The Noble Queen-A Shadow Slave Fanfic

Chapter 509: Ace



The others continued their ascent, giving the column of corruption a wide berth.

They would have to get closer as they neared the narrow exit, but hopefully by then, Noble would have cleared the way.

The rising colossal hand was so far ahead of them now that Noble could only make out the vague outline of it among the clouds.

'Time to topple a tower.'

There was one big flaw in the Skinwalkers' bizarre construction. The people were not all the same size, and their haphazard composition made some places much weaker than others.

Sensing a small body supporting much more weight than it should, Noble used her Ability to pull the corrupted creature from the pile.

'Ah!' Noble released almost immediately.

The individual vessels were all part of one being, so when Noble pulled on one, the others immediately reacted. The entire group rallied around the one, making extraction suddenly impossible.

Noble would have had as much luck taking down the whole tower simultaneously as a single point.

"I'll have to do this the old-fashioned way…Helios?"

The mental command was given even as the words were spoken.

While still keeping an eye on the humans traveling upward, Noble raced directly at the column with her trusted echo.

If she couldn't use her Ability to dislodge them, she would use her strength and the might of her golden demon.

Helios flew low and left while Noble aimed higher and to the right. The Zenith looked sharp enough to cut through the very fabric of reality as it shot forward ahead of its master.

Noble braced herself as she aimed carefully. Bodies were still climbing like spiders on the human tree. Hitting one of the ascending vessels would not do much good, so Noble aimed between the inhuman mountain climbers.

Summoning her Hummingbird's Wings, Noble used a short burst of speed at the last moment. She collided with the weak point with devastating speed, knocking three vessels into the clouds and cutting two others in half as she passed the edge.

As she suspected, the column wasn't hollow. Corpses filled every available space. So hitting it was a bit like running into a wall. Thankfully, Noble had experience with the use of force in her years in the Dreamscape. The awkward conglomeration of monsters gave way under her intense pressure.

Below, Helios ripped a wide hole with his massive body, slicing and dicing the mundane vessels and then flitting away before they could retaliate.

Even if the severed corpses could heal, it would take a moment to do so, throwing off the entire balance of the tower.

The column holding up the massive hand swayed, stopping its upward climb. Knocking one side off balance would have been problematic for the precarious mass of bodies, but Noble and Helios had not stopped there. They had taken swaths out of different places at different heights.

'Whoa!' Noble moved away as the rocking intensified. The whole thing was going to collapse!

Only, it didn't.

Just as the tower looked like it would topple, a strange shift occurred. The people sifted down like sand into the holes, shoring up the foundation of the structure. Simultaneously, the climbing vessels filled the new holes made by the adjusting corpses.

The organism had self-healed.

'I knew it was too easy...'

Nearby Helios snorted. He was displeased as well.

"We can't rest," Noble said as much to herself as the echo.

The duelist's consciousness was split between her physical location and where Lonzo, Teran, and Fir rose through the air. She could not let her mind drift from the other humans. They were the priority.

Keeping them safe also meant keeping the Skinwalker from escaping. So Noble focused on both lifting the refugees and fighting the enemy with equal fervor. Her mind was being pushed to its limit even as her soul was being emptied of essence.

Noble had never lifted anything so far away from her. This wasn't the way she wanted to test her range!

'We will have to move up too.'

While attacking at the base of the tower was more likely to throw the entire thing off balance, Noble didn't want to reach the end of her range before the three men had made it to safety.

She would have to find a new spot to attack.

Or many spots.

Like two whirlwinds, Noble and Helios spun around the wide column, cutting down vessels as they went.

Noble tried not to think of the horror of what she was doing. Thankfully her second sight did not provide the same level of detail as her true vision.

So she hacked and slashed at the human visages, constantly reminding herself of the monster hiding below the surface. The hatred aimed at her was extreme and suffocating, but it helped her not get lost in her own emotions.

Her efforts stalled the column's ascent, infuriating the Skinwalker. All at once, every head turned in her direction, as millions of eyes trained solely on her.

Suddenly, the monstrous arm split. Half of it turned at an unnatural angle, ready to swat her out of the sky like a gnat. 

Unlike the first time it had tried this maneuver, the second hand managed to stay intact. Bodies stretched toward her, cracking as they moved in ways their bones could not support.

The duelist tried to evade them, but the tallest woman composing the longest finger caught hold of Noble's calf. Her injured leg twisted to the side before being pulled toward the ground.

But before the vessel could bring Noble down with her, a golden streak landed squarely against the vessel's back. The monster's face contorted as her spine was severed.

Noble pried herself free of the corpse's hands and flung the vessel aside.

The duelist nodded at her Symncus. 'Good boy!'

The use of resources had slowed the Skinwalker once again. Noble could feel that her floating passengers were close to passing the monster and making it to safety.

There was no time to dwell on her small victory. She needed a decisive one before the Skinwalker did something desperate.

And she found just the spot.

The gigantic second hand was continuing its downward progress. It would eventually turn and rejoin the main body, but for now, the strange structure was having to support two different and unbalanced masses.

'There's the ace.'

Ignoring the pain in her leg, she flew directly for the spot without hesitation.

Beside her, Helios roared as his claws reached out before him.

They were not going to stay on the periphery this time.

They were diving into the belly of the beast.

The Ascended Master and her Echo plunged into the sea of vessels without regard for their own safety.

Noble was on the brink of exhaustion, but she pushed through the feeling as she fought for her life. Her sword was not the only thing dealing devastating blows.

Her fists and good leg were punching and kicking with everything she had.

Unable to support the structure and fight at the same time, vessels were being thrown from their perch with terrifying speed. 

Like termites eating the inside of a tree, Noble and Helios hollowed out the monstrous arm. The middle of the column began to lose its shape. 

That was not to say the pair were not suffering severely. Noble's armor was on the point of breaking from the barrage of powerful punches pelting her body.

Helios did his best to shield her from the worst of the blows, but even he was bruised and bloodied from the constant barrage. More than a few of his beautiful teeth were broken by the corrupted humans and their violence. 

If this kept up, the echo would be destroyed. 

'Just a little more...' 

Noble felt something bite her bad leg and take a chunk of her flesh. 

'Gross...' 

There was nothing she could do about it. The pressure from all directions was becoming too much. 

'Steady....steady' 

The hand that had tried to take Noble from the air rejoined the main body. It would be able to reinforce the column as soon as it was fully incorporated into the host. 

But before that could happen... 

"Now!" 

Noble dashed forward through the incoming flood to destabilize while Helios simply disappeared. The pressure that the vessels had been placing on their enemy no longer had any force pushing against them.

So instead of merging, the two parts of the massive arm collided. The hollowed-out center had no way to resist, collapsing in on itself. 

The air seemed to shake as the shockwave moved upward. A second rain of vessels came, but Noble was happy this time to watch it fall. They tried to reach her, but the quick dashes by the Hummingbird's Wings left her always out of their grasp. 

Furrowing her brow, Noble tried to hold on to her last bit of essence as she felt the last of her reserves running dry. 

'Almost there...You can do it!' 

The ground rumbled like an earthquake as a million bodies hit the earth one after another. 

But her attention was not below her. It was above. 

'Noble! It's Endo from the airship. Can you hear me?' 

'I can hear you!' Noble took a deep breath. 

'We have Lonzo, Teran and Fir. They are safe. Should we wait for you or....What the Spell?!'

Noble looked up. Her job wasn't over.


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