Rae was delighted that the Overlord had not forgotten his side of their deal. Now, she was a Monarch, and only one Rank beneath him, so it should be a good sparring opportunity.
“So, which form would you like to practice in first?” Niall asked.
“I think human first. It should be easier to learn your tricks if I’m in the same shape you are. Then we can go all out when I’m in spider form with golems.” Rae suggested.
Niall nodded and launched his first attacks, as Rae activated [Night Haunter] and extended her fingernails out into proper claws to parry his attacks.
The Overlord Rank Rogue tracked her movements with ease and Rae had to slip away using her web to keep him from getting behind her.
He could also step on air the same way that Dana did, meaning that even moving to the ceiling didn’t put her out of his range. But the human was also faster than she was, and they were both constantly using movement skills to flit around the room.
To the Commander in the security office, it looked like the room was filled with shadows and smoke, as the combatants were moving faster than the recording cameras. Someone in the upper ranks was going to be extremely disappointed that they couldn’t get a recording of the battle, but with the skills of stealth type classes, recordings were normally useless even if they weren’t this fast.
After five minutes, a bell rang, and the combatants returned to the centre of the room, breathing heavily.
“How do you see me?” Rae asked, confused about her inability to hide. [Night Haunter] should make her invisible to both normal and thermal vision.
“I have [Presence Sense], and I’m a Rank over you. Unless you can completely hide your aura and life signs, you won’t be able to hide from me.
But what is that skill you are using? I’ve never encountered anything like it. It’s stealth and movement at the same time, and something more. Unless you have a separate skill that is making you incorporeal and immune to regular damage.”
Rae shook her head. “It’s all one skill. Night Haunter. It’s not really a movement skill, though. It only lets me move my whole body to places I can see or touch. But it counts my silk as part of me until I detach it. So, I can weave a web and then move around the room with ease.”
“And the transformation, is that you, or are you still using the token from Newbon?”
“That’s all me. I put in many hours of effort to make a babysitter form for dealing with small humans. It is quite effective.”
Overlord Niall chuckled. “Do you think that you will do better in spider form?”
Rae looked around the room, then frowned and shook her head.
“No, I’m too large for my extra speed to matter. I might be able to land a strike or two with my legs, but I won’t be able to win without much more space.”
“Then let’s keep practising. Maybe you can learn one of my attack skills.”
Really, Niall was determined to learn more about Night Haunter, and he could feel that Karl’s training skill was active on both of them. Chances for an Overlord to learn a new skill were few and far between, so he would make the best of his night with Lady Rae Bloodbath.
He wasn’t the only one training late that night, though. Thor’s advance had granted Karl the ability to use [Lightning Zone], while Hawk’s had improved [Flaming Body] to [Ghostfire Body]. So, Karl had to practice both new skills so that he would know how they worked, and their limitations, before he needed to use them in combat.
Ghostfire Body was very similar to the old skill, other than the fact that it appeared to burn away the soul energy of the target as well. But the Lightning Zone was going to take some work.
By default, it created a charged area around him that would shock anything that entered, other than the targets he specifically excluded.
It would be much more useful if it could be focused away from himself, or into a barrier line, where the lightning would shock and stun at a set point, and not randomly all over the zone.
It would make him difficult to sneak up on, as he would feel the activation when anything was shocked, but it was a bit too indiscriminate for Karl’s taste.
He practised for an hour after all of the Overlords had gone to bed, but with no progress, he decided to put it aside for now and work on it later.
Hawk had some insights on the problem.
[Maybe you just need to make it more Karl flavoured? You are good at using our skills, but they’re not really your skills, are they? Just a copy of ours. If you tweak them, it might be better.]
[So, more focus on using Skill Master and Skill Merger on myself? That’s actually a good idea. Maybe I can advance a skill or two. Learning an advanced version would be a huge boost.]
Hawk considered that. [You have that fancy writing skill too. It’s for more than just writing books, right?]
Yes, Runecrafting was for more than writing skill books. Though, it did also make writing skill books easier.
Karl thought about it, and took out a piece of paper to write on. Then he realized that he was short on supplies. A pen wouldn’t do for this application, as the runes he needed to write had specific thickness ratios, and he didn’t have a paint brush.
[I will have to test that tomorrow after I get supplies. Maybe I can leave skills behind if I write the runes on an object.] He explained to the beasts, who were watching with great interest.
[Who knew that we could be stumped by something as simple as a paintbrush? But you can be like this heroine in my book.] Remi commented.
[What book?]
Remi held up a small paperback, and Karl sighed. {Spirit Summoner Onmyo and her lustful Demon Lord}
[Where did you get that? Let me guess, you ordered it from the library because you liked the title.] Karl sighed.
[It’s a good one. Lots of romance, but the main character writes runes on paper to cast spells and banish demons.] Remi agreed easily.
Putting aside the fact that the book appeared to be a white cover trashy demon erotica, it wasn’t a bad idea. With Runecrafting and focus, he should be able to transfer some of his skills to paper and use them as wards on an area.
In theory, anyhow.