Chapter 241: What’s Yours Is Mine and What’s Mine Is My Own
Aejaz fiddled with the knife in his hand. He had enough dexterity and temerity to roll it along his fingers without looking directly down at which indicated a certain level of comfort with the Prowler. It was a fantastic weapon due to its ability to mould itself to the user's liking and Aejaz had long since found the perfect size and shape that worked for him. He'd custom tailored it ever since he first held the thing and, after many uses, no longer needed any refining. Whenever he borrowed it he immediately changed it to resemble a fixed blade knife that was ever so slightly longer than the standard. The grip had small bumps between the locations where his fingers would rest, allowing for a comfortable and firm grip. His hand would never slip and the force he could apply with a single stab was impressive. Part of why Aejaz had struggled to be consistent offensively was because he's just never found a weapon he liked. It was a shame the Prowler didn't belong to him but he was happy to borrow it frequently instead. Aejaz acknowledged that Ares simply needed it more and it was far more useful to him than it was to Aejaz, especially now that the 'Appropriate Skillset' art was fully developed and ready to be used. It was an interesting art that was infinitely better than simply owning an enabler but that was getting slightly ahead of things as he hadn't even used the art yet. It could be fully explained after Aejaz made it clear to his family just how wide the gap between them was, much like how Ares showed off with his pressure in that one match earlier.
Hit them hard and, when they're reeling, hit them even harder. The double down strategy was highly effective for showboating! At least according to a book Ares had read anyway. That or the long con wherein you build up low expectations over a considerable period of time and bam out of nowhere comes the unexpected. Technically Aejaz was about to do both to his family, as they really underestimated him, but he really didn't care about their opinion and / or reaction to his magic. There was no one left in the family he cared about because the ones he did care about had already left it. He felt a tad sorry for his father but he was still a part of the problem even if he'd only been the smallest part overall, forgiveness just wasn't in the cards and he could crash and burn with the rest of the clan as far as Aejaz was concerned.
Job was struggling to bring himself to do anything, what with the whole Aejaz completely invalidating him thing, so it was up to Scowl to put straight his unruly brother who was acting like he was hot shit and grandstanding before them. Scowl refused to believe Aejaz could take on all three of them even if it was one by one. If nothing else, Scowl couldn't see himself losing to Aejaz. He'd been trained personally by Sho, one of the most infamous assassins of all time in the lower realms. Who was Aejaz trained by exactly? Nobody worth mentioning at least. Even if that Ares guy was doing the training so what? It's not like Ares was some kind of expert assassin himself!... Of course Dominus complicated that assumption but it's not like Scowl knew that... Ignorance is bliss! Scowl looked at Phlo and nodded sideways at Aejaz, encouraging his brother to start casting support arts for him so he could deal with the family flunky. Killing the rodent who wasn't good for anything other than cleaning blood off everyone else's daggers was long overdue and might actually be a little cathartic for these three, provided they were actually capable of doing it anyway.
Phlo clicked his finger and the nearby scenery was engulfed in a dark tint. This was an art Ares knew so even if Scowl didn't spell it out, thanks to his silent casting bloodline, Ares could at least tell what was going on here as opposed to the last art, by Phlo, in which he had to guess based off of context clues. This art was one under the shadow aspect by the name of 'Double Dark'. Simply put, it doubled the effectiveness of all darkness pillar arts used inside the zone it created. It was incredibly powerful but drained mana like no one's business so using it for anything other than quick bursts of violence wasn't recommended. That being said, if someone else, who had a focus on being the proud owner of a large mana pool, was casting and maintaining it for you... Well it would be a whole lot more effective and last way longer. This was where Phlo came in.
Being a supportive assassin was a particularly weird niche to fill but it wasn't uncommon to have multiple people try and assassinate the same high profile target. If the victim-to-be was extremely important, or just too tough to beat in a one on one if things went wrong, then bringing a homicide buddy was the way to go. It wasn't unusual to have ten or even sometimes twenty assassins go for one target if the group in question was being paid enough to not screw up and valued making a good impression with their employer. The more eyes there were on the scene, the easier it would be to spot and clean up any trails or messes they left behind. Also, support assassins like Phlo could shine in these situations so they weren't useless at all, just highly specific in their specialty. After all, it's not like Double Dark could really help anyone other than assassins to begin with. The darkness pillar was almost exclusively used for assassination so if you could benefit from Double Dark the chances of you being an assassin were extremely high. Sure some people found other ways of using the pillar but unless they were even more specialised that someone like Phlo they wouldn't get as much out of the pillar as him.
Learning an art like Double Dark was basically saying to the world 'wherever I go, another assassin goes as well at all times.' If you were the victim of an assassination attempt and the guy you saw was casting this art, it was almost better to stop looking at them and try to find the real immediate threat to your life. A threat that was about to become even more deadly thanks to said art. Even something like Ink Glue would become insufferable to deal with as it would be twice the size, fly twice as fast, and last twice as long. This might not have sounded that bad on its own but it was worth mentioning some people had such high mastery of the darkness pillar they could treat the Glue like a shadow and hop to it from anywhere. Having an Inky teleport beacon Glued to your face, allowing assassins to jump on you from anywhere at any time while you were blind, was blatantly going to be fatal no matter how you looked at it. Yes Double Dark massively improved lethal arts but sometimes, if you were lethal enough as is, improving a utility or disabling art was perhaps more valuable.
Scowl was an impressive assassin for the lower realms but he was not at this level, not even close. Instead he opted to use the Double Dark aggressively and cast an art of the tangible dark aspect to kick of the fight between him and Aejaz as he closed the distance.
Spike.
Spike.
Spike.
Spike.
Spike.
That, although it hadn't been articulated out loud, was precisely what most people who dabbled in the darkness pillar sounded like on a regular basis when they were just starting out. Much like how Water Bullet was a very beginner friendly art, Spike was a simple and effective art of the tangible dark aspect. What it did was fairly self-explanatory as it created, you guessed it, a Spike. The Spike would come out of the floor, typically, from within a narrow range of the target's current location and shoot directly at them. The distance from the target at which the spike could form was determined by the overall cultivation of the wielder and would decrease as they grew stronger. At Scowl's current level, Spikes were capable of forming about five feet away from Aejaz and hurtling towards him from the ground. That's not to say Spikes could only come from the ground as those who were more proficient with the art could summon them from ceilings, walls, and even miscellaneous objects. It wasn't impossible to chuck a ball at someone, intentionally miss, and summon a Spike out of it to hit the foe as it flew past their head.
For what it was worth, the Spikes could get pretty quick and their almost eerily quiet nature made them good for getting the drop on opponents. It was also just hard to respond to them for the most part so it was usable in a wide variety of situations. The joke about darkness pillar newbies having had their first word as a baby be 'Spike' existed for a reason, it was used a LOT. Anyone with even a slight affiliation for the pillar had no reason not to learn it, sort of like Fireball. Potentially lethal, annoying, can be fired on repeat, decent enough at pestering your foe, and a rather low mana cost to boot. You get a Spike, and you get a Spike, and everybody gets a Spike! It should also be mentioned that, due to how frequently this art was cast, it was also sometimes referred to as the 'dream-ender'. Many hopefuls with delusions of becoming a renowned assassin were met with a harsh fate because of this art. Sure the Glimpse lot could cast it silently but if you weren't able to chant this art inside your head then that meant you had to do it out loud... Multiple times... Alerting literally everyone with a pulse and a functioning pair of ears that you were trying, and presumably failing, to kill your target. The amount of would-be assassins who were caught or killed with their last words being a never-ending slew of 'Spikes' was sky-high.
Aejaz, like most competent cultivators, was not deterred by such a plain and boring art. it was serving its purpose as a 'distraction' but only in the sense that Aejaz had to allocate a small piece of his brain power to moving out of its way. The Spike, a shadowy black cone-shaped tentacle with a pointed tip, had thrust itself out of the floor and aimed right for Aejaz' heart but he drifted slightly backward and avoided it with ease. Scowl seemed to be intent on running Aejaz through the Spike gauntlet, however, so Aejaz had to duck, swerve, and lean out the way of many more in the moments to come. The ensuing chaos of tens of Spikes created an intricately woven web of sharp attacks that would have been even more impressive had the subtle implication here not been that Scowl was just saying the same word in his head over and over again like a psychopath. Spike Spike Spike Spike Spike. There was almost something humiliating about being in this kind of position that irked Scowl to no end. He wasn't some desperate beginner! He was just making use of a tool to enable him to approach safely! This wasn't his grand plan! Not that it mattered... Even if what he was doing now wasn't quite so embarrassing it wouldn't change the fact that Aejaz was making a mockery of him regardless.
Aejaz jumped over one Spike, raised his arm so as not to get stabbed by another, and even hopped on the tip of one of the other Spikes to jump away from one that tried to sneak attack him from behind. Aejaz was treating these Spikes like a jungle gym and climbing around and jumping off them like a slick acrobat. His moves were tricky and unorthodox, like he was slinking around every corner with a wavy upper body that resembled an inflatable tube man. There was a profound smoothness to the way he curved his body and it defied logic. He looked like he was animated differently compared to the rest of the world, as though someone was controlling him via puppet strings that could defy a normal human's inflexibility. Put simply, he could not be touched right now. Point in case, his movements were so impressive and unusual he even fooled what was supposed to be heat seeking magic. For lack of a better term, he broke the metaphorical ankles of one of the Spikes by standing still. His movement was so hard to predict that by doing literally nothing the Spike was unable to comprehend it. So many possibilities were born the moment Aejaz' feet were moving such that standing stock still almost seemed like an uncalculatable impossibility for the magic. Aejaz had killed all his momentum just in time to watch a Spike go sailing past his retinas and crash into the nearby arena wall, breaking on impact as the shadowy remnants sunk into the floor in shame.
Even though Scowl's attack was half-hearted it was still a real slap to the face to have it avoided with such finesse. All he'd really done here was help Aejaz show off his dodging skills. The guy clearly could have fired back at any point during that so Scowl's entire series of arts had been pretty pointless. The fact Aejaz did nothing was eating away at Scowl who refused to believe he was inferior to this idiot. Aejaz had always been annoyingly good at not getting hit, and it seemed like it had only gotten worse over time, but Scowl thought he was capable of landing at least one crucial attack and then the rest would be simple. He put that idea to the back of his mind and didn't waste his breath on any more arts as his knife would suffice for someone of Aejaz' calibre, of that he was sure.
Scowl ran up to Aejaz, who simply gave him a once over that culminated in a disappointed and disapproving look of unmet expectations, and went for a straightforward stab. He put his worst intentions and best foot forward to try and gut Aejaz but he knew deep down it wouldn't hit. Scowl hadn't committed to this attack, and it was a pretty weak and slow one to begin with, because he was waiting to see how Aejaz responded before he went all in on anything. Making a risky manoeuvre only to miss and leave himself wide open was a bad decision and one he wasn't going to make no matter how little he respected Aejaz. For what it was worth, Scowl did have good assassin habits drilled into him that he was living by even now that Sho was dead. He wasn't consumed by tempestuous rage, nervous in the face of someone who may very well have improved beyond his comprehension, or excited to his core to try and stab the brother he hated. His emotions were in check, even if the ironic scowl on his face was let completely loose, and thus his combat technique and thought processes were all impressive and correct. Unfortunately, that meant nothing to anyone who was just outright better than he was and Aejaz fell in that category.
Aejaz had seen the wimpy, lazy attack coming the second Scowl closed in on him so he was more than ready to capitalise off it. What Scowl was expecting was for Aejaz to fall back but, instead, he threw his chest forward in a curve around the blade and closed the distance between him and his brother. It all happened so fast that Scowl took a moment to process the knife buried in his abdomen before he stumbled backwards. Aejaz could have stabbed him in the heart right then and there and he wouldn't have even seen it coming which confirmed Scowl's worst fear right now, he was being toyed with. Whether it be to make a name for himself, or simply for petty revenge on those who wronged him, Aejaz was going to take his time making an example of the brothers clearly.
If there was anything that last interaction taught Scowl, it's that Aejaz was now more than capable of ending a life whenever he felt the need to do so. The old him that struggled to even pierce a training dummy with a weapon didn't exist anymore. All that remained was a fully fledged assassin who, at the very least, could wipe the floor with Scowl in a head on fight. Scowl didn't know to what extent magic would change the dynamic between them but, without any, he was not a contender in Aejaz' eyes. Again, credit where it was due, Scowl did not falter in spite of his shock, he didn't even make it clear that was how he felt about the matter via his facial expressions. A mere click of the tongue was the only indication he even had feelings on the matter whatsoever and it wasn't easily deciphered as anything other than frustration at having been stabbed. Scowl turned his head to call out to his brothers, as he needed to gang up on Aejaz to stand a chance and he wasn't ashamed to admit it, but before he could get the words out Aejaz started dashing towards him. Scowl rushed to defend himself from another stab aimed at his stomach but he quickly realised his hand was empty and he was about to get run through yet again.
Squelch
The sound of Aejaz' prowler, well Ares' anyway but it was on loan right now, sinking into Scowl's flesh was heard loud and clear as Aejaz playfully twisted the knife. Scowl would live and shouldn't be such a wuss. Having a blade spun around inside you for a little bit wasn't all that bad, especially not for a cultivator. In some cultures it could even be considered a greeting! Although right now Scowl wished it was a farewell instead and that Aejaz would just disappear from his sight.
Scowl tried to turn and run but was repeatedly stabbed in the back.
He tried to walk backwards and keep an eye on Aejaz but he was stabbed in the front.
No matter what he did, as he was forced to wait for his allies to find an opportunity to involve themselves, Aejaz was there to poke another hole inside him. His only weapon was gone and there was no way he could focus on casting arts while he was being stabbed repeatedly. Even Spike, an art that realistically shouldn't have been hard to cast under pressure, wasn't able to come out properly. It was almost as if Aejaz was calculating the time between failed chants in his head so he knew precisely when to stab Scowl to interrupt him. Scowl couldn't make it half way through the damned word before he was made to bleed in yet another place. None of the wounds were serious, and they only really just hurt like a bitch, but in some ways that made it even worse. Knowing that each of these stabs could be fatal if Aejaz willed it made Scowl want to lunge at the bastard but doing so would just put him in a worse situation. You wouldn't think it but Scowl's patience was borderline legendary for him to even passively tolerate this beating... Thankfully it came to and end as Job and Phlo launched a well-timed counter-attack. They waited for Aejaz to step between two of the shadowy blobs on the floor that Phlo had left earlier and leapt out of them in sync with one another. Job from behind, so Aejaz would have a harder time stealing his unique art, and Phlo from the front where he could keep Aejaz' attention. Scowl was relieved to see that his brothers were putting some serious thought into their approach and hadn't pointlessly abandoned him. Sometimes it was necessary to let someone else take the brunt of an assault in this profession while you schemed a perfect intervention off to the side, Scowl knew this all too well and wasn't fussed it had to be him right now. Actually, this wasn't his first rodeo with this kind of scenario as he was typically leading the assault on his victims. If they fought back, it was his job to hold the line long enough for someone else to confirm the kill. No one could ever argue Scowl wasn't dutiful down to the last fibre of his being at least.
Aejaz' response to this brilliant pincer was simply to not be here in this position any longer. Ducking into the shadows via the Prowler would take a bit too long for his liking so Aejaz used a new trick up his sleeve and stole Scowl's position. Scowl had done little more than blink and he was now being stabbed yet again, this time by his two brothers instead of Aejaz. His wounds were considerably worse this time as the brothers had been aiming to damage Aejaz heavily but, fortunately for Scowl who was battered and bruised, none of the strikes were lethal. This wasn't intentional on the part of Phlo or Job though, once more Aejaz had prevented Scowl's death. Right before Aejaz stole his position, Aejaz had shifted his own such that Scowl wouldn't be placed directly in front of his death when he arrived there. The slight body twist and the inch he leant back had saved Scowl's life and further taunted him. Furthermore, Scowl was lucky in that Job hadn't actually pulled out his unique art yet. The dagger in his hand was a replica of the unique art and it had been designed specifically to fool Aejaz. The point was to have Aejaz steal the replica before Job whipped out the real one and dealt the killing blow before Aejaz could respond. Had he been using the unique art Scowl would have suffered considerably more than he already did. Also the cat was out of the bag now that Job's ace up his sleeve had been exposed but how could this have possibly been predicted?
Why could Aejaz do something as ridiculous as forcibly swapping places with another person?
Where did he even get such a non-sensical power from?!
This was the trouble with unique aspects, you never knew what kind of whacky turns they were capable of taking. One minute it was doing as was said on the tin, the next they were bending the rules of their magic such that loose interpretations of the meaning of their magic were applicable and exploitable. Bellona was doing something similar currently too and had ideas that would blow people's minds if they knew about it. Aejaz was no different. Nowadays his mindset had simplified a bit as it was basically a one-track note that allowed him to expand upon his magic. What do I want most right now? As soon as he had that figured out, the rest was quite simple actually. if he wanted to be in someone else's shoes, he would steal their position. Simple as can be! Yes the mindset was simple but that made it general and easy to interpret in many different ways leading to precisely this situation. What he'd just done was an application of Relocate that hadn't existed prior to some hardcore training with the art that expanded its uses considerably but, honestly, that was only the tip of the iceberg and what was about to happen to the trio would start to clue them in to just what manner of monster they were staring down right about now.
"Carnwennan."
In response to Aejaz stealing his unique art, Job could do nothing but shed a single tear. Carnwennan was Job's unique art of the shadow aspect that summoned the mythical weapon itself, or rather a copy of it that was faithful to the original in many ways... But why could Aejaz use this art?! It was supposed to be a unique art?! Even the enabler he was wielding shouldn't have made this possible! As it turned out, the appropriate in 'Appropriate Skillset' was likely more often going to be in reference to the verb and not the adjective. Granted Aejaz had silently cast it on Job so it's not like the poor guy could even try and wrestle with the punny language himself to figure out what was going on, he just had to stand there in disbelief that this was even happening.
What was even the point of a unique art if someone else could just effortlessly copy his homework and steal it right form under him?! He could still use his own art but what was even the point? To enable Aejaz to dual wield after stealing it from him?! Even Job had never held two Carnwennans at the same time and he was the only person that had ever even held one! He refused to allow it! He would sooner be run through by his own weapon and accept death than allow it! And, honestly, he would probably get his wish sooner rather than later. The Carnwennan could cloak the user in shadows, much like the myth stated, but it was also just an extraordinarily powerful weapon that was sharp as can be. There was practically nothing it couldn't cut through and was almost as deadly as Ares' disintegration coating that he applied to his weapons on occasion. This unique art really wasn't a joke and needed to be taken very seriously whenever it sprouted up. Of course the downside to it was that it could be stolen... So really Aejaz was Job's living nightmare through and through... This whole situation made Job want to cry, actually. And worse still, Job could feel his strength, speed, and weapon mastery being partially siphoned. Apparently whatever art Aejaz used to steal his unique art could also steal part of the target's various physical attributes.
So what exactly?
Aejaz was just a better version of everyone he fought? He was the copycat supreme who stole your weapon, stole your art, stole your physical enhancements, and then killed you in the same manner that you planned on killing him? He became you while you became a worse version of yourself?! And it's not even like he was limited to whatever his opponent could do as Aejaz still had his own tricksy arts up his sleeve waiting to be used like Relocate and so on so forth. In fact, he even used another new one that further put the brothers in disbelief with how stupid this guy's magic was starting to become.
"Steal Your March."
The effect of this art became apparent pretty quickly as Phlo and Scowl could no longer move in Aejaz' direction or launch any attacks at him. Every time they tried to cast Spike it just fizzled out and every step they wanted to take felt impossibly heavy. Basically, until the duration ran out, or Aejaz made a move towards them, they couldn't attack him. Hell even Job had been afflicted by the art, preventing him from defending himself properly as Aejaz was guaranteed to move first in the combat scenario. Again, another assassin tool that anyone in the profession would slaughter millions to be able to use. In a bizarre twist, thievery magic had somehow become the object of envy of every assassin in the crowd and it wasn't even a contest. Move first, strip your opponent of everything, take away their senses and their memory, disorient them by switching positions... Plus Aejaz' arsenal was borderline limitless as he would always have access to more than the person he was attacking did. Every art the person knew, Aejaz knew and then some. He was guaranteed to just have MORE than his target did at all times. Even if he didn't outright assassinate the person with his bloodline invisibility, his Concealed Serpent, his dagger mastery, and his incredible footwork... He would be stronger in drawn out fights too with this stupid magic as he could convert himself from an assassin to a normal cultivator with access to a wide variety of magic on the fly! No wonder Ares said that the way Aejaz' fights should be unfair, he'd predicted this absolutely bonkers magic way back when and knew precisely what Aejaz should have been gunning for. Of course the despicable idiot that Ares was had though this nonsense up and encouraged Aejaz to go through with it... If anyone was going to encourage something this nonsensical it would have to be him, really...
As for the state of the current match... Well Job was about to be stabbed in the brain by his own weapon and Scowl and Phlo were going to be left alone to somehow deal with the menace that was Aejaz. The full extent of his Appropriate Skillset wasn't even on display as of yet and it had already all but guaranteed the Glimpse's loss... They thought it was bad now but somehow, someway, it was still going to get even uglier when Aejaz revealed just how ridiculous he'd truly become because all of this was just the precursor to his grand finale...