The Jester of Apocalypse

Neave wasn’t surprised to see the wall break open. He felt it was merely a matter of time until they found him. Did he perhaps help their efforts by incinerating the entire side of a cave? 

Nah, no way. 

Either way, there were a few things he still wanted to try before having to go back. He contemplated dodging through the hordes of demons and hiding somewhere again.

…

Actually, that was a great idea. He should totally do that. The wall finally came crashing down, and Neave rushed at his assailants. They may be tough and fast, but he had a new collection of spirit powers to play with.

However, even though he rushed at them and boosted his perception of time to its maximum, it felt like there was little use. He punched and kicked, but they wrapped their tentacles around him and sank their teeth into him.

He wasn’t doing much damage to them, but they were barely even hurting him. Sure, their spikes, claws, and fangs could temporarily damage his skin, but that was almost instantly recovered with superior troll physique.

What bothered him was how deprived of options he felt in this fight. He was quickly overwhelmed and wrapped up in a cocoon of dark tendrils. The little he could still see through the mass of wriggling limbs revealed several more of these things entering the room.

Neave wanted to blast them away with his dragon breath, but that wouldn’t be much use. They were right on top of him, so if anything, he would just kill himself by doing that. Instead, he decided to calm down and think of his options.

He had the time, given that they struggled to do anything substantial to him. He didn’t even take a few seconds to think. Neave steamed a bit, and he shrunk.

He used a movement technique inside of the writhing mass of bodies and appeared outside it.

“Say cheers, you creepy fucks!” Neave opened his mouth wide, and fire flooded the entire room. The creatures surprisingly survived the blast, even if they weren’t far from death.

It was merely a matter of a few well-delivered true strikes to finish them off.

Neave had a moment of reprieve, but soon enough, he heard wailing coming further down the cave.

He was going to try his luck with one of the walls to see whether he would appear on the other side, but he didn’t feel like doing that. As he ran his mind over his options, he quickly realized potential uses for his new spirit powers.

Neave ran straight through the hole and into the writhing mass of demons.

He burned a bit of life force, not to boost his strength or regeneration but rather to help maintain the integrity of his body. Next up, he triggered ignite and felt an intense rush of fire rushing through his veins.

He thought this would do him much more damage, but surprisingly enough, the combination of spirit powers he had almost wholly handled the side effects of the boost. He wasn’t expecting that at all, but he quickly adapted and triggered thunder nerves as well while he was at it.

Neave shot out at impossible speed, firing like an arrow at the horde of monsters. He wouldn’t have been able to keep up with his speed if not for his accelerated perception of time. That usually wouldn’t be a problem for someone at a higher cultivation level, but Neave didn’t yet have such a luxury.

Once he approached the monsters, he struck. He didn’t use true strikes. Regrettably, the pile of boosts changed his abilities enough to make executing true strikes too tricky. It also surprisingly didn’t matter even a little bit.

His life-force-imbued punches were like boulders fired from a catapult, pulverizing any flesh it made contact with. The creatures were slippery and flexible, which significantly reduced the effective damage he did.

It barely mattered, however. Punch after punch sent shockwaves that threatened to collapse the cave around him, obliterating the demons in his way.

Neave couldn’t believe the sheer power he was displaying. The combination of ignite and thunder nerves would usually be a ridiculously self-destructive combo, especially combined with his intense life force expenditure.

But the combination of crystal veins, superior troll physique, and durable organs made these consequences negligible. Shockingly so.

Neave suspected that something else was playing a role in the sheer efficiency of the boost, but he didn’t have the time to think about it.

Slowly as he got into the groove, he adjusted to his perception and managed to use true strikes. He could only use one true strike effectively in this state, which was the fastest punch he knew. Even though it was the fastest true strike he could execute, it still seemed like his fist was moving in slow motion as he threw the punches out.

That simply wasn’t an effective strategy. He sacrificed a lot of attack speed to get just a bit of extra damage into his attacks. He discarded true strikes for now and resorted to punching as hard as possible.

He made his way through the cave, systematically disassembling the creatures in his way as he left collapsing ceilings and walls behind. The thick obsidian growth crumbled far before he reached it under the sheer intensity of the shockwaves.

The ceiling cracked open in one of the caverns, letting out a flood of black liquid into the space. Neave ran away as fast as he could and eventually made it out of the caves and up above into the open plains.

There were a lot of demons and they were everywhere. The silver lining was that they were scattered at least, but Neave couldn’t believe the numbers. There was a legion of them.

He kept his ignite running for a while, but eventually, the fuel that the ability used ran out, and he was left with much less power.

Neave hadn’t realized just how big of a role that spirit power played in the fight, but judging by how much weaker he felt, it was pretty significant.

He gritted his teeth and invested several times as many punches into each demon, feeling the additional strain of taking them out.

As he felt himself growing weaker, he also felt himself growing… Faster. He didn’t necessarily feel like his speed was what was increasing, but instead, he used it far better.

It felt like his arms and legs were moving independently of one another, allowing him to get far more strikes in than he could just a while back.

Soon enough, he spun and felt the resonant whistle of his fist traveling into the body of one of the demons. By far, this was the fastest true strike he could execute. The bonus damage was minuscule, given the incredible speed of the strike itself, but that didn’t bother Neave at all.

True strikes caused no fatigue after all. And at this speed, Neave barely felt the strain on his spirit. A giant demon jumped at Neave, and he watched the world twist as his perception sped up. He threw a punch at its face, three punches at its left arm, seventeen punches at its chest, fourteen punches at its stomach, and then focused on its center, dishing out seventy punches in a row.

All of this happened in under a second. The demon exploded under the accumulated force and scattered its gore over the landscape.

A fat grin was spread right over Neave’s face. He felt genuinely invincible. Eventually, he started slowing down. Not because he didn’t have a choice but rather because his life force reserves were finally dropping.

He was slowly accumulating more and more wounds, but just as quickly as he received them, they vanished under the rapid regeneration effect of his superior troll physique.

Neave thought he could keep going like this until he was fully drained, but something strange happened. The demons suddenly began cannibalizing one another. Neave felt the instinctive desire to stand there and stare dramatically but got hold of himself. 

This wasn’t good news, no matter how he thought about it. He used the opportunity to get the demons while they were weak, but there were simply far too many to stop all of them.

Neave felt a chill move down his spine, and he spun to block an incoming attack.

With immense force, a massive tentacle flew at him, and he was knocked back into another strike. Neither of them did any substantial damage, but they kept him occupied for a few seconds.

ҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾ

It sounded as if a million abominds were screeching their lungs out, and the sheer volume of the sound dazed Neave. Everywhere around the landscape, massive masses of toothy tentacles sprouted like demented plants.

Another one of these tentacles shot out toward Neave, and he used a movement technique to get out of the way. Once he landed back on the surface, Neave broke off branch after branch and threw them at the tentacles from a distance—not enough damage. 

He kept setting himself up for slower true strikes, but he was struck by something he couldn’t even see whenever he got into position.

Some of these bigger creatures were also consuming one another, and Neave was helpless to stop them from doing so.

As he bounced around through the air, tentacles failing to get a solid grip on him, he saw the mass of writhing tentacles shrinking.

“Oh, fucking hell.”

What walked out of it was a roughly humanoid mass of writhing limbs, teeth, and eyes. When something monstrous started looking more humanoid, that was never a good sign. This was no exception. 

The demon shot toward Neave, morphing through the air until it reached him. It slammed Neave, and he flew to the ground. He bounced right back up and got himself smashed again.

On his next bounce back up, he opened his jaw wide and bit right down on one of its limbs. It couldn’t push him away now. Neave threw punch after punch at it, but it felt useless. It was like striking a mushy cloud. All of the force just slipped through the mass of slippery limbs.

Neave wished he didn’t blow all of the fuel from ignite. If he hadn’t, he could have used dragon breath now, which would have been oh-so-convenient.

Neave and the demon plummeted to the ground, the demon wildly swinging its tentacles in futile attempts to get Neave off. Neave didn’t have a reliable weapon or source of damage to handle this thing, and it couldn’t finish him off, no matter what it tried. The fight dragged on for far too long.

Was he trapped?

He shrunk and escaped.

Was he bitten?

He healed in seconds.

Did large spikes pierce through him?

No damage was done to his organs, and the wound healed in seconds.

Neave had acquired the ultimate cockroach power set. Now if only he had anything he could use offensively against this thing.

He eventually released the bite on the tentacle and continued the brawl. Yet again, he found himself in the same situation of cockroach bitchslapping back and forth that went nowhere.

Neave was technically running low on energy, but it wasn’t a problem. He didn’t need qi since he didn’t need to rely on movement techniques, and he wasn’t burning life force to regenerate but was instead relying on the superior troll physique spirit power.

All the attacks he executed were true strikes, which meant he was barely growing exhausted.

This couldn’t continue forever, though.

Neave was far from being genuinely immortal, and this time he wasn’t sure that his opponent had any limits to its stamina. Worse yet was the fact that several other masses of writhing limbs were also forming similar creatures.

Neave pondered his options. Perhaps he could evolve another spirit power mid-fight? But most of them would be useless or present a considerable challenge in the spirit trial.

That wasn’t going to work.

Slow true strike, perhaps? No time to execute one. Maybe just concentrate all the life force he could into one big attack? That would both be suicidal and also probably wouldn’t do much.

He decided to give it a shot anyway. Neave lit up in crimson flames and blasted toward the demon. The punch landed, and the writhing mass of limbs flew away, breaking through countless sharp obsidian bushes across the landscape.

Once it finally stopped tumbling, it got up and ran back toward Neave. As it ran closer to him, it was apparent that it didn’t come out of that unscathed. Surprisingly enough, Neave was still in one piece, even though he felt the consequences of doing that.

Neave broke off the nicest-looking branch he could find. He got into a stance and bent his knee a bit. He pushed out with all his force and fired off the attack technique Marven taught him.

Well, that did jack shit.

He didn’t even really know what he expected. Even if it was impressive, that was still just a qi technique executed by someone at the start of the foundation realm.

After he triggered the technique, another demon ran at him and kicked him in the side. Neave flew through the landscape, much like the demon did before, but it did a far greater number on Neave. His wounds healed incredibly quickly as he invested a bit of life force in helping the process along.

He was running low on life force. The first demon ran at him again. Neave opened his jaws wide and triggered a true strike bite. He wasn’t sure whether this caught the demon off guard, but it allowed him to take a solid bite out of it.

He swallowed the piece of flesh and felt it intҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾgrating with hҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾ

ƏƓƜƜƜƜƢƢǶҾҾҾҾ

ƜƜƜ

ҾႿϮINƓUISǶ

The omnipotҾҾҾ L L L iaҾҾҾ RS.

FҾҾҾҾҾDING off ϮǶҾir liҾϩ.

ϮǶҾy MuϩϮ ÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞҾҾҾҾҾҾ ҾǶϮINƓUIǶҾD

All of them must Þbe exϮinguished.

The righteous liҾars must ÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞbe exterminaϮed.

The sinners must be crushҾҾҾҾd

And all that they had created must come crumbling down.

No.

Neave’s eyes snapped open. He was trapped, and several demons were doing their best to chew his limbs off. Little progress was being made.

You’re wrong.

It is not all that must be annihilated.

Neave lit up with a crimson flame, and golden mist gathered around him.

Only that which I decide.

The two energies combined and started emitting a bright shine.

Only that shall be extinguished.

ÞÞÞÞÞÞestart