NOVPUBA warm breeze brushed against Braxten Shannazah's colourful, baggy jumpsuit, and in the next instant, he did a twirl, dodging a harsh lunge by a tall Cavern built like a brimstone given human shape.
He twirled again, narrowly avoiding a smaller Cavern that shrieked, wishing to desperately claw through his belly and spill the man's innards with a swipe of its talons. Braxten was graceful. He'd always been. That might have been the second trait everyone attributed to him besides his silly jesting. Grinning, his eyes shone and suddenly bloodlust exploded out of him.
He turned into a dark, zagging bolt, and in the next instance, one of the Cavern lost both its legs, and the other's right arm was pulled off.
Both Cavern screeched in agony, but their attacker hardly noticed or cared. He turned thoughtful as he decelerated and skidded on the ground. With the grace in his movement and the sudden languidness he expressed then, you would have never imagined sixty more Cavern were rushing towards him vengefully.
The experts he, Agnees and Maxim were leading were fighting battles of their own, using their abilities and the stashes of slashes they had been gifted. Subtle light flashes whipped about in the sky at intervals, incapacitating the many Cavern.
"The fun ones are yet to grace us, it appears," Braxten said, and then his mana flared. The next thing the attackers knew, he was using their shoulders, heads, and chests as footholds, leaping here and there. He used the landlubbers as steps, the fliers as stepladders.
He threw a devastating punch or two, knocking out a Cavern with each. It didn't interest him that much to keep besting the enemies so easily. Since he was tactfully dancing in their midst, most of them didn't dare use their abilities lest they harm their companions.
Those that did, found Braxten hard to touch. 𝔫𝖔𝔳𝔭𝔲𝔟.𝖈𝔬𝔪
One of them managed to 'corner' him in the sky, swinging a large Morningstar. It roared and swiped with the deadly weapon to crush Braxten, but Nitros lathered him in an instant, and with his bare hand, he caught the weapon's spiked head.
The assailant was taken aback. It tried to pull the weapon back, but that wouldn't do. Braxten's grip was firm, and he donned a greedy smile as he squeezed.
"A volunteer. A volunteer! Do you desperately want to become the first to taste just how much my technique has grown? Well, be my guest!" the man said animatedly, ducking to avoid the large hand of another Cavern, kicking another away, and firing Nitros from his finger to blast away ten more Cavern.
The large creature still wielding the Morningstar shuddered. It attempted to leave behind the weapon in favour of escape, but Braxten wouldn't have that either.
"Oh no. You can't volunteer and leave me hanging. You have a good weapon here – Mythical by Aigas' standard, I think," he said while binding the Cavern with chains of Nitros. "How about I make it better? I'll change its name for you! How does that sound?"
The Cavern growled, struggling to free itself. Braxten donned a thoughtful look, while continuing to fend off the Cavern and then…
He beamed.
"I'll call it… The Metallic Shafting Stud of the Thumping Crushers!" he cried… and the Morningstar was suddenly wreathed in an ominous, purple glow. Braxten's face turned vicious, his eyes on the bound enemy. "Guess who it's going to crush?"
The answer to the question was obvious. The Morningstar shuddered and suddenly, it vanished from between Braxten and the Cavern… and then from the latter, great spikes exploded out of all its limbs, rupturing flesh and skin. The Cavern wailed in agony, writhing, but it couldn't move because some of the spikes protruding from its body had nailed it into the ground.
"Now, now, it wouldn't do for you to die. Please don't," said Braxten. He dashed backward to avoid getting bashed into by a Cavern that flew in from his right.
He grabbed its wing as it passed, however, pulled and smashed it into the ground. From his spatial storage, he extracted a steel helm of the Legendary grade and made the downed Cavern wear it. Grinning, he gave the helm a name:
"Arching Dream's Summit, Reminiscence of Overwhelming Violence!"
A purple glow lathered the helm, and suddenly and its wearer's eyes rolled back. Braxten let the creature go, and almost immediately, it rose to its feat, and roared furiously. It took to the sky, ramming into other Cavern as it went.
Braxten enjoyed the scene thoroughly. The cackle that left his lips said it all.
The technique developed by the Shannazah House, Menace of Names, had been formidable before, but now, after Braxten had poured all three charges of the [Soul Talisman] into it, it had become quite mind-boggling.
Originally, Menace of Names allowed its user to give attributes to inanimate objects just by giving them ridiculous names. The longer the name, the longer the effect lasted, and the stranger the name, the stronger the effect would be.
After Braxten had used the [Soul Talisman], however, these already existing properties had been improved, and he had managed to improve an aspect of the technique he'd always hated.
Before, Menace of Names before had only been capable of granting defensive or offensive abilities. On top of that, it limited Braxten to one type of effect per target.
Now, that had changed. As long as his target was sufficiently powerful, Braxten could imbue an unlimited number of effects, and better yet, he could imbue more sophisticated types of qualities; every kind of utility-type effect imaginable was possible for him to create, as long as he could come up with a meaningful, ridiculous name.
The Shannazah House Head didn't bother using the [Soul Talisman] on anything else because he didn't value physical attributes. To be fair, none of the Houses had powers stringently based in physical ability augmentation.
Well, the Kudobtus were an exception.
…But maybe Maxim too, even if she wasn't part of a House. Of the three of them - Braxten, Agnees and Maxim - leading the thrilled experts against the Cavern, she was having the most fun with her new powers.
