2300.Scuffle
"Alexander's weaker version," Decumia called while straightening her position to stand on the sky. "You wouldn't belong on this battlefield without the help of your far stronger companions."
"How many of you wouldn't be here without the sky's protection?" Wilfred responded. "The weakest of us is as strong as hundreds of you."
"My, my," Decumia laughed. "You speak arrogant words for someone hiding behind a corpse. I wonder, will you also sacrifice yourself to give power to the pig?"
Wilfred didn't take those words well. He had shared Steven's situation in the past. Supreme Thief had to save their lives and add aspects to their worlds to pave the path toward the ninth rank.
Seeing how Steven had to give his life to make his power effective didn't promise anything good. Wilfred also knew that he was finding chances to attack only because the Foolery had become strangely reliable.
Still, those opportunities weren't leading anywhere. Wilfred could push Decumia away and interrupt her attacks, but he couldn't hurt her deeply. He even struggled to open wounds in her already weakened figure.
Questions on how to act piled on in Wilfred's mind. He wasn't the type to think during a battle. He preferred the straightforward approach that tested the limits of his physical strength, but it was clear that he couldn't defeat Decumia like that.
Wilfred couldn't even expose himself since Decumia's chaos was too scary without the Foolery's influence acting as a defensive layer. Long-range attacks that exploited his new techniques were his only real option, but they couldn't help the pig too much.
'She has yet to understand how to counter the Foolery,' Wilfred thought, 'But she is getting there. If she learns how to ignore its influence, we might be in trouble.'
Those thoughts ruled out the slow and ineffective long-range attacks from his options. Wilfred couldn't allow his opponent to become a problem for his companions. He wanted to ensure the Foolery's victory, but that might require a price, and he was willing to pay it.
"Do you know how she is doing this?" Wilfred whispered as he tried to come up with a plan.
"Doing what?" The Foolery asked.
"Going past your power," Wilfred explained. "Her power is stretching past the limits of her world while remaining bound to it."
"When did that happen?" The Foolery questioned.
Wilfred couldn't help but glance at the Foolery. The pig appeared utterly clueless, but that didn't stop Wilfred from voicing another question. "Didn't you notice anything strange at all?"
"I'm still eating her," The Foolery stated. "What changed?"
Wilfred gave up on the matter. That idiocy probably favored the Foolery's new power, but it also made it unreliable when it came to plans or strategies. Wilfred had to handle that part on his own, so he came up with something relatively simple.
"I'll distract her," Wilfred uttered. "Her chaos is troublesome, but she probably can't defend against you and me at the same time. I should also hurt her pretty badly if she decides to focus on you. We can do this."
Wilfred was quite confident in his guess. Decumia had always needed to sever her energy from her existence to create abilities that could pierce the Foolery's defenses.
His plan sounded beyond reasonable. Wilfred would be able to land a direct attack if Decumia didn't stop him, and the Foolery could do the same in the opposite situation.
Of course, Wilfred's life would be in danger if Decumia decided to focus on him, but he didn't care about that. The Foolery would be able to deliver a clean blow through his sacrifice, and the lack of valuable defenses would probably make it reach Decumia's world.
Both options would lead to positive results if Decumia didn't have anything surprising, which sounded reasonable since she had just learnt how to handle the Foolery. That was enough to push Wilfred in that direction.
"What are you doing?" The Foolery asked when it saw that Wilfred was ready to charge ahead.
"I'm preparing for the plan," Wilfred stated.
"What plan?" The Foolery asked while tilting its head to its right.
"Are you even listening to me?" Wilfred sighed.
"I have a plan!" The Foolery squealed. "Let's go!"
Wilfred had no idea what the pig had in mind, and he soon discovered that no amount of thinking could affect that situation. The smoke coming out of his arms suddenly grew violent and made him shoot toward Decumia, who could only laugh at that scene.
The Foolery also used the smoke coming out of its damaged skin to accelerate. The pig flew in a straight line with Wilfred at its side, and both of them ended up leaving a smelly trail along their path.
Wilfred didn't understand what was happening. His body sprinted on its own, and it even adjusted its path and momentum to match the Foolery's speed.
Decumia let the two converge toward her without summoning any technique, so Wilfred had the chance to make a point of the situation. He connected that unreasonable development to the Foolery's ability, which forced him to move his thoughts to the next step. He had to attack.
Wilfred closed his eyes and joined his hands above his head. His whole body tensed up, and his muscles bulged as they prepared themselves for the inevitable backlash.
A long-range attack had reflected injuries to his body, so it was very likely that a direct blow would cause even more damage. Wilfred knew all of that, but he pressed forward and mustered as much strength as possible, uncaring that his limbs could explode during the impact.
The Foolery limited itself to a simple charge, and its body landed on Decumia together with Wilfred's joint fists. A massive force fell on the privileged cultivator and ran deeply into her existence, but storms suddenly came out of her and sent everything flying away.
The energy inside Decumia, Wilfred, and the Foolery saw an unstoppable force sending them away. The power released by their previous attacks acted as a shield, but their bodies suffered injuries anyway.
It didn't take long before Wilfred and the Foolery reunited somewhere among the void. Their attention was still on the laughing Decumia, but their stances were quite different.
"We almost had her!" The Foolery squealed. "Let's go again!"
The Foolery had every intention to charge ahead right away, but Wilfred promptly wrapped his legs around its thick neck to stop it. The pig instinctively thought that Wilfred wanted to jump on its back, and anger burst out of its figure.
Nevertheless, that anger waned when the pig noticed that Wilfred lacked his arms. He couldn't grab the Foolery with other limbs, and his condition actually created a problem.
"Hurry up and regrow them," The Foolery ordered.
"I can't so quickly," Wilfred complained as he kept pulling to express his intentions. "Give me some of the energy you have taken from her."
"I didn't take anything," The Foolery snorted while tilting its head. Wilfred's legs were still bound to its neck, so the gesture ended up waving him around.
"Don't copy Defying Demon," Wilfred scolded while crouching forward and headbutting the Foolery on its forehead. "I know you are eating under all that skin."
"That's a complete lie," The Foolery declared before tilting its head on the other side. The gesture separated the two and slammed Wilfred on the pig's belly.
"I can't fight like this!" Wilfred voiced an annoyed remark before bringing its legs back on the pig's neck.
"I can't do anything about that," The Foolery squealed. "I'm almost done absorbing her energy. You can't take it at this stage."
"You lied to buy yourself some time!" Wilfred shouted as he began to kick the side of the pig's head.
"It's my energy!" The Foolery complained. "I took it! My belly is my domain!"
"I am close to approaching the breakthrou-! AH!" Wilfred said before the Foolery bit his leg and forced him to interrupt his line.
"You dumb pig!" Wilfred cried. "At least make one of those awful plants. They should have improved too, right?"
The Foolery froze before slowly moving its head toward Wilfred. His leg was still in its mouth, but it didn't press on it anymore.
"You forgot that you could do that, didn't you?" Wilfred sighed, recognizing the guilt behind the Foolery's expression.
