One would say I was incredibly unlucky to only get just an Elite familiar from a Platinum draw. But I think my luck came in clutch for once. Anubis's main power wasn't limited to phasing or sword mastery. It was Combat Adaptation. Anubis was capable of learning incredibly quickly to perfectly counter opponents.
Now, it was not a sure-shot win by any means. We weren't going to beat Battle Beast. That was a fantasy. But for an opponent like Battle Beast who was desperately keen on finding a battle worthy opponent, who was starving for a real challenge, this specific ability was precisely what I needed to rouse his intense interest and keep him engaged. That didn't mean my life wasn't on the line.
I used everything in my arsenal. Impulse to quicken the electrical signals in my nervous system therefore increasing my reflexes. I used Arc to channel a constant stream of electricity through my muscles to push my body to the absolute extreme. Crackling, blue-white energy ran through my limbs.
But the bastard was too persistent.
Every time I thought I had an opening, he closed it and every time I thought I'd adapted to his pattern, he changed it up.
And whenever Nakime's biwa rang out to try and open a gate beneath Sebas, Battle Beast would either shatter the Tatami gate itself with a shockwave from his mace or physically kick the old man far away, sending Sebas's broken body tumbling through the rubble like garbage.
"Battle Beast never lets his prey escape the hunting grounds!" he roared as he swung his mace. I could hardly keep up. It's a nightmare trying to dodge someone who's strikes could create a vacuum.
"Stop being such a stuck-up prick and fucking let it go already!" I cursed at the beast. I tried to stun him using a massive discharge of Arc lightning, blue electricity arcing from my hands in crackling bolts. But his hide was literally too thick to feel it. He stood there, tanking the blast, smiling at me, while I couldn't even burn his hide.
"Mas...ter," I heard Sebas mutter from the rubble. "He is testing... playing with you... leave..."
"For once, shut up old man! Let me concentrate!" I barked as I parried another crushing blow, the impact rattling my bones even through the sword.
My body was accumulating injuries over time despite Anubis's Adaptation. Cuts across my arms where I'd been too slow, bruises blooming across my ribs from glancing hits and blood running from my nose from the concussive force of near-misses. Each exchange cost me something. Each block left me a little slower and a little weaker.
True Hero was pulling its weight. Now that I stood against a monster to protect Sebas, all my stats received a massive temporary boost.
Without it, I wouldn't be able to capitalize on Anubis's potential. I would've broken to one of Battle Beast's attacks a few exchanges ago
That's how terrifying this furry bastard was.
I continued another agonising round of him testing my limits. He actually started laughing out loud as I miraculously adapted to his movements again, reading his telegraphs better. He was enjoying this battle. He was actually having fun.
'I need to finish this quickly and escape,' I thought desperately as my stamina drained.
'Fuck it. Even if it throws me completely back into the deep end of addiction, I have to try something!'
I tore the glowing Silver Ticket in my mind,
feeling the familiar rush of anticipation, that addictive dopamine I'd been fighting for days; while specifically toggling off the gambling trait to ensure I did not take any stupid chances.
[Challenge DLC]
|Elite Trait|
Did someone say challenge? A challenge board is added to your gacha, depending on your location, current state and power level you have the option to grab one of 3 challenges from the board as limited-time quests, you can only take one challenge every 48 hours and the board resets every 48 hours. If you fail a challenge the next time you can take a challenge is instead 168 hours later.
'Huh, you're kidding me right?'
Smash-Boom!
Woosh
The distraction cost me. Battle Beast stomped the concrete, a massive spiderweb crack exploded and with it, I lost my footing, I started falling backward. He kicked a huge slab of concrete in my direction. I had to let gravity bring me down and wait for the projectile to reach me, where I pushed off debris, launching it to a building behind me.
"HAHAHA, WELL DONE, LITTLE DOGGY! SHOW ME, WHAT DO YOU HAVE FOR THIS!"
He leaped and came crashing down, his mace raised all the way up for a heavy, skull-crushing blow.
In a flash of brilliance that came after my life flashed before my eyes, I blasted off the landing zone with Arc and Wind Flight, Impulse allowing me to pick the safest trajectory.
BOOM
As if trying to get in my way, a screen appear before me, blocking my line of sight, filled with three absurd challenges.
[ Challenge #1: Make Battle Beast fall in love with you.
Reward: Diamond ticket x1
Challenge #2: Bring the civilian casualty count to zero.
Reward: Platinum ticket x1
Challenge #3: Make Pepsi-Man the MVP of this fight
Reward: Gold ticket x1 ]
Those damn ROB must be having a ball sending these insane challenges.
I flew several stories high, avoiding that cursed mace again. Battle Beast snarled, glanced between Sebas and me. My eyes widened at his intention, and despite every fiber in my being telling me not to, I flew-dashed back down towards him.
He braced for a clash, letting his mace drop to meet me with the mother of all right hooks. I plummeted down, clearly intending to deal a critical blow whatever the consequence. But just as he swung, and I was only a meter away, Zero Gravity canceled my momentum while Wind Flight dragged me back just enough for his fist to blitz past me. I brought my swords down, phasing them, to his neck.
But in what reality would that be enough to kill this freak?
In a display of speed even Impulse, paired with all of my enhancements, was wholly unable to follow, Battle Beast burst backward. I couldn't even understand how he found leverage to dash so hard.
He stood ten meters away, no longer looking at me with only bemusement. That change of expression filled me with inexplicable dread.
'Fuck this! I'll just tear them all!'
I tore both my Diamond tickets and the remaining gold ticket.
But that damn furry didn't give me a chance to breathe. He appeared beside me, kicking my shins, causing me to fall forward as he swung his foot to kick my stomach, sending me flying like a football.
I saw the three rolls occur simultaneously mid air.
I landed on the rebar rubble with Anubis moving my body in absurd angles to barely avoid getting impaled.
'Thank god for the Flexible Trait.'
I looked up to see the first Diamond roll.
[Zenkai Boost]
|Epic Trait|
Every time you return from near death, all of your stats are increased permanently.
'Mother Fucker! Just say you want me to die instead of raising these death flags!'
I got up and produced more short purple blades and used them as throwing knives to try and maintain distance from the beast.
My second Diamond Roll came to a halt.
[Greedy Healing]
|Epic Ability|
"Restoration, but at what cost?" Greedy Healing is an incredibly potent restoration ability, but instead of consuming Mana, it consumes wealth instead. The more wealth you give up to Greedy healing, the more potent the effect you will get. For a dollar, you would be pressed to recover a chipped nail, but with enough material wealth burnt, you can bring back even limbs and possibly even a life. The stronger a target you are affecting, and the larger the effect you want to enact, the more wealth you have to sacrifice in the form of wealth that belongs to you, such as gold coins, artefacts, items and or even people. (Infinite Money Glitch does not count as a valid sacrifice)
[20 Abilities collected! 6th ability slot added]
"This…it could…." I muttered as I quickly moved to dodge the beast's razor-sharp nails while on my way towards Sebas.
'Nakime Quick. How much cash and valuables do we have from Cecil's Funds?'
I quickly landed beside the dying old man as I slotted in Greedy Healing in the new slot.
A wave of warm golden light spread across my palms, filling me with much-needed hope.
'Most of the currency was spent on ordering equipment for Mauler's Experiments. We only have about ten million in hard cash.'
"Fuck me. Should've listened to my elders and saved some money." I could feel the cash turning into motes of golden light back in the castle, my hands touching the old man's chest as I pumped it full of vital energy, trying to stabilise Sebas.
Hundreds of thousands disappeared every second, most of the money likely going to heal his internal injuries. Then some of his skin regrew, the stump on his shoulder stopped bleeding, until I was down to the last dollar when it tried to heal his bisected lower half, but ultimately doing nothing of value.
My reserves quickly ran dry in just a few seconds, but I could feel Sebas's breath get a bit steadier.
"FUCK! FUCK MY LUCK!"
Even before I could check up on his body, Battle Beast was over us, his huge body casting a dreadful shadow through the setting sun.
I quickly launched my sword, pashing it to cut through his quads, he leaped away before it could reach his skin.
'This is not going to work…is it?' I thought in despair as I realised the only Healing ability I got was useless right now, but my golden roll finally came to a halt.
[Lucky Strike]
|Elite Ability|
When you use 'Lucky Strike' you can turn luck and favor your way for once, for 1 hour you are filled with extraordinary amounts of luck, and fortune of all kinds are on your side. Cooldown: 7 days 7 hours 7 minutes.
I immediately replaced Arc with this new ability and activated it, feeling the power settle into my chest like a warm weight of hope.
'Please. Please work.'
I waited for a miracle but nothing happened.
All it did was take up the slot, leaving my body much slower and utterly defenseless against Battle Beast's speed-blitz of an attack.
BOOM
I got punched squarely across the face and was sent flying backward to crash heavily into an abandoned SUV. My back caved into the poor car as all its glass shattered and my breath was knocked out of me.
'Hey, Lady Luck,' I prayed as I peeled my bloody body off the crushed automobile, struggling to bring in air.
My nose was certainly broken. I couldn't see through my right eye, from too much blood and a collapsed eye socket.
'I know my luck is usually dog shit but please just this once let me be lucky enough to save my friend.'
After fighting for so long and getting brutally brushed off and played with by this overgrown kitty, trading blows that left me bleeding and limping, Anubis finally spoke up again.
'Partner, our hour is almost up. Do not forget you still are not my true master yet. I cannot sustain this fusion forever.'
'I know asshole. The least you could do is be nice about my impending death,' I snapped back, producing three purple blades and tried a highly unconventional three-sword style to throw the beast off balance.
"Mas..ter," I heard Sebas's delirious muttering. "I need... a drink... I need... Pepsi..."
"Stay strong Sebas! I will get you whatever you want later!" I yelled as I deflected another strike, all three blades working in concert to redirect the mace. "Just keep breathing and focus on healing yourself!"
But with just a single minute remaining under my belt I still was not adapted enough to fully draw the monster's aggro and let Sebas escape safely. Each passing second filled me with crushing worry and anxiety.
"HaHaHaHa!" Battle Beast laughed deeply as he caught my blade in his bare hand. "Even though you are physically weaker than a bug, you learn incredibly well for a furless doggy. I will take you with me! What do you say? We will hunt together and fight together and finally kill each other when you reach your potential! Why haven't I thought of this before? If I cannot find a worthy opponent to kill me, I will just forge one myself! HAHAHAH!"
His body shook as a manic laughing fit took over him. The sound was joyful and ecstatic. He looked like the grim reaper sentencing me to an unavoidable death.
My one-hour timer was up. The fusion violently vanished and I returned to normal. Anubis's katana, the ornate mask and other accessories dissolved into light and returned back to the Gacha.
'Damn it. The Lucky Strike thing did not pan out at all,' I thought as I fell to my knees, exhaustion crushing me, my body screaming from a hundred different injuries. 'Fuck you RNGesus. I want a refund. I wasted a golden ticket for this shit?'
"If... if I agree to go with you," I panted heavily and stared up at the towering alien. "Will you let Sebas go?"
'Master! No!' I heard Nakime's worried voice ring loudly in my head but I completely ignored it. This was the only card I had left.
'Sebas, your stubborn ass better remember to get healthy while I'm jumping from war to war around the galaxy,' I sent a mental message to both of them with a bitter snicker at my shit destiny. There was the option of escaping after being caught. But maybe this wasn't the worst outcome. At least with Battle Beast, I could grow stronger and kill him with my own two hands.
At least I saved someone I cared about. That has to be worth it.
"Of course little doggy," Battle Beast grinned as he calibrated his wrist device, a teleporter of some kind. "Wait…you're a monkey now? No matter, let us give my prey his deserved brutal death first."
[Image Here]
"Is it not enough that you want my servitude, now you want to break your word too?!" I spat blood onto the concrete.
I immediately slotted in the LimitBreak ability and replaced Call to Arms.
'Even if it kills me, I will not let him have the satisfaction of killing Sebas,' I promised myself, my finger on the metaphorical trigger, ready to activate the most suicidal and risky ability I had. I'm a gambler at heart, aren't I? To hell with waiting to meet again. To hell with all my needless connections in this world, to this slave of a system, I'll die with glory at least!
"You are still too naive, Master," Sebas's voice echoed with a new fervor.
I hesitated to activate it.
A bright purple glow flared up directly behind Battle Beast. Ki. Massive amounts of it, burning like a star.
I looked ahead in shock. Sebas had somehow dragged his bisected upper torso silently across the rubble, leaving a trail of blood behind him, pulling himself forward with his one remaining arm. Until he appeared directly on Battle Beast's shoulder. His single remaining arm wrapped tightly around the lion's white mane in a vice grip, fingers buried deep in the fur.
"You have much growing up to do," Sebas whispered, his eyes filled with kindness and compassion, completely different from his detached and professional demeanour.
This was the real Sebas. The one beneath the butler. The mentor. The father figure I didn't know I needed.
"SEBAS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" I screamed as I stopped the activation.
[Third POV]
Sir, you might want to see this," one of the tactical agents said as he pulled an image up.
It was something blue and silver running through the ruined streets of Chicago. A loud, screeching sound echoed as his heavy metal feet made stomping craters on the road behind him.
"Is that Pepsi-fucking-man?" Cecil asked in disbelief, leaning closer to the screen.
"We've been tracking him since he departed the Guardians' headquarters." He reported,
"According to our estimates. Pepsi man has only been running for twenty seconds."
"At approximately 11.6583 miles a second. More than 120 times the speed of sound."
Cecil had no words. He turned back to the large monitor.
At that exact moment, Sebas had wrapped his only remaining arm around the beast's white mane in a vice grip.
CLANG CLANG CLANG
Something echoed from afar. Metallic stomps, getting closer fast.
"Honorable Warrior," Sebas said directly into the confused Battle Beast's ear, his voice calm and accepting. "Forgive me for ending our glorious bout so underhandedly. Please understand, I need my Master to grow strong and mature. What say we hash it down with a cold beverage? Say, a Pepsi?"
"What are you spouting, weakling?" the Beastkin muttered in deep irritation. He extended his massive arms to grab Sebas and throw the annoying half-corpse away. Or rip him apart again.
But the distant sound of someone running at supersonic speeds grew deafeningly loud, the footsteps hammering against concrete in rapid-fire percussion.
"IS THAT?!" Kaisen muttered in disbelief.
And at the moment, as the blur of blue and silver approached ever closer, there was only one thought dominating the gambler and the spymaster.
'No fucking way this is how it ends'
The metallic blue and silver man ran at full throttle, stomping on the concrete and leaving deep craters all over the road. An ice-cold, highly pressurized glass bottle of cola was shaking violently in his hand, the carbonation building with each jarring impact.
The mascot let out a loud, mechanical voice scream,
"PEPSI MOTHERFUCKER!!"
[Image Here]
He tried to crash directly into Battle Beast to deliver Sebas a refreshing Pepsi, arms outstretched, bottle offered like a holy relic.
But Battle Beast simply backhanded him, swatting the poor corporate mascot out of the way.
But at that exact miraculous millisecond, Kaisen's bad luck had for once, taken the back seat.
Cling,Crack, Crash!
A piece of concrete that had been flung into the air from Pepsi-man's most recent stomp, had shot from the ground and made direct contact with the bottle!
Sticky carbonated liquid exploded everywhere in a brown geyser. The fizzy drink perfectly coated the mechanical teleportation device strapped to Battle Beast's wrist, seeping into the circuitry, flooding its delicate electronics. Sparks flew as the device started smoking. It short-circuited everything instantly, sugary cola frying trillion-dollar alien technology.
The teleporter activated unprompted in a blinding flash of yellow light, the malfunction triggering a random jump.
"NO! My student!" Battle Beast roared in sudden realization.
He tried to rip the device off his wrist, but Sebas flared all his remaining ki to completely lock the bastard's arms in place, the purple energy wrapping around Battle Beast's limbs like chains.
The teleporter engaged fully, the light growing brighter, consuming them both and sent the incredibly dangerous alien and the loyal butler teleporting far away into an unknown sector of the galaxy.
All the while, John sat alone in the rubble staring at the empty space where they just vanished, unable to process what happened.
Only Pepsi-Man remained, pulling himself out of the debris. He walked up and sat beside him, his faceless head tilting slightly.
Then he patted John on the back. The gesture was absurd yet human. This corporate mascot was the only one here to offer comfort.
Covered in blood and surrounded by the ruins of a city block, John Kaisen could only laugh.
What else was there to do?
The laughter turned into sobbing as Pepsi-Man just kept patting his back.
"Pepsi?" he offered quietly.
"Yeah," John choked out. "Yeah, I could use a Pepsi
-x-
[Sebas Tian's POV]
Unknown Sector - Battle Beast's Homeworld
You didn't spend centuries serving Supreme Beings without learning how to read a room. Or in this case, a sterile, sulfur-smelling alien medical bay.
I woke up to thick layers of some kind of bio-mesh wrapped tightly around my remaining torso and face. I was bound like a mummy in a glass pod.
Heavy footsteps vibrated through the metal floor.
"Is it stabilized?" Battle Beast's rumble demanded.
"Y-Yes, my Lord," a trembling alien voice replied, another beastkin from the smell. "The bisection is cauterized. But his organs are—"
"I don't care about his comfort," the Beastkin interrupted. "I need him paralyzed, but alive. He is my grandest trophy... and my lure."
'Lure.'
The word echoed in the haze of my mind as the heavy footsteps faded away.
Battle Beast let out a low, rumbling chuckle that vibrated the very glass of my prison.
"The furless creature... John. He possesses a warrior's spirit buried under all that naive, useless loyalty. He is my student now. And a student must be properly tested."
The lion tapped a massive claw against the glass. "His loyalty is his leash. I saw his desperation. He will tear across the galaxy for this broken halfling. He will come, and I will forge my new pupil in the fires of a true death match. He will learn to cast aside his humanity, or he will die trying to reclaim a corpse."
He wasn't keeping me alive out of a warrior's respect. His fight against my Master had exposed our relationship. He knew John wouldn't let it go. His reckless loyalty and guilt will walk him straight into a slaughterhouse just to get me back.
I could not allow that.
Master John was not weak, but he was still unpolished. If he came for me now, he would die.
I closed my eyes beneath the restrictive bindings. My physical body was broken and locked down by alien science. But my Ki, the internal life force that defined my existence as a Monk, was still mine.
It was faint, like a flickering candle in a void.
But it was enough.
I stopped projecting the Ki outward to heal and instead forced it to circulate inward. I packed the highly volatile energy deep into my core meridians, compressing it into a dense, unstable singularity right above my heart.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
The bio-monitors in the room suddenly began to shriek.
"My Lord!" the alien doctor panicked, the sound of frantic typing filling the room. "His energy levels... they are spiking exponentially! The neural dampeners are having absolutely no effect! The readings are completely off the scale!"
"What?" Battle Beast growled, his golden eyes widening in surprise. He stepped closer to the pod. "He is bisected. He shouldn't even be conscious."
The searing, white-hot agony blossoming in the center of my chest felt truly horrendous, but I did not let it show.
My arteries burst. The process of my death was unstoppable now.
The oppressive weight of my Ki flared outward. The reinforced glass of the stasis pod suddenly spider-webbed with a loud,
CRACK.
I opened my eyes. They glowed with a blinding, unadulterated purple light that pierced straight through the bio-mesh. I locked my gaze directly onto the lion.
"You seek a student, Beastkin?" I said, the voice dripping with refined disdain. "But you fundamentally fail to understand the nature of a true Supreme Being."
Battle Beast bared his fangs in a massive, bloodthirsty grin. "You still have fight left in you, half-corpse? Glorious! Break out of that tube and face me!"
In that instance I realized, I was Sebas Tian. Could I really allow myself to die from organ failure?
I channeled the entirety of my burning life force into my single, paralyzed right arm. The energy bled straight through the bio-mesh, manifesting as a massive, ethereal draconic claw of pure Ki power.
If this alien beast wanted to threaten my family, he would learn exactly what it cost to corner a dying dragon.
With a final, explosive surge of willpower, my arm struck true.
The attack bypassed physical metal and alien hide entirely. It was the absolute, concentrated weight of a Dragonoid's dying soul. The ethereal claw carved a blinding arc of purple light directly across Battle Beast's face.
The beast roared not in triumph, but in genuine agony. The spiritual blade permanently severed his right eye, carving a deep, jagged mark across his flesh.
The strike consumed everything left in me.
My physical body immediately began to turn to ash, the stasis pod collapsing into ruin around me as the monitors flatlined into a single, continuous drone.
My consciousness faded into the dark and a faint, genuine smile touched my lips.
'Forgive me, Master,' I thought, picturing John's blood-stained, frantic face in the rubble. I pictured Lady Nakime's single, tearful eye, and the quiet comfort of her biwa.
'Grow strong, Master John. It is my greatest regret to not be able to witness your rise as a new supreme being.'
The monitors in the room immediately shrieked in a flatline alarm.
And for the second time in my existence, I embraced the cold void of death, finding peace in the certainty that the trap meant for my master died right alongside me.
[A/N]: This was a full-spread 4.5k-word battle scene with all these crazy emotions, even I didn't know that these characters could make me feel.
Also, the Rolls are Fucking Back!! I know how much you guys have been waiting for them.
Don't worry, you won't have to wait long for them to roll anymore.
We're so close to Number 1 spot! DROP THEM STONES!!
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