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Ribbon Prancer
a76809
[1................]
[Quick head's up: The biggest reason Blootz steel is useful currently, beyond being severely in tune with Mordre's ownership due to being of his own crafting, is that the high concentration of Blood Iron means he can use Blood magic at ALL. Thought I'd point that out.]
>>223210
[Doesn't work that way. Keddic has to cut himself because for him, blood is an internal fluid, so to use it externally, exit points are needed. Mordre, on the other hand, has evenly dispersed solid blood. Completely different paradigms. But hey, great thinking, trying to find commonalities between styles and all that.]
>>223226
[While as others noted it was not Zagrath the Unseen that Phohn detected, what you estimate here for said soul is very close to accurate. Keep tweaking that idea, and yes, Pristine soul could be had. ...Must be figured out before battle concludes, though. Your idea of helping Keddic expand the Way of the Harksburton, however, is spot on. Just find some time to bring it up with him, and you can help him steal techniques from other Mass Connection schools based only one seeing them ONCE. Nice bit of observation.]
>>223069
I begin spreading the flow of Blood Iron, not just suffusing my body with it, the iron of my Blootz steel circulating as it grants me access to Blood Magic, but also doing the same with the iron in my Black Steel blades, as I hope my brainwave has revealed just what must be done to conjoin Blood magic and Black Steel. I feel the weapon's composition beginning to shift, something happening, but at the speed Goran is closing on me, it will not be enough. I need something more.
TH-THUMP
>>223071
>>223073
As I direct Magnetomancy, now far more potent with its new fuel source, I claim Goran's spilt blood, and begin slamming it into the Sable Executioner's surface. Where the blood of others dissipated or was nullified as it entered the Black Steel's magic annulling fields, Goran's blood, suffused with decades, centuries of magic, is made of sterner stuff, and remains under my beck and call even as it settles on the ebon metal, sizzling and bubbling on contact, just as my left hand touches the trio of blades, and I activate the Inverter, hoping my estimation was correct as Goran finishes covering half the distance between us.
As the Inverter's soul is let loose into the Sable Executioner, the magic disrupting field shifts, it flows, like an old mellow dog showing fangs it leaps forth, its surfaces roiling as it envelopes Goran's blood staining it, as a dull, soft keening that eats all other sounds is emitted, and even the newly healed Goran's steps falter. The blood I discarded mere seconds ago as being unable to breach the anti-magic field is pulled from the ground by a force outside my control, the blood flowing and splattering along the blade, as black metal turns burgundy.... and then throbs balefully as it brightens to an undulating scarlet.
TH-THUMP
The Sable Executioner seems to scoff at normalcy, growing larger and smaller in turn, a myriad of outlines and shapings warring as if it tries to be dozens of things at once. Goran's hands, already blurred with Phonomancy, start questing for my form, and I act, once more triggering the Immortal Genocide to feed as I throw my fist forward to intercept his own and gain sufficient proximity that even a muted dispelling field could negate his combat magic. I trigger the Immortal Genocide almost immediately after starting it, a field smaller than my torso flitting into being and ghosting over Goran's knuckles, bleeding away the stored vibrations dwelling in his flesh, as I whip my still-regenerating body (Blood magic may be new to me but I cannot doubt its potency or versatility, especially in manipulating a form with an absurdly high concentration of iron harvested directly from blood) about to throw the Sable Executioner's chaotic snarl forward, the shifting, burning red blades impacting Goran's flesh.
Where once even with magic annulled, Goran's flesh was a bastion in and of itself, taking time and leverage to saw through, the altered Sable Executioner slices through knuckles, flesh and bone alike parting like silk before its coming tide, the arm I attack being diced to pieces without any effort, even as my spin is made hectic by Goran's other fist (now his ONLY fist) crashes into my left side, once more wildly skewing my shoulder socket and warping my form, even as I hear him biting back a growl of pain as gobs of flesh and bone drop to the ground, the remains of what just seconds ago was a left arm.
[NEW TECH: SABLE SANGUINE STEEL SLICER]
[Requires active Blood Magic, Blood Iron flow active in SE, and some form of magically charged blood to trigger 4S state.]
TH-THUMP
As Goran reels and I tumble to the ground, the yeti above once more fires his whip-like spectral arm, it's point spearing one of the largest chunks of Goran's arm on the ground, drawing it back to the yeti whose grin grows ever wider with his prize, tendrils from his ethereal limb whispering over the section of Goran's flesh, blood and bone. As I bounce to my feet as swiftly as I can, I note Zagrath still watching from within a nearby snowdrift, his soul.... disconcerting, thanks to its coloration, red where all other souls have been green. My attention next goes to my bodie's repair state, and again I must suppress a sigh: Goran's attack set me back by at least twenty seconds worth of effort, and as I see his body swelling with magic drawn from his inner reservoir, I know he shall be recovered before myself yet again.
>>223150
As I focus on getting my shoulder back in place, I lift my left arm and slam it to the ground even as I see Goran once more rising as his form finishes healing, and I employ Blood boosted Kinetimancy to altering that force vector, sending my own form flying skyward as the ground beneath me crumbles and quakes from the recoil. I fly up and over the yeti, who wisely took shelter from the edge at my sudden flight, staying out of my range, as I shout out some words to Goran, even as I note that while I can see Velada's drones flying my way, they are still less than halfway here.
"What say we share a yeti meal?
I've had enough of their interference,
Their attempts at backstabbing,
And their general duplicitous nature."
TH-THUMP
"THEY WILL DIE ALONGSIDE YOU,
THEIR SOULS AND YOUR OWN ADDED TO MINE.
DO NOT THINK YOU WILL SWAY ME FROM MY GOAL,
METAL HUNGER, IT WILL NOT WORK!"
I land heavily on the snowy peaks yet standing about the pit Goran and I fought in, the packed ice underfoot cracking and shifting at my weight, the whole section collapsing as I see the yetis begin to panic. Their leader, their spectrally armed and scarred elder, his prize of Goran's flesh still in hand, disappears in a flash of pale blue energy and short-lived smoke, as he abandons his compatriots to their fate, trapped between Goran and myself. With some time to properly inspect them, I note all eight to be shamans, already turning their crafts to commandeering different sections of falling snow about them, as my attention returns to Goran-who is now barreling up the collapsing snow-front, still hell-bent on me as his target. As I consider how to deal with him, and the eight yeti shaman in between us, my Sable Executioner still in its altered state, I see the scarred yeti fading back into view-directly above Zagrath the Unseen's ruby soul, his furred face looking speculatively upon the specter beneath him.
TH-THUMP
>>223237
>>223253
>>223289
I fire off the remaining four loaded Anti-Vanguard Blades in my launcher at the yeti, each blade being directed to bring it through two of the yeti shaman, as I realize I now only have my twelve reloads for the AVB Launcher, and 2 for the AGR cannon. Two of the yetis die before they can even take action, the short ranges involved not giving them sufficient time to react, while their brethren deflect and misalign the incoming spinning death with flurries of snow and stuttering flows of time as they scramble out of the way. The blades continue onward to Goran' who with a wave of his arm shatters the weapons, dispersing their forms with a Phonomantic burst as he scrabbles ever closer to me, a hand almost idly slamming down to pulp a third of the either yeti shaman betwixt us.
In the space of an instant, I communicate with Phohn, demanding Burduko's presence.
Apologies Administrator, but Burduko is currently insuring the press of snow about Mordreden does not breach the walls. Without Velada to split the load, he is forced to devote all energies to this purpose. Bang should arrive shortly, with Lorgk immediately thereafter. Dorgrum and Dulu will take longer, and arrive after Velada.
Well then.
TH-THUMP
I turn my craft to Geomancy as Goran continues to gain proximity, and I collapse the ground under his feet, the snow falling out from beneath him as he plummets into a widening hole that grows deeper with each passing second, some forty feet deep by the time he impacts the bottom, and growing every second. With him trapped in place for the moment, I turn towards leveraging pillars of stone from the surroundings, to skewer Goran from a plethora of directions within his tomb, and-
Goran leaps from the pit as if he weighed no more than a feather, the hum and hiss of Gravimancy about his own form as he pushes his own weight upwards in time with his leap, and before I have time to properly register this change in what he can and cannot do, Goran is landing before me, his arms already moving to encircle me as his maw gapes wide.
What should I say or do?
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