Chapter 10: Nepherage Rampage
“Did she just…give herself title? And why do I feel nauseous?”, Zhen Liu asked himself.
After wiping away the blood he had coughed up, Fergus began to rapidly circulate his aether into his arms. He was pissed and ready to rip this wench into a thousand small pieces.
“Nepherage? What kind of stupid name is that?!”, Fergus shouted as he rushed forward and used [Crimson Boxing] to land an accelerated fist on Nepherage’s armored face.
A loud cracking sound echoed across the forest as he punched the demon head-on.
A triumphant look appeared on his face, but a few moments later it had fallen into a pained grimace. The cracking sound he heard wasn’t Nepherage’s jaw breaking, but his own finger bones. He felt like he had just punched a steel wall. Before he could fall to his knees in pain however, Nepherage grabbed his neck and held him aloft.
“Nice shot”, Nepherage goaded while clenching a fist, “My turn.”
Equal parts of Fire aether and Earth aether began to converge and condense in Nepherage’s fist, causing it to glow and crack like magma.
[Eruption Knuckle!]
Nepherage lightly tossed Fergus into the air, quickly took on a horse stance and launched a punch directly into Fergus’ torso. As her fist made contact with his gut, Earth and Fire aether collided with one another and violently reacted with each other. Moments later, an explosive amount of force fired out of her fist like an erupting volcano and sent Fergus flying away.
From Fergus’ perspective, it felt like he was being pummeled by a battering ram made of magma!
While most other warriors at this point would probably wait until after their opponent had stopped flying in order to follow, Nepherage was feeling rather ruthless. Nepherage began to circulate aether into her legs before leaping into the air and after Fergus.
A few moments after being sent flying, Fergus released a burst of blood aether from his limbs in order to stop his momentum and steady his steps. As he tried to catch his breath however, he soon caught sight of that blasted demonic woman charging straight for him.
“If I can’t pulverize you, I’ll puncture you to death!”, Fergus declared as he made a seal with both of his hands. The blood vessels in his arms began to wriggle and squirm moments before bursting open and spraying aether-enriched blood into the air. The blood droplets quickly condensed into razor sharp needles made of blood.
[Hemetic Needle Storm!]
Dozens upon dozens of blood needles began to fly towards the encroaching Nepherage, ready to pierce her full of holes. While there were a few jade trees in-between the needles and the demonic being, the needles effortlessly pierced through them like a hot knife through butter.
A fierce, calculating look formed in Nepherage’s eyes as she made a hand seal in front of her.
[Mountain Goat Guard!]
A diagram made of Earth aether quickly formed in front of Nepherage, moments before transforming into a solid shield of stone in the shape of charging mountain ram.
The shield managed to smash apart the blood needles as they rained down upon it, but Nepherage’s momentum slowed considerably from using the heavy defensive art. Which gave time for Fergus to follow up with another attack.
[Blood Gauntlet! Crimson Boxing!]
Fergus condensed an armored fist made of blood and launched it forward, shattering the rock shield that Nepherage had thrown up.
Fergus slammed into the shield expecting Nepherage to still be behind it, however, all he managed to hit beyond the shield was thin air.
“Where did she-”
“Up here, moron!”
Fergus threw a glance in the direction of the voice, only to be greeted by the sight of an airborne demon condensing aether into the palms of her hands.
In the moments of Fergus making contact with the rock shield, Nepherage used the force of the blow to launch herself upward and prepare a counter attack.
Fergus hastily tried to pull back his fist in order to counter the counter, but it was too late! He had overextended the attack and had left himself wide open.
[Seismic Clap]
Nepherage proceeded to slam both of her palms into Fergus’ ears with incredible force. Violent waves of Earth aether began to surge from both of her palms and into Fergus’ skull.
Normally, [Seismic Clap] is an intermediate level Ethereal class Earth art meant for long ranged attacks.
By infusing Earth aether into the palm of their hands, a practitioner would be able to send powerful shockwaves that can cause boulders to break and mountains to shake. The level of vibrations is dependent on the quality of aether colliding into itself, meaning it was dependent on the user’s power level, and releasing shockwaves outward.
What Nepherage did on the other hand, was channel Earth aether in both of her palms as usual, but had the aether collide not with each other but with Fergus in the middle.
In essence, he was getting concussed at a rate of a hundred times a second due to two colliding forces of Earth aether rocking the inside of his head.
The horrible sound of a skull cracking at a thousand different points in a hundred different, echoed throughout the Jade Forest.
Meanwhile, Zhen Liu suddenly threw up.
“Ah!”, Alicia exclaimed as she moved to avoid the vomit, “Are you okay?
“Ugh…uh…yeah?”, Zhen Liu said while wiping his mouth, “I think that was a delayed reaction from when that big guy punched me earlier.”
“Ah…okay”, Alicia said while backing away a bit.
Zhen Liu was lying about why he threw up, but for a good reason. When Nepherage used [Eruption Knuckle] on Fergus, Zhen Liu finally figured out why he felt slightly drained earlier when Nepherage used [Landslide Kick]. Nepherage was somehow siphoning his aether to enhance her arts, which explained how she was able to punch well above her weight class.
“Ok, so this weird connection between us is a bit more complicated than I thought”, Zhen Liu thought to himself, “I can at least cross off ‘inner demon spirit’ rules on this since I didn’t feel that punch from earlier. Maybe it’s ‘familiar’ rules or symbiote rules?”
