The notifications were almost unending, but Victor barely noticed a single one.
At the moment, the Active Skill, {Immersion} blending his mind and existence into one with Meta. Victor moved his body, while Meta sorted out the control and manipulation of Aura and Aether throughout the entire sequence.
Their synchronization was commendable enough to force Victor's existence almost through an existential breakthrough. To him at that point, the system notifications were non existent.
Victor's mind was flooded with a bountiful of information and data from Meta, that only a minimum amount of his consciousness managed to recognize.
'Are these equations? I can see everything, I can feel it much more clearly. Right fist, upper hook, straight hook, from the left...it's like I've calculated every of the Sentinel moves to get it to move just exactly the way I want it. Is this Meta's doing? This is amazing, so this is what happens when I fully utilize the extent of the skill! '
If he had to describe the feeling he had in a word;
It's the best!
Victor's smile grew more twisted, more wider, more savage.
His body quickly recuperated all of the sustained damage due to the absurd and intricate control of Aether Meta performed while he traded fearsome blows against the Sentinel.
Victor just stopped giving into reasoning and left it all to his base and primal instincts to move his body, in compliment to the analysis Meta carried out in his brain. His body was flooded and doped with so much adrenaline he had never felt before in two lifetimes.
His skin turned red but it wasn't from blood.
His golden eyes diluted and became darker. They turned glassy and glazed over as Victor became a mindless machine of only fists and blows.
He no longer even bothered to evade or block any Knight's attacks, not like he could successfully evade them anyway. But the Silver Sentinel didn't back down either.
All of a sudden, Victor heard a voice that forcefully drew him from his reverie.
It was cold, synthetic and deadpan.
It was Meta.
[This is your limit. Your body won't hold a second longer.]
As soon as the voice was over, Victor felt a vast portion of the absurd strength and adrenaline leave his body all at once. He became heavy, his eyes retained reasoning, and his expression was blank with confusion.
And as he watched the steel gauntlet of the Knight drive for a fist into his midsection, Victor had a couple of curses waiting at the edge of his throat.
He wanted to move, to evade it, or even try to block it, but his body wouldn't react in time. It was then Victor realized that everything hurt.
But the pain meant he was alive.
Fine...bring it! He clenched his fist and made a bloody smile.
The punch connected and the air exploded. Victor's body torpedoed across the chamber with the air sharply whipping past him as his vision twisted and blurred.
He flew half way across the Throne room, and ultimately crashed against the platform at the center. The concrete stairs that made up the platform shattered and exploded as his body goughed deeply into it.
But on tthe last impact, Victor smiled and cringed.
'All according to plan.'
[All according to plan]
___ ___
'All according to plan! '
Is what I would like to have earnestly said, but the last blow form the Knight had left me with the feeling of having forgotten how to breathe.
I groaned immediately on impact as I felt my body crush. But at the same time, in the end it all worked out somehow.
[It was barely a plan, but it surprisingly did work.] I heard Meta's cold voice in my stark pained word.
I was filled with vicious glee despite my current state, yet I still couldn't directly refuse.
Meta wasn't wrong after all.
The goal was always the throne and to avoid direct confrontation against the Boss. But clearly it was going to be much harder than just said, the Silver Sentinel wouldn't just make way for me, now, would it?
But...what if I did?
'It worked didn't it? So stop whining...'
As I struggled to recover from my disorientation, I lifted my body out of the crevice. The only way I could get this far is if I had the Monster somehow throw me across.
And judging from its infamous record of tossing me around, Meta and I might have managed to cook up a little plan. Quite frankly, it wasn't a plan.
I felt my head thrub painfully, as blood filled my vision.
I looked ahead at the Silver Sentinel that was already in his heels sprinting this way. I gritted my teeth, and forced my body to move.
-Doom!
Immediately I climbed the stairs, but before I could reach the throne, I felt a boundless wave of pressure that made me stagger.
I inhaled sharply and my breath ceased at once.
G*dammit! Isn't this unfair... making use of your higher ranked Status like this at this moment!
Status!
My mind blurred and hazed, but it wasn't because of the extent of how badly my body was hurt. I slowly felt the little strength I had left slip away and surpress, as I lost the will to even continue forward.
I cursed bitterly in my heart and sharply bit my tongue. A jolt of pain and clarity sprang up my back, and for a very brief second, I managed to dispel the effects of the Sentinels' status.
That moment was enough for me to quickly reach the last step and pull out the large bone spear struck into its pavement I threw earlier. It was the same first spear I had seemingly thrown out of nowhere, but had instead aimed for the throne.
After that, I immediately stumbled to the floor of the steps with a trembling smile and a face beading with sweat and blood. I shuffled in place and turned on my back, gripping the spear. Up until this moment, the Monster hadn't ceased spreading its status and surpressing my lower level with it.
'Meta! ' behind gritted teeth, I urgently shouted internally, and Meta's detached and cold voice uttered an indifferent word.
[Confirmed.]
Just then, I felt a load of information surge into my mind as a system prompt swiftly appeared before me.
...
[Skill {Appraisal}
{Skill {Appraisal}
...
[I will connect the location of the Slime's Core with you.] Meta said, and my Appraisal skill was instantly activated.
Did...she just level up a skill on its own?
Before I could marvel at that question, I saw a barrage of information and details fill my mind and sight. The Silver Sentinel was made up of a myriad of cold and warm colors all over, and amongst the many, I could easily identify a single spot where that glow was the brightest.
'The Monster Core!'
I crushed the last cores I had in my pocket. They were the ones I got from defeating a few monsters I ran into on my way to the Midnight Foxes' Den before being transported, ever since I'd always had them with me in my pockets for emergencies but never really got the chance to use them.
The Wisps of essence spiralled up my hand and into my nose, mouth and chest, filling my body with an ecstatic transient rush. I felt my nearly depleted Aura core quick refill, but it was only just slightly.
But that's enough...i thought with renewed dark vigour and rose to my feet.
The mass of moving steel that was the silvery body of the Silver Sentinel was still imposingly approaching me at a terrifying speed. It was already only a couple of meters away from ascending the platform.
I gripped my spear and raised it over my shoulder.
"Take all of my Aura..." I channelled all of the dormant and active energy inside of my body, all of the Auara I had left in my core, into the spear.
At the same time I kept thinking of the [Blessing of Aether] Attribute and received a System message.
...
[Your Attribute, {Blessing of Aether} is still strongly resonating with your will. Due to your insistent will, you have received a temporary boost to the quantity and quality of your Aura.]
[Aura: 25(+???)]
[Ding]
[Ding...]
[Ding...]
[...ing...]
...
-BOOM!
Then half of my body was dyed in the bright crackling blinding purple radiance of the wave of Aura coalescing through my arm and into the spear that began to tremble.
Less than fifty meters to the platform, the Monster stretched it's arm and it elongated into a long extending silvery spear that quickly tore for my head.
I took a sharp breath and tore a grin.
Appraisal skill quickly triangulated the location of the Core on the moving Sentinel and...
'Lock on!'
... I threw the spear imbued with all of my Aura forward and stuck the lower abdomen of the Boss Monster. The Bone spear streaked with an exploding powerful purple radiance that made the air rumble like literal thunder.
It struck the Silver Sentinel and instantly rammed through the entire mass, as it dragged it backwards halfway across the Throne room. The dense accumulation of Aura already ran wild as soon as it left my arms, and all of that rampaging energy simply exploded at the end, enveloping the Silver Sentinel in surging waves and radiance of power that was both blinding and deafening.
-BOOM!
The Throne room shook and rumbled with the force of a thunder storm. The tall mighty pillars collapsed from the shockwaves and brought a portion of the high ceiling, which end I still couldn't see, down.
Terrifying cracks ran across the ground, forming massive crevices that snaked across the entire chamber, and even up that Throne platform I stood up on before stopping just before my feet.
I felt a powerful gust of wind reach me from the distance and flutter through my messy hair. At this point, I had little to no stamina left and the wind pushed me as easily as paper.
I didn't fight against against the force, and instead rode the wind, stumbled backwards on my feet and ultimately landed on the large throne.
I slumped on the throne and stared ahead at the swelling cloud of grey dust with droopy eyes, while the last and final wisps of wind swept past my face and through my hair.
And like that, I just remained. Feeling a small smile on my lips.
'I told you...'
Round three motherfucker...
***
[6/6! Last chapter reached, and end of mass release! Now I can drop dead...]