Chapter 408

When you can't win, cheat.

Arthur crouched a little, jumped as high and as far as he could from standing, choosing not to even try running. With his gimpy hip and a ghost he couldn't see, he doubted he'd make more than a few steps before he was attacked again. Better to get aloft, away from the attacker as fast as he could.

He barely cleared four feet upwards before he began to fall, but Cloud Step gave him another boost, throwing him forward as he landed with the same leg he had jumped with. He flew through the air, ever higher and angled, a second cloud ready for his left foot to come down upon. Arthur nearly collapsed as the shock of pain raced up his body when it came in contact, when he pushed forward and leapt one last time.

Burning pain, like he had been stabbed once again coursing through him. Only the cooler mind that his Yin Body offered him, his prior experience with agony allowed him to keep working on the next step. He couldn't form another cloud, not in time, but it didn't stop him from trying as he looked around, searching.

He was over ten feet in the air now, his head even further than that. Below him, a cloud bank that hung unnaturally close to the ground, almost a demarcated line that cut off. He assumed it was around ten feet or so below him, that the freezing cloud bank stopped. Already, out in the warmer air, his face and extremities that were clear were stinging, blood rushing back.

More importantly as he looked around, trying to find his opponent, recollection came rushing back. He cursed himself, realising he had another option as he dropped the Heavenly Sage's Mischief and began another technique.

Slamming into the earth, moments later, forced into a roll to keep himself from hitting the ground. He grunted in pain, feeling the wound that had closed after freezing over break open, a warm gush of blood that cooled all too fast erupting from his side. As fast as his healing worked, it could not keep up with all the wounds and blood loss, his head spinning.

Crouched low, head bent down, Arthur forced himself to ignore his other senses. Touch, taste - he didn't even want to know when he threw up a little - and smell were useless. Sight was marginal and hearing was useless, with the ghost floating. Instead, he had one last ability, and he just hoped it worked.

Shadow sense...

It reached out from his aura, infiltrating the surroundings just like his aura did. A part of it, in fact. he was realising now, how powerful auras were, had been already thinking along those lines when he first found the interactions between Yin Aura and Shadow Sense, but now he was relying entirely on it.

He didn't know if he could make it work for him the way he needed, but he also didn't have a choice, feeling outwards from him.

Movement in that sixth - seventh? - sense came to him, and he threw his hand upward even as he tucked and rolled. A little too late to avoid the attack entirely, but the hasty block meant that his left arm, already scored and damaged and somewhat useless anyway took the brunt of the attack. 

Cloth tore further, Steel Skin bending under the blow and parting. Swapping out from Cloud Step had been automatic the moment he knew he was committed to this, when he realised there was no good way to run from the fight. The freezing cloud bank was too broad, too wide for him to escape, not when he had only one leg that was working and no ability to see. He would freeze over, get ripped apart before he escaped.

Movement.

Rolling over his right leg, gasping as pain shot through him, arm hanging from the side. He felt the figure disappear again, but now that he had sensed it, Arthur realised he could track it better. He stayed down though, letting his energy recover, waiting for his bleeding to slow down, running options down.

He couldn't fight Tun Rahman in a kris battle. He was too wounded, too blind and reliant on his sight to win such a battle. Sure, they had done some blind fighting, which group hadn't? It was a ton of fun, taught a series of great techniques and helped you understand where bodies positioned themselves in a way that most people who hadn't done it couldn't understand.

After all, most bodies could only bend so far. Tension and muscle positioning and rotational elements in limbs meant there were only so many variations. If he could get a hand on his opponent, maybe... but he was growing numb, muscles siezing. He didn't have time to grapple for supremacy, not entirely.

There was too many maybes involved.

Instead, he waited for the moment, when Tun Rahman drifted in again. A part of Arthur wondered why it didn't just wait, allow Arthur to freeze over. Maybe it couldn't think that far ahead, maybe it just didn't want to wait. Rage seemed to be the watchword for the ghost, and when it slipped close again, swinging at Arthur, he was ready.

The Refined Energy Dart exploded from his back, forming there and catching the ghost in the center of the chest. it tore through its form, staggered it and made the swinging blade skitter off the turning body. Arthur stumbled over, slammed his kris into the top of the knee and twisted, popping kneecap out of place with a squelch. It dissipated moments later, but the ghost collapsed.

Arthur caught the swinging arm with his own, hooked it under and pulled tight, used his kris as a piton to stab and pull, dragging his body the rest of the way upwards. Each attack left bleeding wounds behind, killing the ghost with each attack. Allowed him to cross upwards, such that he was on top of the other.

Watched as the already significantly injured ghost thrashed, its desperate strength stilling, even as Arthur tried to finish it off faster. The cold seeping into his wounds,  in his body, slowing him down, clouding his mind.

Somewhere along the way, the body stilled, dispersed and dropped Arthur to the floor beneath. He didn't even notice it, the cold robbing him of his senses and his ability to move. What little energy he had, he turned to the Yin Energy within, rotating it such that could bolster the healing process, trying to close up the last wounds, to keep him awake.

He failed, even as the last of the freezing cold cloud dispersed, leaving him lying there, flat on the ground.

Victorious and dying.