Chapter 191: Joltblade

“Yeah, as I figured… there it is.” Herilon sighed anxiously amongst the other members of his and Artaphernes’ guild as they continued waiting around the portal altar of Kordas.

“Where the hell did he get an enchanted, mastercraft mithral weapon?” Artaphernes replied nervously.

“Most likely, scavenged from the fallen islands. He said found it, not crafted.” Quinn took a deep breath. “Pyri?”

“15 seconds.” She prepared her staff to cast the portal spell.

“Everyone get ready, shadow dancers, follow Lina’s lead, she knows the way to where they’re fighting.” Quinn explained.

“I don’t get it, even if he has stronger weapons, they’re outplaying him - shouldn’t they still be okay?” Ren asked, confused while glancing between Artaphernes and Herilon.

“Nah. Unlike Rakkan who is handing off weapons to his echoes, a battlemaster equips his weapons.” Artaphernes replied.

“Meaning, he can gain the stats from 7 equipped weapons, instead of the usual one or two like every other class.” Herilon explained.

“Didn’t matter much when Joltblade was just using plain, unenchanted iron weapons. But now he’s got 7 enchanted mithral weapons equipped, most likely with tons of options on them.” Artaphernes continued.

“What the hell?! That’s -” Ren shouted, but was interrupted.

“OP. Yep.” Sapphire finished for him, biting into a carrot one last time before throwing it into her inventory and preparing herself for Pyri’s portal.

“Aura of beauty. Bless.” Aegis shouted, digging his feet into the moss and bending his knees. The bless and aura engulfed Rakkan, after which Aegis threw out a healing wind to Rakkan as well to help him recover from the damage he’d already taken.

“Ho… Not gonna just run? I’m surprised.” Joltblade smiled wide to show his oddly sharp canine teeth. “I heard that the little fish was afraid of sharks.” His eyes glowed with excitement as he spoke, locking eyes with Aegis.

“I suppose you think saying things like that will get under my skin… but to me, you’re just a stepping stone in the way of my goals.” Aegis sighed back, shaking his head.

“Step on this!” He shot the shurikens out in all directions, creating a circular formation around Aegis and Rakkan as they buzzed through nearby mushrooms, easily chopping them down. Aegis tried his best to follow them with his eyes, as did Rakkan, while Rakkan charged his echoes forward at Joltblade’s main body.

The moment one of Rakkan’s echoes got close enough to Joltblade’s main body, Joltblade pointed his mithral lightning sword in the direction of one of the shurikens, and in an instant a bolt of lightning shot out from the sword at the shuriken, causing Joltblade’s body to electrify and move along with the bolt, and less than a second later he had teleported to the location of the shuriken. He then, having an angle on Aegis where Aegis was now standing between Joltblade and a shuriken, did the same swinging motion with his lightning sword.

A bolt shot out from the lightning sword again, in the direction of the shuriken that stood opposite Aegis, causing the bolt to pass right through Aegis with incredible speed. Aegis was quick to react, putting his shield up to block the bolt with a brace, but just barely. However he was slow to react to the fact that Joltblade had once again teleported along with the bolt, jumping out of the lightning after it had passed behind him, and doing a spinning motion in the air to swing his mouth sword backwards at Aegis from behind.

Rakkan managed to dash his crossbow-wielding echo forward and slid the echo between Joltblade’s sword and Aegis’ back just in time. The moment the mouth sword hit the echo, it died, transferring half-healths worth of damage back to Rakkan.

You take 10,253 Lightning damage.

Aegis quickly dashed forward away from Joltblade as he turned to see the last parts of Rakkan’s crossbow echo dissipating.

“HEAL!” Aegis shouted, wiggling his fingers to split the heal so that it went on both himself and Rakkan, helping them get back to full health.

“He’s fast! He can jump anywhere that aligns with where he placed his shurikens.” Rakkan called out as Aegis stumbled forward and spun himself around midcast, regaining his composure and throwing his shield up to face Joltblade, but the moment he had, Joltblade shot a bolt out at another shuriken again and had teleported to another location.

“Keep track of the shurikens' locations, it's the only way to predict his possible movements.” Aegis replied to Rakkan, who nodded back and began spreading his two echoes out, while resummoning his third.

“Good luck with that.” Joltblade cackled back as he did a wide swing of his mouth sword, several meters away from them. The swing released a black shockwave of energy - finally clarifying to Aegis and Rakkan where the shockwaves had been coming from. Rakkan and Aegis both carefully ducked under the shockwave to avoid it, but while ducking, Joltblade used this time to teleport and angle himself again with a shuriken that lined up with both Aegis and Rakkan between it.

He was moving relentlessly, not giving them time to breathe, and shot the bolt out from his sword at the Shuriken. Rakkan and Aegis both rolled out of the path of it, but Joltblade jumped out of the bolt midway, behind Rakkan, and swung his mouth sword down at Rakkan while he was rolling.

Aegis saw it, and created a guard at Rakkan’s back at the last second to block the strike.

You take 24,302 Slashing damage

You take 3,564 Void damage.

Joltblade has absorbed 1,103 health, and 137 mana from you.

Aegis didn’t have time to look at the message closely, as he heard a loud buzzing sound closing in on him and saw that one of the shurikens was flying towards him, but as he glanced to see, he confirmed it wasn’t one, but three shurikens coming at him from all different directions. Aegis was forced to jump up high into the air to avoid them as all three shurikens collided. Rather than stop after colliding, though, they crashed together and shot up at him from underneath while he was mid-air.

“GUARD!” Aegis shouted, creating another shield projection behind himself and launched himself off of it with his feet to change his trajectory midair and avoid the 3 buzzing shurikens as they shot up behind him, just barely missing him.

While this happened, Rakkan recomposed himself from his roll and spun around with his spear, doing a wide swing with it, forcing Joltblade to jump back to avoid it, which caused Joltblade to jump directly into the path of a crossbow bolt fired by Rakkan’s resummoned crossbow echo, dealing 2,310 piercing damage.

“Same tricks are still working.” Rakkan grinned as Joltblade glared angrily at him. “His weapons are fancy, but it’s still the same player. We can beat him.” Rakkan shouted to Aegis.

“You’re damn right we can.” Aegis shouted back as he landed back onto the mossy floor and rolled forward, casting heal on himself. “Don’t let the mouth sword hit you, it’s got lifesteal.” Aegis added.

“Got it.” Rakkan nodded back.

“Queue the jaws music, I’m done with this shit.” Joltblade shouted angrily, losing his cool completely as his lightning sword began to buzz and spark violently, creating arcs of lightning in all directions randomly. This forced Rakkan to jump backwards and get away from him. “JOLTBLADE!” He shouted his own name, but it was clear that he was casting a skill. Immediately after he had, the random bolts stopped being random and instead shot out and connected to the shurikens all around the battlefield, and remained connected.

With lines of sparking lightning now extending out from Joltblade’s sword and his 5 shuriken, he began rolling the shurikens around in all directions, the lightning brightening up the cavern and slicing apart anything that it passed through.

“That’s hard to dodge.” Aegis took a deep breath as he watched two shurikens buzzing towards him, trailing along with them the line of lightning that extended out from Joltblade’s sword.

Aeg’s jumped over one stream of lightning, then ducked under another, but immediately after he had, Joltblade redirected the two shurikens to double back and sent a third one at him, while sending two towards Rakkan’s echoes and charged his main body at Rakkan.

“Let’s have some fun, Rune Knight and Shattered Healer! Two classes I haven’t had the pleasure of killing yet!” Joltblade cackled.

“They seem random, but he’s controlling them. Just gotta get used to the movements!” Aegis called out to Rakkan as he desperately tried to dodge the shurikens and streams of lightning.

“Right…” Rakkan said as he dodged and rolled out of the paths of them.

“CHARGE STRIKE!” Joltblade shouted - a fighter skill that Rakkan was familiar with. He’d been facing Rakkan and running towards him, so initially Rakkan thought Joltblade was charging him, but quickly saw that he'd been feinting and had targeted Aegis. Joltblade shot through the air at incredible speed with his swords held forward. Aegis saw him coming and held his shield up to block the charge strike, but Joltblade suddenly transferred his body through one of the lightning streams to get around Aegis shield, preparing to strike at Aegis from the side the moment his body re-appeared out of the lightning stream.

“RUNE:ENLARGE!” Rakkan shouted, aiming the rune at Aegis’ shield and causing it to grow massive. The growth slammed into Joltblade as he had appeared, knocking him off balance and allowing him to successfully only swing one sword at Aegis into Aegis’ now gigantic shield, which Aegis easily braced.

“Tch.” Joltblade growled in Rakkan’s direction, turning to face him, but the moment he had, he saw a spear flying at his face which he was forced to sidestep. Once dodged, Rakkan snapped his fingers to return the thrown Mosmir stinger to his hands and needed to jump out of the path of another stream of lightning closing in on him. “Makin’ me go all out for a bunch of Kalmoorians… Dance for me, Rune Knight.” Joltblade shouted loudly, suddenly sending all 5 shurikens at him.

Aegis watched the buzzing shurikens drill through the mossy floor, slicing it up and scorching the nearby blue bulbs with their sparks as the lightning streams converged on Rakkan.

“Don’t look away now, healer.” Joltblade shouted to get Aegis’ attention back on himself. “You like blocking attacks, huh?” He cheered as he lunged forward at Aegis’ enlarged shield with both of his swords. Aegis jumped backward while Rakkan shrunk the shield to allow Aegis to avoid the swords hitting him more easily. “FLURRY!” Joltblade shouted, causing his arms to glow red. It was a skill Aegis was familiar with, he’d seen Lina and Rakkan use it countless times. One that significantly increased attack speed for a short time.

“Shit…” Rakkan shouted desperately, trying to send his echoes towards Aegis to help him, but the buzzing shurikens and their lightning streams were zoning Rakkan off and not letting him get close.

It began in an instant - a relentless assault of sword strikes from the two mithral blades in Joltblade’s hand. He didn’t move anywhere but forward, rushing at Aegis and swinging with incredible speed. Aegis had already seen the damage the swords dealt and knew it would only take two unbraced, or three braced hits in a row to take him down, unless he healed in between them.

Aegis jumped back, braced, dodged, healed, ducked, rolled, jumped, braced, healed, and dodged. All the while, Joltblade began laughing excitedly and continuing his assault.

“You’re such a good punching bag, shattered healer! How long can you last!?” Joltblade called out between the attacks. At first Aegis thought him being reckless, but slowly he saw Joltblade was adapting to his strikes and getting closer and closer to hitting him twice in a row, all the while easily zoning Rakkan away using the shurikens despite Rakkan utilizing all of his skills to try to get close. He was being anything but reckless - this player was good.

“I wonder what’ll happen first, you run out of mana, or I land a few hits in a row?” Joltblade grinned. “How’s it feel, facing a shark!? SCARY ISN’T IT?!” Joltblade cheered.

“VARIBHADRA!” Aegis shouted desperately as his mana got low. The moment he had, though, Joltblade leapt backwards and avoided it, standing just outside the dome of holy energy that erupted out from his shield.

“Hah, that works in PvE, but everyone in PvP knows to dodge it.” Joltblade shook his head. “What a waste of mana… Now, I think you’re empty, right?” Joltblade smirked, and Aegis looked in the corner of his vision to confirm his mana had dropped extremely low. In this split second, Joltblade charged forward again, both swords held out towards Aegis’ shield, but he stopped midcharge as several iron daggers were placed all over his body.

“Don’t fucking touch him.” Lina growled, as she had appeared from the shadows alongside several other shadow dancers from Artaphernes’ guild.

“Maaan…” Joltblade sighed as he took the piercing damage from their daggers, but then released a blast of black energy that knocked them back. He took this time to glance across the cavern where he saw Ren, transformed into a strange looking but very fast lizard, charging at him with Herilon and Quinn riding on his back. “Just when I was starting to have fun…” He sighed as he rolled one of his shurikens away from Rakkan towards the top of the hole leading to the red river. Lina jumped to him and struck him again, but a second later he transferred his body through the lightning stream to the shuriken above the hole.

“I’ll see you again,” Joltblade waved playfully at Aegis and the others before dropping down into the hole.

“Are we chasing?” one of Artaphernes’ shadow dancers asked after appearing next to Aegis. Aegis looked at his mana again, then looked over at Rakkan to see his low stamina due to dodging the shurikens constantly, despite the aura of beauty.

“No…” Aegis shook his head.

“Are you okay?” Lina asked him worriedly.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. I shouldn’t have tried to use Varibhadra, unless I had a way to stop him from dodging it…” Aegis thought out loud. “I’m sure if it’d hit him, he woulda went down.” He added with a hint of frustration in his voice.

“Damn.” Rakkan punched the ground in frustration. “I shoulda known you were planning that. I coulda done something to lock him down for a second.” Rakkan added.

“You guys…” Lina glanced between them in disbelief.

“That guy had insane gear, and he was a battlemaster, and you were both still only thinking about winning?” One of the other shadow dancers asked in disbelief.

“Huh? Of course.” Aegis replied to him as if he’d asked something weird, while Ren arrived with a trail of other players running through the forest behind him.

“What happened, is he gone?” Quinn asked as she hopped off Ren’s back and Ren transformed back into his normal form.

“Yeah, he got away…” Aegis sighed.

“HE got away?” Quinn raised her eyebrows at him, causing both Ren and Herilon to chuckle.

“You dumb macho idiots!” Sapphire’s voice shouted out loudly from across the cavern, causing them all to look in her direction and see Sapphire, Darkshot, Cheryl, Artaphernes and Pyri running towards them. “You realize that desperate prayer spell has a 24h cooldown, and costs expensive reagents to cast? I used that, on you, to save you. I never use that spell.” Sapphire scolded him as she got close, taking out a carrot and waving it at him accusingly. “And how did you repay me? By crossing your arms, whipping out your ego and swinging it around.” She shook her head disapprovingly.

“Hey, hey.” Pyri stepped in, glancing at Sapphire. “I’m his mom, I’m the one who gets to scold him.” She said calmly to Sapphire, which caused Sapphire to quickly quiet down.

“Right, sorry…” she replied timidly, after which Pyri stomped over to stand in front of Aegis.

“You too, c’mere.” She motioned Rakkan to stand beside Aegis, and he reluctantly did so while all others gathered and looked at the two, as well as inspect the devastation caused on the surrounding forest from their fight. Both Rakkan and Aegis had their heads down while Pyri stared at them.

“Acting tough and standing your ground is good and all, but that was a bit reckless given the importance of the item Aegis has. Especially now that we know the enemy has powerful weapons themselves. I hope you two learned a lesson here.” Pyri put her arms on her waist while everyone continued to stare silently. Neither Aegis and Rakkan replied, though, they just briefly looked at each other while they remained standing side by side, looking down at the mossy floor.

“Well, what lesson did you learn?” Pyri pushed them to reply.

“I learned I need to figure out how to beat a battlemaster, even when he has better gear than me.”

“I learned I need to figure out how to make better gear for my allies, so they can fight on even terms.” The two replied at the same time. Immediately after they spoke, several players nearby started laughing, while Darkshot and Quinn both smiled and shook their heads and Pyri rolled their eyes at them.

“You’re both hopeless.” She sighed. “My portal is off cooldown again in a bit…”

“Good. This time…” Quinn stepped forward and grabbed Aegis' shoulder. “You go through the portal first."