Chapter 364 - Far Future Ch. 74 – The Voices of Those who Stand Long (1/2)

Briggs pulled out Beat with a screech of protesting metal, and his Hammer thumped in happiness. Behind the impassive surface of his mask, Briggs sighed to himself.

His Oath was discharged! It was a both a huge wave of accomplishment washing over him, and a knot of tension released. Dingdingding... Quest Karma coming in, Glory Award on the way...

In truth, he didn't really care about this fight. Beating on cyborgs had lost its allure, although the satisfaction of crushing machines stuck with him. It was just, since Sama had come, his eyes had turned to bigger and better things.

There was a Warpzone out there filled with creatures who basically existed to be killed... in both his eyes and in the eyes of the deities of the Warp, and the Gods of Creation.

And he just so happened to be in need of a lot of Karma for them Rantha Hagspawn Levels.

He grunted as he stepped away from Maunat with a casual salute. Sure, the cyborg was going to resent him, all those he'd beaten had... but it didn't matter. He would go through what ceremony there was, grasp the trophy, and in a week, drop out of the League and go on to other things... probably shocking the hell out of a lot of people, especially the sponsors eager to throw money at him for endorsements.

Sama should be back from her big run by then. They could celebrate together, then suit up, and do what they needed to do.

Grind!

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I came sweeping in from the south, wingskating over the ground.

Flying would have doubled my speed and more, but would have completely obviated the reason I was doing this. I had used this long period of running something close to twenty thousand miles on foot to really work on my lightfoot.

My Mark IV Vajra was deep and thick, enough to defy the Warp, but anything that extended past the four inches outside my skin was beyond its protection, and invited some severe consequences.

Therefore, the solution was to extend my skin... of which a person's hair is a part of.

The Wings that I could bring up in all their ectoplasmic glory out of my Tats were almost nine feet long, giving me a wingspan of exactly three times my height. Thus, all I had to do was weave my hair into the wings, and they were perfectly safe from Warp interference.

The same went true for the Tails I brought up. Weave my hair into them, and they were perfectly viable. All of them were as long as I was tall, but could snap out to twice that distance on the attack, meaning my hair had to be fifteen or so feet long to accommodate them. Fast Healing was good for multiple things, as it turned out, and being able to Compress my hair was a freaking godsend. I mean, there's goddess hair, and then there was the freaking carpet extending off my head...

The Waveskating Steps, fluid and pure lightfoot that worked on any terrain; Rising and Racing Winds, the fastest, freest, and lightest; Hotfoot, the lightfoot of the chase; and Moon Walker misdirective and elusive lightfoot. Wed them all to Cloudstepping Sandals, overfunding the ki, and use Phoenix Wings for propulsion while skimming across the ground... yeah, okay, it was damn fun skimming the ground at 100 mph like some flatland skier, wings spread out to the side and shining with Vajra power driving me forwards steadily, while my Vajra parted the air frictionlessly to get rid of air resistance.

There was nothing moving overland that could catch me, nor could most of the things that were flying. The things that were flying got their own surprises.

The Cloudstepping Sandals from my Tats took care of lift. The Phoenix Wings could take care of propulsion... but the main thing they were designed to do was Cloak me in an aura of flames designed to burn anything nearby, like, oh, swarms, or oozes trying to envelop me, or basically anything trying to pile on me.

Well, I was wearing shin guards, which weren't really designed as armor. They were compressed jets.

I didn't wear footwear because of my lightfoot, and the fact my soles were tougher than steel and cleaner than shoes, anyways. Shinguards were a luxury, as they contributed nothing to my armor with my Nog Goldskin. But, I could plug the jets into the microfusion generator in my Masspack, and suddenly have rocket propulsion.

If I channeled the flames from my Phoenix Cloak into them, they were even faster!

Way far away from anyone watching, I had spent significant airtime with this. This kind of tactic would absolutely not work for someone else not in power armor, because the sheer force of the jets would rip off a normal person's legs with the slightest imbalance or conflict in force vectors between the jets, or send them into uncontrollable death spirals.

With a Might of 56ish, it was not a problem for me. I could leg press over thirty tons, so keeping a pair of fusion-powered jets molded to my ankles wasn't an issue. I was immune to the heat, too, so it didn't matter how hot they burned, and as long as they were close to me, they shared in my Vajra's fire resistance, meaning they basically didn't get hot or overheat, and could be run overclocked without an issue.

Technology can be a whole lot of fun, and when you can meld it with ki, Essence, Soul and magic, well, DAMN FUN isn't a bad way to describe things...

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Vanguard Base was up and hopping.

The key thing was naturally getting up a field to keep out the alkaline dust, and give people a place to rest and recover, and store their shit. It was on the very edge of the plateau, just before technology konked out, so a careful flier could come in at a landing zone a safe distance away to shuttle people back and forth.