Fox Tale Of A Dungeon Boss 29 Chapter 29: Life Is Music

Swords and steel rang out, as I caught the blade before me against my dagger. 'FoxFire!' I mentally called, summoning 4 fireb.a.l.l.s to throw at him while our blades are locked.

Keeping an eye of his friends trying to encircle me, I leap away, letting him absorb the hits from the Foxfire and pus.h.i.+ng him back as I escape their trap.

"Very good, but you should try to... uh... hmm..."

"What Isen?! What is it?"

"It's hard to articulate... their flow? Yes. Try to grasp the flow of their movements, their rhythm of combat. If you slow down or speed up suddenly breaking the tempo, you can skip past their expectations. But you need to get a feel for that flow first."

'Huh?! Flow? I... hmm.'

What is... flow? Of movement?

I held open my eyes and watched them s.h.i.+ft around before me. Muscles tensed to move, steps followed patterns, joints only bent certain ways... when you pay attention, there are only certain ways a body can move. Fenrir's entire way of communication is based on physical cues, so I should be able to read at least something off of these guys.

And mana... Most people can't see it. From my understanding, most can get a general sense of active mana being used, can 'feel' it... but I can directly see it! And when it's out of sight, I get a weird tingle when it's used, so I still sense it, but my eyes can directly see it.

That allows me to actually observe it in action, allowing a.n.a.lyze to see and record how a spell works, and research into it. How else could I easily learn the way to use wind and water Magic's when I obviously seem more built for light and fire?

I can see it. Mana flows through the body, gathering in specific points to feed Blood Aura. Usually you center it in joints as that's where blood aura has to be most flexible...

Some areas are prioritized, meaning they'll be used. Track it... I can feel their antic.i.p.ation, can smell this hypercharged air. I can feel the spikes in emotion as they move, see the change in mana as they prepare.

I think... I was good at rhythm games. Things were you hit b.u.t.tons and respond to the beat. That's all this is. Music, made of spikes in emotion, surges of mana, s.h.i.+fts in movement, the noise of steel and feet on dirt.

One. Two. One. Two. There's a rhythm, a thread of music made up of all these things.

I just... respond.

One beat. My knife lifts.
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Two beats. I curve my body, an axe pa.s.ses my by.

Three beats. I follow his movement, matching his beat. He can't open any distance, and I slash at him.

More sound. Mana moving, coiling. I match it, my mana moving to match the flow, spreading from my knife to trickle into his Aura.

Fourth beat. I make it change. I take mana matching the flow, and I go the other way. I split the point, his aura disrupted, exploding away as his mana pathway goes haywire, split apart by an opposite frequency.

Fifth beat. My knife is still there, once sliding along his Aura, now nothing is there. He's panicked, everyone can see it. We know he knows. He's going to die. And the knife strikes true.

Sixth beat. A song ends, as his rhythm goes quiet, no more pulses, no more noise, no more beat of his heart ringing in the ears atop my head.

And a new song begins, a song of feeding, as the beat of life in my knife grows stronger.

I stepped back, letting the beat come forth again, a song of hearts, of emotion, of ringing steel and das.h.i.+ng feet.

"Holy s.h.i.+t! f.u.c.k, did you see how fast that guy moved!"

"Shut up and get ready to fight Darrel!"

"But he's humming! The dude is SLAUGHTERING US AND HE IS f.u.c.kING HUMMING!!!"

Let it ring, let the beat go, follow along.

One beat, they live, and then a song ends as the song of my blade grows stronger bit by bit. It's so quiet, but those surges of emotion ring out of the blade whenever a song ends, as if to signal the end.

I'm aware of it, can see their movements, the attacks. I watch as mana surges into a sword, and is released as our force, a crescent flying out from the blade, an Auric Slash. I respond, reacting to all these things flying about, dancing along to the beat as I twist and wind among them, stabbing out with blade and magic. Again and again fire burns out, blowing up to add to the symphony.

I'm aware yet not, I can't think because if I do I know somewhere deep down it'll break whatever this is, so I throw all the thoughts away.

I am instinct. Reaction. The beat moves, so I do. They move, and so do I. I follow the rhythm, and so I know what they'll do before they do it.

And then I slip up. I can't keep it going. There's too many, more have arrived, swords glint and slash, Spears thrust, axes swing. I feel metal slicing along me as s.p.a.ce grows tighter and tighter, I can't move without being cut, but if I don't it'll all be over.

Burning, all the cuts are burning, and more are flas.h.i.+ng, and Fenrir comes into view, fangs sunken into a mans neck as he rips out their throat. There's Isen, the family behind him sheltered as k.u.miko's spells rain down, and his blade flashes. He can't guide me cause he's listening to the flow too, but he's moving differently, following along only to speed up, slow down, disrupting it like a skippy track.

The blood moves, forming blades that slash as k.u.miko yells, and swirling into spears to reap more blood, creating more swords and Spears.

The knife feeds, blood and flesh of anything adding to it now, sinking into heads, demanding more, but I hold it back, I deny it everything because I have to move.

Fire gathers, swirling in my hand as it takes on the shape of a flaming saber, forged of intense heat as I hold the image of an arcing solar flare in mind, swinging it out to burn away them all.

And I dodge... until it happens. I bend my back away from a hit, but there's my tail. It's going for my tail now, and muscles I'm still new to flex, and my tail bends, flexibly curving around the sword to spring up past it, avoiding the hits, and now my tail is taken into consideration to, flicking back and forth.

I can bend farther, jump harder, cause my tail balances me out. So my range of motion increases past what they can safely do, and I'm sliding along the ground, jumping from feet to hand back to foot, slas.h.i.+ng all the while as a symphony of blood flies.

And then it burns. I feel this burning pain, like fire is in my veins coming from my left hand, and I look to see a sword stabbed through my hand, to saber disappearing back into flickers of fire, a spear stabbing into my gut as my actions slow, an axe chopping into the meat of my shoulder as it HURTS.

It hurts so much as the wounds burn, burning at the feel of steel embedded in my flesh, as more swords stab into me, and then there's smoke. There's shadow.

And the last I see is Isen swinging his blade to behead yet another human as the swirling smoke turns into a wolf, Fenrir emerging from the air to bite, a goblin of shadow with an axe through its head turning to dust, and ghostly arrows and weapons of blood fly from behind, as a screaming voice chants out for Healing Light. And my vision is filled with a golden light, and then all is black.