Valkyrja Battle I

24th, October, Midnight

(Recommended Song: Nick Phoenix – Forge)

Swords were crashing against each other as the sound of battle filled an arena inside the castle walls. It looked like a tournament area for the middle ages was built, with the ground changed to dirt for easier grip of boots. There were destroyed training dummies lining the sides, with burnt bullseye targets in the distance, some with bullet holes, others with armor installed into them to test how strong the ammunition was. There were a few that looked perfectly fine, albeit had been launched from their original position by a shield bash, telekinesis or leg sweeps. Very few, if any, were any real practice for the empress. She needed a threatening enemy to spar with. Ethan made a good candidate, along with Jorge.

Selene was busy practicing with Ethan who was roughly the same size as Hrist. She had been working hard the past few days just to get herself into shape, building her body up with exercise and learning how and when each move or maneuver worked. Of the three days, at least one she didn't sleep at all, with the others having only four hours of rest. She couldn't afford to relax, either constantly training and using rejuvenate spells or checking on her crafting. Most of her physical special abilities, her combat actions were committed to muscle memory by now, with Ethan having a hard time breaking through her defenses… but he was only a level 78. Hrist might not even be level 100, just a placeholder for a raid boss with far higher stats. It was possible she was seeing level 100 due to Yggdrasil standards, or possibly the scanner just wasn't showing the correct level. She could be 200, or 300 even, maybe higher.

She had entirely scrapped her Blessed armor to rebuild a wholly new design from the ground up into Magic tier without even using the previous set, sacrificing one hundred early raid tier gear to produce the new pieces. The design was purely steampunk powered armor in the complete sense of the word. Each item was crafted not as a whole piece, but individual parts that were connected together. She customized the design as much as she could, not really for aesthetics, but for function in the coming fight, going for firepower, strength, defense and speed. The list of things she did to get the most stats from her equipment was huge. Primary Materials, Secondary Materials, Tertiary Materials, Primary Additive Materials, Secondary Additive Materials, Main Focus, Cleansing, Imbuement, Primary Forging, Secondary Forging, Tertiary Forging, Tempering/Bit sewing, Filing, Primary Sharpening, Secondary Sharpening, Additive Sharpening, Socketing, Fitting, Imprinting, Enhancing, Blessings, Auras, Runic Etching, Primary Modifications, Secondary Modifications, and finally Enchanting. That wasn't even the magic abilities the armor was going to give.

The primary materials were mainly Tungsten Steel for the plating, with secondary material being an underlayer of steampunk piezoelectric Kevlar to protect against piercing and cutting. The tertiary material was expanding padding that sealed when punctured, as well as placed pressure against wounds to staunch blood flow. The main focus was set for what the item would be, building around it in sections to all interlace, further improving design and functionality via a personal schematic. Cleansing was done on all materials, not because it was smelted wrong, but because it removed any sort of "bad luck" or previous supernatural connection, like a Miko Priestess removing bad vibes or curses, or provide good luck. This was to stop anything from interfering. Imbuement was done to improve the general stats that the materials would provide, increasing the number by anywhere from five to twenty-five percent, depending on how many times the equipment was imbued. She had gone for the maximum.

Primary forging was done, then secondary forging, then tertiary forging to make sure everything moved exactly as it should, without fail. These actions allowed excess material to be moved around in the pieces, providing more space for extra armor or special features without sacrificing defense or offense. Tempering hardened the finished product, further increasing the protection values, with Bit sewing adding steel thread or steampunk Kevlar where needed to keep straps from breaking and cloth in the right place. Filing was done on the weapons and armor to allow the parts to connect without difficulty or be taken apart for repair or cleaning, with primary, secondary, and additive sharpening used to hone the weapons she would use into a fine sword and spear that any king would drool over. The main sharpening was done to increase damage potential, with the additive used to provide a secondary damage capability instead of physical. The long sword she was going to use would provide both physical and electric damage, hopefully being able to bypass Hrist's armor.

Socketing was done for gems that would also be imbued, blessed and runic etched with enchanting piled on as well. The armor was fitted so she would take no fatigue while wearing it, made entirely for her body shape. Imprinting was done to remove mobility penalties of any kind, with Enhancing providing extra armor plating and scale mail for critical spots, maybe adding a second belt or spare straps. Blessings were provided to add bonuses based on actions done, with low chances of them happening. Regardless, a one percent chance of fully healing when attacked was going to be invaluable, or five percent chance to double damage from a swing with the sword, if unlikely. An aura was placed hidden on each part, with the effect mainly for use in a party like a paladin. It would provide minor boosts to defensive or offensive stats, nothing amazing, roughly ten percent of whatever the stat was at the time. That was where she was going to throw everything into key stats to help fend off the strikes she knew Hrist was going to try and land against her to bolster that bonus.

Runic Etching provided a power boost to whatever action was taken for whatever equipment was used. If she was running, it would increase her movement speed with the etching on the boots, with attacks, it would increase her attack speed on gauntlets and damage from the weapon. Primary modifications were added on top of the equipment, like her shield having an electric field installed with batteries on the back, her armor having jump jets on her back, the cloak being able to piezoelectrically harden, or even reactive armor plates installed over what she already had. There were sonic systems attached as well, in which when an attack tried to hit her, the weapon would receive high volume of sonic waves that would cause stress fractures, eventually causing it to fail and potentially chip or even break. Her armor polarized to help deflect against any magnetic materials coming at her, including a sword. Foucault currents flowed through the material to add circulating energy to help disperse force from an impact to the rest of the armor, making sure her shield and other equipment would break from one strike from the Valkyrja.

Secondary modifications were just minor improvements to primaries, with spare capacitors hidden away, auto glue spray for cracks in armor, backup wiring hidden inside or emergency power. Her armor was now considered fully powered, with a miniatured steampunk exo frame installed under the hood. The backpack she was going to wear would have the cloak wrapped around it and bolted down so that it couldn't flap around and get in the way. Finally, enchanting was done on each separate piece before connecting everything, with before hand Selene trying her best to upgrade her enchanting percentage. She hated constantly swallowing enchanting gems and enchanting dust over and over and over, but it got her to one hundred percent, with a lot of sacrificing crafted items. Given she had the materials for it easily, it wasn't an issue, just the constant eating and then drinking was very annoying combined with the drinking of skill and stat potions.

She had rushed one hundred chemistry stations to produce each tier of the Skill and Stat Potions for the past three days, with another one hundred used to give her what she had available at that time. She had started with Large, and finally moved up to Very Large, Grand, Super, Mega, and finally Ultra to attain eleven points each drink. She did the math as carefully as she could, sciencing the shit out of how often she could drink the potions before she'd get really nauseous. It took half an hour, not an hour like she thought before her stomach would settle enough for a new potion to be consumed, while still practicing with Bronze Team. The orb was used each day to increase her level by fourteen, including an extra level on the day she found out about the entire battle she had entered into. Each day, she gained the levels, barely reaching tunnel vision but having enough time to cast rejuvenate on herself multiple times and laying down for an hour to clear her head, with Turnie and Jeeves watching over her constantly if she ever swayed. The empress knew, she was going to need every ounce of her skills and stats to break even against Hrist.

On this third day of hard training, she had reached level 96 due mostly to the orb. Within the past three days, she had consumed one hundred forty-four potions, even while sleeping due to IVs set up by Turnie, against her recommendations as well. Of those one hundred forty-four, forty-four were Very Large, ten were Grand, fifteen were Super, five were Mega, with the last eighty being Ultra, including one Ultra that Philosopher's Stone increased to give fifty-two points instead of the regular eleven. That gave her one thousand four hundred fifty-three stat points, not including what she had gained from leveling. Not one of them was a skill potion… she really needed everything in her stats, with skills being entirely for combat and frankly having plenty compared to the much-needed attributes. All total, she had two thousand thirteen Stat Points to spend, one thousand one hundred twenty Skill Points… and ninety-six perk points. She completely wiped her entire perk list out and started from scratch.

Of the Stat Points available, she started dumping one hundred into multiple different areas. Health, Mana, Stamina, Psionics, Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Perception, Carry Weight, Pain Tolerance, Critical Strike Chance, Critical Strike Damage, Magical Power, Health Regeneration, Mana Regeneration, Stamina Regeneration, Psionics Regeneration, Natural Armor and Attack Speed. Movement Speed and Accuracy were both boosted to one hundred percent. Rage was not increased to one hundred percent yet, as it would take a little more time to get another one hundred points, but it was planned before the next morning, also adding another fourteen levels and shooting her past level 100 if she could manage it. Rage was going to allow her to boost her stats while she fought for her life, given she was learning how to use it while fighting Ethan and Jorge the past three days. There were offensive and defensive effects, with no actual ability or action costs used like in the games that had the feature. She could increase her damage for strikes or protect against damage by boosting defensive stats temporarily. Each time it was used, the effects only lasted a few seconds, which put a crimp on it if the enemy feinted or backed off, wasting the rage power. Carry Weight had a secondary effect in combat despite its stat name, as it provided resistance to damage to her skeleton and muscles, stopping her from breaking bones or tearing a ligament or tendon from being hit or from striking so hard her arm gives out, though it wasn't a one hundred percent defense against very strong opponents, or against attacks meant to break bones or tear muscle.

The last twenty-one points she threw into Magic Cast Time, to speed up how fast she could get spells off. In her eyes, Rage Build would have been far more useful, but it wasn't shown anywhere, being able to keep the rage going to resist the damage she knew she was going to take. Health, Mana, Rage, Psionics and Stamina didn't work off a percentage it seemed, despite it showing as such. It basically added for each one percent a full extra bar worth of what she already had, which was one hundred. Her hp was now ten thousand along with the other bars, excluding food and water. She hoped combined with all the defenses she was going to be wearing, her Natural Armor and Resistances, it wouldn't go down quickly; her stat boosts from equipment also increased that number greatly, close to five hundred thousand, halfway to a million which might be where Hrist was. With the final point placed long ago, she had swapped to Skill Points.

She increased Ranged Weapons, Melee Weapons and Heavy Armor to one hundred percent, but she wasn't going to stop at that for those skills, she just needed to make sure she boosted others as well that she hoped to use. Wizardry was increased to one hundred percent, dropping the cast time equal to half of the skill, with the other half being governed by Magic Cast Time. This would drop the cast in total by seventy-one percent right now, making things that would normally take a few seconds fire off in half a second or almost instantly. It also allowed her key special abilities she was going to need, the five being "Double Cast," "Triple Cast," "Quadruple Cast," "Spell Slinger" and "Universal Magic." Double, Triple and Quadruple seemed self-explanatory, with allowing her to cast multiple spells in a row at the same time. It could also be used to amplify each other if she worked it out quick enough, using Double on Triple that would work on Quadruple to get twenty-four spells off at the same time, with a cooldown for each of about ten minutes. The fight might last half that, but she couldn't be certain.

Spell Slinger allowed no cooldown for ten seconds, allowing rapid casts that of a frightening number of spells, with a similar cooldown of ten minutes. Universal Magic allowed her to combine different offensive or defensive magic together into a cluster of sorts, allowing ice bolt to be fired but also doing fire, electrical, death, nature, pretty much as many types of damage as she could shove into it. The problem was it only worked on one spell, with a reconfiguration needed each time to swap the ability to work with another cast.

The dev added one hundred percent into Explosives in the event she needed to drop a grenade or three. She was hoping Hrist wouldn't have much blast resistance, but that was doubtful. Blast resistance didn't actually exist as a real resistance stat, but padding and other defenses could help. Football helmets were being designed to protect against concussive damage, which she really needed to make use of in this fight, but there wasn't a large amount of concussive force attacks out there, spell or not, excluding large munitions. Even then, there was no guarantee it would work the way she needed it to against a Valkyrja.

Melee Weapons provided "Lightning Strikes," "Chink in the Armor" and "Parry Parry Thrust Thrust." Lightning Strikes increased the amount of attacks that were brought down each time she would strike with her sword or spear, turning one hit into several. It lasted thirty seconds, with a cooldown of three minutes, which wasn't bad really, maybe getting two or three of them in the fight if possible and turning her attacks into ten. Chink in the Armor would highlight vulnerable points in Hrist's armor, allowing her to strike if left undefended and cause double the damage. It only worked within a one-meter radius though, not giving her enough time to respond to new glowing spots while she's fending off her enemy's attacks. Parry Parry Thrust Thrust would instinctively make her block, parry, or dodge patterned strikes automatically for one minute, without use of stamina no less! Her body would just go on auto pilot while she focuses on getting herself out of a bad situation. If Hrist used a tried and true combo, she'd be able to hold her own until she mixes up her actions.

Beyond one hundred percent for those skills, she still had eight hundred seventy points available. She dumped another hundred in each combat skill, making most spells instant cast, her melee attacks effortless, ranged was firing like a machine gun with a semi auto bolt action rifle and reloading in the blink of an eye, her armor would provide double the protection values and actually increase her movement speed and explosives would just do a whole lot of damage. An extra one hundred was added to Steampunk Mechanical Engineering and Steampunk Electrical Engineering, as she had incorporated a lot of it into her equipment, hoping it would increase the damage as much as she could and allow her to hold her own. Bronze Team's levels increased due to that, with Jorge increasing to level 156, the remainder of the team shooting up to level 117. She didn't even bother checking her Heavies or vehicles, it didn't matter right now.

Ranged Weapons provided new abilities, but the remainder that was improved did not. "Multi Shot," "Unload" and "Make it Count." Multi Shot turned anything fired into a scatter round, multiplying the projectiles in the air by up to ten for each round. If this was used on a shotgun, she could only imagine the buckshot wall flying, or a machinegun even. Unload fired every shot in a quiver, magazine or drum almost instantly, allowing her to put as much fire downwind as possible before she'd have to move to melee. Make it Count automatically caused a ranged shot to cause critical damage, either severely wounding the target or killing it outright. The problem was… this was a Valkyrja, she might get hurt by it, but it wouldn't end her.

She threw her last remaining one hundred seventy skill points into boosting Heavy armor to three hundred percent and Explosives to two hundred seventy percent, wanting to increase damage and protection as much as possible. Potions, elixirs, flasks and kegs were all prepared for tomorrow, with buff spells learned to further improve her defenses and speed. She was especially glad she had one special cast, Amplify Damage, similar to Amplify Magic for Yggdrasil spells. It would increase the damage of one weapon or attack for a certain amount of time. This could come into play if she had to use her emergency plan once she could ascertain just how powerful Hrist was. For her though, she was afraid her emergency plan was going to be the only way she would survive this.

Her brand-new perks, rebuilt from the ground up, pumping huge amounts into the same categories in multiples of five, making it two hundred fifty percent for each perk group. She had Targeting Reticle by itself, bonus to damage when using swords spears and explosives, critical strike damage for the same, armor rating while using magic tier steampunk armor, stat boosts while wearing the same, potion time, magic power and psionic power, movement speed, attack speed, dodge, parry, block and finally durability for all of her equipment. While wearing her items, she fought well beyond any human should ever be able to fight.

Ethan blocked her attacks as fast as she could bring them down on him with the long sword, doing her best to break his defenses, but she couldn't do it. It was partially due to not wanting to hurt him, but also because he was just that much stronger now and stopping her attacks from connecting. Selene had told him to put all of his defenses on while sparring, Jorge as well. As she struck, he tried to sweep her legs, but she jumped. He immediately shield struck, knocking her back but allowing her to regain her balance instantly, creating a small divot in the ground from the move as she slid back.

"Ma'am, you've been practicing nonstop for the past six hours, casting Rejuvenate spells the entire time. Maybe you should really take a rest?" Jorge asked as Selene kept pushing herself forward, ignoring him. Ethan was slowly backing up at her strikes, but they never made it past his shield or his sword. She finally stopped and just looked at his optics. He stood still and looked up at Jorge. "I have to keep going. I have to make sure that I can get through her defenses or I'm fucked." Regardless of saying that, she hadn't really used any of her special abilities to cause damage to Ethan, only to training dummies and targets. She had been working on launching psionic attacks at bullseyes when she wasn't sparring, increasing the strength of each one. The empress was still firing firebolts and lightning bolts, but at least they were bigger now, almost capable of being called fireballs. The thing she learned was that psionics wasn't like magic, it didn't have a specific rule to each spell, having each ability encompass multiple facets. Pyrokinesis involved all fire based psionics for example, not just launching a ball of fire somewhere. Practicing with each one was building up her control, also allowing her Biomimetic Barrier to start adding her mana bar as more protection. That meant she had a personal bio shield of a million points.

She stood there panting as she cast another rejuvenate, then finally got a notice from a station that a new spell "Unending Stamina" was ready to be learned. She popped the scroll out, already maximized to X Greater, and disintegrated it, committing it to memory in the process. Her movement was a blur most of the time, assuming she could keep her stamina up and spells in full effect. Between consumables, spells, armor, stats and skills, she could very well be the most powerful being on the planet, excluding the Valkyrja. She just needed to keep her energy going, which would be possible with this new spell and combined with Stamina Regeneration stats.

"Ma'am… you need to rest." Jorge stood next to her and put his giant hand on her shoulder gently, despite the fact she could now carry him if need be. She brushed it off. "I can't. One more round, come on." Ethan looked up at his team leader, then back at his empress. "Ma'am, part of being able to fight well is to make sure your mind is clear and fresh. You need to sleep. You're due for the fight tomorrow, you don't want to go in without-" Selene interrupted him. "AGAIN." Jorge made a sighing sound and stepped away as they got prepared on opposite sides of the small arena she built.

Her legs bent and propelled, she just launched herself across the arena, easily breaking Mach three and approaching Mach four, launching a few stones upwards from her feet while leaving that position, the air creating a funnel behind her and throwing dirt into the sky behind. Ethan, however, was ready for it, as he had been the whole day. He blocked and struck out, with her dodging and rolling, coming in for an attack against his side. He jumped back and rolled backwards, using his feet to kick at her in the process and making her back off a little. As he came back on his feet, he launched at her legs with a wide sweep of the sword, Selene jumping into the air and flipping in a roll just above him. The whole fight looked like it was choreographed to the very millisecond as they battled, with one final strike from Ethan… and it connected to the back of her left knee. Her knee dropped to the ground as he held the sword up to her neck as a final action, telling her the fight was over with the armor not damaged, but her knee hurt from the strike. "Damn it… damn it!" she yelled as she stood up and threw her sword on the ground, walking with a limp over to Jeeves and Turnie to sit down in a chair and drink some water.

"Ma'am, you need to-" Turnie started to say. "A little break, some healing and I'll be back on my feet. I need to do this." Turnie looked up at Jeeves, then at Jorge. "No ma'am, you're not." Selene looked at her in confusion, with just enough time to feel Turnie grab her wrist gently and inject her with a sleeping agent. "What the hell are you…" she couldn't even finish the sentence before she was out and slumped in the chair. "Taking care of you ma'am, as we've always done."

24th, October, 9 am

Nevil slipped his daggers into his scabbard along with his sword, preparing for the engagement. "Does everyone remember what this mission is about?" he yelled as others from his division prepared as well. Small glowing objects were put on the belts of two men, while ten others had blue glowing daggers, the last of their kind ever made. "Do not lose those! They can only be used once! We cannot replace them! Do not damage the daggers!" he snapped as others got ready for their deployment. "Are we sure they're there?" Rogas asked. "Of course they're there you imbecile! They never leave." One of the men knocked over the box of daggers on the ground, scrambling to pick it up. One of the daggers was chipped. The others backed away from him as Nevil walked up and slammed a sword right up into his chest, killing him. "I say again, be careful with those. When I say to do something, I mean it!" He pulled the sword from the subordinate's chest and let the body fall to the ground, blood pooling. "We will head to the mountain range; there, we will find the group that has been costing us so much these past few months, and we will end their pathetic existence. Remember to take the bodies, we need them for the next phase."

His men stepped outside into the sun and put on their cloaks and mounted. They turned their horses from headquarters and rode as fast as they could until they reached a resupply point with fresh horses awaiting them. They then continued on, traveling west.

Meanwhile

Selene woke up a little groggy in her bed, in her pajamas. She looked around confused then remembered what had happened. "TURNIE!" She roared over coms. "I'm waiting outside." The empress got out of her four-post bed with drapes, pulled the catheter from her arm with the potions drained and stormed outside to the member of Bronze Team. Turnie just sat there looking at her. "You tranq'd me! You fucking tranq'd me!" she screamed at the automaton. "You have gone a total of three days with only eight hours of sleep between all of them ma'am. You made a mistake with Ethan. You were getting sloppy, which decreases your chances of survival against the Valkyrja by-" the empress was pissed. "I'm not some little child that needs to be told when to go to bed! Don't you understand my life is on the line here?!" she interrupted. "Which is precisely why I did it! No sleep, more mistakes. More mistakes, you die! We don't want to see you die!" Selene screwed up her face in anger, then kneeled in front of the healer. As she stared at her, the dev's face slowly loosened and calmed down as she realized Turnie did it because she cared. "We need you as much as you need us. Getting rest makes sure you can be as strong as possible and come back alive."

Selene just looked at her and breathed, then finally nodded. "I… fine… thanks…" was all she could muster. "It's 9 am, three hours before we have to be there. You have time to take a bath, eat, prepare your armor." The dev's breathing trembled at that sobering report and nodded in agreement. Turnie turned around and headed back downstairs in an elevator as the scared empress stood there for a moment, mentally preparing herself. Her legs carried her down to the vault and to the orb but stopped. If she gained fourteen more levels, she would be stronger, but fatigued for the fight that was just around the corner, probably making mistakes that Turnie didn't want her to. If she didn't, she was going to be facing a raid boss at only level 96, granted with a lot of Stat Potions consumed. Her stomach wasn't too happy right now, as throughout the night they had continued injecting her with more, totaling sixteen potions in all. That was another one hundred seventy-six points available.

She made her decision. The orb wasn't used, with her leaving the vault and heading back upstairs to eat and clean up. She didn't want to feel the shame of any potential last moments of failure due to messing up from fatigue in front of Bronze Team's healer. After a quiet breakfast, she downed another Stat Potion, her final one she felt for the day. While she could technically drink another five more, if she fought with her stomach ready to throw everything up, it was game over. It at least gave another eleven, bringing her up to one hundred eighty-seven points.

One hundred of those went into Rage to make sure she could constantly keep defense buffed, with the final eighty-seven going into Magic Cast Time. Now her spells would be instant, which she sorely needed. It was possible Hrist had magic resistance well beyond what she could penetrate, so it might be relegated to defensive buffs and healing, which considering Greater Healing took so damn long, was a godsend. As she took a bath and scrubbed herself down, her mind kept going to the plan she had created in the event she was going to taste defeat. It had to work, it was her last option. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that, but if it did, she had prepared for the outcome.

As she fitted her clothing and armor onto her body, Orlo came in. "Ma'am, I'm not one for pep talks, I try to learn about the mental state, but… victory is usually already determined from the beginning. With the amount of hard work you've put into this, I think we both know who is going to come out of this alive. It will most assuredly be you." Selene looked into the mirror at him. "Thanks, I guess." A small dip from his saucer and he slowly floated out of the room. Once equipped, she looked at herself in the mirror. It was do or die now. Two hours left.

She didn't know if they would allow her to drink any buff consumables before the fight, so she secretly took every elixir, flask and keg she had and drank them all, excluding healing potions, mana potions and stamina potions, with buff potions used as they would land. "Ok… time to head there." The empress looked at her bed room, as if she wasn't going to see it again. The dev hadn't even talked to anyone in Gold Pine for the past ten days; if she died, they'd never know about it unless her autos explained the situation. Selene snapped out of it and slapped her cheeks some to get herself out of that thought process. She was going to win.

The helibot was prepped with Bronze Team coming with her as support. As they lifted into the sky, she double checked everything she'd need, including the extra pieces of equipment she now had added to her armor. Five black pods that looked like an X with a red dot in the middle were attached across her armor, looking similar in design to reactive armor blocks. Hopefully, the Valkyrja would think they were extra pieces of armor that reinforce key areas. The helibot flew over Gold Pine, with Giles looking up at it and waving, seeing Selene sitting there looking out the side. What could she say to them? That she was going to fight a Valkyrie? A Battle maiden? There was nothing she could do to explain the situation to them. They'd fear for her life, just as she does for herself. People would start praying and lose hope for their new empire, worried that the Artinian kingdom would really come and end their lives once and for all. It was best for them to remain oblivious to what was happening.