CHAPTER 288: V FOR VENDETTA (AGAINST TREES, SPECIFICALLY)

As I opened another portal, Tavio adjusted his stance and avoided it with his hammer. I raised my shieldless arm up into position to block the hit, then used Shortcut on the larger half of Gracorvus to teleport it directly onto my armguard. It locked in place, and I moved with Tavio’s strike, turning it away with my shield. My arm went noodle-mode immediately after.

Tavio flowed with my block, adjusting his strike a moment before impact so that it wouldn’t strain his grip. He swiftly twisted his body and looped the hammer around to bring it down in an overhead strike. Noodly-armed as I was, I couldn’t raise my shield to intercept. Shortcut was also on a one-second cooldown, but my recent insights gave me other new ideas.

I used another Closet portal to intercept, but as a feint. Tavio changed his stance again to avoid it, slowing his attack by a fraction. I sent the armguard and the portion of Gracorvus attached to it into my inventory, then used my Rapid Blocks evolution to instantly pull it out, attached to my other, non-noodly arm. I caught Tavio’s attack coming from overhead, angling my shield and sending the weapon into the ground. It struck like a missile, showering us in dirt and ruined plant life.

I hopped back, expecting another swing, but Tavio lifted the weapon and balanced it on his shoulder. “Good work,” he said, giving me a genuine smile. “Does this mean that your Closet portal is also a shield-related skill?”

“But of course. What else would it be?”

“Why bother sending my hammer into the shield with the portal?” he asked. “You could have me hit the ground instead. Or even my ally.”

“My dear Tavio,” I said, raising my eyebrows and placing a hand on my chest. “Have we finally found a place where my understanding of a specific type of ability surpasses your own?”

“I would hope that is the case,” he said. “I have learned about Dimensional Magic by reading books and speaking with dimensionalists, not by using it myself.”

“You mean punching dimensionalists?”

“There was usually some friendly sparring as well, yes. But most academic texts are focused on specific effects as they are defined by the System, not the types of peripheral capabilities that you seem to take advantage of. And most dimensionalists I have encountered are not so advanced as you are.”

I graciously accepted the praise with a small bow before answering Tavio’s question. “The thing about portals is that they’re weird. Planar portals, like the Closet portal, may look like somebody cut a hole in the universe, but they’re less of a hole and more of a spherical probability field. For example–” I opened a Closet portal beside us. “Hold out your hammer and walk past the portal, so that only your hammer passes through it.”

Tavio held out his hammer and did as I suggested, walking so that it looked like the end of his hammer was going to enter the Closet while the rest of him stayed in the Forest. He walked by, and his hammer passed through the portal without traveling to the Closet. He looked down at the weapon, then back at the portal.

“I find it reassuring that the edge of the portal is not a solid object,” he said.

“The portal is essentially trying to determine your most likely position and direction of movement when interacting with it. If most of your mass is outside of its effect, then you won’t go anywhere. Now, stand in front of the portal and put your arm through it.”

Tavio moved and extended his arm so that it was clearly inside the Closet. I closed the portal. Tavio stayed in the Forest, and his arm stayed with him.

“I also find it reassuring that my arm is still attached,” he said.

“If the portal were an attack, it might be a different story, but for this type of portal, it’s not going to bisect you like a big razor blade.”

“Ahh, I believe that I know where you are going with this.” He held up his hammer and looked at its head. “If only one end of my hammer passes through the portal, the portal will not affect it. This means that you need the hammer’s head to encounter an object that will halt the shaft from travelling past the portal in order to prevent the strike.”

“With your Strength and skill, dirt or a soft-bodied ally probably won’t do. It might take a little force off the swing, but your follow-through would still hit me. Plus, there may be effects that I want to trigger based on whether I ‘block’ something.”

“What about a weapon with no protruding portion, such as a blade?”

“I’d angle the portal. There’s always an angle from which a straight object will strike with a leading part of its surface.” I shrugged. “The entire blade is the protrusion.”

Tavio glanced back at the portion of Gracorvus floating behind him. “How much force can your shield withstand while hovering like this?”

“There’s a limit, but I’m not sure,” I said. “It’s a great shield, but it hasn’t seen an upgrade in over ten levels. You could definitely break through it, but you abandoned your strike the moment you felt resistance. Either way, it’d still take a lot more force off the swing than dirt.”

“It seems my training worked against me.” Tavio rubbed his chin. “Could manipulating Gracorvus with its flight ability while it is still on your arm add additional force to your block?”

“Damn,” I said. “Yeah, probably. My arm’s way quicker, but I might be able to stabilize my block in short bursts just before impact.”

“Or you could layer a portal that leads to the unattached portion of Gracorvus over top of the attached portion on your arm. Then the attacker will hit both, and must break the shield’s natural stability while flying and your own power while blocking, yes?”

“And that can be further enhanced by manipulating the portion attached to my arm,” I said, then looked down at my shield. “I’ve really been underutilizing this thing.”

“Doing such would cost a fair amount of mana over time, but I do not think that is much of a problem for you.”

“I’m sitting on a mana pool of 850,” I said. “One or two mana per block isn’t going to break the bank.”

“You could have the attacker hit themself,” Tavio added.

“Maybe, but I’d consider that an offensive move. I can’t predict how their own abilities would interact with that maneuver, so I couldn’t be confident it would reduce the damage coming my way.”

“True,” said Tavio. “For a fighter like Lord Ravvenblaq, you would likely only make him stronger by increasing his Rage stacks.”

“It would be fun to yell ‘stop hitting yourself!’ while portalling someone’s attacks back at ‘em, though.”

“I believe that would be an effective taunt, yes.”

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“But it wouldn’t be a shield-related ability,” I added.

“I am not sure how much that distinction will matter outside of this Dungeon.”

“What else can we exploit into being a shield-related skill? If I use Explosion! to knock somebody on their ass, that’d keep them from attacking.”

“I think your tail has come off,” said Tavio.

“Excuse me?”

“How do you say…” He thought for a moment. “Ah, that is too much of a stretch. It has nothing to do with your shield.”

“Oh, I see.” We were speaking Imperial, but my fluency didn’t cover all the idioms. “Anyway, here’s an idea.” I pointed at one of the nearby thornwood trees we’d yet to annihilate. They were covered in pokey bits that were sharp and durable enough to pierce even my

skin, assuming I was being catapulted through them at several hundred miles per hour. They were a menace, I had a vendetta against them, and I was willing to use them for the purposes of experimentation. “Try and hit that tree.”

Tavio spun his hammer and got a better grip, then strode over to the tree and took a swing.

I used Homing Weapon, targeted the end of Tavio’s weapon, and swung my arm full force, letting Gracorvus detach at the same point I’d normally release my hammer. The air cracked as the shield blasted across the short distance and slammed into Tavio’s hammer with enough force to send the man back a step.

Gracorvus zipped back to me several times faster than its native flight, thanks to the oomph given to it by the active skill. I had to catch the shield, which was a little awkward, then let it slap back onto its home point on the armguard, but I thought that was a solid proof of concept nonetheless. I could probably work out how to catch it using the armguard directly with some practice.

“Effective,” said Tavio, eyebrows raised. “You could throw it through a portal to reduce travel time, as well.”

“I could do that.”

The Littan was a veritable font of useful skill applications.

“You are now going to claim that Homing Weapon is a shield-related skill?”

“Obviously,” I said. “What else would it be?”

“It has ‘weapon’ in the name,” he said, deadpan.

“Sergeant Guar would remind you that shields can also be weapons.”

“I will not argue with that.” He shouldered his hammer once again. “Everything can be a weapon with the right mindset and application.”

I paused to let that statement settle in before moving to my next moment of enlightenment. “Elemental Barrier? Shields are barriers.”

“Not all barriers are shields,” he countered. “If they were, then every door, wall, and fence would be a shield.”

“Maybe they should be, assuming you have the right mindset and application.”

The only response I got for that one was a heavy sigh.

“Fine,” I said. “Anything that grants Shielding is definitely a shield-related skill. The word ‘shield’ is right there in the keyword. That means that Aura of Persistence is in.”

“This is the most reasonable claim you have made,” said Tavio. “You are making a list for what you can get away with when facing the Baobab again, no?”

“Yep.”

“You realize that there is no reason for us to think there is a reward for ‘defeating’ the tree?”

“There is,” I said. “I feel it in my bones.”

“Do you still have bones? I have seen your insides many times this week, and I would not describe anything I have witnessed as a ‘bone’.”

“I feel it in my diffuse, bone-like amalgam that grants my body structure and rigidity,” I corrected.

“Then we should test the predictive ability of this amalgam of yours.” He gestured towards the clearing and the most violent tree at its center.

I took a breath. “My shield sensei has taught me all he knows.”

“I have taught you some of what I know. It is a very small fraction.”

“Now, it’s time to prove myself and face down The Whip. My hands tingle as I anticipate the upcoming battle. My resolve never wavers as I stare down my foe, so much like my arch nemesis, the Mighty Oak.”

“Why are you narrating? And why is your nemesis an oak tree?”

“But the Baobab is a pale imitation, one that’s about to be felled by my axe of justice.”

“You do not have an axe.”

“My body is the axe. My soul, the whetstone.”

“Please just go and fight the tree,” said Tavio. “I need to bathe and change before we meet with Count Starion this afternoon.”

I marched forward without reply, but took a surreptitious sniff of myself as I went. I definitely needed a scrub-down as well. I didn’t sweat nearly as much as I used to–probably about 70% less sweat, overall–but the day had been long, and this part of the Forest was close to the equator. It was quite hot despite being the dead of winter further north.

I stood just outside of the Baobab’s range and activated Aura of Persistence, giving myself more than 250 Shielding. Gracorvus was still in two parts, the smaller of which hovered beside me. I took a step forward, and the Baobab made its first attack.

Phase one of the Baobab fight was simple. The sharpened branch alternated between sweeping arcs and lightning-quick thrusts. I took the hits on Gracorvus normally, deflecting the force aside with ease.

A few seconds later, another branch uncoiled from the trunk. This was still manageable, and I was able to maneuver my shield between all of the incoming strikes. Three branches was a challenge. Four branches was my prior limit, and within thirty seconds of facing down the tree, I was barely keeping up with the Baobab.

Then a fifth branch came out. It was at this point that the Baobab began attacking from multiple directions at once. Rather than five swings or thrusts in rapid succession, the tree came at me from my left and right simultaneously with two branches, then made a tri-point attack with the remaining three.

They were slow enough that I could use the floating half of Gracorvus to position it for the hit on one side for the two-pronged assault. I handled the three-pronged assault by sending a thrusting branch through a Closet portal, where it struck my main shield at the same time as a sweeping strike. I fed the shield on my arm a touch of mana and activated its flight to add strength to my block, helping me tank both hits at once with the same arm.

So far, so good.

The sixth branch rotated to three dual attacks with the same speed that the Baobab had attacked with just three branches, while also mixing up the angles of attack with overhead and diagonal strikes. I found this even easier than the last round, sending the flying half of Gracorvus to intercept on the side of my main hand.

Seven branches had a two-two-three pattern. Eight branches was an even faster set of paired attacks, pushing me to the limits of my reaction speed without pulling out more tricks. Nine branches led to three triple attacks, a little slower than the last round, likely intended to pressure my coordination. Between focus and my enhanced spatial awareness, it wasn’t an issue.

I’d already gone twice as long without taking damage as I had before, but the tree had more to give. A tenth branch came out, forcing me to take some initiative. I used Homing Weapon and tossed Gracorvus towards the branches coming from my left, then directed the shield to split itself again. There were still twelve slabs on the part of the shield I’d been holding, letting it divide into two six-slab sections. Each of these was the same size as the original version of the shield, less a single slab.

The two thrown portions of Gracorvus each intercepted a branch, while the floating Gracorvus stopped one to my right. I used Shortcut on one of the returning sections to intercept another incoming branch while catching the other on my armguard in time to stop a fifth branch.

By proactively blocking with Homing Weapon from a distance, the tree’s attacks became staggered, no longer perfectly paired strikes. The disarray made it easy enough to handle the rest of the tree’s attacks without issue.

Eleven branches was the same five-attack pattern, but with a tri-point attack on the last round, forcing me to use the Closet portal again and augmenting my block with my shield’s flight. Twelve through fifteen added an additional three-branch attack, sending both threads of my mind into overdrive as I predicted the order of attacks, used Homing Weapon to interrupt the patterns, Shortcut to redirect shields faster than they could return to me, and Closet portals to take multiple hits on the same shield, all while catching what I could with the flying portion of Gracorvus.

My body was fluid, my breaths slow and deep as exhilaration filled my core. There was no room for any other thought than to halt the forces arrayed against me. The air was filled with the machine-gun-speed clanks of wood on metal. I barely used my eyes, relying on the sense of distance and relationship that Coordinated Thinker gave me. I cast teleports and opened portals in all directions without looking, sinking deep into a flow state where my Dimensional Magic merged with my shield.

The sixteenth branch came from below, and I wasn’t fast enough to protect the goods.