Trying to chase after this sly creature was no easy feat. Having run across town trying to get a grasp on it was quite the exercise. If anything, Malphas thought the fox was making a fool out of him! It didn't matter either way. So long as Malphas kept sight of the creature, it would not slip out of their view. Perhaps Novak would cone out of nowhere with some sort of net or other apparatus to help catch the thing.
No matter what Novak had planned, it was clear to Malphas that the beast was cornered. Why else would it stop so plainly, encumbered with not one, but two stolen goods? Surely, a dull animal such as this wouldn't try to fool the mentally superior Malphas! Still, he knew he needed to be careful, because if he had performed one wrong move, it would scamper off once more! And Malphas was not in the mood for another jog across the village.
A thought entered Malphas's head. He began to think back to what happened earlier in the tower, when they had infused their legs with... magic to aide in their escape. Of course, Malphas knew that simply making himself faster would not give him the necessary dexterity to skillfully capture the creature. No, he'd have to do something else, something different. It was at this moment that Malphas had thought he made his next stroke of genius!
What if instead of infusing his legs with the energy within his soul, he instead filled his words with such power?
Malphas took a deep breath as he attempted to work with the magical energies within him, attempting to direct it towards not his tongue, but the air within his lungs. Looking the fox right into its eyes, Malphas released the magically infused air, exhaling a simple phrase.
"Drop what you're holding."
Once more, Malphas played with powers that he didn't truly understand. It was no different than in life, after all. If he wished to reach the heights he truly sought for himself, then he would have to make the impossible happen.
lIf Malphas wished to be a saint, then he would have to learn to make miracles.
Seeing the fox run past the group triggered a sense of wonder in Malphas as well, as he quickly made his move for the beast. While Novak took his time thinking of some sort of plan, Malphas was already on its tail, chasing the creature to the best of his ability. He wondered if his new wings would also help him maneuver through crowded places as well, and this was the perfect place to test them as ethereal wings sprouted from his back.
As he chased after the fox, Malphas had wondered just what sort of creature this was. It was a fox, sure, but were the foxes here normally of this color? Or was this fox... special, in some way? Does it talk? What would it say? All these questions and more would be answered as soon as Malphas caught the damned thing!
Type Arms, First Stage +5% HP, +5% MP, +5% SP, +5% STR, +5% END, +5% AGI, +5% DEX, +5% LCK A silver-blue bracelet on the left wrist, from which a crackling thunderhead exudes out from. The thunderhead is affected, but not dispersed, by the wind.
Sanctity of Fulmination
Passive. Zeus can absorb a certain amount of Equipment, Accessories, and Consummables. Consummables absorbed by Zeus can stack infinitely, so long as they are the same type. After doing so, Zeus is able to transform into any of the Equipment that it has absorbed, possessing these traits, regardless of the form taken:
- Traits that fulfill special conditions that absorbed equipment would fulfill, such as spellcasting implements. - Stat increases taken from the highest bonuses offered by the absorbed items, per individual stat. - All effects possessed by the absorbed equipments and accessories. - The ability to verbally invoke the effects of any absorbed consummables.
Transformation is instantaneous, but can be slowed intentionally for dramatic purpose, in which case it occurs initially as an object being drawn out from the thundercloud, and with every instance afterwards as a bolt of lightning bursting before reforming. At First Stage, Zeus can absorb 3 Items.
Items Stored (3/3): - Lotus Bloom (Rare Shield) [+20 HP, +50 MP, +15 DEX, -10 END, Reduce magical damage taken by 20, and reduce water element damage by an additional 20. At the cost of 50 MP, temporarily extend magical damage reduction to all allies within 10 meters.] - Kodachi (Common Sword)
Weapon Proficiency LVL 4Increase proficiency with all weapons. Power AttackActively consume SP while preparing for an attack; unleash for increased damage on attack. Combat Stance LVL 1Passive. Increase STR, END, or DEX by 10% at will. Five second cooldown. Double StrikeActive. 25% SP cost. Attack twice with your weapon, dealing incremental bonus damage based off SP consumed. Can be combo'd into from Power Attack. Sundering BlowActive. 40% SP cost. Strike downwards, causing a burst of energy around you and dealing damage to all enemies. May inflict Stun. Range increases by 5 meters for every 100 SP consumed, starting from a radius of 10 meters. Can be combo'd into from Power Attack.
As blades, poles, and metal appendages all struck Lew, he began to think back to a simpler time. A time before he had subdued himself, before he had chosen to succumb to a terrible numbness that had consumed him in much of his later years. In another place, in another time, Lew was... different. Around his last year of middle school, he was but an average teenaged boy... No, average was not the right word to describe him. There was definitely something different about him, something he didn't care to think about. At the time however, he still allowed others to notice him, and notice others did.
"You're so fucking stupid! We sat next to each other for five months and you still haven't caught on? I even wore this cringe shit for you!" She yelled, throwing her cheap Halloween (before it was banned after a certain group of people started giving out razor blades instead of candies) cat ears to the ground and stomping on it. A younger Lew, his eyes still sparkling with deviancy, only shrugged as he looked onto the poor girl, faceless due to the gaps in his memory.
"You really think cheap accessories like that would put you in the same league as me? Stop kidding yourself, normie." Lew simply sighed, walking off as he ignored her tirades. There was some sense of regret in his decision, but he also ignored it, feeling that he would also be considered a "normie." She definitely wasn't what many would call attractive, but she was still cute enough, and despite Lew's accusations, she shared many of the same interests he had, but in a more subdued matter. Of course, none of that really mattered to the young Lew, as he had felt no mortal girl would be at his league at all. School was only his last barrier to his true goal.
To genetically perfect the catgirls that Elon Musk had ruined.
And so, Lew ignored the girl who just moments before had fleeting feelings of young love for the deviant. He ignored her cries of anger, and he certainly ignored how she pointed out that her best friend was captain of the school's field hockey team. And on the next day, he ignored the five or so angry teenaged girls who followed him as he left school, armed with hockey sticks and prepubescent anger. Yes, it took Lew getting beat up by field hockey players for him to finally snap out of his delusions.
The beatings he received were very familiar, harking back to a past that he had abandoned. If anything, it seemed like these beatings only awakened a beast he had kept at bay for a moment. A beast slimier than a kappa, angrier than an oni, and creepier than that centipede demon they had fought. For a mere moment, these bronze soldiers and possibly even Ari would experience the beast that Lew once was.
The gremlin had once more awakened.
Thunder struck Lew's hands once more as his blade shifted once again to Lotus Bloom. As it had done so, he spun the shield around, shoving away the next oncoming wave of blows before finally charging towards the bannerman. He would shrug off as many of the blows that he possibly could, blocking them with his shield, and even his other arm if he had to. If he could not push through the bronze soldiers, he would simply weave through them, and if he could not do even that, then he would only endure their onslaught. The pain did nothing to dissuade him, nor did his increasingly diminishing health bar, as he honed in on his target.
If he was able to push through the tsunami of bronze at his wake, Ari would too see it. The misshapen, angered face of a scorned nerd, one that Lew had never sported before. And as he reached the standard-bearer, if he reached the standard-bearer, he would raise his shield in the air, lightning crackling as it instantaneously shifted into a blade once more, before swinging it down, screaming to the top of his lungs something... different from the incantation he had normally bellowed out.
"This is why you don't minmax, basic stupid catgirl!"
Lew swung his blade down, delivering a final Power Attack charged with all sixteen of his Attack Talismans, in order to cleave the banner, and the soldier who wielded it, into two.