Advent of Eternity - Chapter 62 (Patreon)

He cast Slow, buying Cyll enough time to duck under the beast’s arms and slam his sword into its stomach. Metal rang out again and the monster shook off Knell’s spell, backhanding Cyll and sending him sliding back. His strike hadn’t even broken the minotaur’s armor.

“Shit,” Cyll said. “This thing really is dull.”

The minotaur roared, spraying Cyll with spittle. It leapt at him, its chains going taut as it extended to bring both axes down on the impudent man. Cyll leapt to the side, dodging the first blow but taking a jagged cut along his side from the other.

A victorious expression flickered across the monster’s face just in time for the flat of Cyll’s blade to slam into its nose. It let out a cow-like cry of pain and Cyll threw his sword to the side, grabbing one of its axes and yanking.

The minotaur snorted, refusing to release its grip. It shook its hand, but Cyll didn’t let go.

“Mine’s dull! Give me this!”

Another roar ripped from the minotaur’s mouth, and Knell didn’t have to speak its language to assume that it was saying, ‘no’. Well, that or cursing Cyll out. One of the two.

Knell used Slow on it once more and Cyll kicked it between the legs. The cry of pain was much higher pitched this time, but it still refused to let go of the axe. The spell wore off and it whipped Cyll against the wall hard enough to crack stone.

The immortal man’s hands finally loosened and the Minotaur brought its axe down onto his chest. Cyll’s body jerked, then went still. Snorting with approval, the Minotaur pulled its axe free and turned toward Knell.

Cyll erupted from the ground, throwing himself onto the monster’s back and scrambling up to its head. He jabbed his fingers into the beast’s eyes, then dove for one of the axes. Taken completely by surprise, the minotaur didn’t manage to keep its grip.

The axe – along with Cyll – crashed to the ground. Laughing in victory, the warrior grabbed his pilfered goods and bounded back to his feet. The wound in his chest was already nearly sealed closed.

“Thanks,” Cyll said, spinning the axe. “This looks a bit sharper than my last pokey thing I had. Maybe it’ll last longer, too.”

The minotaur’s features contorted in rage and it roared. With two sharp jerks, it ripped its legs free of the chains holding it to the wall. It drove a foot into the ground, shaking it with the force of the strike.

It lashed out faster than Cyll could react, grabbing the man and lifting him into the air. Pure hatred burned in its eyes, and every ounce of its attention was on the bearded man.

That was it. Knell cast Slow on the beast. “Stix, now!”

Stix leapt from the sidelines, darting toward the minotaur and vaulting off its knee. It barely had a chance to register her presence, slowed by Knell’s magic, and both of her blades pierced up behind its jaw and into its skull.

Knell dropped slow and cast Anchor on Stix, not willing to take any risks. Stix continued her assault on the monster, ripping one of the blades free and stabbing it into the monster’s eye. It roared and threw Cyll across the room, swinging wildly to hit Stix.

One of its hands clipped her in the side. Stix cried out as the powerful blow slammed her to the ground, breaking several bones. The minotaur snarled, blood pouring down its face, and stomped on one of Stix’s legs.

She screamed in pain. Cyll’s roar joined hers as he bounded across the room, grabbing the fallen axe as he moved. He swung it around himself once, then let it fly. The huge axe whooshed through the air with an audible thumping noise before burying itself clean in the center of the minotaur’s skull.

The monster staggered. Its black eyes dimmed, the life fading from them as it tripped and crashed back to the ground. It did not move again.

Knell’s staff clicked on the stone as he moved to check on Stix. He grimaced. It wasn’t a pretty sight. She’d taken some serious damage from the monster’s blow. Knell was no stranger to battlefield injuries, but Stix looked bad.

He twisted his staff apart, pulling the blade free. He didn’t give her a chance to wonder what he was doing – if she could even think in her current state. The blade fell and Stix went silent.

“That was cold, Cap,” Cyll said, yanking his the axe from the minotaur’s head with a grunt. He paused, then glanced down at Stix’s battered body. “Uh… you made her immortal, right? She didn’t actually die?”

Knell cocked his head to the side, studying Cyll.

“Cap? She didn’t die, right?”

“She didn’t die,” Knell confirmed. “I would not waste resources so wastefully.”

“Is that all we are?” Cyll asked, a grin stretching across his lips. “You really are cold.”

“It’s all anyone is,” Knell replied. “Myself included. Being a resource does not mean you are not more. But our lives serve a purpose, and it is my job to ensure that we achieve that purpose.”

The minotaur’s body shimmered. Energy coursed out from it and flooded into Knell. An orb of it remained behind, hovering in the air like a lost child.

The gods have granted you Experience for besting your foe. You have leveled up.

You have defeated an entity more powerful than you. Experience Granted. Your level has been adjusted accordingly. New skill gained.

A new skill. Just on time. Knell’s lips quirked and he pulled up his information to check what he’d gained from the minotaur. He honestly hadn’t done much against it himself, but evidently the Systems had judged that he’d participated enough.

Name: Knell Coda [Age: 0]

Path: Scion [Rank Zero]

Magical Energy Level: 17

Attunement A: Foresight of the Vulture

Attunement B: Empty

Attunement C: Empty

Attunement D: Empty

Attunement E: Empty

Bloodline: Eternal Body [Epic]– Time magic bends around you, modifying your lifespan and granting you resistance to spatial magics.

Abilities:

Tax the Living – Death magic erupts from a wound you have inflicted on a target, inflicting the same damage once more.

Path: Epoch

Magical Energy Level: 15

Abilities:

Mental Clock – Use time magic to keep time or set an alarm audible only to you.

Slow – Impede the movement of a single creature by warping the time around them for a brief instant.

Haste – Increase the movement of a single creature by warping time around them for a brief instant.

Anchor – Lock a target’s current state in the timeline, returning it to that state after 1 minute passes, reverting any changes to the target that have happened under the duration of Anchor.

Exhume – Return a target object to the glory it once held in the past. The distance the user can reach back to increases with the power spent on the spell, as does the duration of its stay in the current time.

Advent of Eternity (Passive)- You do not fall under the jurisdiction of time. With sufficient strength, it will bend to your will, and your existence is absolute. You were never born, and you will never die.

What a curious ability. It was incredibly vague, much like many of his other spells, but Knell didn’t mind that. Vague meant there was more possible use that he could get out of it.