Brand wailed not from fear, not from pain, but from a rush of power that had to be expressed. The runes etched across his body glowed red despite his focus spreading the ominous color throughout his veins like an infection and bulging the striker’s muscles as they went.
The world went still as his eyes turned white mana to the point of bursting if not his Ironsides. The spell kept his heart from exploding as it thrummed like a hummingbird’s wings. It kept his lungs from bursting from a single breath taken with the strength of a cyclone. It protected his flesh from overabundance of mana trying to mutate his body into unatural shapes. It braced his bones as he trembled so fast as to become blurred. If not for his Ironsides spell, Brand would have simply exploded releasing streams of mana to chase away cloads and shake the very core of Alfhiem.
The sound of breaking mental brought his mind back from drowning in power. Vara, with the broken remains of his axes lunge forward with a headbutt that flattened his nose with a meaty crunch.
As Brand's blood gushed onto the goddess's face as she slammed her armored fist across his face repeatedly holding the striker’s arm to ensure he couldn’t escape. The contact caused her armor to wither like paper in a bond fire and terrible blood-drenched cracks across her body, but she only screamed louder as each bow landed harder than the last.
Brand’s vision swam as he moved without thought dodging Vara’s fist and sending his own crackling with gravity magic. Blood sprang from her mouth as the blow landed, and like the goddess, Brand held onto her delivering several more weighted first before she rallied. The two traded one blow after the other each sounding like thunder to the gods and men who watched.
Bloodied, her face faril like a beast, Vara wrenched her arm free moving passed a sloppily attack to wrap an arm around Brand's neck. She half groaned half screamed as her hold tightened bringing him to his knees without any hope of taking a breath.
Blades like mounted daggers sprang from Brand's back drenching him in god-bloos as vara screamed. “Bet you’ve never heard of thorn damage,” He just barely managed to say as the goddess’s grip loosened. He willed more of his aura into sharps spikes and laughed as Vara struggled to hold him.
“I will die before releasing you!” Vara said with blood speckled teeth.
“I can work with that!” Brand thought as the runes on his body shifted to blue releasing blinding bolts of lightning.
Electrical scars burned onto Vara’s arms and face but she only tightened her grip. Brand then shifted the gravity within the Tower of Ruin lifting himself and Vara off the ground with an entire layer of earth beneath them. He increased it once more slamming the goddess into the ground while adding as much weight as he could onto himself to crush her.
******
Nadia woke to a rumbling that swam through the ground. Her eyes opened and blurred as another rumble shook her. By the third, she realized they were earthquakes shaking everything in the alley that wasn’t tied down. But somehow, the earthquakes had a rhythm. One happened every few seconds each growing just a bit stronger than the last.
She stood up on shaky legs. “What’s going on here?” Her calm demeanor broke as she looked at herself. “Where the fuck is my armor!? Oh gods, my fucking rings!”
In her anger, Nadia didn’t notice the ward around her slamming into it like a bird into a window. When she took the time to look, it protected her from weak attempts to reach her as well as healed her wounds over time. “At least the little bastards didn’t try to kill me. But I lost to a bunch of kids.”
Nadia breathed heavily. She didn’t have time to feel shame while the city was shaking itself apart. Breaking the ward and turning invisible, she flew into the air getting a bird’s eye view of the happenings since her defeat. What she saw made her steer in befuddlement for a long while just to be sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her.
A path had been burned through the city passing over the horizon. In the center of the city, where the destruction began, was a giant crater with massive slabs of earth flying into the air. Just above the floating rocks were a man and a woman locked in a struggle.
Nadia had no clue who the woman was but was sure the man had to be Brand by his runic tattoos that shone like a beacon. His skin had change though. Now it was a deep red with arks of magic lighting even his viens.
All at once Brand, the woman, and the rocks around them all fell to the ground sending a visible wave of force through the city.
“Well that explains the earthquakes,” Nadia said still not believing what she saw.
*******
On the tenth earth-shaking body slam, Brand finally broke free of Vara’s hold delivering an elbow to her chest as he did. Free, he turned, and smashed a weighted fist against her head with a savage roar. He tried conjuring an ax to split her skull, but Vara knocked the weapon aside and rose with a jet of flame at her back propelling her at the striker.
The goddess road her flames delivering a flying kick Brand wasn't prepared for. The blow sent him crashing through several mansion-sized boulders helping him come to a stop just for Vara to reappear with her flaming sword in hand.
Brand dodged the blade feeling the force it unleashed reduce everything behind him dust while the inferno it released added to his already infinite ocean of power.
Vara hefted her sword readying another attack. “Who the fuck are you?!”
Brand laughed in the face of her rage. “Who would have thought the holy mother had a dirty whore mouth!”
Vara took another swing at Brand as he spoke, his mockery eroding her warrior’s instinct. He managed to grab her wrist and twisted forcing the sword from her hands. The minuver cracked the South Bastian as it shifted under the coliding forcing. Both Brand and Vara locked themselfs to the land to hold ground and it did until buckling and then again with each blow.
The goddess lurched her head back reading another head butt but this time Brand saw the crude attack coming delivering one of his own.
As their foreheads met, the ground and crator widened once more in the midst of the colliding powers. Still, neither the goddess nor mortal would relent, their hands somehow locking together as they struggled but neither could overcome the other's strength. They simply continued smashing their heads together both hoping to shatter the other’s skull.
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Brand then heard Astrid’s voice whisper in his ear. “You need to end this now.”
“I’m trying!” Brand shouted as he stopped Vara’s knee from striking his groin by blocking with his own. The force of it sent ripple through the earth like a stormy sea.
“If you try for much longer, there won’t be a building left standing.”
“Fuck!” Brand bellowed in frustration, his vioce carrying past the city's limits.
Astrid was right. Now that he looked, the damage this battle caused went far beyond what was supposed to take place during this festival. But ending this fight decisively would rob Brand of the precious power coursing through his veins. If only he had a way to contain it, to still Vara's strength and keep it. But, there wasn't.
Brand's features softened as he and the goddess once again came nose to nose. “How about we move this fight outside the city?” The heat coming off her only intensified in response letting Brand know there was no talking her down.
With the angry sigh, he reversed gravity in the Tower of Ruin. This time, the thousands of tons worth of rock Vara was rooted to rose with her in a solid mass that spun wildly as it rose into the sky.
Brand broke away from the angry goddess and let the gravity carry him higher. Vara banished her roots and followed, sprouting snow-white wings that proved useless in the gravity field. She continued to stumble until grabbing hold of an especially large boulder flying upwards with the rest.
Vara leaped from stone to stone making her way towards Brand as the air grew thin. He simply sky stepped to keep his distance, not bothering to engage her. He just needed time to get as far away from the city as possible if he didn’t want it to be destroyed in the aftermath of his next spell.
As the Tower of Ruin surpassed the height of mountains, Brand looked out at the world with eyes filled with mana to cut through the darkness. He could see where the landscape shifted from the grassy plains of Alfheim to the mountainous region that connected it to Midgard. In another direction, he could see the thick forest slowly give way to a frozen tundra within Jotunheim. He could even see North Bastion from this high up for over the curve of the world.
“Face me!” Vara roared as she clumsily sent another blast of fire. The flame didn’t reach far as a boulder floated in its path and was melted in an instant.
“I thought it would have been obvious by now. I don't burn.”
“Everything burns!”
Brand looked himself over mockingly. “Are you sure about that?”
Vara sent another blast of flame, this time washing over Brand, but disappearing as it did. “Who are you? What are you?” Her voice now dripped with fatigue and frustration. Her shoulders slumped as she finally went limp letting herself be carried upwards by Brand’s spell.
“I’m just the guy stopping you from burning the city down.”
“Bitarr was in that city,” Vara said tiredly.
“So were lots of people.”
Vara scoffed. “They were only beast kin.”
“Wow!” Brand exclaimed. “Your priest seemed to skip over what a heartless bitch you are.”
“So you are a beast kin god whose nature disguises himself.”
“I’m as mortal as they come.”
Vara gestured to the chunks of earth now floating far above the clouds. “Mortal magic is not capable of this.” Brand simply shrugged. “Why are we even up here? The cold of the heavens will kill you far before it harms me.”
Brand floated closer to Vara as the air grew thin so he could be heard clearly. “I just need to get as far away from the city if killing you can’t be avoided.”
Vara looked insulted for just a moment, but her multitude of cuts, bruises, and cracked flesh tempered her pride. “You make it sound like you don’t wish to kill me.”
“I don’t,” Brand said with great relief. “Us fighting has no purpose other than to keep South Bastion from burning. I’m not here on behalf of some enemy pantheon.”
Vara seemed to consider what Brand said before answering. “Bitarr is still down there.”
“Why does that matter?” Brand said. “Neither of you are truly here in the flesh so neither of you can truly be killed.”
“I can still put down its summoner.”
Brand immediately began forming mana shields and separating the links he had to Astrid, Uhtred, and several enchanted items he wished to preserve. “Goddess, just go back to your golden city. You might not truly die, but do you really want to be the first god to be killed by a mortal?”
Vara scoffed at that, finding some humor in the threat. “You think it would be any better if I ran?”
Brand breathed out with a heavy sigh. “I guess not.”
Vara found her footing on a large stone and lunged at the striker. Brand didn’t avoid her this time. With his arms outstretched, he placed his hands together with his palms facing the goddess. He fed mana to the shield surrounding him determined not to make the same mistake that left him broken and helpless four years ago.
Right as Vara was about to reach him, Brand unleashed his spell. “Ark Blast!”
His vision went red as every last drop of mana he stole from Vara exploded. Like before, he was sent flying but held his Ironsides as he soared through Alfhiem’s sky too close witness the share scale of the spell.
Throughout Midgard, Alfhiem, and Jotunheim, red light filled the dark sky. Then the heavens roared bringing with it a furious wind across the three realms. The minute-long storm rocked the world tree like nothing since Ragnarok causing mana to dance along the reddened sky in a litany of colors. Those who knew its origin trembled in fear and excitement as they witnessed raw power on a scale never seen before.
Sometime later, Brand sat up feeling half-frozen on a bed of snow and shattered stones with the last vestiges of godly power leaving his body. “There isn't snow in Alfheim, at least not this time of the year.” He tried using mage sight but winced when he found no mana left in his body.
Fixing his lack of magic, Brand drained one of the beast core implanted within his body. Doing so reminded him of the soul trapped right behind his ribs. Inside that particular beast core was an enneagram more complex than any he could imagine. It seemed appropriate that an entire person couldn’t be organized like some spell form.
Brand cursed as he took a closer look in the soul stone as he decided to call it. The soul it housed was fading by the second. If it wasn’t released within the day, the avatar would more than die, her soul would be destroyed in its entirety.
A few minutes later, Brand had a pretty good idea of where he was. “I’m in the middle of a mountain range, one in Midgard by the taste of the mana.” The striker groaned remembering the closest range to South Bastion was hundreds of miles or a week’s journey at most to return to North Bastion. “This is going to be a long walk. And I’m fucking cold.”
********
Vara saw a blinding red light right before being enveloped by pure agony. She thrashed about screaming as the mana making up her body ran wild. If the goddess had the smallest understanding of magic, she’d have realized what she felt was spell backlash. Sadly, her ignorance left her in a world of pain she couldn't understand that lasted far longer than any mortal thanks to her godly dept of power.
Vara didn’t know how long she suffered until someone finally found her. Strong arms held her as she cried holding her still despite her flailing. The person spoke but she heard nothing. All there was in her life was the pain. Whether she was still, moving, or releasing fire like a volcano, the pain never relented not until a full day later when her torture dulled to a never-ending throb across her body.
“Vara, you need to stay strong?” Vidar said. “What you’re feeling now is the curse brought on by cheating death.”
“How, long!?” Vara cried.
“Weeks, months, it’s different every time but worsens if you use your power. But I need to know, Vara, who killed you?”
Vara hugged her husband hiding the tears still pouring from her eyes. She didn't know what to say because she hardly understood herself. The goddess knew nothing of the man that killed her. All she knew was that he was nothing more than a man.