Yeah, that sounds right. He was in his element at that point, and the closest he's ever gotten to reliving his trigger event, so his power was magnified. It's probable that his 'regular' soft limit would put him on par with the Endbringer, whereas being close to his trigger event boosts him above it.

Makes you wonder if a person that triggered in a fight against an Endbringer (and got a highly destructive power) could kill them.

 

Flechette, maybe? She can already harm them. Dangle her new girlfriend from a stick in front of an Endbringer and hope for the best?

 

I’ve realized something:

Lung is aware that he’ll be building up for two years. That’s the same timing as the end of the world according to Dinah.

But why does Lung think “two years” will be when the PRT has to open the Birdcage for their assistance? Because of this conversation Amy had with everyone about what the passengers are.

The passengers- _not_ Jack Slash.

Some people were speculating in IRC that the visions of the passengers we’ve gotten so far paint them as part of a lifecycle for interdimensional beings, and that their reproductive cycle involves the whole planet turning into crystal and then fracturing into more of the creatures.

Lung knowing about the two year timeframe to me seems like a confirmation that the actual threat to the end of the world is the passengers themselves "waking up" as was mentioned in Marquis' interlude.

Edit: wildbow responded with

My response to that was "It doesn’t matter how Amy knows about that timeframe, Lung only knows because Amy mentioned it when explaining to the other prisoners what she learned about the passengers when she touched Glaistig Uaine.

That seems like a very strong implication that the end of the world is related to what Amy discovered about “what happens when they wake up”. And we know from this chapter that what happens is bad, right?"

 

Either bad or good- maybe they 'lack' something to fully wake up, etc.

 

As much as a game changer as Lung was against Leviathan, he wouldn't be nearly so much use against Simurgh. I'm not even sure how much use he would be against Behemoth - he couldn't afford to take the time to level up against either of them nearly as much as he could against Leviathan.

 

He could still be effective against Behemoth. He could use the anticipation of the fight to strengthen himself and then maybe another cape could beat him up enough to get him to a decent level of strength so he could get in range of behemoth.
You're right against simurgh, though maybe his power could protect him against her?

 

Simurgh's ability to 'manipulate futures' seemed like a more terrifying version of Shamrock's ability - with some mental aspects. She can do things in the now, both physically and mentally, and uses a form of precognition and clairvoyance as Shamrock does to know which manipulations to make to cause the desired affect.

That just makes more sense to me (especially as she is lauded as a precog) than her having the uncanny ability to warp people mentally. It would also explain handily how Alexandria was immune. It would also mean that Lung probably wouldn't be immune.

On the note of clairvoyance, I thought Contessa was a clairvoyant, not a precog.

 

We haven't really seen anything yet that differentiates Contessa's ability from that of the Numbers Man. (In combat at least.)

Their abilities seem useful, but only to a point. What could they possibly do against more durable capes? If they only have normal human strength, they can't really do anything.
The same applies to people with large enough area attacks. You can't dodge a huge swarm of insects. Or someone like Fog.

They seem to be effective against most opponents, but have hard counters at the same time. For that they seemed far too self-assured against opponents of uncertain abilities.

 

My theory is Contessa's power is like a Time Travel HP fic (memories sent back in time) entirely under her control. I'd also assume her power will go off automatically if she's killed, sending her backwards some default amount of time (maybe whatever amount she jumped most recently?).

She was confident when the fight started because if it turned out she couldn't win even with lots of repeating, she would go backwards in time to a point where she could avoid the fight entirely. Even if the maximum jump was limited to an hour backwards or so, she could easily change the location of the meet, or snipe the thugs from outside, or do any of a number of useful things.

She isn't a win button against and Endbringer or an exceptionally difficult to kill cape, but she's also very difficult to checkmate. She would be extremely vulnerable to the Simurgh though (she would accrue extra corruption time with every repeat).

 

I think Contessa would be able to disrupt the Simurgh significantly because she would completely distort its precognition abilities, if your theory is correct. Or maybe vice-versa.

 

He wasn't, though. That fight was a total loss, and the entire island sank into the ocean, millions of people died. The most devastating Endbringer attack in terms of loss of life in the series, I believe. He took too long to do anything, and in the long fight Leviathan wins every time.

I could definitely see Harbinger take one look at Taylor's swarm and just turn his ass around.

"Nope."

 

The level of destruction and the aftereffects suggest Kyushu was a soft target. Naturally Leviathan wins in the long term just by pitching up. The result here is a foregone conclusion.

It could be that for hard targets Lung would be more valuable as the time factor is less important. We also don't see possible after-effects such as prolonged recovery on the Endbringer's part. I'm not saying that it happened, but it's clear that the Endbringers do have to recover in some form so I'm saying that it's possible

 

I just discovered this on reddit:

A Timeline for Worm by El_Sock

Here is the simple one from Wildbow (docs)

 

Contessa would be 'able' to reboot until she gets a 'perfect' solution sure, which means that before the combat the Simurgh wouldn't be able to, say, be able to predict the future beyond the current encounter (as the encounter will reboot again and again), but remember that the Simurgh is subtle.

She just needs to make Contessa believe that her goal is different than what it is (her standard M.O), and Contessa's "perfect resolution" will end up being Simurgh's.

Also, as the corruption acummulate, Contessa becomes less and less able to discern what the Simurgh actually wants...

 

gods such a fuckton of shit happen in 3 month this is ridiculous

 

Just realized that Skitters new costume completely wrecks her decoy trick

 

Unless she covers herself in bugs.

 

It's also tinker made by the Master of Miniaturisation.

 

Good point. Given how well Taylor's power lends itself to espionage, adaptable camoflouge should be a given.

 

It also probably has a tracker in it or some kind of "Skitter recall" function. Not that I expect Skitter to try and make a run for it, but... I wouldn't trust the suit, myself.