84. Pushing Through Level by Level

Pushing Through Level by Level

The huge, ugly demon swung its blade, cracking the air as the weapon broke the sound barrier.

The blade was saturated with magic, making it impossibly durable, and the demon poured enormous strength into the slash, trying to cut anything foolish enough to block it into pieces.

A moment later, another seemingly identical sword rose to meet it, edge to edge, set at an angle meant to grind the blades against each other.

To the surprise of the demon wielding the sword, when its weapon struck mine, sparks burst outward.

Like a rubber ball hitting a wall, its attack rebounded, and the demon took its own sword straight to the face.

The green-gray monster froze in shock as its damaged sword shattered into jagged fragments against its body, while deep cuts opened across its face.

While it was distracted, I swung my own sword and sliced easily through its abdomen, cutting it in half. Black blood and entrails sprayed everywhere.

Thanks to Nearby Object Manipulation, not a drop touched me.

I stopped to examine my sword.

The collision with the demon blade had not left a single scratch on it. It had not even dulled the edge.

A Force Adjustment effect had been layered over the sword’s material and permanently fused into it, weakening all forces applied to the sword several times over.

The same effect amplified every force the sword applied to anything else by the same factor, which meant the demon’s own strike rebounded with more force than it had used to swing.

But that was not the only effect the sword possessed.

While Zhao Mancheng was busy fighting another blade demon, two skeletal mages fired purple and green magic bolts at his back.

I used Spatial Leap to appear beside him, while Forced Acceleration gave me enough speed to smack the magic bolts with the flat of my sword.

Before, most of that kind of magic could pass through shields and physical objects to attack me directly. This time, the spells broke into showers of sparks and scattered harmlessly across the room.

A violet-hot beam cut through the undead attackers, causing bone and petrified ligaments to instantly sublimate and burst, before continuing on to carve a finger-deep scar into the black wall.

Several more skeletal mages fired at the source of the beam, but Chi Li did not even bother dodging.

The enemy spells caught fire midair, became a swirling accretion disk of flame, then vanished into the tip of her staff.

That energy returned doubled and destroyed the enemies that had cast it.

A demon sneaking up on the red-haired witch staggered as a glowing, heated shotgun slug struck the back of its head.

It recovered quickly and turned toward its attacker. A moment later, another explosive round hit it in the face, actually improving its nose and teeth by removing some of the uglier parts.

It raised its sword to block the next shots.

Then both of its knees and its genitals were blown out.

Why a construct born for war needed to be so anatomically accurate raised questions about the intentions and/or sanity of the Mavis people.

Whatever their answer might have been, Zhao Linshou winked at Chi Li and me, then aimed Little Black at the next target. A silver beam from the enormous muzzle instantly vaporized a demon’s eye across the room.

Even with my enhanced senses, I could not find Zhao Mancheng.

But there were signs of his passage.

A demon charging toward me was suddenly shot blind in both eyes, stumbled, and impaled itself on my sword.

A skeletal mage’s kneecap shattered. It stumbled, sending a black beam wide of Chi Li, and a moment later it was ash.

A rain of bullets from nowhere disrupted a group of charging imps long enough for Zhao Linshou to reload.

There were a dozen other moments of assistance, each producing effects wildly disproportionate to the effort involved because they arrived at exactly the right time and place.

My senses finally caught the man darting around a corner. He disturbed almost no air as he…