The Systemic Lands

Chapter 433: 50th Floor – The Last One Standing

Chapter 433: 50th Floor – The Last One Standing

“Hah!” The child that looked like the Divine Empress’ brat Qi Ji Long but was really the Astrologer, struck out and hit the Astral Projection of the adult Astrologer in the groin with his hand. The child trashed around a bit and broke free.

That was an impressive bit of acting by one person. The Astrologer was clever and whatever he was doing with his Astral Projection was working to fool even her. It was honestly surprising that he was that good, but I could imagine it came from years and years of practice while trapped.

The Divine Empress moved. Barriers came up in place between us as she raced forward towards her child. The child collapsed screaming, and blood began to pour out. Probably the Astrologer distorted the shell he had placed on top of the meat that was his actual body. She quickly stopped in front of him while the illusion that was holding me didn’t act and I didn’t move either.

I was not going to interfere in this drama, but I was ready to act. I had managed to overcome the block inside of my body. It had taken a bit of time, but I suspected the Astrologer wanted me to overcome it and act immediately. I wasn’t going to oblige him in the slightest. This was his show, he could see it through and take the first attack from the Divine Empress.

Once she realized her child wasn’t here, she would be pissed and not hold back. I would have to act at that point, or when she struck down the Astrologer. My timing needed to be precise and give her no chance to dodge my initial attack. I had gotten quite good at alpha strikes during my climb up the tower.

“Undo what you have done to him. Or else!” The Divine Empress settled into a martial arts stance. The child said something on the ground between. The Astrologer let out a sigh and waved his hand. The child stopped screaming.

Oh! The Astrologer couldn’t speak anymore since his main body was away from the Astral Projection that was pretending to be him. The Divine Empress would see through the illusion then. I was free as well. You should have killed me Astrologer, but you just had to get greedy. I was not going to play into your game, but I was not going to ruin it either.

I would rather die to the Divine Empress than help you. If I was going to die horribly, then I was going to drag everyone down to hell with me. I had wanted to team up, but no, you wanted betrayal. Clearly with some skill or plan to harvest our stat points and her meta-points.

Why would I help you in any way? I was not an idiot. I had gone along with you earlier since I had that bomb in my gut. But you betrayed me and broke any chance we had of working together. While you might have gained immense knowledge of energy and practice while being trapped Astrologer, you screwed up on your timing.

Never betray more than one person, or have more than one enemy at a time. I considered fleeing as well, but that was always on the table. I would take it, possibly, but I wanted to kill both of them. It was greedy, but since both the Astrologer and the Divine Empress were next to each other, it wasn’t out of the question. If there was an opening, I wouldn’t hesitate and blast whoever was left.

The Divine Empress glared at us and went down next to her child. She bent over and put a hand on his head and picked up his left wrist with her hand as well. This was it. There was a spike of energy entering her and she stumbled away. I considered acting, but it wasn’t time yet. Let them fight it out first, before jumping into the middle of their fight.

“Ahh!” She let out a short scream. The first illusion on the outer edge of the child broke away, revealing the next illusion underneath, that was the child Astrologer. The illusion next to me broke apart as well. “Imbue Life!”

The Divine Empress gestured and then there was a look of surprise on her face. She thrust out a hand, but nothing happened. Her skill didn’t work. She stumbled backwards. “Imbue Life!” The Astrologer targeted her again. “Null Refraction!” Her left eye exploded in a shower of gore. She was stumbling backwards as the child Astrologer advanced. I chose to watch. It was still too soon to act. The Divine Empress was tenacious.

“Null Refraction!” The Divine Empress brought up her arm in front of her face, her clothing and a small piece of her arm were ripped to shreds. That was an impressive use of the skill. I was using my Sense stat, trying to understand the back and forth that was happening. The Astrologer had tweaked the skill to strip energy from the target, ripping away the energy from their flesh.

“DIE!” she roared with the fury of a thousand mothers and rushed forward. The top of the tower cracked. I could barely see her move. The Divine Empress was clearly pissed and I readied myself to move any second now.

Her clawed hand struck at the Astrologer’s head, since he was far shorter than her. That was when the space in front of the Astrologer seemed to twist in a weird way, the space the Divine Empress’s arm was moving through.

No, it wasn’t space twisting, he was drawing an immense amount of energy from the tower itself and directly channeling it in front of him, overwriting the energy in the air. Like heat would warp light in the desert, the energy in the air seemed to warp space itself. The Divine Empress didn’t hesitate and kept attacking.

Her right arm turned to putty, and splattered against the Astrologer’s face, in a shower of chunks. Blood and other fluids ran out from her ruined arm. “DIE!” Time to act! Air Burst. Air Burst. I moved in as well. The moment they were both solely focused on the other. I rapidly closed the distance, I couldn’t allow either one a chance to dodge.

The Divine Empress swung out with her foot. I saw surprise on the Astrologer’s child face. Idiot, even I knew that she wouldn’t stop even after losing an arm. Well, I hadn’t known that before, but I had learned. The Divine Empress was a battle fanatic. Once you enraged her enough, nothing would stop her. She was a battle maniac of the highest order.

You could remove all her limbs and she would bite you to death. That would just be a flesh wound to her. She was relentless in every sense and aspect of that word. Her foot struck the Astrologer’s child body in the side. Energy flared up. The Astrologer was clearly trying to save himself, but it wouldn’t work. A direct hit like that with all her power behind it, was death.

“NOOOOO!” The Astrologer screamed pointlessly using his sonic manipulation as the Astral Projection around his meat bits broke, blood and viscera went flying everywhere as the meat doll that was the Astrologer was yeeted off the tower by her powerful kick. Once I saw that it had cleared the edge of the tower, I didn’t pay attention to him any longer. I had a Divine Empress to kill.

Acid Shot x4. Acid Shot x4. The Divine Empress’s head quickly turned towards me. But with one foot off the ground, one ruined arm, and blocked from using skills, she had no way to leverage herself out of my line of attack quickly enough with how close I was.

Her clothes weren’t enchanted and quickly melted, her flesh began to melt as well. She began to bring her foot down, but I slammed my shoulder into her melting body. More acid wouldn’t help right now, I couldn’t let her escape and recover! No matter what, she had to die here. This was the best chance I had to kill her and there was no easy way for her to escape off the top of the tower to heal up.

She went tumbling along the ground. She didn’t have time to adjust her Body stat to counter me and would have a hard time knowing exactly where I was. With one eye missing and the other melting away from my acid. Air Burst. I was right behind her body. Acid Shot x5. Force Wall. Acid Shot x3.

An annihilation attack and more acid hit her. But even with all that, she just wouldn’t die. This woman was the juggernaut reborn, shrugging off everything to keep going. She spun up to her melting feet, blood and flesh dripping off her body. I only had about 500 energy left.

She rushed at me. I kicked off the ground and leapt into the air as a wave of energy was unleashed. I had moved towards her with my jump, thankfully so I didn’t get caught in the cone of energy that formed in front of her. Dammit, I should have saved more for another Air Burst. Both my legs were caught in the attack below the knee even as I had tried to pull them up, turning to dust, along with a chunk of the tower. An entire corner had been vaporized, with a small opening to the floor below. I collapsed on top of the tower, barely avoiding the angled portion.

Blood began to squirt out of my new stumps. I was going to die. The Divine Empress had collapsed, and her body was convulsing and trashing about. Acid Shot. I am not dying before you! More acid coated her and her struggles quickly ceased.

I need to do something, before I bled out. I focused as hard as I could and formed a barrier of energy over my stumps, stopping the bleeding temporarily. I had thought of this during my climb as an emergency measure in case I lost a limb. Blood still oozed out slightly, since the energy I was focusing on, wasn’t a perfect seal. But at least, I wasn’t squirting blood out. I would need to stay awake, to make sure I didn’t bleed out, since I wouldn’t be able to keep this barrier up while sleeping. I lay there on top of the tower, and looked over at the Divine Empress.

I had won. I had won! The sheer joy was enough to make me smile. The Divine Empress, was mostly melted. I would make sure to finish off the job. The Astrologer had been kicked off the tower. Even if he did survive, he was going to be feeling that.

That golden pillar, whatever it was, was all mine. Everyone else was dead. Using my right hand, I flipped myself over onto my now flat gut, and began pushing off the tower with my right hand, pulling myself forward. I made sure to maintain the energy barriers on top of my stumps. Still one more functional limb than the Avatar. I would count that as a win.

Losing the lower half of my legs wasn’t in the plan, but the Divine Empress really didn’t want to die without a fight. Acid Shot. I sent some more acid on her half-dissolved corpse and then decided to wait before dragging myself away. Acid Shot.

You are not coming back Divine Empress Hei Long. You are getting super melted. Just like the Ritualist before you, I was not taking any chances with an enemy like this. Acid Shot. Even in death, her body was putting up one hell of a fight. Acid Shot.

Finally, she was mostly gone, only small, separated chunks were left in the pool of acid. One more just to be sure. Acid Shot. The Divine Empress was many things, but an easy enemy, she wasn’t. At least, she was dead. The Astrologer was maybe dead. If anyone could survive, it was him. The fact his body hadn’t burst apart into chunks showed he had managed to hold himself together somehow. But I had won, I smiled at that.