System Change

“No!” Jace quickly glanced at the list of Champions, only to see that Derek had already taken out Holcom. “Come on!” he yelled at a group of invaders who were attacking him. “Harder! You’re better than this!” If he really wanted to, he believed that he could join the fight as he currently was and wouldn’t be a burden. The only problem he might have would be if Trischa could still cancel his Bloodlust.

If she couldn’t, and he went early, he could always use Surge of War again. However, he didn’t like relying on such a trump card all the time. It wouldn’t be a trump card if he did. So, instead, Jace decided it would be best just to follow through with the exact plans. Besides, he’d be ready in less than ten minutes. Just how much damage would Derek be able to do in ten minutes, anyway?

***

“If I just escaped right now,” Derek said with a smile, causing Amelia’s steps to stutter. He looked behind himself and saw that the nullification Trischa had done really did close the rip in the space behind him. Then he looked back and continued. “If I just left… how long do you think it would take that girl over there to recover enough to block my void again? She looks pretty out of it. I don’t think that’s a backlash that’s just going to fix itself overnight.”

“What does it matter?” Amelia asked with squinted eyes. “You’re not going to escape from here.”

“I’m not,” Derek replied with a nod. “But if I wanted to, there is absolutely nothing you could do about it.” He licked his lips and grinned savagely once again. “And now that I have locked on to all of you… there’s no escaping me.”

Amelia’s eyes went wide, then she muttered, “Is that really how it works?”

Derek looked over his shoulder at Kelvin and said, “Speaking of locking on, you sure did take your time getting here. It was easy to figure out that all of you cowards were huddling together. I just had to wait until the one that I had already locked on to arrived. So, thanks for that.”

“You…” Kelvin looked at Derek with an open mouth.

He turned back to Amelia and said, “Yup. That’s how it works. As long as I haven’t been defeated, there’s no escaping me. There’s no escaping the void.” At that point, Derek pushed as hard as he could to try to generate some void and make it flow through him. Surprisingly, his body did produce a trickle before it dissipated.

During the same time that he produced a trickle, he heard Trischa, who was being covered by the four-armed man and the one-armed cat woman, cough. The cough ended up turning into a coughing fit, and more blood splattered on the ground.

“Oh!” Derek’s savage grin turned into a genuine smile. “It looks like I can make it so it doesn’t take thirty minutes. What did that little pulse of void take away? Five minutes?”

“Xephos!” Amelia shouted, and then the bug-like Champion finally acted.

The entire building—the entire area—started shaking, then the building began crumbling underneath them. Soon, they all found themselves on the ground, standing in a massive pile of rubble. The regular invaders were all looking at the scene in wonder and confusion. They didn’t know what to do.

The other citizens of the Stronghold also looked confused and worried, but Derek finally caught a glimpse of the so-called protection that the system promised them. He saw a tall building fall, and a large piece of rubble falling towards a woman who looked to be a tailor. As the rubble hit, a thin layer of mana covered her, and the stone crumbled to pieces and fell harmlessly to the ground.

Good, Derek thought. It seemed that it would be okay to fight in the middle of the city after all. Even after talking about the protection, he’d been hesitant, but after seeing it with his own eyes, he inwardly heaved a sigh of relief. Now… what was it that the bug-guy actually did? He wondered as he looked around.

Soon, Derek saw exactly what the creature did. At first, he counted dozens, then hundreds of beetle-like bugs the size of his hand crawling out from under all the rubble. Each had strong-looking pincers and legs that looked like razor blades. A disgusted expression fell on his face as he watched. That’s nasty.

All at once, the beetles rushed Derek. They made it to his legs and then began crawling up. In no time, he was up to his chest in a mass of them. “So… your gravity, or force, or whatever this is…” Derek held his arms out to his sides with Harbinger still gripped in his right hand as he spoke to Amelia. “It can be used on a single target and not just on an area. Because if that was the case…” He lowered his chin and crushed a bug that had made it to his neck. “The bugs wouldn’t be able to climb like this.”

“That’s right,” Amelia confirmed.

“Good to know,” Derek said, then activated Whirlwind Slash. He automatically spun 360 degrees with Harbinger in his hands. The strike was enough to rid himself of the majority of the bugs that had been climbing on him. Still, everything, from his activation of the skill to the skill itself, was much slower than usual.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“How?!” Derek heard a voice that seemed to be made of clicking and rasping come from Xephos, who had just summoned an army of beetles. “Not a scratch.”

“Yeah…” Derek shrugged. “You’re all going to have a hard time getting through my armor. I doubt you’ve ever seen armor of such quality before. And I got it at a discount.” He then looked at his boots and tried channeling pure mana into them just to see if he could activate them. They were celestial with the stars, but the final implosion was definitely spatial in nature.

Unfortunately, though they didn’t seem completely locked down, he could tell that the amount of pure mana he would need to channel into them would take a long time to get the effect that he wanted. Maybe later, he thought as he took his mind off his shoes. Next, he checked his armor and noted that it didn’t seem to have the same problems as his boots did.

“Since you all don’t want to talk,” Derek started. “I guess it’s my turn, then? Right?” He brought Harbinger up, then sent a slow Sweeping Slash toward the blue woman. The four-armed, scaled man stepped in front of it and blocked it with all his arms. Even with the slowness of the attack, it bit through two of his arms and even injured the other two.

“Such strength!” the four-armed man lightly bowed toward Derek as he picked his arms up off the floor. He brought them up to his stumps, and they began reattaching themselves. “Respectable!” he shouted. “And with a basic skill not enforced by the void.”

“Well, thanks,” Derek said. “I try.” Then he turned his attention back to Amelia. “Imagine what I can do when I’m not locked down by this skill.” Then, before anyone could respond, he took a page out of Jace’s book—and his old football team’s book—pointed his shoulder, and activated Powerstride.

With all the practice he’d had using his movement skill, it had mostly been while avoiding hitting anything or anyone. This time, however, that wasn’t the case. He aimed himself directly at the woman in front of him and took off… and it was like crashing into a wall.

“Ugh…” Derek coughed. “So you can use your gravity to reinforce yourself, too… got it.” After popping his shoulder back into place, he swung Harbinger at the woman. She easily slipped the attack by stepping to the side, then punched back.

Derek also tried to dodge, but he actually felt a force pushing his face toward the woman’s fist. You’ve got to be kidding me. This woman would be a pain in the ass for anyone to fight, he thought as his face connected with the fist—the fist which was also reinforced with some kind of force.

Derek staggered back a couple of steps as he reached up and rubbed his cheek. He’d felt his cheekbone crack from the punch, but it had already healed before he could even reach for it. “This could be fun,” he said as he stared deeply at the woman in front of him. Her hand was slightly shaking… as were her knees. “Looks like you didn’t take that tackle as well as I thought you did.”

After that, he stepped forward and activated Powerstride again, then again, then again. He started laughing as each time he hit the woman, he had to pop his shoulder back into place, but also, after the second try, she was finally being pushed back.

“My turn!” the massive four-armed scaled man shouted as he took a step forward.

“As soon as you move,” Derek said as he stared daggers at the man, “I’m running through that blue woman and the cat. Do you think they can take it as well as Amelia can?”

A trickle of blood ran from Amelia’s mouth as she looked at the three Champions and shook her head slightly. With the way things were, it was Derek versus Amelia, who he had to admit seemed more powerful than he’d thought. Xephos, who was a summoner that was doing nothing more than irritating him with a bunch of bugs. Kelvin… who was Kelvin, and Briya, who really wasn’t doing much to protect the blue woman now that the four-armed Cuthos had arrived.

There was also Darvin, but he wasn’t a Champion, and he’d only been floating around behind everyone the whole time. He’d barely even spoken and hadn’t bothered attacking. A handful of high-ranking invaders had also joined, but their spells, arrows, and such hadn’t been enough for Derek to warrant worrying about.

If it keeps going like this… I’m going to have to apologize to Jace and Marrick, Derek thought. Actually… I’m not, he thought again. In all reality, he was at a stalemate with everyone. With his skills taken away, there was no way for him to remove the force that was greatly slowing all of his movement.

Using himself as a battering ram was enough to shake Amelia, but it wasn’t an attack. It wasn’t doing enough damage to actually hurt her. It was just hitting her with that blunt force that Derek knew how irritating it was. All the while he was doing that, the bug-man was in dismay as none of the bugs he’d summoned were able to pierce Derek’s armor, and every time they got to his chest, he used Harbinger and Whirlwind or Sweeping Slash to knock them off.

Derek did have one idea that could possibly end everything after seeing how hard Sweeping Slash actually hit the four-armed man. He just wasn’t sure if it would end up killing all three Champions or not. And though he wouldn’t lose any sleep if it did end their lives, Amelia had offered no casualties in her ‘terms.’

However, Derek was soon pulled out of his thoughts by something that the remaining floating blue alien did. “Amelia! Xephos! Kelvin! Briya! Hold him still!”

“Huh?” Derek looked over at the man and raised his brow. “You doing something now?”

“I am,” Darvin said with a stoic face.

At that moment, the pressure on Derek doubled. He looked at the red woman in surprise. It seemed that she wasn’t using all her strength to begin with. “Pretty good,” he said as he slowly raised his left arm and gave her a thumbs-up.

Then, two giant… bugs—like he’d never seen before—penetrated the ground. They were like fish in the ground. Each one came from below his feet and engulfed his legs in their massive maws. Both Briya and Kelvin then appeared on either side of Derek and grabbed his arms.

“You thought we didn’t have a plan?” Darvin tilted his head and asked. “I am the System Watcher. I am the Keeper of the System Council. The Councilors’ powers do not belong only to them. If you continue to fight, you will die. I don’t care what kind of armor you have on. It will not protect you from what is to come. Give up, or die!”

Derek shook and tried to pull himself free. He could move a bit, but he really was locked down for the time being. He looked back up at the small floating man and shrugged. “Go ahead. Let me see what you’ve got. I’m something of a tank myself.”