Book Three – Chapter Eleven – Part Three – Shattering the Collar

“THE FIGHT’S ONLY JUST BEGINNING!!!” With her arms still protected by the nadrium gauntlets, Servi kicked off the ground and rushed her foe. She tried to get the upper hand with her incredible speed, but he had somehow foreseen her plan. Given his advanced age and decades of combat experience, perhaps it was more apt to say that he predicted her moves in advance from their brief encounter? Servi was one of a kind, but that brashness she displayed wasn't that rare. And that fighting spirit wasn't scarce at all.

Only the bodyguard knew how he knew what Servi was going to do, and he wasn’t in a position to talk with an enemy. He raised his armored hands up, blocking Servi’s haymaker with ease as the noise of their clash exploded out. She felt her bones liquefy from the impact, but they were solid again, not even a nanosecond later. Servi unleashed a flurry of punches, but each one was met by a fist, blocking them in a way that negated any force. She threw a hook, disguising it as an uppercut at the last possible moment, but he deflected it, canceling out the damage. He repelled it down while pushing her back with his free hand. Servi recovered with a backwards roll and immediately hunched forward to dodge an incoming axe.

The bodyguard's hands danced for a moment. Servi tried to use that time to use Telekinesis, yet it had no effect on him. She clearly wanted to freeze his hands since she understood that was the source of his power, yet like pebble attempting to hold back a landslide, her telekinetic grip was easily broken.

The girl with black hair spat in annoyance and summoned a nadrium arrow from her ring. Her foe chose to counter with two more flying axes, but Servi deflected one with her arms and the other with the tip of her arrow. The wooden shaft couldn’t stand against such a force, but she had no problem working with just the arrowhead. In a flash, Servi pinched it between the fingers on her left hand. It was as if the two glowing lines of the arrow and gauntlets flashed in perfect sync as she kicked off the ground. Instead of ascending hundreds of meters in the air, Servi only went up about five or six before suddenly rotating her body and kicking off a pair of Air Step platforms.

In many ways, Servi's latest assault was much like the one that ended with her regenerating from nothing but her arms, but she had a plan this time. Even though the distance between the two was far shorter than her previous attempt, her opponent still cocked back his hand like he was going to punch her.

At the very last second, he dodged out of the way again, but Servi didn’t smack into the ground this time. She created a pair of Air Step platforms in front of her and stopped with her hands. At the same time, she attempted to launch the nadrium arrowhead at her opponent.

Before she could complete the thought, his three axes came flying back and chopped her into three vertical pieces. The blood from all of her disembodied parts merged into one another, molding her body back together.

But once again, her foe acted faster than her regeneration. The bodyguard hastily dove for the nadrium arrowhead, kicking off with his free hand and landing on his feet. His instinct told him to duck, and it was good he followed them because a flying sword with two pulsing blue lines flew overhead.

“YES!!!!” Servi cried as she changed out her destroyed clothes for yet another set. As if she couldn’t control her excitement, she placed two bloody hands on her pale face, giving her two distinctive marks. “THIS IS WHAT I’VE FUCKING WANTED!!!! GIVE ME MORE!!!! GIVE ME FUCKING MORE!!!!!!!”

The bodyguard retrieved his axes with a hand signal, and Servi stomped the ground. A pillar of dirt suddenly rose and sent her flying high in the air. She surpassed the very clouds that had once hidden the moon from her sight, yet she continued to climb even more. The air pelted her face and hair, drowning out the excited shouts coming from her mouth. The pain she’d felt in the last battle alone surged through her body, feeding her primal desire for a slaughter to the death.

Suddenly, her pillar crumbled into a frozen pile of dirt, and she no longer ascended. But that was fine. From the height she reached, her enemies looked like mere ants. The thin air should have reduced the oxygen flowing through her body by a magnitude of ten, but True Immortality fixed that right up. Even though her mind was clouded by her desire to fight, it was clear enough to formulate a plan. Because she was so focused on the fight, Servi ignored the beauty she saw. She was 32 kilometers up in the air-- well into the stratosphere.

There weren't many people who could claim to have seen the curvature of the planet.  Her incredible sight should have allowed her to pinpoint nearly all of the surrounding towns and villages, take in the beauty of the forest below her, and realize that she could already reach the moon if she put her mind to it.

But the moon would have to wait. For how long? No one knew. The object of her desire was going to have to keep on waiting until the time was right.

Until then, there was a fight at hand.

If Servi fell from the height she was at and repeatedly kicked off Air Step platforms, then not even the bodyguard could defend against it. Her speed was one thing, yet she had the sun against her back. When he looked up, he wouldn’t have to contend with just her, but he’d face off with the fear of blinding himself.

But that plan included the one skill, that to her, had no equal.

The Shadow’s Embrace.

It blurred Servi from existence, allowing her to meddle with the objects in the physical world from a place exclusive to those who could use that skill. As she felt the familiar embrace of her beloved shadows, Servi jumped and leaned back. When her body lined up with that of her foe, who cautiously had his hands ready to perform motions, she kicked off with as much force she could muster.

Then she did it again, curling her legs inward and extending them to pick up even more speed.

And again, and again, and even again for the fifth time, she kicked. Suddenly, she broke the speed of sound, but nothing happened. The clouds stubbornly refused to be blasted away, and that was because Servi was in a different plane of reality. She had chosen to erase her entire being. She would only remove those protections when she was about to land the final blow.

A few seconds before reaching her opponent, Servi extended the shadowy blade on her right hand. This was it! Even the hand signals he quickly performed couldn’t block against the fearsome power of one of the most powerful skills in the world. Not even he, who matched her blow for blow and killed her nearly eight times, had a plan to get away without harm. She didn’t exist in reality. Therefore, he couldn’t have seen her.

But he did. His eyes were staring right into Servi's fiery red orbs.

After he completed the last hand signal while making direct contact, a familiar shadow embraced his large body, and he joined the world of non-existence.

Her opponent was one of the illusive Rank 0s in the world: someone who had saved the world or a country from a threat that had the power to wipe away reality. Given the bodyguard's race, a Kobold could live for hundreds or even thousands of years as long as they didn’t die from disease or illness. Someone as powerful as the bodyguard didn’t have to worry about perishing in the field of combat because he was expertly skilled in the art of warfare.

More than anything, the prowess he had displayed in their short fight put him on the shoulder of giants. It was a legendary feat, the likes of which will probably never be reached again in a thousand years.

“!!!!!” Servi had falsely believed she was the only one in Arcton who could take advantage of such a skill. Even in a billion years, she wouldn’t dare think that there was someone associated with the Mafia who had such power at his disposal.

Before she smashed into the ground, her opponent held out a hand and stopped Servi in her tracks. She wildly swung her shadow-cloaked blade, yet her body didn’t listen to her. In a flash, the bodyguard reached out a large arm and caught Servi by the neck, halting all of her momentum. If they weren't in the realm of non-existence, it would almost be impossible to calculate how much energy would've been released. That was especially true since she broke the sound barrier. She wildly waved around the blade in her hand, yet her body didn’t listen to her. In a similar motion, he jabbed his own shadow-cloaked blade into Servi’s neck.

Her sight went black as the effects of The Shadow's Embrace canceled when her life left her body. When the light returned to her eyes, a smoky feeling filled her throat. It spread to her eyes and lungs as it rampaged endlessly inside her body. Sprawled out on the warm ground with her opponent staring over her, Servi felt what her opponents felt before the shadows snuffed out their lives. She felt the panic they experienced as her hands and arms shook uncontrollably.

An unbelievable amount of pressure exerted itself on every possible square inch of her organs. Though she didn’t need to breathe, her lungs were pressed against her ribcage until they exploded, filling her insides with blood. With her immortality, her lungs repaired themselves only to suffer a similar fate as their predecessors. The blood surged up through her trachea until it reached her mouth. Like a reverse fountain, crimson spurted upwards, covering her face and black hair in a layer of crimson that only increased. Eventually, she brought a hand to her chest and managed to have enough control over the hellacious pain to rip off her shirt, exposing her breasts and bare stomach.

Her nails jabbed into her stomach, ripping it open like one would a pack of cheese, but it didn’t stop there. She continued until her chest had no skin, the inner organs visible to all who wanted to watch. Crimson flooded outwards, but it wasn’t alone. The smoke her opponent forced inside her body via her neck went out with it. True Immortality kicked into overdrive as it healed both the damage caused by the smoke and Servi’s own self-inflicted injuries. Soon, the shaking stopped, and Servi relaxed for a brief second as her body returned to normal.

The silence surrounding Servi and the bodyguard was deafening. Once a shirt covered her bare breasts, Servi took a deep breath and sat up, at which point she was met with three quadrupled-headed axes. One removed the top half of her head, the second severed her left arm, and the third tore a large chunk of flesh from her side. With her brain exposed, Servi broke the emptiness with a shocking statement.

“I’m still good to fight,” she said. “I have all the energy in the world! I have all of the life in the world! I’m an eternal war machine befit for fighting until the fucking heat death of the goddamn universe!! But you!!! I know you’re getting tired.” Servi used Telekinesis to fly her severed arm back to her body. Once it was close enough, it reattached itself. Sure, it could’ve regrown instantly, but Servi manipulated True Immortality into purposely waiting. “The Shadow's Embrace uses a set percentage of Skill Energy. And unlike you, I don’t have a limit. You used it for four seconds, so you’re running on less than sixty percent when I account for the other skills you used.”

Servi stood up and cracked her neck. “You aren’t going to win this fight. Even if we have to battle for ten fucking years, I’ll come out on top. You need food and water and sleep to rest your body. Me? I don’t need a goddamn thing except this stubborn rage to power me!!! AND THIS RAGE! WILL! NEVER! FUCKING!! FADE!!!!!” Kicking off once again, Servi rushed forward with her nadrium gauntlets raised up.

The bodyguard put up his hands to block and used his flying axes to provide assistance. Even though he had used up a bit less than half his Skill Energy Reservoir, his movements hadn’t dulled by even a fraction. If anything, it was like his hand signals were sharper, while his axes flew that much faster in the air.

As Servi fought off the axes, she tried to use Telekinesis to get rid of them once and for all, but it was like something was protecting them. Then she sought to absorb them, but that failed as well. Not because Servi couldn’t, but because they flew in and out at such a high speed that it took all Servi could to dodge and block. Frustrated, she leaned down and tried to charge at her foe, who had continued to make some distance. The axes intercepted her before she could kick off, slicing her legs and forcing her to regenerate them.

The large army they fought in the middle of walked away or ran to give the two titans the room to fight. Sakdu and Roger were nowhere to be seen or heard, but their locations didn’t matter to Servi. She only needed to slaughter the beast in front of her, but Servi's spear-headed obsession with slaughter blinded her to the monster that grew nearby.

The bodyguard wasn’t doing those hand signals to purposely taunt his opponent. Unbeknownst to it, her shadow was currently growing by the second, becoming taller and thicker. Yet her mind was so preoccupied with the three axes swarming her that it never occurred to her that they were a decoy.

Suddenly, Servi froze halfway into a dodge and quickly changed out her simple shirt for a nadrium chest plate. The bodyguard couldn’t focus on two things at once, so he wrote off the axes as a loss when they slammed into her. Their force wasn’t anything to scoff at. She might’ve been saved from the cutting, but the force sent harsh vibrations up her body, which broke quite the majority of her ribs.

More importantly, that single moment allowed her the brief time she needed to store those pesky flies into her ring, and that was when she noticed it.

Servi just so happened to look down, and her red eyes took in the shadowed ground. Immediately, she turned to the sky. The sun was high and unobstructed by any clouds. And since there were no trees above her, her shadow couldn't have stretched back twenty meters.

The ground shrunk when the impossible happened. Servi's shadow rumbled and vibrated, not matching the movements its owner made, and sprung to life. It carried her general humanoid shape, but it held no features. Like a volatile disease, it suddenly grew and morphed, quickly towering over everything and everyone. Servi froze for a subtle second, taking in the monstrous form that only meant one thing.

“A TWO ON ONE ISN’T GOING TO EVEN THE ODDS!!!!!” Servi shouted. Seeing such a terrifying beast in front of her did very little to frighten the Mad Dog’s fighting will. She summoned a Greater Fireball between her outstretched hands, fueling it with Skill Energy until it grew to a size of 15 meters, and launched into the shadowy beast. It was like a mere flicker of sparks to that unknown horror, but it exploded on impact, which meant it was a tangible object. But what she didn’t know what that their senses were linked. The attacker cried out as a hole of fire appeared in her stomach, scorching her innards and boiling her blood. It nearly melted her in two.

Servi expressed her pain, but that only lasted a single moment. Her shadow monster went on the offensive, forming large hands and long arms that plucked her up by the neck like it was lifting a cat by the scruff of its neck.

She struggled, trying to rip away the fingers crushing her neck, but her attempts failed. She then tried to use a pair of nadrium swords, controlled by Telekinesis, to cut off the black hand currently raising her up, but they passed right through it. Somehow, the shadow could become intangible to certain items and tangible to other things.

The beast froze once it had raised Servi to its ample chest, which matched the bosom of its foe. The bodyguard continued to form different motions with his hands as if he controlled the puppet. Suddenly, the shadow’s surface became curvy and ripply, sending little waves up and down its body like it was changing states of matter as it hugged Servi close to its blackened chest. She fought against it, of course, but even her amazing strength couldn't break free from its grasp. A dark, sticky liquid started to encase her body in a black skintight suit with no way to breathe.

But it didn’t cover her once. And it didn’t enclose Servi twice.

It repeated again and again until the twenty-meter tall shadow had melted and entrapped Servi two hundred times.

And that was only the preparation for what came next. The skill relied on the user's and target's power to wrap the target in a layer of shadow, blocking out oxygen. Only someone much stronger than the caster and the enclosed person combined could break open the shadowy seal.

But that was a pipe dream because Shadow Maiden, the skill the bodyguard used on Servi, required the user to be Rank 0. The name might’ve been odd. The legend was that the Goddess who created the skill was a maiden amongst maidens. One could say she was the fairest maiden of all. The story differed after that, based on who was asked, but it all ended with the Goddess melding her shadow with that of her mortal lover. It was supposed to be an expression of love-- yearning for a person so much that you wanted to become their very shadow. However, that ended when the Goddess's lover found his eyes drift towards another woman. She felt betrayed, and she used their combined shadow to wrap her unfaithful lover in a seal that couldn't be broken by anyone weaker than their combined power.

The truthfulness of that legend had been debated by many different scholars over the years. Unfortunately, nothing really had come out of it other than sore throats and aching heads.  There was just no possible way to know if it was true.

The chances of someone dwarfing the bodyguard, the user, and Servi, the target, were less than finding a ton of nadrium hidden behind a solid gold wall. In terms of Skill Energy, it didn’t use a set amount. But the amount it required couldn’t be underestimated. Even now, the bodyguard struggled to catch his breath. He had some time to wait for the second part of the skill to activate. An immense amount of sweat dripped down his armored body, raising the temperature of his body to an extreme level. He crouched down and placed a hand to his stomach when it happened.

Servi’s enclosed figure suddenly shook and jumbled about, then it shrunk by about ten centimeters. Then another ten centimeters. Then another, and another until she was the size of a tiny cube about four centimeters big. Her body and organs were crushed against the black shadow keeping her confined and restricted.

She felt every bone shatter, only for it to be healed immediately in a space it couldn’t fit. And that only led for it to instantly crack again. Her skull and brain must’ve been torn asunder hundreds of times a second alone, and that pain only multiplied when her other body parts were inevitably crushed thousands of times. Every bit of suffering that a person could endure resulting from a broken bone or torn appendage was something she felt and lived through.

The bodyguard stood up and raised both hands to the air. He took one more look at the floating cube, which fell to the ground and didn’t move at all, and opened his mouth to roar. It was a hard-fought battle, but he was the victor after conquering such a terrifying foe. Or was he the winner? He saw the cube shake about on the bloody battlefield and instantly summoned three more axes from his Dimensional Storage.

Servi didn’t just reconstruct bone and muscle. She regenerated blood, too. And the space inside the seal created by the Shadow Maiden wasn’t infinite. It was possible for someone to breakout if they exerted enough force to overpower the user and target together. Servi couldn’t do that because she wasn’t stronger than herself. But if she had help, then it was possible.

But how could she get help? The answer was simple.

Her blood. More accurately, her ever-growing, infinite amount of blood was a product of True Immortality, keeping her alive even when her bones and organs were crushed into tiny pieces. Five liters of blood were being created over a thousand times a second. That was how much Servi’s body needed to function. Yet since she couldn’t maintain a form long enough for the blood to find a home inside her body, it was considered an injury, and True Immortality couldn’t allow that. Its sole goal was to keep its user in their best condition. But the blood didn’t disappear. It remained, and it pushed against the force keeping her enclosed in that little square.

By the time the bodyguard realized the battle wasn’t quite over, six minutes had passed. The tiny cube that held the sealed Servi exploded as millions of liters of blood flooded out like a raging beast. Her very life essence covered nearly everything in sight in a deep layer of crimson, which had a large amount of bone and many, many organs floating about in it. The bodyguard braced himself and commanded the three axes to spin in front of him. They acted as his shield, deflecting the blood to the left and right of him. The torrential outpouring of red didn’t last long at all, and once it was settled and calm, he peeked around his weapons.

In the middle of where his strongest skill had failed to get rid of his fiercest foe stood a monster with power equivalent to the Gods. Servi opened her eyes, but she wasn’t smiling. The pain she had endured in that six minutes of torture was unique to her alone. It was something no one could have claimed to withstand. Even more, Servi was the single person in the known world who had escaped the Shadow Maiden alone. She truly stood on the shoulders of the Gods, with no one even coming close to the feats she had achieved.

The monstrous foe raised her bloody arms to the sky and stretched her neck and legs. “That hurt so goddamn much, but it feels good. I’m alive!!! I FEEL SO FUCKING ALIVE!!! LET’S FIGHT TO THE BITTER FUCKING END!!!” Servi walked towards the bodyguard, leaving thick, red footprints behind her as the goopy blood continued to pour down her naked body.

Her opponent sent out three more flying axes to pester her, but she used a flying piece of nadrium armor to knock them off course. Then, yet another set of clothes adorned her crimson body, covering her delicate bits from the thousand of voyeurs watching the battle with dead eyes. Pleasure and lust were things they couldn’t feel unless they had the assistance of a Pink Monotonia.

“What’s this? Your attacks are getting slower,” Servi said as she put a hand to her forehead, moving her black, bloody hair out of the way. She taunted her opponent as he tried to send out even more flying axes. Evidently, it was his staple move with how unpredictable and efficient it was at disorienting whatever opponent he was facing. However, it required a constant stream of Skill Energy to maintain. With the use of both Shadow Maiden and The Shadow’s Embrace, two very powerful Rank 0 skills, the bodyguard was dangerously close to passing out.

Uncontrollably, he shook with fright as Servi approached with every step. The fear of failure and death surged through his mind. Losing? Such a thing was impossible!

He was the one who had trained for dozens of decades to acquire the power he had.

He was the one who sacrificed such feathery ideals like family and love in his pursuit of acquiring what no Kobold had ever obtained before.

He was the one who emerged victorious after ten days of fighting against a threat, who had the power to wipe out a country with his legion of a hundred thousand undead. Finding that foe was a mistake, but it was what allowed him to be promoted to Rank 0, yet everyone had already nearly forgotten about it. In short, he was the world’s savior, and now he was about to lose his life to some monster who couldn't die?!

His passive skill prevented him from speaking, but it did little to contain his overflowing rage. He wailed to the Gods Above for not giving him the power to conquer the demon in front of him, but Servi didn’t see that. Instead of seeing a Kobold pushed to his limits in both strength and mind, she saw a pathetic child throwing a tantrum.

“Aww, what’s the matter, big guy? Are you gonna cry? You’re mad because you lost this fight?” she asked.

He stared into a face that reeked with the stench of a million corpses. Servi's blank expression stared right at him with unmoving eyes. Then, she smiled, and that happy expression turned to anger and hatred as she grabbed his helmet. Her incredible strength allowed her to pick him up. Instead of his helmet sliding off, her pinching power bent the nadrium until it dug into his scales.

“THEN DIE, YOU FUCKING WEAKLING!!! IF YOU CAN’T GIVE ME THE FIGHT I FUCKING WANT, THEN PAY WITH YOUR FUCKING LIFE!!!!” she shouted with the volume to drown out an exploding volcano and robbed the bodyguard of his hearing. Before it went, however, the flame of fighting reignited his freezing heart. Subtly, he performed one more set of hand motions even while his head was being crushed.

A large shadow appeared, darkening the bloody ground, and Servi looked up. His final trump card was Shadow Maiden, and it used every remaining iota of Skill Energy he had in reserve.

“Something like this isn’t going to FUCKING WORK!!!” Holding up her ring, Servi imagined the very concept of her shadow shrinking. A bright light appeared in her mind, destroying every bit of darkness, and that was the imagery she needed. Her ring emitted a tremendous glow as the still-growing shadow cried out in incredible pain. It placed its hands in front of the ring in a poor attempt to block the purifying light, but like most other things that affected Servi, it was ultimately useless. Even the power behind a Rank 0 skill couldn’t fight against the power of Absorption, which had the ability to effectively absorb everything. With enough time, squeezing the entire planet into her ring was something in the realm of possibility.

Using her mind, Servi summoned a wall of dirt, with enough stacks to make it as tough as nadrium, and threw the bodyguard into it as she lowered her raised hand. With the attacking shadow safely stored somewhere further than the realm of non-existence, she didn’t have to worry about it bothering her anymore. Instead, she focused her attention on the unconscious Kobold leaned up against the wall she made.

“Is this the best you can do?” she whispered. Every step she took brought the Grim Reaper’s knife closer to his neck. Though he wasn’t aware of it, her every word sent invisible shivers down his body. However, even someone as strong as him couldn’t fight through the effects sustained from running low on Skill Energy. Like a child picking up a soon-to-be discarded toy, Servi stripped him of his armor with Absorption and revealed his appearance to the world.

A treasure trove of brightly colored rainbow scales met her hard eyes. Using Telekinesis, she kept him afloat. “Hey, wake up!” she shouted. A swift punch to the stomach cracked fifteen of the exotic-looking scales, which were pretty enough to be slotted into a crown. It was unfortunate they shattered under her strength. Crimson flowed from the wound she gave him, staining the pretties.

“Wake up! WAKE UP!!! WAKE UP!!!!! WAKE UP!!!! GIVE ME THE FIGHT I WAAAANNNTTTTT!!!!!!" Servi cried. With each word, she cocked back her arm and punched her foe hard enough to send her fist right through him. In her mind, Servi felt betrayed. The one person in the world that she knew of who could give her the fight she wanted, had died because he wasn’t strong enough. Even as his body held fist-sized windows, Servi commanded Telekinesis to pick up the squelching chunks of meat. Forcing them together, Servi continued her unabashed striking routine even as the strain on her brain increased ten-fold. Each blow sent out waves of pressure, scattering the low-cut grass while sounding like an explosion.

The pain she suffered while crushed inside the little cube didn’t compare at all to her brain frying itself alive. That made it easier to continue her rabid assault on the bodyguard's corpse, who was once called a mindless beast. But still, Servi’s eyes refused to shed any tears. Instead, they looked with glee at the red soul slowly floating towards her ring.

Her foe had been strong: there was no doubt about that. The bodyguard might have been the strongest in the world before she came along.

But he was dead, and Servi was not. And as the victor, she claimed to right to have his soul. His incredible abilities would only serve her in the future.

Of course, that was only if she could harness it. Like Albert Crysalerek’s soul, the strength contained within it was too much for Soul Essence of Primal Combat to use effectively. Until she pumped more levels into it, those two souls were nothing more than fodder to increase her cap on Skill Stacking.

If she had any regret about the battle, it was that she was unable to properly physically overpower her opponent. She only won because she outlasted the bodyguard with her infinite amount of stamina and Skill Energy. If she had none of that, and it came down to a bare-knuckle brawl or a clash of swords, Servi would currently be a collection of meat and guts.

In other words, it meant the victory had a bit of a sour taste behind it.

"If this is what the world has to offer..." Servi whispered in a weak voice. She then became quiet because she didn't want to complete the sentence.