Sending my fist driving into his chest plate, it bangs louder than the thunderous sky and he skids back, skating on sparks. He looks up, his one good hand landing solidly into my cheek. I wheel about cluelessly and tumble to the ground right as the whistle of a blade comes. Blasting off right on time, the missed swing carves into the melting ground and cleanly pulls out.
Throwing another spell, it blows up away from the warrior who is now in front of me. He swings again for my chest, carving yet another line into my relic armour with his power widening the gap. My clothes burn as the literal shock eats its way through what it can. Bringing a knee up on his vulnerable side, some of his plate buckles and caves in just barely.
He strikes me with his one good fist, the follow-up slit is thankfully avoided. Taking a step back, the ground falls out from under me and I impulsively shoot up into the sky. Hovering in the air, he looks up to me and his blade dances in the warping, steamy air with a trailing illusion. His posture looks strange without two arms, but, he might as well have been born with only one arm.
I cannot see a single flaw in his form. The ground cracks and splinters.
Blowing much from my hands I backflip away and blink as he comes back down from the clouds. Lightning travels like a slug and I blow away again, the land not slowing this swordsman down in the slightest. Gathering up what bombs I can, I drive myself down to the ground with a fear-inducing rumble, the siren of a most precise diver. Buzzing, dreaded buzzing that loudens, the pitch changes and it begins to scream.
Tossing aside my load, it blasts away more of the land and the warrior calmly stands from his glob of molten ore. The dark sea below. With a sword in hand, he does his best to gesture a prayer that needs two sets of digits. I block with all that I can, a sword's edge now in my tight grasp.
He lets go of the sword and puts an electrical palm on me. I roar in pain and my fingers bleed as he lands elsewhere. Jumping to my feet, I meet his charge and strike his side, rearing around for two more before I guide his nose to my golden knee. No blood follows my blow but as he stumbles, he aggressively sniffs as if his nostrils are clogged. A bit of red rims the edges of the holes.
At a hard angle, he presents his blade in front, the width of the blade facing me. The edge turns my way, a royal sum of magic enriching it before he pulls his arm back. Stepping to the side, the ruined land bisects and dwarf waves of fire roll out as an earthquake sings. The blade tip runs along the ground, a swarm of shocking roots following after him.
Bringing my guard up and some more of my dwindling magic, I kick it into the ground. Ironically, his magic is grounded and we meet again with no intereference. He weaves and dances around my punches and his swings go wide. My shin is used as a springboard and my kick goes awry. A lightning bolt finishes arcing up to the clouds.
The swordsman balances himself on the storm's rope bridge and he dares me to stop him by turning Einervaene's way. Growling as loud as I can, debris flies as I shoot into the sky, itself rupturing much like the ground. The swordsman steps around and swings for my side, digging in deep enough to bring blood but not to be fatal. He manages it again.
Coming for him with two clawfuls of emerald power, I clap his armour, tearing it apart and severing his platform. We both strike the ground hard and fast, our protection rattling about as it falls apart further. Spitting my blood out, I stumble up to my feet and look at how my thunder-gold leg is pretty much fine. Hindsight cuts me deeper than this man has managed and I groan miserably as I watch that blade shake for what seems to be the first time.
We pant at each other and thunder reaches our ears, immotion goes away and his failed thrust cuts into my shoulder as my fist finds his face again. Moving with my swings, I deliver another solid blow to his side, punching and kicking him back further and further. He ducks out right as my kick comes spearing for him, going into the metal instead. I howl as a weight comes off my back, a redfall marking the severing of my backplate further.
Blowing the magic into my golden leg, it blows out of the metal with a shrapnel-filled kick that knocks his next swing aside. I cannot, however, maintain my heading, my own force sends me twisting away to an embarrassing stop. Reinforcing the back of my arm, I elbow a boulder and get back up. Leaning back as the blade comes for my face, hooking right into the helmet instead.
He pulls up and my helmet comes with him, my skull tearing out its back before falling away to be lost forever. Wiping my head just in case, I note the thin line of blood on my mucky armour and glare. Striking him a few more times, I tear away some of this man's plate and strip him naked as much as he has stripped me. He closes his eyes as the sky sings again.
Stepping away from his swings, I narrowly avoid one that intends for my heart. Slag and sparks sweat from the dying earth and more falls away. Stomping at a weak point in the ground, I give myself some leeway and stop his flurry. He leaps and sheathes his sword.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
His power is building and so does mine, I strike right for the pommel and knock the whole harness off. It flies away, unfortunately, not down but across to the cliff face our battle has created. He turns, shocked at where his weapon has gone but his fist meets mine. I go at him with all I have, striking where I can yet he is somehow able to match me with one arm.
Where his missing one damns him, the useless stump sacrifices itself as it is able and I hear a bone snap cleanly. His eyes remains stiff and his fingers jab right at my throat, making me stumble. Coughing against the sudden pain, I fall to my knees, a metal shinguard nearly bringing my face in. Falling onto my back, I blink away the blurs and roll over heavily, my lazy gaze picking up the slowness of the warrior.
"Gurrr..." I go, filling a palm with another spell and firing it off with thunderous recoil that sheds me of more armour. I watch a body go flying as the fire-like winds shred their way into the vicious breeze. I shiver at how cold it is, despite all the signs of dangerous warmth. I think I hear a howl.
He seems to as well, he's praying once again before we both stumble ahead. Falling into a run, my lungs cry out for me to stop and I beat them down like a master does a slave. Panting through the dryness behind my lips, my fist glows as the swordsman awkwardly stuffs his belt and sheath back on. My magic meets his steel and we struggle against each other, my savage features growling so close to his serene calmness.
We fly back from each other and meet again, my hands grabbing onto his sword's handle like he is. I try to pull it away but I can't, his grip is too strong even when I childishly slip back onto my own weight! He hops up onto my chest and one foot rears back. It strikes, something under my armour cracking as he somersaults away.
Coughing with a gasp, I roll away from his next swing. Spinning up to my feet and slipping by his follow-up. I hit his side and he carves a slice off of my other arm, coating it in the sauce of my life. He goes with my driving blow and I stumble forward, grabbing my arm with a hiss.
Shaking my head, I take careful note of how much I have been wounded and how much magic is gone. I cannot go on for much longer, it hasn't even been that long, some of the lightning has barely even grown since I was last in the sky. Hobbling around to face him, he stops and feels the pain in his side, nearly dropping to a knee in the process. Slapping my wound to taunt him, I snort my way into another charge, my arm held initially.
He nods clearly over and over and his sword rises as it always has. But, he keeps still, he watches and waits with a blade that is ringing even now over the fire and storm. Placing one palm over the other, I touch the opposing wrist, slowly pulling away as magic builds. Pulling on one direction each, a vortex forms between my hands and a spear-like tip forms in the drilling motion.
Pulling it back like a lance, I watch his sword carefully and try to account for where he could swing. He only has his right arm left, moving as fast as I can from that side is my best shot. Going for the left, I bounce about like a rodent to maybe cover my tracks and I slip by without him moving to match my speed. He steps aside as my spell dissipates.
Stumbling forward, I turn around and look at how gracefully he stepped around. His edge now covered in the heavy coating of my sizzling blood. Putting a hand on my chest, I feel the danger I am in but I can also feel how the blow is not entirely fatal. I am not going to die from that swing...
Falling to my knees, I breathe disappointedly at how this has gone. I... I can't find it in myself anymore to do this. My body is nearing its limit and no amount of determination can really see me out of it.
This is it.
"I'm-I'm sorry, Einervaene..." I dribble after coughing. Yet, rather than finishing things, the swordsman walks to my front with his blade going back into its sheath. Looking up, of all the expressions, I find a sincere smile and he nods respectfully.
"How old are you?" he asks, looking me in the eye as his one good arm reaches around for something.
"More than three centuries for a while now..." I spit as it becomes clear he is pulling out a shorter blade. It clatters on the ground in front of me and I tentatively pick it up. Pulling out the clearly heavenly blade only slightly. I meet his eyes again.
"My honour is yours, Great Elder." he explains with an incomplete bow as he steps back.
"Now what? I kill you with this?" I ask, sneering at my own humour.
"No. I am allowing you the honour to take your own life, Foreigner." he explains with some of the most misplaced reverence I have heard in a long, long time. Finding the strength, I howl with all the laughter I can mustre and point at him.
"The honour...? You idiot. You stupid, insufferable swordsman... If my dear friends heard I took my own life to find Undwote's loving embrace, they'd bring me back just to send me to a damnable afterlife without the Universal Friend!" I hiss, rising to my feet with the pulled-out blade on my fully-blooded arm.
He steps back, hand on his sword.
"You are in my country, our ways supersede yours." he tuts, shaking his head slightly.
"For both of their sakes I am glad you've proven yourself too stupid to look up..." I chuckle as the magic keeping us trapped in this ground is sucked up into the air. Waving my hand, my final solution clears away the rumbling clouds and a view that could be mistaken for a remade night sky of Ihtuntar lights us up. We bathe in silver-emerald light, each object, so star-like in my near-death delusion in fact being a deadly bomb.
More powerful and dangerous than any I have met... That dragon I met on the way here, he saw but a glimpse of this spell...
"So be i-" the swordsman begins to say before I charge onto his blade where it then goes through me completely. Grabbing his hand with one of my own, I stop him from cutting me through and his other blade stabs through his shoulder and right back into me. I smile up against his face, as we are further locked together by my suicidal grit.
"The Enemy is Around, I Cannot Escape, All Bombers on Me, My Time Has Come, But so Has Theirs... Mutually... Assured... DESTRUCTION!" I chant, roaring the final word with all that is left in me as the bomb bays of the heavens snap open, their flattening rain falling with a warnful whistle. I keep the swordsman close as the sky grows closer, the land doing its best to fall away. The first bomb detonates so immediately near us as we fly into a follow-on.