234 The Old Ones II : Fighting The Old Ones, Breaking The Sealing Array

Why must all trials be by combat, I don't get it. Why can't all these trial giving entities: administer a trial by asking a riddle. Instead they all just want a reason to pound my face. It was frustrating, but if it's a fight they want, then it's a fight they'll get.

I summoned my armor over my body, and my sword and shield. I crouched down behind my shield, with it covering my chest and half my face. I pointed my sword at them, as I circled around them, and that's when I realized something. Why use a sword, I could just shoot them.

My sword and shield melted back into metal bands around my wrist as I pulled both my handguns from my side. I can't believe I always forget I have these things. I guess I've gotten too used to swinging my sword and releasing energy waves capable of cleaving mountains in half.

BANG! TING! BANG! TING!

Okay that didn't go as well as I expected. All five figures were walking towards me, but every bullet fired at them was deflected by their staffs, and when you consider the fact that the bullets being fired was made of energy, then we could come to the conclusion that the staff in their hands was not normal.

But I wasn't giving up that easily. I started running around them, pulling the trigger as much as I could, and sending a hail storm of bullets at them. But this Old Ones, whatever the hell they were, were not just good at blocking bullets, they were really good at dodging them too.

They were flexible, like really flexible, and they could contort their bodies in directions or angles a body is not supposed to turn or bend. Seeing that my short bursts of gunfire was not doing anything, I continued firing with the gun in my left hand while I began to gather energy from the gun in my right. Five seconds later, I pulled back my left hand and pulled the trigger.

BOOM!

I'm sure my jaw was hanging halfway down. The recoil from the shot pushed me backwards, and even though I dug my feet into the ground, I still dug furrows in the mosaic painted floor. The Old Ones on the other hand, started twirling their staffs, creating a black shield, that completely blocked the charged shot.

I was underestimating this guys, and I'm sure they knew it. All of a sudden one of them shot towards me with such speed that all I could see was flicker, and the form of a massive staff heading straight for my chest. I had barely enough time to use [PUSH] to throw him back, but it was only a diversion as another Old One had appeared behind and smashed his staff at my waist.

KA-CHA!

My ribs seemed to be broken, but I was okay with that. When he had threw his staff, I had turned and bent my body a bit so that the staff would hit my side, rather than the back of my waist. It was imperative that no matter what, I didn't receive any sort of damage to my spine, that was practically the key and the conduit of my soul energy. Any sort of damage, apart from the temporary paralysis, would have really have terrible repercussions.

The hit threw me off my feet, throwing me towards the wall of giants. But before I could hit it, one of the Old Ones appeared, and grabbed my collar as I flew passed him. The sudden stop was quite jarring, and my healing ribs were jostled, but that was not the end of it as the old one flung me back, sending me crashing to the ground, as I rolled over and over again like ball, looking very much like a dog's chew toy, that's been run over.

Two Old Ones appeared above me, and smashed their staffs down on my head. But I had pulled at my shield and used a skill I've not had a chance to test since I combined it. [Essence Sword Skill] used to be split into three different skills, and one of those skills was a defensive shield skill called Essence Bastion. I could still use the skill, just in a different form than expected.

BANG!

An energy shield glowing a golden brown, appeared over my form, as the essence of earth helped me defend against their attacks. Seeing that their attacks failed, they raised their staff to smash it down again, but I used minor teleportation to appear twenty feet above their head, resting on one of the outstretched palms of the giants.

Using the little respite that I had gotten, I sent my soul energy into my soul rune [HEAL] that was branded on my chest. Almost immediately, all of my Injuries were healed, and I prepared my self for the next round. Two Old One ones appeared in front of me, using an instant teleportation similar to my minor teleportation skill. But I was prepared for them and opened my mouth loud.

ROOOOAARRRRRR!

The figure of a roaring lion appeared above my head and released a shockwave that pushed them back. It made me regret not bringing Soren along, but it was all fine. This was an amalgamation of all my lion oriented skills, and apparently it did more than release a sound wave.

I could feel my armor began to change the moment I activated [LION SOUL]. The armor became bulky, but not by much, it only made it seem as if I was a little bit more muscular. And then it changed from a black, red and blue color scheme, to a gold, white and grey color scheme.

My short black hair that at the moment only reached the nape of my neck, turned golden blond, like literally gold, and it became spiky, stretching all the way to my shoulder blades. A golden helmet in the shape of snarling lion appeared over my face, and I felt so full of energy and ferocity that I could tear anything apart.

I didn't wait of the old ones to come to me, I went after them as I took a running leap and jumped down from the giants hand, sword pointed downwards as I began to gather my aura around it, shaping it and adding my mental energy sword skill to it. I've realized that the sword skill that drained my mental energy was not a sword skill on it's own, even though it was so powerful. It's true power lay as an augment for other sword skills, improving their power vastly beyond what's expected of them.

An energy sword two meters wide and three meters long began to take shape around the frame of my sword. Looking down, I could see that the Old Ones were already twirling their staffs to defend against me, but I smirked and used minor teleportation, appearing right in their middle as I turned, rotating with my sword and slicing it through their waist.

They fell apart, crashing to the ground like a pile of string less puppets. I was relieved, but my relief didn't last long as their decapitated bodies actually rejoined itself. I didn't expect this, but with this new development, short of completely destroying their bodies or dicing them into a million tiny pieces, I doubt I would be able to kill them.

I looked up and used minor teleportation, appearing on one giant's hand after another. My target was the sealing array. I couldn't break the array with the threat of these Old Ones around, and I couldn't take the risk of fighting them first and coming up with a way to beat them before breaking the array, that was enough time for something to go wrong. Thankfully I had a contingency plan for that.

One I got to the array, I quickly used my skill [SOUL DOUBLE]. There was a little tingle as I felt a part of my soul energy and mental energy pull out from my body, coalescing into a clone of me that looked half corporeal. Almost as if he was fading in and out of focus. Nothing was said as he turned to the sealing Array and immediately started breaking it.

As he was doing so, I weaved the soul rune [SHIELD] on his body, and it was just in time as the Old Ones teleported to our side and smashed their staff towards mine and my clone's head. A transparent golden shield came up around him and the array, covering them in a dome, or more like a ball that was impenetrable to the Old Ones.

I moved left dodging the staff hit, and threw a punch with the hilt of my sword smashing into the jaw of the Old One that attacked me. He spun around from the force, but I took opportunity to slice his head off his neck, and almost immediately weaved [BREAK] on his body.

KREEEEEEEEEEE!

I had to hold my sensitive ears and huddle down in pain at the inhumane and pained shrieks that went flying through the air. The remaining four old ones seemed to be in pain, and that was probably because their friend was dead. His body had been broken, all the way down to a cellular level, there was nothing left of him except a hooded head that rapidly faded out of existence as the main body ceased to exist.

Whatever this Old Ones were, it's obvious that they're all connected to each other in a weird sort of way. I jumped higher, going towards the chained case, and hoping that they would follow. This way I could draw the fight away from my clone so that he could break the sealing Array without interruption.

I appeared on one of the floating hands, this one completely cut off from the rest of the arm. Whatever was keeping it afloat wasn't exactly stable, as the hand wobbled with me on it. Almost immediately two of the old ones appeared, and sent their staffs forward like a spear straight for the side of my head.

I leaned back, and both staffs flew over me and slammed into each other, creating a shockwave that damn near deafened me. I flew back off the hand, but a quick minor teleportation had me appearingbehind the back of one of the old ones, and my sword slid into his spine just as easily.

I released my soul energy into his body, and using my soul energy I pulled apart every strand of tissue and muscle that made up it's body, completely tearing it apart. This was a lot more bloody than using a rune, but for some reason there was not a single speck of blood within the body of Old One, all that was there was silver dust.

KREEEEEEEEEEEE!

God! I hated that sound. A Vampire's hearing was sensitive, in fact you could say we could hear a whisper from two hundred meter away like we had on ear phones and the volume was at a maximum. And the screeches of this Old Ones, seemed to be on a frequency that made my head ache, it was really annoying. However the noise was drowned out by the subsequent explosion that followed.

KA-BOOOM!

A shockwave was released, and it was so powerful that it threw me up, until my back slammed against the chain bound black case, getting my right arm stuck in it. But I couldn't pay attention to that right now, because down below, I could see the sealing Array, crumbling and falling to the ground like meteors. It was broken, and if that's the case then...all of the vampires were free, the years of being prisoners was done,...….its over.