Chapter 71: Removed

Dodge. Duck. Slash. Dodge. Duck. Slash. 

Over the past fifteen minutes, I had fallen into a familiar routine, drawing Akash to a total stalemate. After a while I had learned that his attack patterns were actually fairly basic, relying on large arcing strikes to try and hit the most area that he could in an attempt to swipe me out of the air. 

He had, at one point, launched a series of explosive projectiles at me, but those had been easy enough to bat back with my sword and he hadn't tried them again since.

While he had a strong body in his attack form, the extra bulk must have also made it harder for him to move quickly, which was the only reason that I could come up with to explain why he hadn't charged through the now fleeting smoke to try and grapple me in a bear hug again. 

But all of that was about to change. 

[ Daily tasks complete! All debuffs have now been removed! ]

The surge of power that filled my body was strong enough to make me stumble as I landed from another dodge. That break in concentration was all Akash needed to latch his tentacle vines around my body. 

I let him drag me back through the smoke into his reach. 

"Did you think burning the hologrammatic forests of my homeworld would throw me off, human?" He asked, the rustling that accompanied his anger was on full show. "All you've done is prove that you are no different from those humans who came before you." 

"Oh, I don't know about that bud," I shot back with a cocky grin of my own, "I've just been warming up, pun not intended." 

Before, when Akash had squeezed me with his tentacles, I had nowhere near enough strength to force my way out of them. But now, as I pushed my arms outward, the vine was easily pushed away with an unsettling creaking sound. 

I pushed hard and dropped out of the bottom of Akash's grip when it was loose enough, before firing off an energy beam. The full-strength laser cut straight through the vine, leaving it smouldering on the ground. 

I then bounced off of the ground and enveloped my hand in energy, just like I had done at the beginning of the fight, before using my propulsion to send myself flying straight at the sentient tree. This time when I hit Akash, it was him that went flying back through the trees, eventually crashing into the hard rock of a cliff. 

I took off after him, pushing my propulsion as quickly as it could go. I couldn't help but let out a whoop as I soared through the air, faster than I ever had before. 

With my sped up cognition, I could see Akash getting ready for my arrival, he was already pulling himself off the ground to regain his full stature. 

But he wasn't going to be quick enough. I enveloped both of my hands in the roiling manna of my energy beams this time and fired off both as I got closer, the twin beams lancing toward the exact same spot on Akash's chest. 

The move did exactly what I had hoped. Not only was he blasted back into the wall of the cliff once more, a crack appeared on his outer armour. I plunged my hands into the crack and ripped outward with all my strength, stripping Akash of his battle form in one fell swoop. 

"Surrender," I demanded, bringing four more orbs of energy into existence around me, two flanking each side of my body. 

Akash glared up at me defiantly. "I'll never surrender to a human, not even you." 

It wasn't how I wanted this fight to end. I'd been hoping that he'd see sense and back down now that I was fighting with all of the strength available to me, but he seemed intent on dragging this out. Luckily he'd already told me exactly where his one biggest weakness was. 

I conjured a small invisible orb above us with my manna and then let loose with an ability that I had only ever used once before against the time beetle that had trapped me on the colony ship under the surface of the ocean. 

A wave of telekinetic energy lashed out at Akash and grabbed him as if I were using one of his own vine wipes. I manipulated the energy and sent him soaring upward, to crash neck first into the orb of manna that I had conjoured. It hit his weak point directly, knocking him unconscious instantly. 

I brought Akash back down to the ground slowly, I didn't want to hurt him any more than I already had in the spar. I needed him to be fighting fit for when we were fighting against Lara and her army of Null Space Invaders, and any humans that she brings with her. That was going to be a trippy fight. 

I looked out over the burning wreckage of Eldrani, the holo-room had done an incredibly good job of rendering a realistic interpretation of what it would have been like on the planet in its final days. 

Once again I felt that deep smouldering hatred that I was forming for the humans of this universe rising back up. They just took and took, without any regard for the other species around them. I'd like to think that the humans of my own universe would do better with space travel and venturing forth into the universe, but I had a sneaking suspicion that they wouldn't actually be all that different. 

I sighed and made to leave the training room when it hit me. I had no idea how to deactivate the holo-room's holographic display, and so I had no way to actually leave the room. 

I sat down with a sigh and leant up against the wall of the cliff. 

I'd just have to wait for Akash to regain consciousness, however long that was going to take.