Chapter 438 Necromancer Vs. Capo 3
Chapter 438 Necromancer Vs. Capo 3
438 Necromancer Vs. Capo 3
Golden smoke from the blast died down, revealing Nico standing alone in a smoking black crater, the coin shining bright in his hand. The variants had all been annihilated wholesale by the explosion, preventing Mist from reforming them.
The Ivory Knights, however, still had armor pieces and bone fragments strewn about.
These started to quiver and reform as tendrils of condensed mist gathered around them. In a few mere seconds, they had completely regenerated, their enormous dark greatswords held heavy in their bone-gauntleted hands.
The ten Ivory Knights, wreathed in auras of blood-tinged flame, resumed their charge, surging forward with heavy, armor-clanking steps like humanoid tanks. They roared, too, and their bellows were just as deep and thunderous and threatening as that of a lion's.
Nico deftly maneuvered his coin through his fingers, eyes flitting from side to side as he analyzed the threats.
'He isn't regenerating the variants. He must have a limit to his energy,' thought Nico. Currently, analysis from various private war corps, the AA, and the Trident showed a sparse amount of information regarding Thanatos's powers.
The closest anyone got to Thanatos was Nzambe, a zombie-horde controlling villain of the first Corpowar who, along with the Junker, managed to take down not one, but two Council of Fortune corporations. There were also striking similarities to Archmage, the S-class hero in Korea who could summon fantastical creatures like elementals and dragons while shooting out bolts of magic he called 'spells'.
But details about Thanatos were still sparse.
Alters with powers specialized for investigating others could not find anything about Thanatos, indicating that most likely he had a high-tier Alter concealing his ability to be read.
Nobody could even get an AC count read on Thanatos or his minions where both Nzambe and Archmage had distinct readings on file.
However, careful analysis of the footage showcased hints of Thanatos's limits.
First, even though Thanatos had a seemingly impossible variety of powers, he had to wait in time intervals between using them, sometimes not using them at all after single usages.
All this indicated that Thanatos used energy, or at the very least something like it as a resource.
Meaning his abilities had a finite end to them. And internal recharge periods as well.
Generally speaking, Alter powers that affected other bodies or created autonomous, complex objects consumed the most energy. If Thanatos followed these rules, he must have been burning through energy faster than even S-class heroes.
'My energy usage is efficient. The longer I weather this onslaught, the better of a chance I have,' thought Nico. 'He's not coming down from there, meaning more than likely he's not confident in fighting me up close. He's hiding behind that barrier of his. But if I wear him out, I'll force him to come down or retreat.
Either way, I win.'
'…Is what you're probably thinking,' thought Aldrich, watching as Nico moved around expertly, sidestepping earth-shattering sword slams while countering with explosive coin tosses.
Each toss, infused with explosive golden energy, was aimed accurately at the knights' center of mass, right at their chest. That way, the coin blew the knight's limbs apart, halting its combat capability entirely.
A quick adaptation. Ordinarily, Nico would have tossed that coin at heads, but he had already seen Aldrich fight headless and assumed that his undead could too.
Every time a knight sundered apart, Aldrich's Mist repaired them.
Undead Mist naturally regenerated undead at a slow rate, but if he focused, he could rapidly restore them at a high mana cost.
The stronger the unit, the higher the cost to manually restore them. At level 40, the Ivory Knights necessitated a hefty cost.
To curb this, Aldrich stopped regenerating the variants.
They were fodder right now anyhow. The Ivory Knights were significantly stronger and more familiar as units to control, being from the game and all. He would use them to test Nico more, to find a way through his seeming invulnerability.
Right now, after what felt like just a minute of mist-regenerating his undead back up, his mana was going down near to half. Of course, the [Heart Hold] took up a lion's share of that cost but still, this was pretty expected.
The Legion Necromancer's playstyle revolved around massive, sustained mana and health costs leveled off by tactical consumptions of undead and the occasional chug of the divine flask.
So far, Aldrich had not been pressed enough to really have to break down his precious Legion. Nor would he have to. He had made sure of that when he had exchanged his divine flask with the Death Lord.
'Unfortunately for you, capo, I won't be running out of mana anytime soon.' Aldrich materialized his [Soul Bell]. He held its silver and green carved handle and gently rang it. A crystal-clear, sonorous ring chimed out. Its sound waves took the form of slow-moving blue waves that washed over Aldrich, restoring his mana to full.
[Soul Bell Charges: 8 > 7]
'What the hell!?' Nico's eyes shot up, not missing what had occurred. Thanatos had rung a small bell.
In high-level combat, every small action had significance. What did that bell do?
"This restores my energy," said Thanatos, as if he had read Nico's mind. "You won't be outlasting me."
Nico scowled. Did Thanatos have a mind reader? Or…was he just that much more ahead of him?
"We'll see about that," said Nico. He rolled, dodging two greatsword strikes before lining up a shot and blasting through the two knights with a single coin toss.
His golden aura flared around his body the moment the coin left his hand. At that moment, another knight rushed in from his blindside, landing a ramming thrust to his back.
This, the capo simply tanked. The blade, large enough to cleave a small car in half, just skidded across Nico's back like running a nail across solid concrete.
Nico raised his lip in a slight snarl of frustration; that hit had come to him as a surprise. Inevitable, though.
Ten targets, all approximately at the level of low to mid B rank Augmenters swarming, and there was bound to be a miscalculation somewhere.
Whirling around, he shot a spinning kick at the knight's side, sending the heavily armored undead flying and hitting the Spectral Wall like it was styrofoam.
"I see. I'm starting to understand now," said Aldrich, carefully inspecting the interaction.