A beam of moonlight struck where Jake had just been standing as he dodged out of the way, but rather than leave a big burning hole like the sunbeams had before, this one was far more subtle. Where it had hit, the ground just turned white and cracked, a faint wave of extreme cold washing over Jake from the impact spot.
First fire, now ice, Jake mentally commented as the Celestial Child held out his hand as his trident appeared. He grasped it with both hands – one made of pure celestial energy born from faith energy and the other real – and pointed it down toward the ground as if it were a staff.
It pulsed once, making Jake’s eyes open wide as a bright spark appeared from thin air before quickly exploding in a rain of starlight, making Jake dodge even further than he had initially planned to. Even so, Jake managed to release several arrows while moving, dodging every attack heading his way as a rain of exploding starlight and moonbeams came at him.
Ell’Hakan also managed to block all the attacks heading his way as barriers of solidified moonlight appeared to meet the arrows. Picking up even more speed, Jake rapidly took to the air to make it easier to dodge by giving him another direction to use while avoiding the nahoom.
Likely realizing he was wasting his energy, Ell’Hakan lowered his trident and regarded the weapon for a bit. “Your cowardly strategy will not work. I can see it. You believe my vessel will not be able to contain my power, so let me assure you. Even if it is destroyed, even if my body fades, I shall remain.”
Yeah, Jake wasn’t even going to address that one as he dodged another few attacks before Ell’Hakan stopped trying to play mage and entered melee once more. From Jake’s point of view, Ell’Hakan was definitely fucked in the head because while he claimed he would totally remain even when his “vessel” stopped working, Jake felt pretty certain reality disagreed with that statement.
The assumption that Jake was just trying to drag out the battle wasn’t a bad one, though. Because, in all honesty, just being purely on the defensive and dragging things out would be the wisest strategy Jake could deploy.
Ell’Hakan was essentially using a boosting skill far beyond what his body could handle, but rather than burn his own energy, he was constantly absorbing and using faith energy as fuel. The thing is, no matter how many people he sacrificed and no matter how much faith energy he absorbed, he was ultimately still limited by his body – or, as the Celestial Child called it, his vessel.
So, if Jake wanted a safe victory, he wouldn’t even try to attack but just dodge around until his opponent burned himself out. However, Jake didn’t want to do that. He wanted the fight and to kill Ell’Hakan for good on his own... plus, the guy had already pulled off a miracle and survived when he should already have been dead once.
Jake wasn’t going to accept it happening a second time by playing things too passively.Still, all this did make Ell’Hakan extremely dangerous as the nahoom turned into a beam of light, the sunlight replaced with moonlight as he used his movement skill. Appearing right in front of him, Jake, for the very first time, could use both his katars with Eternal Hunger now back being a melee weapon.
He met the trident as he tried to parry it, but as his weapon got closer to Ell’Hakan’s, he felt as if the katar was magnetically repelled from the trident while his opponent’s weapon veered in an unnatural angle toward Jake’s chest.
Twisting his body equally unnaturally, Jake still barely avoided as he spun in the air and tried to land a blow on the nahoom, but his opponent responded quickly, using his arm made of pure energy to block the attack. Jake did manage to cut off the hand, but it was instantly regenerated, it happening so fast that Jake’s swing hadn’t even finished before he was met with a blast of white light from the newly formed hand.
The light washed over Jake and was met with Scales of the Malefic Viper that nullified most of it as he infused the skill with extra energy. The white flash of light didn’t blast Jake back or anything. Instead, he felt himself momentarily freeze up and get slower as Ell’Hakan swung his trident.
Without any hesitation, Jake erupted with arcane energy as he caused an explosion in front of himself, getting blasted back from the shockwave while narrowly avoiding a nasty cut. He carefully stabilized, telling himself to be more cautious moving forward.
Not giving him any break, Ell’Hakan continued attacking, showing off the same pure skill as a warrior he had before. Even if it seemed like his personality had drastically changed, Ell’Hakan was clearly still himself, seeing as he had the exact same fighting style now as before. As for how in the hell it made sense for someone “reincarnated” to only use the skills of the person’s body they had taken over... yeah, the short answer was that it didn’t.
One good thing about his change was that Jake hadn’t felt the use of Ell’Hakan’s Bloodline even once so far. For good reasons, Jake couldn’t be entirely confident Ell’Hakan wasn’t still actually using it subtly on Jake here and there, but he did have a theory that the entire Bloodline was kind of preoccupied with keeping the delusion going.
This did help Jake a little, but he still found himself on the back foot as he faced the onslaught of the massive powered-up Ell’Hakan. He ended up making a mistake soon after, misjudging the distance slightly due to the odd pull of the trident, resulting in Jake blocking Ell’Hakan’s attack directly rather than deflecting it.
Jake felt pain rush down his arm and hand from the impact, barely holding on and giving Ell’Hakan a chance to strike for more. The trident flashed with white light again. Jake expected to have his movement affected, but instead, he was actually blasted back this time as a sense of death and cold washed over him.
Even if much of the light was blocked by the scales, Jake still felt his soul be affected as he took a significant amount of direct damage to his health pool. Moreover, rime formed on his clothes and scales from the cold light.
By now, one thing was pretty evident.
The moon affinity used by Ell’Hakan was altered compared to what Jake had read about. It had an odd stillness to it... a sense of serenity that was definitely not healthy to have in the middle of a fight.
Usually, the moon was seen as quite a mysterious concept. It was heavily tied to the concept of mysticism and magic itself, and while it wasn’t anything odd for it to also be expressed as cold energy, it usually wasn’t like this. Compared to the Lucenti affinity - the concept of moonlight – this light also differed substantially.
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It had way too much death baked into it. Rather than death only being expressed through coldness, the magic deployed by Ell’Hakan had the death affinity itself be part of it. In many ways, what Jake currently faced was the exact opposite of the sun affinity from before. Death instead of life, cold instead of heat, and rather than having the ability to stimulate healing and life, this one had the exact opposite as it sought to still everything.
Chances are this expression of the moon affinity was born from the faith and belief the native nahoom had regarding the twin moons. To the nahoom, the moons were harbingers of cold and death on the planet. The planet was entirely desert, so he could only assume how extremely low the temperature could drop during the night... and he couldn’t help but imagine how many had frozen to death, with the last thing they saw the two moons in the sky, hanging above them like the eyes of the grim reaper. RАŊȰ𝔟Ε𝐬
Jake couldn’t say if this interpretation of the moon affinity was more or less dangerous than the regular kind, but one thing he did know was that it was far more offensive in nature. He took soul damage every time the light washed over him, and the coldness slowed Jake down in both body and soul, making it an incredibly dangerous mix with Ell’Hakan’s powerful physical abilities and – after his boost – superior stats.
Finally, Ell’Hakan now fought as if he had unlimited resources, which, to be fair to him, he kind of had as he was being fed more faith energy than he could possibly handle.
Jake wasn’t entirely losing out, though. Relying on his usual technique of being primarily defensive while landing the occasional counterattack, Jake worked to disrupt his opponent’s momentum while not getting caught out of position himself, occasionally even landing a small counter.
After a dozen seconds of Ell’Hakan failing to land any blows despite constantly slowing Jake down or trying to impede his movements with the cold moonlight, he once more changed things up.
Ell’Hakan swung his trident wide, releasing a wave of pure energy that glittered like starlight, forcing Jake back as he prepared for Ell’Hakan’s follow-up. However, rather than charging, the Usurper raised his trident toward the sky as he spoke.
“Starfall.”
A massive beam of solid starlight shot upwards at an incredible speed before exploding over a hundred kilometers up. As it exploded, a wave of multi-colored light filled the air like a thick cloud... a cloud that rapidly began falling toward the ground.
Ell’Hakan, who had been staring upwards with a smile, was suddenly in for a rude surprise as an Arcane Powershot struck him square in the chest, blasting him into the horizon as Jake swiftly whipped out his bow the second he saw the opportunity to do so.
However, right after Jake hit him, space itself seemed to twist for a moment as Ell’Hakan was dragged back through reality, appearing where he had just been hit before, with no signs of the arrow having ever struck him. He didn’t even say anything but instead just charged before Jake could shoot a new Arcane Powershot, Jake unsure what kind of skill he had just used.
Jake reacted by teleporting back while taking a potshot, keeping an eye on the attack arriving from above. He kept retreating back but was soon caught up with as the nahoom used his movement skill again right after Jake teleported.
Switching weapons quickly, Jake used both katars to block and redirect a downward swing, making the ground erupt as the trident struck it and caused an explosion of light that sent Jake skirting back. While still blinded, Jake bent backward, avoiding a horizontal slash as he twisted his body and kicked Ell’Hakan, launching himself away again.
Giving chase, Ell’Hakan made his trident glow with powerful moonlight once more, creating a domain of frost and death all around him that froze the ground in his wake. This was timed with the attack from above also finally arriving.
Tens of thousands of crystalline shards of starlight fell from the sky like rain, each of them highly unstable based on an extremely brief analysis. With a charging Ell’Hakan and the attack from above, Jake also took things up a notch as he infused his presence with energy, activating Pride of the Malefic Viper.
The domain of frost met tough competition as Ell’Hakan entered range, Jake diving forward to meet his opponent. As he dove, the air above him shivered as arcane mana manifested, dozens of destructive bolts and orbs appearing to meet the shards of starlight.
Jake and Ell’Hakan clashed as stars met arcane, massive explosions of multi-colored light and Jake’s destructive arcane energy enveloping them as they kept fighting despite the constant explosions happening all around.
This cascade of explosions ended up distracting Ell’Hakan far more than Jake as he found himself blinded and, at times, disoriented, allowing Jake to take advantage as he landed several stabs on the Usurper, blood splurting into the air with every attack.
His opponent stumbled but quickly recovered as he purposefully got stabbed in the stomach and used the opportunity to grab Jake’s forearm with his hand of starlight. The hand instantly began glowing, Jake’s scales fighting back hard. Gritting his teeth, Jake used his other katar to try and stab Ell’Hakan in the neck, but the nahoom managed to block it, forcing Jake to take more extreme measures. Jake’s body split into two as a shadow disengaged out of his back, the Shadow Vault aspect of the skill allowing him to get away.
At the same time, the real Jake purposefully stabbed his arm deeper through Ell’Hakan’s stomach before making the entire arm explode, the overflowing arcane energy in his body erupting inside Ell’Hakan’s stomach.
Having lost an arm, Jake stumbled back as a trident swung for his neck, but all he did was smile as he was hit. The trident successfully beheaded the Eternal Shadow as the real Jake had switched positions with it just in the nick of time. Ell’Hakan was clearly perplexed even as the Arcane Powershot hit him in the shoulder – the one where he still had an arm of flesh and blood - blasting it off entirely.
Jake prepared to launch a follow-up arrow, but right as he let go of the string, he suddenly lost strength in his arm, making him fumble and miss the Arcane Powershot entirely as Jake grimaced, looking at his arm where Ell’Hakan had held him.
Despite using Eternal Shadow, Jake still had a burnt-in handprint on his forearm, the skin there entirely white and lifeless. What’s more, it was rotting all the way through, with even the Soulshape having taken damage. While he had managed to land a good hit, the cost had been pretty big, too, as even if he switched places with his Eternal Shadow, he’d still lost a good deal of vital energy from that stunt.
Opposite him, Ell’Hakan regarded his missing arm but seemed to barely mind as a new arm of starlight instantly formed while he began walking forward.
“You still fail to comprehend what you are facing. As long as the stars and moons of the universe exist, so shall I,” he said in a calm and confident voice. “The biggest mistake you’ve made was to trap me with you within this world of void sorcery. All that did was make your escape impossible, cutting off all paths for survival.”
Jake glared at his arm once more as he tensed it up, purposefully flooding it with vital energy as it healed quickly. He barely cared about what Ell’Hakan said as he regarded the nahoom with a cold gaze.
“I guess we’ll see if it was a mistake or not.”
The nahoom just sighed. “It was.”
Just then, the entire body of the Celestial Child pulsed, as in the sky, a second explosion of starlight happened that caused a rain of shards, all done without him even having to shoot a beam up there. At the same time, he took another step forward but stomped hard this time. From his stomp, a wave of cold spread in a circle all around him. Jake took to the air immediately to dodge, as below him, the ground erupted with ice crystals piercing through the ground.
With the same stomp that summoned these ice shards, Ell’Hakan propelled himself forward, his aura of cold and death only growing as he approached his final end. Far above in the sky, above the falling shards of starlight, the twin moons also began to glow with renewed power as the moonlight fell upon Jake, sending a cold shiver through his soul.
Jake responded by empowering his Pride of the Malefic Viper even more as magic manifested all around him to meet the multi-pronged attack, as once more, katars and trident clashed under the cold moonlight, one battling to “save” his world despite already being a dead man walking, but refusing to see it due to his massive delusions, while the other...
Well, the other one was just doing it because he wanted to, and as the pressure mounted, the opportunities he knew it could lead to, as there was no better time than a battle like this, one which genuinely threatened his life, to push himself further and progress his Path.