The Legendary Fool

Tom hadn’t actually needed Aleph’s warning to know that the Abyssal Lurker was coming for him. Or atleast, something equally as terrifying.

Something that caused the blood in his veins to go cold. Caused his senses to go haywire as they struggled to accurately transmit the nature of the threat he was facing.

He had factored in the possibility of the Abyssal Lurker concealing itself in the first room of the Theatre of Stone. He would likely even be prepared for it, if he was given just a few more minutes.

The timing it had chosen to make its move, mere seconds after Tom had slaughtered an Abyss Demon— the moment where he was the most defenseless— was too calculated, too perfect for him to prepare against.

The deceptiveness of an Abyssal Imp. The natural agility of a Bladeswalker. The defense and strength of an Abyss Demon.

Not to mention the fact that it completely dwarfed him in level.

This wasn’t a fight that Tom could win. This had never been a fight that he could’ve won, to begin with.

The Abyssal Lurker’s level ranged from Level 12-15 and with Tom’s luck it was probably on the higher end of the spectrum.

He was… level 4.

Or atleast, he had been Level 4 moments ago.

Tom didn’t consider himself a strategic genius, not by a long shot. But he wasn’t going to step into a battlefield Aleph had told him to stay out of without assurances.

[Congratulations, your Soul Card [The Fool] has reached Level 5 (27,665/250,000). You have received 10 attribute points. You have received one Skill upgrade point. Your soul power has been increased by 5. ]

[Name: Synrak Veralis Thomas Lowe.

Age: 18

Soul Card: The Flame [Level 6] The Fool [Level 5] [27,665/250,000]

Feats: Nether Slayer I

Statistics:

Physical: 14 (+1)

Mental: 16 (+1)

Proprioception: 20 (+1)

Soul Power: 27/47 [55]

Free Points: 10

Skill Upgrade Point: 2]

There was a reason why Tom had stopped funneling experience into his common cards and focused entirely on leveling [The Fool]. His flames traveling a little further a little quicker or his water propulsion card shooting out pressurized jets of liquid with more force wouldn’t save his life— not when he doggedly challenged opponents above his level, repeatedly.

Neither would [The Fool]. At least not with its erratic, bizarre skills that more often than not risked grievous harm to himself before it would harm his opponent.

But stats… crystallization of raw, focused power that he could access at his fingertips— now that was an entirely different matter.

Zenakris Renain, for all his illustrious Noble Background and his Uncommon [The Umbra] card only got two attribute points per [Soul Card] level. At level 9, his Proprioception stat had been a meager eleven.

Assuming Aleph had a similar rarity card, even if she was level 20, that only gave her another 22 extra attribute points.

Even if Aleph was to put half of those points into Proprioception, her twenty one points would only match his current stat count.

Tom was sure that there was a limit to solely increasing one stat whilst ignoring the others. At some point, his reflexes and reaction time would demand support from his mental stat.

And in all honesty, he didn’t want to put more points into proprioception. He would much rather put it in mental, to offset the influence of the Nether Blades and support his [The Fool] card’s skillset.

But from the moment Tom had stepped into the crucible, he had resolved himself to go through with it.

‘Invest all ten points in Proprioception.’

[Proprioception: 20 (+1) -> Proprioception 30(+1)]

Tom froze in place. Or perhaps, it was more accurate to say that time had infinitely slowed down for him as his mind struggled to keep pace with the rapid changes occurring to both his physical body and his sensory abilities.

Pain and pleasure, the torturous sensation of his nerve endings burning and the funny sensation of his veins wriggling under his skin overlapped as his neurons struggled to process the information overload.

And then it stopped.

Tom swore that for a moment, it was as if he could perceive his body in third-person. He could see the Abyssal Lurker make its confident approach, its blade arms thirsting to spill his blood as they drew nearer with every passing second.

Without warning, the drop of sweat that had dripped down his forehead and was suspended mid-air began to move again. Most likely, it had never stopped falling.

The only difference was Tom, himself.

The deadly nature of the situation he found himself in hadn’t changed. But… where he saw a single move before, a desperate shift in momentum to throw himself to the side and hopefully buy himself a few more seconds, Tom now saw a dozen maneuvers that he could execute with varying degrees of certainty.

The Abyssal Lurker, who had already written off Tom in it’s calculations, was surprised to find that it’s blade-arm strike that had been meant to decapitate Tom, now slid along the edge of his glowing Nether Blade.

Surprised but not threatened, it brought its second blade arm in for a wide slash directed towards Tom’s abdomen, only to have it parried by Tom’s newly acquired Netherstride Dagger.

Naturally, Tom’s unnaturally high Proprioception skill didn’t mean that he could actually defeat the Abyssal Lurker. Even though he managed to use a blend of timing and the right angle to send the opponent’s blade arm away without breaking his wrist, he was still sent skidding back half a dozen meters.

Frustrated, the Abyssal Lurker drew upon the natural agility of its Bladeswalker heritage to pursue Tom— unleashing a flurry of quick slashes since it’s killing blow had failed…. twice.

As Aleph sliced through two Abyss Demons and thrust her sword through the third’s right eye, killing it instantly, she had feared the worst. Even without holding back her strength, it had taken her almost a minute to deal with the stony skinned Demons as she ascended the slope of her own making.

She thought Tom was smarter than that. She had told him not to step in, because while slaying the Abyssal Lurker on her own would have been challenging, it wasn’t like Aleph didn’t yet have a few tricks up her sleeve.

A melange of dismay and regret filled her heart as she sped past the falling carcass of the third Abyss Demon.

One step forward, Two steps back— that could be a summation of Aleph’s life experiences since the day that everything had gone wrong.

And it was never enemies of her fallen house that ruined it for her, no— it was merely the machinations of fate; both the understanding and realization of how much her Noble Family had sheltered her from the unfair ways of the world and how vulnerable she was without their support and backing.

Finally, Aleph reached the level ground… only to be confronted by a completely unexpected sight.

Tom and the Abyssal Lurker were fighting.

If that was all, Aleph would have rushed to his assistance.

Except Tom was actually going toe-to-toe with the Abyssal Lurker, crossing out it’s slashes with skilled parries and allowing lunges to gratingly slide across the edge of his dagger as he shielded his vitals.

No, when Aleph looked closely she realized that the Abyssal Lurker had taken three light lacerations from Tom’s blade, while the latter looked completely unscathed if a little disheveled.

Though her eyes struggled to come to terms with what she was seeing, Aleph was nothing if not adaptable.

Without hesitation, Aleph allowed her rapier to fall as she brought the tips of her fingers together, including her thumbs; resulting in a vaguely triangular shape.

Her armor began to unweave itself at a pace that was far greater than the time it had taken to assemble it.

Shards of crystal lay suspended in the air, randomly positioned around Aleph. Both Tom and the Abyssal Lurker were completely unaware of Aleph’s movements, as both found an equal match in the other.

Stretching her concentration to its limits, Aleph redirected a third of the shards behind her. A cascade of crystal shards rained down on any Abyss Demon that was trying to sneak up the slope and strike at her unguarded back with their stone great hammers. She laid waste to their formation, killing another four Abyss Demons even though they were not the true object of her attention; merely a gambit to buy her a few moments.

“Get back!” She screamed out loud enough for the urgency in her tone to easily be conveyed to its intended recipient—-though to the Abyssal Lurker, it likely sounded little more than a panicked cry.

Tom and the Abyss Demon had been locked in a duel of razor thin margins, but Aleph was sure of her assessment— her teammate was faster, if much weaker than his opponent.

He wasn’t sure why Aleph had made the demand of her, but Tom had come to trust his crystal-wielding companion; at least until she achieved her objectives.

Instead of leaping back and drawing the Abyssal Lurker’s suspicion, Tom feigned a mistake— blocking with the flat of his Nether Blade instead of it’s edge. As the blade wildly oscillated from the impact, Tom felt like it would leave his grasp and end up with a broken wrist.

Regardless he held on and true to the Abyssal Lurker’s monstrous strength, he found himself skidding back ten or so meters; helpless to fight against the sheer momentum that had been applied upon his blade.

And boy, was he glad that he had done so.

Crystal shards rained from the sky at a speed that was fast, even for the current Tom. The first thing that surprised him was that it wasn’t one or two shards that had been launched as an attack but dozens.

When had Aleph gotten the time to form so many crystals undetected?

His thoughts would have lingered on that question, if he wasn’t baffled by the sight unfolding before him.

The crystal shards didn’t attack the surprised Abyssal Lurker as Tom had expected it to. No, they merely formed around him, ensconcing him just like…. the first time he had seen Aleph use her powers.

A Crystal Aegis that, instead of completely protecting Aleph like it had last time, was instead used to trap her opponent in a spherical cage.

The blood had drained out of Aleph’s face as she shifted from one hand sign to the next, more for visualization purposes than direct magical correlation. The tips of her fingers slipped into the next one, interlocking and fitting against each other tightly, like a glove.

[Shardlock Execution]

As the Abyssal Lurker wildly flailed against the crystalline aegis, mere seconds away from breaking out from the encasement, the shards that had been trapping him shifted polarity and then…

Began to rain down on the Abyssal Lurker from every conceivable direction of attack.

“It’s on you now!” Aleph called out before breaking out into a heavy pant, picking her rapier off the ground and readying herself to defend against the remaining Abyss Demons.

A second later all the crystals besides the lattice that made up Aleph’s rapier, shattered.