It would take more than that to stop Zeff. He launched a tide of water with enough force to shove the radium wall straight through the door, the subsequent radium-water reaction hissing violently and producing streams of hydrogen gas. A single spark could set the gas off at any moment, but that was the last thing Zeff was worried about as he pressed through.
‘Do not let Zeff Elroy leave the premises!’ shouted Dergoz for all to hear.
The two sentries from earlier were there in the cloud. Even without a clear view, Zeff was able to materialize ice inside their mouths, and in the next instant, frozen spears burst out of their skulls and killed them both. He mumbled an apology to their on-looking reapers. Any servant without a certain level of passive soul-defense might as well have been dead already for all the threat they posed Zeff. He estimated that there were fifteen servants currently within Rhein’s Keep whom he could not kill with this strategy, the most problematic of course being Lawrence.
Zeff made it all the way out to the courtyard before encountering his next resistance.
‘All guards!’ Dergoz was shouting. ‘Take Captain Zeff into custody immediately!’
It seemed to be creating more confusion than anything, and Zeff intended to capitalize. He ran for the main gate.
A radium dome fell over him, which would have encased him in darkness if not for the element’s faint blue glow. But after a moment, it wasn’t so faint. The thing that made the General’s power so dangerous was unquestionably the way the man could strengthen the element’s radioactivity by empowering it with his soul. It made the radium decay more quickly, but that was a meager price to pay for the waves of debilitating pressure that it sent through the opponent’s body. Already, Zeff could feel the weakening effects, bathing him and Axiolis in so much radiation that his regeneration was having a hard time keeping pace.
Zeff armored himself in ice, empowering it with his own soul as well. It only offered partial protection from the radiation, but he didn’t intend to stick around. A string of geysers shot up around him and flipped his radioactive prison into the air. Blood oozing from the eyes and nose, Zeff kept running.
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
Wow, materializing stuff inside their skulls? Am I reading this right?
ReplyDeleteA question about the radiation. It's not entirely clear from the text whether the radiation hurts Axiolis as well. Since the radium was soul-empowered, the radiation might be too, but I don't really think so. Alpha and beta emission are made of particles. They're obviously not radium atoms, so Lawrence shouldn't be able to soul-empower the radiation. Not sure about gamma rays though. He can make the radium glow brighter (emit more photons), and since gamma rays are photons, maybe he can manipulate the gamma rays in some way.
Typos:
"He estimated that there were fifteen servants currently within Rhein’s Keep [whom] could not be killed with this strategy"
Isn't whom the objective case or something?
"A radium dome [fell] over him"
(It's "fall over him" now.)
Wow, materializing stuff inside their skulls? Am I reading this right?
ReplyDeleteNope. "[F]rozen spears pierced their skulls". Materialized outside of them, then penetrated them quickly.
I hope you're a teacher. Or work in a lab or something. Cause that knowledge shouldn't be wasted mopping floors, ya know?
ReplyDeleteInteresting question. Lawrence's power will be elaborated upon in time, of course. :)
ReplyDeleteConcerning the typos, the first one wasn't really a mistake. "Whom" is the objective case, yes, and "the fifteen servants" were the designated object of "not being killed." I can see why the phrasing would make it confusing, though. Rephrased it for clarity. Second one was obviously a typo and is now also fixed. Thanks.
Well, actually, the next part of the sentence should clarify that. "...frozen spears pierced their skulls from the inside and killed them both."
ReplyDeleteBut hmm. Maybe that's confusingly phrased. Think I'll change it to "frozen spears burst out of their skulls and killed them both."
The question here is, can zeff control all water or only water he creates? If he can control water in general, then why can't he just freeze the water in the other servant's bodies? Or pearce there bodies with ice, then have the freezing effect spread to the water in there bodies. As the human body is 60% water, this would leave them completely immobile for hours until they thaw, or are regenerated from scratch.
ReplyDeleteWater. A most fearsome tool.
ReplyDeleteThink: From what we know they can materialise a material in its different states.
Solid: Ice, can be used as mentioned so far.
Liquid: Water, sounds useful to trap reapers. Could just pour it out, let it cover a large area and empower it. Could also be boiling of near freezing water to impede enemies. Or used to get the enemy wet, and then make lots of ice so the entire area starts to freeze like a freezer, trapping the enemy.
Gas: Perfect for concealment, and if he can create it instantaneously within a small space, the expansion could be explosive.
Plasma: Not sure what the effects of this would be. Read the water would end to be something like 300 or 400 Kelvin (read it a lie ago, can't remember which, sorry for not using Celsius), but IT'S PLASMA! YOU NEED TO START USING PLASMA!
Also, how high/low can they make the temperatures when the materialise something? Is there a limit, and is it based on how powerful they are? Or could they theoretically become powerful enough that they could materialise something hotter than the sun?
Also, epic idea: If they can create a certain amount of their element within a sphere of influence, couldn't he theoretically just stand at the top of a mountain and then keep asking water. Wait a few dozen years, and everyone in the area might contain mostly water he created (would work particularly well in a desert) and then he could dematerialise his water and.... Nvm, mental image of the corpses ruined it for me.
Sorry for the long comment, just one more thing which I thought of: if the reapers and their servants have been around so long, just how much of a particular element is natural and how much is servant made? Would be interesting if it turns out a common metal turns out to be rare, and only common because some jackass servant created lots of it. Hey, if they can make gold then they could destroy entire civilisations. Maybe silver was once more precious than gold, but a servant made it more abundant?
That's true. Iron is naturally incredibly rare and people have wondered for generations why there's so much iron in the earth.
ReplyDeleteCorrect, manipulation of a force is Alteration.
ReplyDeleteWhy isn't Axiolis shouting too? "Help, Dergoz has gone crazy, he's trying to murder us!"
ReplyDeleteCould help. Could also make it more difficult for Zeff to concentrate, which he REALLY needs to do at the moment.
ReplyDeleteWhy would radiation create pressure? Maybe "waves of debilitating rays" or "energies"?
ReplyDeleteHe is a materialization user, he can only create not manipulate.
ReplyDeleteI did find that a bit odd, but I dunno bout radiation at all. Hell, I barely even recognized the word "radium".
ReplyDeleteLike a someone said on a previous page, radium is indeed nasty
ReplyDeleteIs it possible for him to make liquid water at extremely high temperatures, as if he could, then the expansion of it into vapor would be a powerful explosion.
ReplyDelete