The Jester of Apocalypse

Chapter 112: Unique

Thud.

Thud.

Crack.

Again and again, Neave brought his foot down on a demon’s head.

“Shit! Fuck!”

It was necessary to maintain total composure in front of the others. He had even told them that this was a ‘good thing’ and that whatever came out of it would only be a positive, a challenge they could use to better themselves.

As if things were that simple.

Neave had spent likely hours chasing after the demons, trying to find the one that had taken the abominid, but to no avail. They were far too scattered, and the countless directions they could have gone in made it practically impossible to track them down.

Truthfully, both Astrador and the demons were a tremendous problem. Although rather intelligent when powerful, Monsters didn’t scheme how people did. With monsters, usually, things were relatively simple. They chased powerful prey and consumed them to grow.

It was a straightforward, simple, and predictable routine. The simplicity made the challenge something he could control and work around. This was why Neave wanted to populate the nightmare realm with monsters.

It was also the big reason why he kept them contained for now.

Not only that, but he had been planning on gradually expanding the territory of monsters while keeping the outside world entirely cut off. It was too risky otherwise. The demons had shown themselves far more intelligent and organized than Neave had initially assumed.

Their powers were beyond his understanding, and why they went after a monster was unknown.

Coupled with the assassination plot by Astrador, things weren’t looking all that good. Neave wasn’t that scared for himself. He would manage, most likely at least.

The others, though…

If that intruder had chosen to jump one of them, there would have been no way to save them. How the hell did that kid even appear out of thin air? There was no indication of his appearance, nothing Neave could sense until his head was cut off.

Neave presented the idea of the intruder exploding upon death jokingly to the others, but he really feared that may be a possibility. If not that, Astrador could be using some other random god thing to curse him or whatever.

The best he could do in that situation was to complicate the issue for Astrador or even force him to kill that kid himself. It wasn’t honorable. He felt disgusted with himself, and the thought of being on the receiving end of that bastard’s ploys revolted him.

Yet, he didn’t have a choice. As the others had said, your enemy’s dishonor couldn’t be your fault. But that didn’t stop the situation from souring Neave’s mood.

Astrador was on the move, and now the demons were as well. Neave didn’t know what Astrador was capable of, and he had no idea what the demons were, let alone who commanded or controlled them.

At this rate, it felt as if it were a matter of time before something appeared and slaughtered everyone, making Neave’s plans useless or at least not good enough to help him survive his encounter with the heavenly messenger.

So what should he do?

For now, he would continue to the next step with training the others. At the very least, being inside the spirit realm gave him much more time to think things through.

There was a dire need for a plan and a direction, and he couldn’t afford failures.

After making his way back into the cave, he spotted the others. They sat in a circle, observing their weapons and discussing the recent demon attack.

Neave clapped his hands, and they turned to face him, “Alright, everyone, it’s time for us to continue onto step two of our training!”

Before anyone could even ask what step two was, Neave was already creating a spirit dome around the six of them. While the dome containing the chamber they were in was already mostly sealed, Neave suspected that the slits the door permitted were why the assassin could easily sneak in.

If they created a fully contained dome around them, at the very least, the assassin couldn’t be directly on top of them entirely undetected.

Neave had also first created a large glass barricade to fully encase them. Just to be safe, he also enhanced it quite a bit.

Once fully encased, Neave loaded the air with the most spirit and life force possible, creating a terrifying energy-dense environment.

“Before we start with step two, I will need you all to cultivate the most you can for a bit. Except for Marven, of course. Once I notice you’ve slowed down, we will begin.”

The others didn’t need any more prompting than that. Soon, they were cultivating.

Almost instantly, all of them advanced a step, as they had all paused at the very limit of the step they were on.

Gradually, Gabrias and Hunter approached the silver path, and in the end, they both reached the second step. Harel broke onto the golden path but couldn’t reach the second step quite so soon. Dukean broke into the third step and, according to him, had made it rather far up.

With that, they all touched Neave’s body and returned to the spirit realm.

***

They made it to a random, empty location. This time, before they even began, Neave used his liquid spirit creation to create a dense jungle of spikes and metallic obstacles.

Once done with that, he focused, and soon, one by one, he created all of the weapons they had chosen. None of them had their powers, of course. The others immediately pointed out that Gabrias couldn’t even use the bow, given that it couldn’t produce arrows, but Neave waved them off, “It isn’t about using the weapons. If it were, the fact that they don’t have their powers would be a problem. I’ve already told you step two will be dodging again. This time, we will be doing it within a densely packed forest of spikes to simulate a complex environment, and you will just be holding the weapons. The point of this step is to get you adjusted to maneuvering with your weapon of choice in hand.”

Neave finished creating the obstacle course and remembered something. Quickly, he made a metallic shield and handed it to Hunter, “You said you wanted a shield with the sword, too, right?”

Hunter nodded, and Neave continued, “As far as actually wielding the weapons, you will be doing that back outside. Now, I fully concede that this practice isn’t optimal. For example, Hunter’s weapon alters how he can move, so practicing without that will be suboptimal. Same with all the others, without the powers those weapons usually have, you won’t be able to incorporate the effects. Still, the extra time this realm provides will be an excellent opportunity to build a foundation for your skills. As far as the rules are concerned, there really aren’t any. Your goal is to survive as long as you can. Use any method you can think of. I will again adjust my skill to an appropriate level.”

And with that, they began their training.

***

Hunter eyed the densely packed spikes, noting the movement of Neave’s shadow.

“Too slow!” He suddenly appeared behind Hunter and landed a true strike on his spine, cracking it and sending him tumbling into a spike.

Gabrias held the bow in one hand, and Neave ended the fight instantly, “Remember, Gabrias, you’re practicing to use the weapon in combat. You have to hold it like you mean it. Grip the string, be ready to attack.”

Harel swung her spiked ball at Neave, and he kicked it back to her, hitting her in the face and knocking her out, “That weapon is dangerous, both to your enemies and yourself. Learn to wield it without self-sabotage.”

Dukean’s sword swung from behind an obstacle, and Neave appeared at the midpoint, wrapping the chain around a metallic spike and yanking the sword out of Dukean’s hand. A kick to the neck later, he was out as well, “The chain permits some fancy tricks, yes, but it creates a weakness. Always be aware of where the chain is, where it will go, and what your enemy can do to abuse its existence.”

Finally, Marven appeared, swinging the inert glass shard at Neave. It took a lot of dodging and a significant percentage of Neave’s skill to outmaneuver him.

Yet, it wasn’t too difficult either. Soon enough, an opening on Marven’s hip appeared, and Neave pivoted to kick him out of balance. Once that was done, another strike landed on Marven’s eye, a punch on his throat, a finger thrust right on his abdomen, punch on knee, punch on shoulder, punch on jaw, kick to head, movement technique behind him, double axe kick to his face, two true strikes to the chest, true kick to head and he was out.

Neave was rather proud of that one, as that was one of the fastest executions against Marven yet.

Yes, he had beaten the crappy habits out of Marven’s unarmed fighting. Now, he just had to beat the crappy habits out of his swordsmanship as well. Marven was both the most powerful fighter here and the one with the most conventional weapon, so despite the ease with which Neave handled him, he wasn’t optimistic that he could maintain that speed for long.

Hunter was getting back up again. Time to continue the training. He would wait and see what happened.

***

Hunter raised the shield, and the sword flew out, swinging behind his back. Neave’s punch met the blade, and the swing was knocked out of balance. Hunter used that imbalance to propel himself into a backflip, allowing him to block another punch by Neave with his shield.

However, the knockback threw him quite far, and given that he was in the middle of the air, Neave used the opening to teleport behind him and smack him in the head. To his overwhelming surprise, Hunter managed to push his head back and avoid the strike, bringing the shield back in front of him to use Neave’s follow-up as a boost back onto the ground.

Neave grinned. Not bad indeed, he thought, as he teleported again and shattered Hunter’s neck.

Gabrias was the opponent Neave had to hold back against the most. That didn’t mean he wasn’t pushing his limits. Gabrias proved to be among the trickier opponents for Neave. Not because he was too skilled or strong but because Neave had to keep pretending that an arrow was nocked on the bowstring.

He bobbed and weaved to move out of the way of the trajectory of Gabrias' imaginary arrow and dispatched him. Gabrias was growing quite a bit in his ability to dodge, and Neave was confident that against most enemies, he wouldn’t go down quickly, especially not with some more equipment and some spirit powers.

Harel appeared again out of nowhere, swinging the ball, and Neave kicked it up, forcing Harel way out of balance. She swung up, using the momentum, but Neave was already there to punish her for doing the obvious. However, she somehow managed to avoid a relatively sure-fire attack, and Neave found himself in a situation where the ball was once again swinging at him,

He grinned. She really was a monster, and even though her weapon of choice was ridiculous, it permitted a style most enemies wouldn’t be able to fight against. He wasn’t most enemies, though, as he demonstrated by swinging around the chain and pulling the weapon into a strike against its wielder. She would get there eventually. She had a ton of work compared to the others, but he could at least see the potential as well.

Dukean flicked his sword into an attack against Neave, and Neave appeared at his side. Dukean instantly pulled the weapon back into a swing that prevented Neave from stepping closer for an instant but left an opening almost immediately afterward, one that Neave capitalized on and one that Dukean managed to recover from.

The sword on a chain wasn’t a good weapon. As far as Neave could tell, There was not much of an advantage compared to just using a standard sword. The only reason why he wasn’t actively dissuading Dukean from using it was that he wanted to see how it meshed with his spirit powers. Or rather, he wanted to see what Dukean was trying to achieve.

For now, he grabbed the sword, which was relatively easy with how little leverage Dukean had, and kicked him in the head, breaking his neck and ending the fight.

Next up, Marven again. Same as last time, really. Although this time, Neave had to look much harder to find an opening, as none of them were particularly obvious. Marven’s habits were gradually leaving and being replaced by much more flexible approaches, but it wasn’t how Neave wanted them to be.

This felt more like compensation for the weaknesses rather than a proper replacement for bad technique. Sadly, Neave simply didn’t possess the raw power to properly punish him, as Marven’s body was at the very limits of what Neave could handle. It wasn’t a massive problem, just an inefficiency Neave didn’t want to deal with.

While they were progressing nicely, all of them were rather far from where Neave wanted them to be.

Luckily, they had plenty of time to get there.