The Power of Ten: Sama Rantha 260 Chapter Two Hundred and Sixty – It's Just Hagmom and Me; Tremble!

Courtier of Death, +3. Elusive Soul, +5. Feats, +4. Dodge bonuses stack. Doubled.

That +8 Strength bonus she got for Getting Big just turned into a net -8 to hit. I didn't even bother to dispel the buff with Pierce Magical Protection... I had absolutely no regard for it as I came in and began to shred her.

She had magical items to further up her defenses, but they were offset already. I effectively reduced the Force Armor from her Bracers by six, her Dexterity bonus by six, and the Deflection bonus from her gaudy Ring there by all of it. I was ignoring her Natural Armor, the bedrock of her defense, entirely with Brilliant Weapons, leaving me having to hit an AC that still would have been 40+... if I didn't get to ignore her Luck and Insight bonuses, too.

This was a fight of pure skill on my side, and magical bonuses on hers. Unfortunately for her, magic can be neutralized, or gone Beyond.

Seven Dragon Profound Swordwork mauled at her, while Fall and Tail fired up at her face from behind my back... or rather, spread their fire at all of her eyes. My Halo Crown lit up, and suddenly she was looking into a floodlight. No devasight for her!

She couldn't hit me. She was flailing with insane coordination and power, ripping through stone and earth, striking so fast the air of the wash itself was cutting and creating wind blasts my Vajra slid me through, hard enough to split steel and pulverize rock, not to mention rend with her claws... and other pairs of tentacles, if she hit in series.

But she couldn't. She'd pursued Witchcraft, which gave her some awesome supplementary effects, and was a necessity in the world of Hagdom, but it meant she didn't have the melee foundation that I did. To assuage her shortcomings in this area, she'd gone mad for Stats and innate defenses of stupefying power. She could tell where I was, even if she couldn't look right at me, but she couldn't hit me with just that awareness. It wasn't working for her here.

Things might have been bad for me without Brilliant. That would have left her with about a 60 AC, a stupefying number, like an average man shooting at a tank and hoping to hit a vital spot. Brilliant had totally gutted that, which was why it was called the Dragonslayer enchantment. Wyrms also got into the 30+ Natural Armor range.

If I wasn't immune to Luck and Insight too, it could have been AC 84...

On my side, she was going up against a +10 Natural Armor bonus from Ahren Levels, a working 44 or so Dex giving me +17, a +12 Dodge bonus doubled to +24 because she was too big for her britches, and a 45 Wis giving a +17 from Monk.

The +7 from Force Armor and +3 Deflection were basically secondary. Oh, and there was Stand, +XI against Legendary Hags right now, +3 with Greater Shield Focus, and all his +IX offense against her turned to Defender, just in case.

I had set aside the miscellaneous bonuses, like Combat Expertise, Natural Swordswoman, my singing Warlord bonus, and the like.

She was hacking at me with a bonus of something like +13 from Hag and Witch Levels, and +25 from her Strength. Maaaaybe some focus on natural weaponry for +1 or 2.

+40 to hit. Given the spread, that meant she could hit an AC of 60. If I wasn't immune to her Luck and Insight, well, that number would have been higher, to the tune of AC 80!

My AC against her was 100 at the moment, minimum... and I could easily spike it another 10 to 20.

She couldn't hit me. I was reading her every movement and motion, her intent and her possible vectors of attack, even with her unreal physiology.

Skill, not magic. There was no Luck behind what I was doing, no profound force coming down and bending chance, or letting her look a second or three into the future to see what I would do. I was Beyond that.

And I didn't WANT her to hit me. No, not at all.

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I wanted her to flail around with insane ferocity and power, with all that steel-shredding strength and might, and be totally and completely unable to hit me. She might scrape me, but I'd take it at just the right angle, and was tough enough to bounce it. Stand was meeting blows and smashing them back and away. I was moving like the wind, around her, by her, one step ahead of every strike, reading her through instinct and skill like she wanted to read me through future-peeking, making sure she was never lucky.

Her Health Qi was vomited into the sky as we danced, our feet moving faster than people would be able to follow with the eye, shifting back, forth, around, the soil and grass blasting into the air, water spraying and winds churning as we danced. There was no 'looking' at one another here, the air was full of shit: you either knew where your enemy was, or you didn't. She had her massive size and reach, which only made it harder for her to hit me. I had greater speed, and weapons that ate right through her Epic DR and Blunt DR without even slowing down.

She had seven things to hit me with: four tentacles rippling with space-tearing edges, her bite, and her claws, all of which could come into play at any second. It was a totally fearsome lineup which could devastate any unprepared opponent.

I lowered my AC by four to set up the Karmic Strike exchange, adopted Thorned Stance, proceeded to Lock her Down, and Tremble and I Sang and laughed in anticipation.

"Hag who thinks it all a game, darkly ever denies her blame;

Play the witch, be the bitch, scratch the itch... but mind that twitch;

What goes around, comes around... and now, you Hag, she's coming around.

Tremble, she comes!

Wail, oh wail, you cursed thing, there is no mercy where we Sing.

Lies and delusions to which you cling, let clear and pure the truth now ring,

From the deadly light you'll crawl, down, down, to that cold grim hall

Where judgement waits, your time has come,

Your soul of filth, of rot and scum.

Your Fate, your Doom, come all too soon

Your hate, your gloom, a useless tune

Sung to despair and long-shirked blame

At last now comes your end of game.

Tremble, she comes!"

There is a tremendously useful Feat out there called Lock Down. To wit, if a foe provokes an Attack of Opportunity from trying to move away from you, you can attack them, interrupt the movement, and force them to stand still. They get a Reflex save equal to the damage you do to avoid the effect.

My average damage was in the 150 range. Thorned Stance meant that if she tried to flee, she provoked. If she tried to Cast, even a Fastcast spell, it provoked, not that she could cast while within the ten feet of my Null.

And like that, her end of our dance slowed to a crawl. Every time she tried to step, I mauled her legs, and she tottered and almost fell.

I was right up on her, and as she struck at me, the AoO's went off. I stepped up with a Flurry as she lashed at me with seven attacks... and I gave her back thirteen, plus the Lock Down.

Space-shredding claws scraped on Indestructible adamant. Teeth crashed next to my ear on extending jaws. Tentacles whipped and rang against Swords and Shield. Feet kicked, mass shoved.

It was all openings to me. I executed Seven Ripping Dragons twice in six seconds as she tried to step back, Health Qi bloomed all around us, dotted with little stamen from my missile fire, which had never let up.

"Tremble, She Comes!" we howled at her.

Outraged at being unable to retreat, she unloaded on me again, and noticed the Blood Rose too late.

"TREMBLE!" It was a scream of ecstasy, of culmination and anticipation, of saying Fuck-You!!! to Fate and Chance and all her machinations, and putting this rabid bitch down.

The Blood Rose ignited, and that crazy warped insane flesh-twisted hate expression of hers took a real turn as she suddenly read the change of Luck, and didn't realize that she should have stopped attacking in time... probably because she had realized that with my glowing Swords, trying to play defense just wasn't going to work at all.

Fourteen Sword crits went off, and eleven ranged crits helped them along. My Halo Crown became a light in a sea of blood.

"TREMBLE!!" we screamed at her. Eat an Intimidation check at 70, bitch! Let me see all those eyes shrinking back in fear! Let me see you seeing Doom coming for you in every possibility! Oh, right, THERE'S NO POSSIBILITY FOR YOU!

She staggered back uncontrollably as at least five thousand Health Qi vented. I didn't know how much she had, but I'd cleared at least a thousand shooting her while running, and at least another four thousand sparring just now. If she had twelve thousand to start with, I was on the home stretch.

I didn't care if she was an Exemplar. If I got into her Health and Soak, she wouldn't last six seconds. She wouldn't have more than a thousand Hit Points of them combined.

I think that's about when she realized that not only could I kill her, I was going to kill her, and there wasn't much she could do to stop it. Her entire body was starting to spasm with freaking terror as we came for her.

She tore two things out of her robe with blinding speed, and instead of stepping away, both leapt and hauled herself up, the object in her left hand locking into the air solidly and providing a brace. I ripped through her leg, buckling it, but it didn't matter... she weighed virtually nothing to herself with such a high Strength, and pulled herself up out of my Null with the one arm, and crushed the sphere in her other hand with the other.

It was a Panic Button. She'd used the same damn thing to get away from Hazé. I couldn't jump up fast enough to stop it from going off.

The hyperdraft only had half her body to work with initially, but that was enough. It howled past, tearing her up and sideways into the air, pure force of wind ripping her up and away at 200 mph, getting her in the sky and away from me in just a few seconds, even as I hit the ground from my thirty-foot vertical leap a hundred feet away.

I didn't scream, I just chased, my howl of fury instantly dimming to a cold, hunting roll. My Swords snapped back into their sheaths, I took Stand in both hands as he swelled to Autobow instead of Handbow size, and the shooting never stopped.

She Flashcast a Gust of Wind and Featherweight, bypassing the no-flying magic by dispersing her mass into the area and just blowing herself violently away.

I was running faster than she could retreat, but she had a hundred yards up on me. Spurts of Health Qi vented from her, but she took it, because escape wasn't far away.

There was that canyon there, yo.

She hit the edge of it doing about 50 mph play-leaf tumbling in the air, and the static magical disruption from the ruptured ley line there destroyed her spells. She didn't care, as she arched over and down, her enlarged figure shattering around her to reveal her smaller self within as she dove down, down into the yawning, glowing abyss below, populated only by the unending waterfalls and multiple rainbows coursing down all around.

I skated right up to the edge, still shooting, Mask up, eyes flaring with mistsight to see through the water, tracking –

She was three hundred yards down when I hit her with a bolt, and saw it bury itself in her ass.

Fuck me. Finally got through it...

Then she was gone into the waters, and I couldn't see her anymore.

Ten Racial HD, d10. Con 40ish? +15 per die. Exemplar bonus, +12 per die, automatically maxed. 370 to 400 Health. At least twelve Witch Levels. D4. Same modifiers. Roughly the same Soak.

Epic DR, Resistances, Fast Healing 10, natural water-breathing, swim speed. Insanely tough and strong, 750 to 800 Hit Points...

Even with no magic, could she survive the fall, and whatever was going on down there?

Most certainly.

Tusk Annie, my Hagmom, got away.

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I took Fall in my Arakne hand, pulled out Tremble again, not daring to let her fly about as I stood there above the rushing waters, a couple feet away from the edge, my Vajra the only thing keeping me from being swept over the edge as waist-high water hurtled past and around me, unable to touch me.

"The bitch got away," Tremble cursed, shaking in my hand. Two Empresses, and we'd dominated her so hard, yet we couldn't complete the trifecta.

Hagmom was definitely a piece of work. She got out at just the right time. Ten, no, six seconds more, and she was dead, dead, dead!

Stasis Bar, extended to as high as she could reach, outside my Null... or the default range of a Helix. Moving via the arm, instead of the feet, as it locked down in space for a default moment, before the Interdiction would overcome it, and bypassing Lock Down, which operated on limbs I could reach. She was effectively weightless to herself with her strength, pulled herself instantly up and flung herself into the air. I didn't have the high-gravity training, so while my vertical jump was impressive, I couldn't keep her in my Null fast enough, the Stasis Bar unlocking the instant she let go, I couldn't use it as a step to pursue her.

Free action to crush the ball for the Panic Button. Didn't matter how heavy she was, the tornado-class winds would blow her into the air, gravity was a non-issue. Featherweight was literally a finger-wave, and she Fastcast the Gust of Wind, thus extending the duration of the Featherweight, which normally dissipated once contact with the ground was made, and it sidestepped any Interdiction or Stillflight.

It was an escape method designed to not rely on flight or dimensional lockdowns, something she would only plan for in case of ambush by foes locking down those escape routes. Reasonably speaking, she would have been blown out of range of most of the areas of effect, and could have teleported away, just like she had with Hazé. I could use the Cloudstepping Sandals to walk on air, but only if I didn't have aerial Interdiction up, in which case she'd have flight magic, too, and better then mine.

Still, she hadn't been able to escape the range of my Interdiction because of my speed, but it hadn't mattered. All she had to do was get to the ley line gap, and she was home free because of her unearthly toughness.

She couldn't have run or flown or been blown far enough or fast enough to escape my Interdiction. I would have paced her the whole way and whole day if I had to, and eventually some Casters behind me would have 'ported ahead of her and shut down the tactic with Dispels.

And she figured that as well, and so dove into the ley line chasm, where nobody could follow her.

I'd been beaten by TERRAIN, and my lack of truly uber long-ranged attacks. Only Hazé might have had the long-ranged punch to overcome her magic resistance... and only twelve seconds to do so, tops.

If Hazé had been here, she would've been torn apart in six seconds or less, so... not an option.

"She's a survivor," I replied, disappointed, but wrestling down my singing emotions, focusing on the reality, and what was coming next.

Awwww, who was I kidding. I was so pissed inside you could have lit a fire off my eyeballs right now. "She's a Monarch; it's how she got all that Health Qi, but all that power is dependent on her empire, the power passing up to her, and how much she was able to suck off this Great Formation she set up.

"She's going to hit the ruins of that Ley Line down there, and she's going to have to give up something to survive. She was probably awarded the Pseudonatural, but she stole the Exemplar, so my guess is that. She is going to look a whole lot worse and be a lot less tough the next time she sees us."

I'd had Blooding up just to stop any fast healing or Cures on her going off, or any necromantic healing shenanigans, or the like. She couldn't heal up that Health Qi, and likely would never be able to get it back once the Ley Line was done burning her.

So, I'd cost her her Empire, I'd probably cost her a lot of personal power, and she was going to have a damn hard time holding onto much Health Qi with her Giant Empire crashing down around her, and no Obelisks to leech off of.

I'd burned her pretty bad.

Unfortunately, now she knew how supremely dangerous we were to her. She would be doing everything she could to not get near to us, as you just don't live down an Intimidation check at that level, and if she was smart, she wouldn't even try using cat's-paws, as I might feel the touch of her hand and go backtracking.

Hagmom was smart, and a survivor. She knew I'd never stop looking for her, and when I found her, she was dead.

But Hagmom was gone, the Formation was self-destructing, however slowly, and the important stuff we had to do here was done.

It didn't mean our job was done, or that we didn't have things to do, but we succeeded at accomplishing the mission objectives.

And we'd used less than a third of the allotted time. Eight hours, in the outside world...

I lifted my eyes to the Wake cracking open the sky, while my anger seethed and tried to find an outlet.

50 Charisma meant me being angry was equivalent to a normal person dying of apoplexy. 45 Wisdom only sort of kept it under control.

Okay, we still needed to drag the Wake all the way to the Hole, and split this Reality Shard open wide. But that could be done idly.

In the meantime, there was a whole lot of other stuff we could be doing in addition...

Like butchering every damn thing I could find for a while!

Chapter end