Chapter 458 - Far Future Ch. 168 – Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (1/2)

Celestia's fist pounded into the gut of the armored Warlock opposite her, totally surprising the idiot at just how hard she could hit it, as she yelled, ”Incoming!”

All of these drow were equipped with gravity-benders, giving them impossible agility jumping and moving, even in midair. Unfortunately for this Warlock, her Interdiction was up, and transferring his center of gravity just wasn't going to work.

The cellulocust mother tree was being harried by three drow, trying to get past the incredible reach of its thorned branches and the ripping grasp of the roots that dominated the ground about it. Naturally it had multiple eyes, and it could hear her.

As the Warlock tried to move and zigzag impossibly in the air, he failed. Two of the treemother's arms came together with amazing speed, and crashed together. He had some good armor and a personal force field, but Celestia had already sheared away most of his Soak, even if he hadn't known it, so bones cracked and blood sprayed.

The two arms then shoved him right down onto a root driving up from below, right through his neck.

Celestia moved into the tree's killing area as the drow was still twitching, chopped off the drow's disbelieving head, burning corpse and soul in shadowfire, and punting the head towards the treemother. The plant shifted a minor branch and impaled it precisely, even as it was still flailing with emotionless skill at the three drow taunting it.

Without batting an eye, Celestia jumped off a protruding root, one, two, three, and as the nearest drow Reaper gawked at the sight of her moving through the killing root-field, her eyes were filled with death, and his blood went cold to see his fate coming for him, cold, serene, irresistible. His muscles weakened, his resolve faltered, and his focus quivered as he raised his blades to parry her incoming blade, which was the very wrong move to make in the face of a Heavy Warsword backed by enough power.

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The blade-witch tried to flurry her, her hands exploding into invisible blurs, attack patterns executed so many thousands of times they didn't require any thought.

Jensa preferred to be a One-Strike Specialist, and naturally looked down on rabid Fire-style flurry specialists as a result.

Crazy Flame, Hotfoot, Crystal Shield, and Rule of Valus were all designed to counter Finesse fighters who relied on overwhelming attacks and unearthly precision to do what they did.

The fact was, their style of fighting was immensely vulnerable to disruption. It was incredibly reliant on precise execution of moves, getting exactly the right angle, hitting exactly the right spot... and so you actually didn't have to dodge them much, you had to dodge them just enough to throw things off.

When you were ten times stronger than them, and at the very least as fast, that wasn't actually all that hard, if you knew what you were doing, and weren't afraid of incidental contact from their blades.

Crashing against Hawk was numbing the blade-witch's hands, her blades were not meeting Jensa's body right, the angles were subtly off, and it seemed like her own blades were interfering with her as she crashed against that wall of a sword swirling about so smoothly, forcing her back and forth. Her balance wasn't where she wanted it to be, she was being herded, she could feel it, and she couldn't do anything about it except try to get around the longer weapon, wielded by a stronger, equally fast foe, and ask why her blades weren't cutting in like they should be to her unarmored enemy...

A ruby Rune on Hawk's length flared, and Jensa slammed Hawk forwards with brutal precision, and a whole lot of power. The knives snapping to block only deflected the point up precisely where it was intended to go, and Hawk crashed the partial chestplate showing alluring purple cleavage, right out the back, and insta-killed her in one death attack.

Assassins in service of Good were called Holy Slayers, and Jensa's One Strike style was based on her Talent giving her a +8 to Spot Checks... which let her Find the Weakness process an opponent's fighting style, find a weakness, and act on it. That attack eliminated Dex and Dodge bonuses, triggering the conditions for a Sneak Attack, which also, after enough study, dovetailed with a Death Attack.

The DC of this attack would normally be 10 + Assassin Level + Dex bonus, so something like 30, and so reallllly hard for most humanoids to survive unless they were playing weird anatomy games. Just in case, the Ruby Enchantment added the enhancement bonus of the Weapon to that save, a tidy +XIII at the moment, and so this Bladewitch had just tried to survive an unparryable One Strike hitting at her Dodgeless AC with -6 to her Deflection bonus and Armor, and yeah, her Soak could've taken the 250+ damage coming down the pike, sure enough, but that 43 Fortitude Save was something Greater Demons would quail at.

She died to the Ruby Strike instantly, banefire and shadowfire shaking hands and starting the Gloom-feeding process with merry speed. Jensa tore the Coven Insignia off her with her claws and tossed it into her hair, kicking the burning corpse away with all the respect a drow entertainment murderer deserved, and in doing so sliding twelve paces back over the churned ground suddenly and precisely.

The Champion there was a little banged up trying to evade the Kundi Queen's attacks. The huge sentient bug was very big, very fast, and very strong, her pedipalps and pincers moving with savage speed and power, and glowing with psychic force that could carve into adamantium like cheese. His only advantage was his ability to turn faster than her, which certainly wasn't saving him, but he had scored her purple-black carapace several times, and glowing ichor was dripping out of one of the cuts, so he was feeling very confident of himself as he evaded the spear-like plunges and swipes of the stabbing pedipalps, and the slicing, scything strikes of her side pincers.

Then he abruptly slammed into something behind him, which bounced him forwards. His reflexes were more than enhanced enough to realize what a disaster that was.

The first pincer came down, and he barely twisted away, feeling the ridged razors tearing down his side. The claw scythed high and low, and he had to bend horizontally, leaping and spinning between him as they ghosted past his flesh...

The second pedipalp came around like a train and impaled him right through like a sack of beans, lifting his corpse into the air like a prize, before dropping it down and quite ignoring the artistry of his armor, pincers and claws shredded him into multiple pieces.

Jensa had no intention of letting the Kundi Queen die easily. If it could make it to the thousand, the drow would naturally spare it, and then have her breed her another whole army.