Damien's eyes widened in pain, his hand fractured in multiple places. Despite the increased density of his bones, muscle, and skin, ripping control of the section of wall from the Nivari Mages, and willing it to bend outward, the impact had still broken multiple knuckles and fingers on that hand. Still, the exploding wall alone would have probably killed the closest Nivari, around a hundred pounds of stone shrapnel slicing into his side. It had certainly injured two Hellials that were far enough away that hitting them with lightning had been impractical.
And what a bolt. He had held the connection open for a solid second, worried they may be warded or have other types of protection in place, but that had been an unnecessary concern it seemed. Instead of being effective, it was simply burning through his mana at a pace too quick for him to sustain.
The carnage it had left in its wake though... There was a hole in every chest before him, all created at almost the exact same moment. A hole that spanned a foot in diameter, the edges still burning. The occupants of said chests looked down in surprise, still alive. Nothing could be done to save them, nothing could be done by them to avenge themselves, and the only reason they weren't writhing and hadn't exploded from the heat of the blast was because it was meant to ground on the other side of the cavern, not go through them, and still the first two men in the line had exploded in a gory mess.
Damien had even had time to target three of the closest that had stepped past the line as well, though he'd struck them in the stomachs and kidneys. The electricity needed to ground; he hadn't been keen on fighting it, and he certainly wasn't going to allow that much energy run rampant throughout whatever it wanted to with himself and Kastra being so close. One could never be too cautious.
Once the bolt disappeared, Damien's eyes opened up as he lunged into the cavern, Eira and Kiara striking outward like vipers and beheading the last two that were closeby. They hadn't even gotten a chance to mutter a word, only slightly lifting their arms in a defensive posture. The moonstone swords had traveled the short distance as fast as sound.
The air charged in four distinct lines across the two hundred or so feet between him and the enemy forces further in the cavern. Before he'd even turned in their direction, and before the corpses before him had fallen to the ground, four more bolts, one visibly thicker than the others, exploded across the cavern. The vibration from him blasting the wall had given him more than a clear image of where his remaining prey stood, including the man he'd failed to kill outside.
Two lived, to Damien's dismay. He knew it wouldn't be that easy; she had already moved twenty feet toward him from where she'd been when he'd vaporized the hearts of the others, while another Hellial near her had moved ten before halting. Still, Damien wished it would have been easy. One of the Nivari had managed to put up a weak barrier before the strike had gone off, for all the nothing it did for him. It had shattered in an instant and the remaining three Mages fell with a hole the size of a coke can in each of their heads. Now, he only had the fourteen Hellials present to deal with.
Still, he felt no remorse.
The [Light] spells illuminating the cavern went dark, and four more smaller bolts ensured the paltry amount of torchlight they had went out, a hand that was holding one coming off with it, and suddenly the inside of the cave reflected the outside world. It wasn't pitch black, what with some of the burning pieces being scattered about, but it was nearly there. Thirteen tiny bolts shot outward before the wood had gotten a chance to hit the ground, striking ten of his enemies in their chests and the other three on their wings as they tried to dodge.
Refocusing on the woman moving toward him, his eyes would have widened if he'd had the time to let them, so he did it mentally instead. She'd already covered half the distance to him, more than a hundred feet, in less than two seconds and from a standstill. She even looked to be speeding up. If he weren't burning his mind to cast faster right now, she'd hit him before he could even blink. He was impressed with the red comet of a Demon, but though she was moving fast, to him, it felt like she was leisurely jogging his way.
He made a few predictions based on her current trajectory and Eira shot out from above his left shoulder as he finally turned his body to view the Hellial in her entirety, gleaming a hot white-blue, red, pale blue, and a simple grey from his four disticnt forms of sight. Kiara followed Eira from his right shoulder after a brief moment to consider where the woman would land after dodging, along with a quicker moving bolt of lightning. With a mental nod, Damien allowed his mind to ease to a lesser degree of enhancement, and like taking an immense pressure off his shoulders, his pained mind screamed in relief and pain as Minerva visibly sped up by tens of times.
His eyes rolled up inside his head, and regardless of how hard he fought it, Damien blacked out.
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She had told Uhren to stay put the moment before she kicked off, though he'd reacted to the blood and death as any Hellial would before she felt his steps grind to a halt. She sensed foreign mana surrounding her and immediately shrouded her wings in a protective layer of blood-red ice, just in time as lightning struck them. Twice now, he'd hit her with that dammed ability, and she'd force him to pay dividends with his anguished cries. She didn't know what kind of prodigy stood before her, but after seeing what he'd done to her troops and the numbness radiating through her twitching wings, Minerva was taking no chances. He'd eliminated her Mages within moments, leaving her entirely unable to react to the slaughter.
Clearing her head of the errant thoughts, Minerva burned at her life once again as she lunged forward, ignoring the pain in her legs and her wings. Multiple lightning bolts, small and larger, surged past her, ignoring her entirely and striking at her subordinates, but Minerva ignored them as they did her. It was not her problem currently and whatever their purpose, attacks of such a small scale wouldn't do much to damage her troops. No, her problem lay before her. And she'd rip its throat to pieces, along with the Dresmyr's to vent her anger. She'd return to the camp tonight and burn through as many civilians as she could before the Guards caught up, and then massacre them as well. She'd-
Minerva shook her head, mind refocused on the task at hand before it trailed off too far. One step, two... she was nearly on him. Suddenly, the young man who had yet to really move since coming through the wall, shifted his head to look at her and it caused her to shiver for a second. His blue piercing, glowing eyes seemed to stare through her. Cold. Calculating. Void of emotion. Not at all like she'd known Humans to be, always crying about their loved ones. Begging. Angry beyond reason... His eyes reminded her more of Emerson's than any Human's. Or of Uhrens. Or hers.
Two metal whips lept above his shoulders without warning, lashing toward her in an unpredictable serpent-like pattern, confirming her fears of him being a Mage descended from their home island. After another two steps, watching them get closer, she noticed the white one was on a collision course with her advancing leg. A motion upward of her charred wings caused her step to land prematurely. The black whip seemed to be waiting for that exact movement as even before she had landed further back, it was already aimed for her stomach. Whether in haste or intentional, the attack was off-center enough that a spin to the side while bending her midsection would allow her to move out of its path before it tore into her body. Turning her focus back on the boy, she could already feel the way her claws would shred through his throat, ripping his head off his shoulders and-
Her opponent's body went limp suddenly, devoid of all control as if he'd passed out. She was motionless for a beat, confused as her experience built over decades of battle warned of an obvious trap despite all the visible signs clearly stating he had indeed lost control of his body. Still, she continued advancing. His eyes had shut, the glowing blue luster that had been there gone, and even his heart rate seemed to have slowed. There was no way-
The first sword abruptly swung down striking the ground instead of her shin, and launched shrapnel upward and into her path. She pushed forward, risking small cuts and loss of visibility. It didn't matter to her for the fraction of time she'd be blind, honestly, so she took the measured risk. The second sword aimed as she had predicted and she smoothly continued her spin out of its way-
Directly into another bolt of lightning coming from her right side. In the moment her eyes hadn't been on him from the spin, his left hand had opened upward and lightning had shot from all of his fingers into a single stream of electricity, curling around to her right and slamming into her before she had finished her rotation.
She threw up a layer of hastily crafted ice on her chest, but it wasn't enough to defend against the blast. The ice disappeared in an explosion of steam as the strike tore at her skin, reversing her momentum and sending her backward. Her skin was sizzling from the impact and her mind reeled, realizing he'd moved her into position for the attack. That realization ignited in her no small amount of fury.
Spinning in the air so her feet landed on the wall she was barreling toward rather than her back, Minerva tensed and exploded off the wall diagonally toward the limp man before her. He was falling toward the cavern floor, unconscious. Maybe he had hoped that last strike would kill her and bet everything on it. She doubted it was a trick, as any Mage that could trick her senses so thoroughly from this close would have already killed her by now. She had lived so long with caution, yes, but here, rather than choosing to run, she moved forward. Caution was always prudent, but confidence was another side of the coin that could never be discounted.
The dimly-lit red claws on her left hand aimed to catch the boy's neck as he fell forward and she grinned in her mind, relishing in the end of someone who had caused her so much grief. She watched them travel forward, a foot away, five inches, two, tension leaving parts of her mind as she celebrated them ripping into the side of his neck, blood barely having time to begin spraying out as her claws rent out the other side of-
"Wha-" she started, eyes going wide at her clean hands that should be coated with red by now.
Looking down, the Human was leaned backward at an impossible angle and watching her hand travel directly above, nonchalant while giving her a look of disdain, contempt. Arrogance. No longer cold or uninvolved, more like the way a king would treat a peasant. She felt looked down upon irregardless of her physical position above the man.
Surprise once again flew through her body as his left hand shot upward, aiming for her stomach while surrounded by lightning. Any other young Mage doing something like this wouldn't have made her blink, but every instinct inside her was screaming that she needed to dodge or she would die here. This was the first time in almost thirty years of her life that she'd felt genuine mortal fear of another, and with that, realization dawned on her.
The Human was actually threatening to her life.
Once that had sunk in, a calm radiated throughout her mind, like ice cool water splashing throughout every pore and muscle in her body. Gone was murder and bloodshed, replaced by the most rational thing that would come next for any species on the planet that found itself as prey; how she was going to survive the strike.
'No time to block... would die if I had time anyway... wings too broken to move me far enough,' she thought in segments, time slowing as his hand advanced upward.
Thankfully, she had another way to maneuver while in the air, but it would cost her.
With a thought, a slab of ice came into being to her right and she slammed her palms into it, once again burning at her life to strike it with enough speed before her stomach was shredded into. Her hands collided with the ice, launching her body to the left and the ice into the wall he'd come out of originally, letting her narrowly avoid the Human's strike as the cave wall erupted on both sides from the forces of impact. Her mouth opened with a silent cry of pain as she involuntarily spat out all the air in her lungs, her wings crumpling further beneath the impact.
"Weak, slow, useless body. This is why Humans are so..." a deep voice spoke brokenly, leaving the young man's throat as his form bent back up to stand tall once again.
The Human- no, whatever was wearing him, looked over at her and goosebumps covered her skin in an instant, hundreds of times worse than the shiver from earlier. Warily, she prised herself from the wall while wrinkling her nose at the unpleasant smell in the air. His eyes were glowing a dark grey now, circulating around his pupil.
"Almost five hundred years now," the Human spoke, staring impassively at her, and then around the rest of the cave as he dusted off his shoulders and stretched. "I've been waiting for a day like today for that long. I didn't know if I'd ever get the chance, wondered if it was even worth waiting for. Holding onto this anger, revenge..."
Her mind raced over the statement and her current state of being. What had happened that long ago, why was she so afraid of a child, and what had changed in him to cause this. She'd heard of what happened when a Mage communed, even seen it herself in the odd Human or Beastkin they forced to as a form of torture and experimentation. Hellials never tried any longer; they were always killed without fail. But she'd fought those while in their heightened state, and once or twice while someone of power had recently gone through it. They always seemed... off, like this, and their eyes glowed just as bright. But this was different, none of them had spoke.
This was new, and terrifying.
Steeling her nerves, Minerva gripped the wall behind her and resolved herself to attack while he was distracted. Her claws dug into the wall as she crouched low, throwing two chunks of stone forward before lunging forward. The thick pieces of cavern streaked forward just in front of her body as she closed in on him, once again appearing vulnerable, but differently than before. Before, he'd seemed unconscious, done, overtaxed, out of mana perhaps. This time, he appeared unconcerned with her or anyone else in the cave. Intentionally leaving himself wide-open.
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'A trap.'
She idly shook her head in her mind as she flew, creating two daggers out of ice while she aimed for his waist. He'd already shown how quickly he could dodge, so she'd targetted an area harder to move without moving the entire body.
The odd smell got stronger as she closed in on his impassive form and her mind finally screamed danger as her hair began to stand all across her body. Throwing out her wings in a flourish of pain, Minerva stopped three feet away as her two projectiles exploded, two bolts of lightning erupting into the cave from the entrance and intercepting them. A third, meant for her, had missed, striking at the area she should have been in if she'd continued her path. Instead, she spared a quick glance to where it had landed at saw one of her subordinates peel off the far cavern wall, falling face-first to the ground while leaving small fissures all along the entirety of the cave's back wall. She imagined the cry of pain, and perhaps how loud the impact would have been, but she couldn't hear it herself because her ears were already ringing from the sound of thunder.
She noticed seven of her men were moving towards them at a sprint. One of the other six that had stayed back was the one who'd been struck and definitely killed. She absently wondered if they'd be enough. She'd charged ahead, blinded by anger and hoping to end the fight before more of her retinue were needlessly killed off, but now she wondered whether or not she could survive until they arrived to help, or if they'd provide a long enough distraction for her to escape.
More bolts of lightning flew in from outside, aiming for her. Minerva dove backward, evading two that had shot for her legs, then dove again in the air, pushing off ice she'd made with her legs to move closer to him and evade another strike that had predicted she'd retreat. She closed in on his body and her mind once again warned her off, causing her attack to falter as she reluctantly pulled the claws aiming to rend his arm back. As if on cue, a bolt traveled directly where she'd have placed her arm to make the strike and in her mind, she saw it being blown to pieces at the elbow.
"Too experienced to be baited, huh? I heard you were all mindless berserkers. Our information is outdated," the man mused aloud, irking Minerva once again. "Not like we care to watch such disgusting creatures, though."
Minerva involuntarily winced at his words, spoken as though Hellials weren't even worthy of being classified as a person. She didn't understand what was going on inside of her, for all this man had insulted, attacked, and disrespected her and her retinue, she wanted nothing more than to forgive him and get far, far away. Dangerous, sure, but something more was affecting her in a way that caused her to go against everything in her being. Made her want to be... deferential. To live. And because the being before her... deserved it?
"Why... are you here?" she finally questioned through gritted teeth, finding it hard to even speak to the man before her.
He met her eyes, and once again, she shivered.
"Is that not obvious? To kill-" the man started, glancing to his left shoulder briefly before shaking his head lightly and meeting her eyes again. "Ah yes, the girl."
Minerva had expected that, and though her stomach was in her throat, she spoke again.
"Take- take her," she said quickly, almost shouting. "Leave us and take her then," she continued, cursing every ounce of herself and everything that led her here.
She felt weak. Powerless. Angry beyond measure, but terrified. Not even her master evoked these emotions in her, and it only got worse the longer she stayed in his presence. She wanted them gone; consequences be dammed.
The man shook his head and chuckled.
"Oh, that's just not possible."
"Why?" she choked out. "Take her and go. We won't come for her; we will be done here," she continued, seeing her men slowing down as they began to circle the man.
Their presence set her at ease a bit. They didn't seem to be under the same fear of the Human as she was, but they paused in attacking, seeing that she was speaking with him. She was thankful for that.
Speaking purely off of combat potential and objectively, Minerva felt she should be able to kill the thing before her, but there was so much unknown here that she didn't want to risk it at all, and that was before her emotions were factored in. With the fear, mystery, anxiety, and death already having taken place here all compounding, she didn't want to fight. If she didn't have to. If they could reason with him.
"He is here for her," he responded, voice reverberating off the walls as he shrugged.
"What do you mean he's..." she started, trailing off.
The question felt stupid even before he grinned at her. It was obvious who he was referring to, though she wanted to deny it. And she wanted to keep her mouth shut, stay standing here, never reach the conclusion of this conversation the longer she thought over his words and what she'd seen in the past minute. Gone was the bloodthirsty savage who raided and slaughtered indiscriminately, in its place a girl that just wanted to survive.
Minerva looked around at her men and they stared at her, eyes glowing with rage and a call for vengeance. A few were curious, wondering why their leader, who'd never shown cowardice or indecision in all the years she'd led them before, was conversing with a tiny, young Human instead of ripping his throat out. She could almost see them asking why their fearless leader felt so timid.
But she wasn't fearless right now. She was small. A small, timid, weak-willed girl who desperately refused to ask the question she knew the thing before her wanted her to. But his eyes were insistent, and it felt like she couldn't refuse the unspoken request, so her mouth opened again.
"And what are you here for?"
His eyes glowed as the grin on his face spread further, causing her men to take an unconscious step back. They had him surrounded now and if it were anyone else, she'd feel confident in her ability to end them. Regardless of the race, gender, or level of talent, they'd easily murder the fool.
But not him.
"I'm here for you," he responded, but he wasn't looking at her when he'd said it.
He was looking at all of them, eyes glimmering with excitement as they swept around the encirclement.
Thunder broke the moment of silence as lightning exploded through the cavern and struck his back. Propelled by the blast, he lunged with his right hand aiming for Minerva's chest as her instincts made her dodge backward. A smaller bolt of lightning flowed out of his fingertips, hitting an aegis of ice that Minerva hastily formed on her arms with the force of a Warhammer. Her arms went numb from the strike and she was forced to jump to her left when she realized in shock that the bolt hadn't gone away, but instead was rapidly melting through her shield. Pushing off another platform of ice after dodging, she lunged inward to rake at his side, growling in discontent as he slide left and a bit of the energy surrounding him shot off his body to her hands when they got close, numbing them.
At the same time, the whips above his shoulders lashed out in a circular arc, swirling around him to strike at her men, but they were ready for it. Four either bent low or dodged to the side while three only had to not step in to avoid it, stalking around the outskirts of the whipping metal while hunting for an opening. Lucky too, as those three appeared a bit pale, weak for some reason. Something was off about them, but she couldn't tell what exactly. Two of the men that had needed to dodge received a gash on their arms for their efforts rather than severed limbs, and all kept moving in, testing the waters, trying to close in on him.
The whips kept them at bay as an occasional small lightning bolt lept off them, keeping them further and further back as time went on. Usually, a lack of weapons wasn't a downside to her troops as they made up for that with the two extra limbs that gave them flight and unparalleled agility, but the whips that flowed like a mountain river were almost the perfect counter to their speed, alongside the darkened cavern. When one dodged under a swipe, the metal changed directions almost instantly and cut back across. When they were just out of range, the metal extended. And when they were fully extended but couldn't reach, they shot lightning out into their paths, pushing her men further and blinding their eyes further, used to the dim lighting they'd been subjected to.
Minerva, on the other hand, was making progress as their dance continued. Countless times she struck at his body, keeping on him as he ducked and dodged out of the way of her claws, erratic bolts of lightning flying out of his hands to keep her off of him. Every time she got too close he would light her up and burn more of her skin off, yet her relentless assault kept closing in, getting inches, centimeters closer to his flesh with each strike and each well-timed augmentation of her movements. Every lunge, every feint, every attempt brought her closer, and she began learning his patterns. The man was quicker than any human she'd ever fought before, and intelligent beyond his years, able to almost see into the future and beat her back without fail, but he wasn't perfect. He was slower than her for all he was fast, and his body was obviously getting tired. He was only actively attacking three out of her four closer men now with his blades and still had to focus on fighting back all seven, while she was speeding up. His overwhelming presence had even seemed to be fading over time.
Finally, an opportunity presented itself. She'd waited until his attention was split between gathering more lightning into him from the entrance to the cave and fighting back a particularly deeper strike from her men. Feeling the opportunity in her soul as much as seeing it play out, she feinted a committed attack into his right side and he slid toward the opposite cavern wall, gaining distance as he tended to do when overwhelmed. Usually, he'd shock her back or swing inward if she followed up, but he didn't have the time or energy to currently, and seeing him grimace only spurred her on.
Having not intended to attack, Minerva's body had already rotated in the air until her feet landed on a platform of ice where the man had been prior, shoving off it to dive at him. He again dodged toward the entrance of the cave, making her narrowly miss, but when she hit the cave wall and bounded toward him a third time, one of her daggers finally found his ribs before he managed to finish rolling toward her men. She'd meant to stab the blade into his stomach deep, but her dagger had hit a barrier of some kind, redirecting the blade alongside it until it shimmered and broke, leaving a red gash on his side instead that frosted over after a moment and numbed her hand from the lightning around him.
The momentum carried Minerva's body into the cave wall, slamming into it with enough force to shake a few rocks loose from the ceiling. A grin was plastered on her face despite not being able to kill him, the strike still a defining moment in the melee. The battle slowed for a moment as she pried herself from the wall, confidence showing on her expression for the first time in their battle as she stood between him and the entrance. The numbness radiating from her hand after that strike almost felt good now, the long cut proving he could be injured.
"You're going to die here," she stated triumphantly, in between him and the entrance to the cave.
Her men backed off for a moment as well, eyeing him warily now, no longer as cocksure as they'd been at the start. They were slowing down like he was, but that was fine. She just needed them to keep engaging him like they were; he was tiring faster. He was only actively striking at two of them now, leaving the other five to distract him more often.
"Oh yes, maybe. You have a chance. You are doing well. This human body,'' the man's strange voice grumbled out, causing another bout of shivers across Minerva's arms. "It has such weak muscles. Fragile. Tired. A disappointing form, I may die."
He touched his side lightly, grimacing at the contact as he fought off the invasive mana left behind by her dagger. Seeing his weakness, yet hearing the casual, mocking tone he used caused anger to ignite in her chest, finally. Finally, an emotion she felt comfortable with inside her. Though caution and fear were still there, her mind almost felt less inhibited because of the soothing warmth anger brought with it. He may have been mocking them, but she knew from the way her dagger had entered his side that he was just a man. They had more than a chance.
"You're losing. You'll fall soon, sooner if I ask the men guarding our prisoners to help. Leave, without the girl now, and I'll allow you to live," she hissed out, still erring on the side of caution.
He waved her off like he was dismissing a servant, glancing around their encirclement without a care in the world as his eyes glowed in a whispy grey in the dark cavern. She snapped.
"You're being a fool. We can see you slowing, weakening, attacking less of us. Why stay for something you don't care about," she hissed out, hinting at the possibility that he wasn't the owner of the body. "Leave."
An amused smile traced across his face.
"I have made a deal with this one, and it seems I need to build his trust. We will get the girl, it is only a matter of when. And you mistake me, cretin," he continued, tone losing its mocking quality as he stared coldly down at her. "The fool is not me, but you who wastes time speaking. In fact, you may have even gotten a second wound in if you hadn't decided to try and reason with me, but I will only pull my punches so much."
Uneasiness spread through Minerva at his words. But she and her men were healing faster than he was, though they all looked exhausted as they breathed hard. But he was tired as well and his wound was even still visible, the skin frostbitten though no longer frozen over, having won against her ice. So, she let him continue.
"Not that it matters now, though. It is already too late. I do not attack them not because I don't have the energy to spare, simply that it would be beneath me to strike at a corpse," he finished, grinning maliciously again.
Her expression changed only slightly as she clamped down on it and looked past him for the briefest of seconds at her men. She didn't understand what he was talking about. They were standing, still failing to catch their breaths while glaring daggers at him, ready to jump in at a moments-
'No,' she thought, finally noticing the original three he hadn't been attacking from the start were looking overly pale and felt... off.
Exhausted. Staggering while standing or leaning on the cave wall. It was like he'd poisoned or cursed them somehow. Their ragged breathing, sweating, erratic heartrates-
Minerva's breath caught in her throat as her heart rate began to speed up.
'Not erratic... Their hearts aren't-'
"Dead animals, standing tall through sheer force of will, or idiocy. It's almost laughable. I thought he had not noticed their lights going out as your troops dragged them back, but apparently," he said, waving his arm behind him, "he did."
The men were breathing raggedly, irregularly, and looking at her for guidance. Two held clear traces of panic at his words, finally realizing for themselves that their hearts weren't working. A muffled sound echoed out from further in the cave, and her eyes took in the sight of two of her men collapsing to the ground. Two that hadn't even been fighting.
Minerva's chest began to feel constricted as she fought to keep her breathing even.
"It seems you are starting to understand," the man before her stated laughingly.
Finally, it clicked. Realization once again dawned on Minerva. The incidents outside the cave, the two who had been burned but not injured seriously, these men, and reports from their history, when they'd fought the wielders of this magic. Of men dropping dead after fights without any noticeable injuries. About the countless buried without understanding. No healing magic would work. Some would live, hearts restarting if they were hit by lightning again, or... something else, Minerva couldn't remember. It had been generations, centuries back! Their people had deemed most of that knowledge irrelevant. But now she wished she'd remembered. Or studied it with more zeal. Because now, she understood why he wouldn't strike those whose hearts were already stopped.
The three original fell, two men and a woman landing on their knees and breathing ragged as ever. Their skin pale, light in their eyes fading as they stared up at her for help. She felt one try to beat his heart with his own mana and watched his expression contort into one of pain as he clutched at his chest, falling over, writhing for a few seconds longer before becoming motionless. The other two followed, one collapsing forward as the other teetered back, wings pressed into the ground behind him and propping his kneeling, dead form up. Her remaining men began to panic, breathing harder and looking around wildly as well. Even those not affected didn't understand fully and were just as fearful.
This was no way for a warrior to die. She tried to find the anger in her to fuel the next bout, but it was gone. Out like a candle in the storm raging outside. The hope that had been present for a fleeting moment extinguished.
He chuckled while advancing on her.
"Oh come now, where is that confidence? That fire you held?" he asked, motioning toward her as a wicked grin spread across his face, teeth and eyes glinting in the dim light. "I'm just a Human, you can do it," he promised in a whisper. "You have a chance."