Chapter 80: Would You Love Me If I Was Undead? Negan’s Not So Fun Magic Trick

The static shield glowed a blinding white. Something was happening. Nirvana felt her heart pounding so hard. A second later more light flooded the dome. This light made the ground rumble, crack and heat up.

"NO! NO! You wouldn’t! FAUST, YOU WOULDN’T!"

Her voice was drowned out by the rumblings of the replicated explosion. She felt like she was having a heart attack right now. She stumbled and fell to her knees, tears pouring from her eyes. They were just starting to know each other. Really know each other. Beyond the fake smiles and the easy words.

"You can’t go," Nirvana whispered. "Not now. Why now?"

Bring him back, a part of her hissed. Necromancy is love. She could always be with him. She didn’t have to bear loss. She could bring him back in all his glory to fight forever.

But would he want that?

Nirvana had never considered how Faust felt about her actions. Only what she wanted from him. And that nearly drove them apart.

Of course Faust would want to come back. He loves life, he loves enjoying life, and facing people.

She cleaned her eyes and got up. Whatever came from that barrier she would find a way to bring back. Faust might not like being under her control as an undead, but they could find a way around that.

She was busy slapping her face to pump herself up when Faust walked around the shield and stopped.

He raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing?"

Nirvana was still. Her grief melted away as she stared into those blue eyes. She was at a loss for words.

"I was trying to... uh, convince myself that you’d want to come back as an undead."

"Oh. Well... I don’t think I’d mind. Once I die it doesn’t matter. You can use my dead body however you like." Faust blinked. "Actually, I take that back, please treat my body with respect."

Nirvana blushed furiously. "I’m not a fucking creep. What the hell? Why would you think that about me?"

"Think what? I didn’t say anything." Faust rolled his shoulders. "Might want to rinse your mind"

Faust started walking towards Negan and the next battle. He jammed his severed arm against the stump while Nirvana fed him a Health potion with a glare.

"Just you wait," Nirvana muttered, holding the potion up as he drank. "When you die, I’ll treat you well." 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Faust did a double take. "Um... okay? Thank you?"

◇◇◇

Negan was destroying them.

The robot man-spider slashed between the ranks of vanguards with unreal speed. His form flickered and disappeared completely occasionally. Something beyond speed.

Gamebreaker charged at Negan but he had to block the dragon flail with his shield. A thunderous boom echoed as the sharp edge bounced off the circular shield. He was sent flying back.

Faust watched the battle from atop a roof, with Nirvana peeking over his back.

"We aren’t going to help?" Nirvana chirped, carefully watching her friends. Faust wouldn’t stop her if she wanted to help them.

But even she knew that they weren’t in as much danger as if they were fighting Fix. Negan didn’t have the Annihilation effect imbued into his attacks. If they died the system’s second life would save them.

All those people Fix fired at are dead

The thought soured his high moods a little. They lost their chance to participate in the game because of one maledictive little goblin alien. Missing out on all this fun because of a tourist would turn Faust into a vengeful spirit.

He suddenly realised he hadn’t answered Nirvana and blinked. "Sorry. We aren’t helping yet, because I want to know more about how Negan fights."

Nirvana hummed, nodding slowly. "I don’t know why I thought you’d rather not know what your enemy can do to make the fight more interesting."

"Those types of fights are fun, but if I can I would like to know more. Dominating the enemy is more satisfying in the long term."

Nirvana nodded more surely now. "So what do we know about Negan? I was busy staring at you instead of watching the fight."

Faust chuckled. "He’s a proud one. I want to make him feel small."

Negan fought with both his hands behind his back. The prideful Arachne relied only on two of his eight spider legs and the dragon flail.

"It works like a tail," Faust explained to Nirvana. "The way it moves looks random, but it always stays around Negan, connected to his tailbone. He’s a half man, half spider with a dragon tail, wearing an exoskeleton."

Negan was too far for Faust to replicate his Schema, but he had a good idea how the Pathfinder’s abilities worked from what Kye had told them and his observation.

"He’s creating these paths between two points. So when he just flickers out of existence like that he’s not moving too fast, he’s just moving in a higher dimension."

"Okay, I’m a bit lost, and that sounds even worst," Nirvana admitted. "So he’s creating portals?"

Faust shrugged. "You can call it that. But it’s more complex. We can move left, right, up, down and all that to get from point a to point b. Negan can create new directions to move in. Then he can manipulate how long these directions take to reach point b. So it can be instant or with a delay."

Negan swung his dragon tail through the air and it briefly disappeared. A few metres away, it reappeared to swat two Vanguard aside.

Nirvana snapped her fingers. " I saw that. I think I get what you mean. It’s like he creates a tunnel between two points and he can control how long that tunnel is. That’ll be unpredictable as hell."

"He also has the Pull-you-apart-thing," Faust reminded.

Negan dodged an attack from a spear wielding girl. He disappeared as he walked into another dimension, then reappeared a second later.

Two bubbles appeared around the girl too, swelling and distorting space on her left and right. There was a loud pop as the bubbles burst and space began to collapse around the girl.

She was screaming. Her skin grew taut and tore. Less than a second later her screams were silenced as she was torn in half.

Negana sighed. "My apologies. Decoherence is usually more elegant. You can blame your mongrel system."

"I also want to make him feel small now," Nirvana said with a disgusted look.

That would be a tougher task than Faust expected.

Negan was not only a spatial master. His skill in combat was terrifying. Faust knew a thing or two about hand-hand combat. He was a black belt in a lot of schools.

But Negan made human combat look outdated and simple.

His eight legs flicked and slashed out with precise and preternatural timing. He had greater reach than them and a better understanding of combat.

Each time Jason winded up for a hit, Negan had already struck him two times.

If not for Gamebreaker’s defensive equipment, he would be long dead.