she relentlessly began pounding at the back of the monster. Aiming at open wounds that were bleeding magma hot blood and striking at open areas that were being burned away by the magma hot blood. As she struck waves of magma splashed out and away. Some going so far as to fly back and sear her flesh and clothes, still Brenna did not let this stop her. She knew what she was experiencing right now was minor in comparison to what awaited them if they failed in their task.

So, she struck.

Simultaneously Lykan too kept up his relentless offensive. Though he had a slightly easier time of directing his blows so that he was already out of the way as the sprays of lava came back at him.

The two whittled, carved, and forced the qi of the titan to disobey its master. With all of this, it was no wonder that the monster finally collapsed. Brenna moved to charge in, but Lykan held up a hand and took a step back. That was enough warning for Brenna to also take a step back.

The Titan knowing it was going to die began its final trump card. A suicide attack, one where it blew apart all its cores all at once.

Lykan was not even aware that such an attack was possible. That or he never dreamed that he would need to burst his own cores at one time to survive a harrowing encounter. Still, he had control over the qi, to a small extent. He used the qi he had control over to form a protective barrier that tried to stop most of the magma hot blood from erupting out towards Brenna.

Acting on instinct more than anything, Lykan created a partial dome that allowed the magma to escape in a direction that was out to the side from the two. Even still super-heated titan blood managed to break through and burn at the skin of Lykan and Brenna.

The two stood there, pain filling their bodies, but they were so accustomed to the sensation of battle, and associated dangers that they just stared on. Not wanting to give the enemy another chance to strike back.

After a few seconds of silence, the dust settled. Burning chunks of magma slowly burnt out against the pair’s skin. Then within moments the perfect skin of Lykan appeared to heal instantly. For Brenna the effects would last a little longer, but her thick earth fueled vitality should be more than enough to help heal the damages sustained. For what is magma anyways, other than earth that has gotten to an excited state.

The two had done something that hadn’t been done in thousands of years. Even Lykan’s previous encounter with a Titan didn’t compare to the thrill and exhilaration he now felt. The two of them had for the first time since the gods left the mortal plane, managed to bring down a Titan in combat.

There was a chime sound and a message from the gods, but Lykan quickly dismissed them all. Instead, he did what was most important to him. First, he checked on Brenna. After a few seconds and when he was certain she was safe he left the area.

For Ezma who was watching it looked like he disappeared, he moved so fast. At first Ezma wondered if his injuries were worse than previously expected. She almost wondered if Lykan too had overexerted himself and was now moving away from others lest he too explode.

Ezma had been expecting a lot of scenarios to happen with why Lykan had left so abruptly. What she was not expecting was what he did next.