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MAZE - Chapter 1031 - Shardless
🕑 Added 2025-03-19 21:23:58 +0000 UTCHera walked into the arena, not expecting that big of a reaction. It was so strange to have so many people cheering for her at the same time. But that didn't matter. She wasn't here to be applauded or anything of the sort. She was here to win the competition and get the best reward she could from the dungeon. But at the same time, that didn't mean she couldn't have some flair.
The team that Bonnie won against was very different from all the other participants in the tournament because of one simple reason. They were not just there to fight, but also to make a show out of it. Once they were introduced to the arena, they shot out a few spells and skills to show off. And if she wanted to turn the Ophidianites into the best entertainers that existed, she would need to pull her weight.
So, once the announcer finished speaking and telling everybody that she was going to fight alone against the final challenge of the arena, she called her Court out, making sure that they all formed a semicircle around her. Almost as if they were wings. Bladed wings appearing around their leader. She made a point to even cast a small mix of a light spell with a mist spell on her head so Twiggy would appear with a bit more light, creating a regal entrance for her tiara.
"And this, ladies and gentlemen, is proof that we are in the presence of Noble Blood. Everybody put your hands up for Heeeeraaaa!!" the announcer shouted her name once more.
The crowd roared in cheers, including from her teammates, which Hera made a point of tuning out. This was somewhat embarrassing, and she didn't want to be distracted during the fight.
'Everybody ready?' she asked mentally to her Court, getting resounding yes from all of them as a confirmation.
This time, her title blades had to stay in their weapon forms. This was going to be a fight that they were not quite used to. Usually, they would keep swapping in and out of their various forms in order to better help her with whatever she needed. But without that option, they would need to be more focused on one thing. Fighting as the rest of the Court did, meaning that despite being the strongest weapons and the most senior of them, the title blades would have to sit on a back seat for most of the fight. Only following along with what the rest of the Court members were doing.
The Empress waited for a few moments until the enemies she had to face appeared. It was a massive dinosaur-like creature with sharp spikes on its back. Some were smaller, but at the same time, they were spikier and sharper, meaning that if she was unlucky enough to get hit by them, it would probably cause some trouble. Or maybe not, since her defenses should be more than enough to deal with that kind of thing. Following the body, there was a long tail covered in some sort of metal coating that formed a blade.
She looked up to see the name of this creature and the screen flickered, revealing the word Shardless. She never heard anything about this type of monster, but that wasn't a surprise. People did say that the hard mode had a wider variety of enemies than the regular mode of the dungeon. There were some gasps once the name was announced, and the commentator started speaking about how this was one of the most dangerous creatures they had ever seen. But Hera was already tuning all that out. She was about to fight the monster. Her focus shouldn't be on what other people were doing or saying. Instead, it should be on her enemy in front of her.
She took a deep breath and waited.
It was a rule of the competition that while she could summon her blades before the cage was open since they were essentially her weapons, she wasn't allowed to cast any spells or prepare any traps on the field. Competitors could only activate those things once the creature roamed freely. This was made to stop people from just preparing a bunch of traps and killing the monster in the first hit as soon as it appeared. After all, that was not a very good show.
The horn sounded, and the cage was open. As it was finally free, the Shardless rushed outside, trying to tackle anyone on its path. But Hera was already stepping away from the creature. Before starting to attack, she had two effects she wanted to trigger. More specifically, a spell and a skill. The first was Pool of Styx. It would be much easier to create that area if she used her snake constructs, but that would also count as more people joining the battle. So instead, Hera took the blueprint that was placed on top of her Empress Palace in order to create the skill covering enough of the Arena that the monster would never be able to escape its effects. But to her surprise, she didn't feel stronger thanks to the skill. Meaning that the attributes that she was stealing from the Shardless weren't enough to even give her a single bonus point.
The next skill was something she had yet to use in a proper fight. [Imperial Domain] in one specific configuration. From the green and purple smoke that now covered the ground in the arena, in the very center of the stadium, a throne started to emerge. It was made out of stone and had a crown of snakes carrying bladed weapons resting on the seat. The sides of the throne were intricate details of all of Hera's titled blades in a battle stance. Each ready to protect their ruler. The crown floated up and suddenly appeared on top of Twiggy, just hovering above her. Hera had decided on using the throne room once she found out her titled blades wouldn't be in their titled form. She figured it was better to use this version of the skill instead of going for something that would benefit more her Court.
The monster slammed its head against one of the pillars before spinning with its tail already aiming to hit the Empress. Hera jumped over the bladed tail without a problem. She was having some mixed feelings about this creature. On one hand, she did want to just finish the fight quickly. But on the other, it was the first time she saw another living being who used a bladed tail to fight. Even if this was part of its natural form and not a piece of equipment. There might be some things she could learn from the monster if she studied it for a time. Not to mention, if the fight ended too quickly, it wouldn't be as entertaining as it could be for the people here.
Hera sent out Shadow and Eira to start attacking, both just to gauge the defenses of the creature. They flew to the side and went for an insert maneuver, each attacking one of the sides of the monster. But the Shardless wasn't going to take that lying down. It tried to jump away the initial attack, only to be hit by Shadow as the scythe triggered [Shadowstep Strike], teleporting after its failed attack. Shadow's strike wasn't as powerful as he expected. The metal coating that created the Shardless' tail was also present on the rest of its body even if it wasn't creating edges, making its entire form well protected.
Hera leaped forward, flicking her wrist so the metal string of her gloves unraveled as she sent them towards the beast. At the same time, she sent out a couple of poison fangs aimed at the monster, hoping to let her mana start working on its insides. But the monster noticed the projectiles coming and evaded in a surprisingly quick movement, dashing three times in a zigzag. Truly, it was amazing that it could move this fast, considering its size of almost 6 meters tall.
And it didn't stop there. After jumping, the Shardless spun around, using its tail to slam to the ground. The empress had to tumble away from that attack. Even if her strength attribute was considerably high, just to block that strike she would need to carry the creature, and she was not confident in being able to do so. Maybe the Leviathan could do that. But Hera couldn't.
Only after getting far enough away from the attack that it missed completely, the Empress remembered about the effects of her new skill [Imperial Domain]. She was currently getting a large amount of buffs that, instead of being split, were being channeled to her. So maybe she could handle one attack like that and her reflex was unnecessary, but at the same time it wasn't something she was willing to test. Not now, at least.
She snapped her wrists, making the bladed thread fly out and chase the giant lizard. The monster tried to escape, but it was too big to avoid the net of wire coming its way. So instead, it coiled in a ball to let its back scales take the brunt of the damage.
The bladed wire slammed against the creature, sinking into its carapace. Hera had also covered the weapon in a simple elemental strength buff that increase the cutting element of the blade. Even then, it wasn't enough to pierce the back of the beast, and the creature was now biting down on its tail and let out a fire breath that ignited the entire metal plate. What was just the bladed tail was now a giant burning bladed sword, attached to the creatures behind. And Hera had to admit, that looked pretty badass.
The creature launched at Hera once more, going for another swipe motion, but she was ready for that. Jumping upward to try to evade the blow only for the tail to shift trajectories at the last moment going for a wider attack. Quickly, she created a set of chains around her chest with long lines coming out of her back, all wrapped around in clouds. She flapped the metal and mist wings with enough force to push her up, causing the tail to miss once more. This still wasn't enough to let her fly, but it was already solid enough to allow her to change her movement mid-air. She issued an order to her court, all should start attacking together with Shadow and Eira, and the Empress followed along.
A flurry of bladed weapons descended upon the Shardless, but it quickly became clear that they were not going to be able to do any significant damage. The [Imperial Domain] was channeling all the buffs towards Hera and the titled blades, which meant that the rest of the Court wasn't able to deal that much by themselves. Trying to circumvent that, the Empress covered all of her blades with a simple Mana reinforcement spell. It was a cheap way to give some of her power back to the Court and while they were still unable to reach the same strength that they had without the [Imperial Domain] active, they did regain some of their power. Pyro and Sun seemed to be strangely motivated to attack the beast. Slamming the monster repeatedly as fast as they could with some stranger fervor. All due their wounded pride of seeing another fire type creature doing more than the pair.
Landing on the ground, Hera rushed towards the monster once again. She could feel the effects of Hoop's [Momentum Mastery] increasing her speed the more she moved around. This time, she wrapped the blade strings from her left hand together, forming a whip. She told a couple of her court members to activate [Blade Accord] and form the chain around the Shardless legs, that way, it wouldn't be able to move around before using the whip to attack. The creature tried to jump away, but the chains created by the Court were too strong stopping it from moving. With a loud crack, her bladed wires turned and slammed on the side of the Shardless's legs, causing it to topple onto its side, a large gash appearing on its skin.
The Empress didn't give it time to breathe and jumped on top of the creature together with her entire Court. But before they could reach it, the monster kicked the side of the arena with its legs and coiled in a ball. The movement made it turn into a spinning top that kept bouncing around the arena wildly, hitting all the pillars and moving rapidly across the floor. Each bounce seemed to increase its speed. And that wasn't without reason, as the monster was timing its kicks to the bounce, becoming a saw blade on the floor of the arena. It didn't take long before Hera had to be using everything she had in order to evade those attacks.
So instead, she decided to lean into what the Shardless was doing. Asking Twiggy to count her down, Hera watched as the spinning monster approached at a rapid speed and, just as it was about to hit her, she jumped up and landed directly on top of the creature. The beast was still spinning, which would quickly become nauseating, but Hera didn't care and just continued with her plan. She created a rare venomous spear and activated the blade break combo while stabbing it where she was assuming its head was located.
However, there was one thing she didn't take into account. In her hand wasn't just the spear she had created. But also the wire gloves that she was using to fight. Even if her intention was to only break the spear, the bladed wire also shattered from both gloves, showering the Shardless with it and causing the creature to tumble and stop spinning. The impact was so great that the blade coating on its tail broke apart, leaving only the membrane behind. Or that's what it seemed at first. There was a strange ooze dripping from that wound. As if the tail had some sort of glue that held the metal together and now that was exposed to the air, it became something highly corrosive.
Hera jumped away and cursed her own luck for not realizing what could happen to her weapon. Wishing she had time to mourn the loss of the potential new title blade as the monster jumped on her, trying to bite or swallow her whole. But the court was ready for that.
Clay used [Earth Cleave] to create a rift on the ground and make the creature fall. Lurize took advantage of the buff he was getting to trigger a powerful [Venom Blade]. Sun and Pyro also joined in, igniting their attacks with their skills. However, they were far from being strong now as the [Throne Room] was sapping too much of their strength and skill synergy. But that wasn't much of a problem. After all, they were just distractions.
The empress waited until the last moment to jump away with Shadow's [Shadowstep Strike] teleporting her from almost inside the creature's mouth. She appeared on the side, leaving behind a large cloud of [Toxic Mist] which gained even more power thanks to her Ophidianite poison. The Shardless ended up eating a mouthful of that mist, at the same time Hera swapped to Livy and slam the war axe on the monster's head while activating [Draconic Eruption]. An explosion of water came out, and the Empress changed weapons again, from the Leviathan to Storm, her long sword.
The Shardless was already wounded, and the sudden appearance of water was enough to stop it from noticing as Hera started to channel [Tempest Fury], which was Storm's strongest attack. When the skill was ready, Hera lunged forward, stabbing with the long sword and adding a [Crackling Strike] and a [Grasshopper Stab] to the blow. The combination of water and electricity, in addition to the poison that was still inside the Shardless, became too much. With a loud thunder, the creature stopped moving as if it had just received the lightning strike from its inside.
The empress took a few steps back, realizing how poorly this fight went and how much she could have improved. She had become too reliant on her court, and the right way to go about it was to start fighting on her own again. But while thinking about that, the crowd rewarded her struggle with cheers and claps. Despite wanting to review her match and understand where she failed, for a moment, Hera decided to just bask in the glory of the applause raising both hands to the side and bowing with a smile as her wings shifted now becoming a royal cape made out of chains and clouds.
