Chapter 107 Someone Made That.
Pain. Pure agony shot through her. Her skin was being melted and reformed over and over again. Healed even as it was destroyed, destroyed even as it was healed. If her armor hadn’t been magically reinforced she doubted that even the solid steel would have survived completely intact. She couldn’t even scream in pain as her teeth were cracking under the strain of her jaw muscles. Once the pain had hit she lost all sense of where she was or what else was happening to her. One thought kept her grounded and only one. ‘He hasn’t abandoned me.’ The thought’s only backing being the fact that her flesh was still trying to knit itself back together faster than it was being burned apart.
Lenna had never used this spell before for a reason. It was the final parting gift from her ancestors as they ripped their blessings from her. A spell with two goals. One, to cause the caster incredible pain. Two, to burn the world. She knew instinctively that the flames that poured out of her were also pouring out of her armor in equal intensity. Everything within half a dozen feet of her would be set alight near instantly. Everything past that would still feel the incredible heat pouring off of her. The monstrosity that had the displeasure of trying to eat her was now experiencing the exact opposite of what Lenna herself was. Immolation from the inside out.
—
“Damn it!” Isaac yelled even though no one could hear his curse. “Kahtesh!” He yelled and mentally directed the dragon to yank one of the armblades out of the way. He had just witnessed Lenna get launched at an incredible speed down the chimera’s throat. He ramped up the mana flow going to the flames he had left clinging to her as much as he could. He was now pulling from his reserves to stay invisible. As soon as she had made it into the monster’s mouth she had ignited in a blaze of yellow-orange fire and the very air around her seemed to scream.
Once she had finished her spell chant everyone present, save for maybe Kahtesh, was hit with this overwhelming feeling of having wronged something or someone. The two humans and the bone dragon pushed through it but the chimera did not. It tried to howl but its voice was too busy burning to make an audible sound.
Edward dove under the armblade he had been hacking at previously. He rolled to his feet and slammed his shoulder against the inside of the armblade to force it as far open as he could.
Kahtesh took a flying leap that covered the entire distance in one bound. His open jaws caught the armblade near the elbow and forced it the rest of the way open. His momentum was arrested once the armblade was fully extended causing his backside to whip around to the side narrowly going over Isaac’s ducked head.
Isaac dove forwards bringing his hilt up to his shoulder and grabbing the blade with his other hand about halfway down its length. He angled the tip towards the monster’s eye that he previously lodged a throwing spike in.
Edward sliced downwards, his blade catching the inside of the creature’s eye socket as it parted its already bisected eye in four. He rotated his blade so its curvature would guide the tip directly towards the monstrosity’s brain.
Both humans stepped forwards, their blades gliding in through the chimera’s eye sockets and into where its brain should be. Their blades scraped against each other as they finished their plunge. Both tips found themselves wedged into the inside of the monster’s skull a full two and a half feet deep.
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Lenna couldn’t hold on any longer. All she could do was hope, pray to Lua, that the monster was dead. She broke off her spell. It felt like an eternity had passed but in reality it had only been around ten seconds. Her head swam even as Isaac’s magic tried to fight through her exhaustion. Her body could finally be healed in its entirety but her mind refused. Something pulled on her helmet, then something else on each pauldron. She felt herself being pulled out of the monster and the grip that had been on her helmet lessened just long enough for it to get a hold on her chestplate.
—
Kahtesh shifted his grip from loosely biting Lenna’s helmet to clamping down on her chestplate with her head firmly in place halfway down his boney throat. Isaac and Edward each had a hand on the, now dead, chimera’s jaws holding them open and their other hands were pulling Lenna out by her pauldrons. With a great heave they got her most of the way out and lost their grips on her. Kahtesh pulled her the rest of the way out and unceremoniously dumped her onto the ground like a cat throwing up a hairball.
Isaac had to run death mana over his hands as they burned from both Lenna armor and the monster’s teeth. Once Lenna was out he let go of the chimera’s jaw as did Edward. Isaac ran over to Lenna and slid onto his knees. “Lenna. Lenna! Speak to me!” He ordered and fumbled with the clasp holding her helmet in place. His black flames were pouring off of her two whole inches past her armor in each direction.
Lenna could only manage a groan. “Let me see.” Edward said and stepped up next to her.
“Don’t!” Isaac yelled, causing the larger man to freeze in place. “The flames will kill you. Just tell me what to do.”
Edward nodded slowly. “We need to get her out of her armor so I can hose it down. I have an ocean in a bottle and we can use it to get her washed off and cooled down at least.” He was looking at Isaac and cut back in when it looked like Isaac was going to say something. “If I do it while she is inside it’ll make her condition worse.”
Isaac frowned and nodded curtly as he pulled her helmet off. Her eyes were closed and her jaw was flexed. “Do it. Now.” She whispered and cracked her eyes open just wide enough to glare at Edward. The black flames pouring off of her made her look like a specter of death trapped inside a suit of armor, not like a warrior who had just put herself through all nine hells just to kill her foe, again.
Edward stood up. He pulled a clear glass bottle that looked like it could hold two cups of water in it out of his satchel. He pulled off the cork and tipped it towards her, plugging half of the mouth with his thumb. Water geysered out of the small bottle with enough force to blast the charred monster bits off of her armor. The water level in the bottle never sank below three quarters and Isaac could feel the mana in the air being slowly pulled in to keep generating more water.
Steam wafted off Lenna’s armor as the steel was rapidly cooled. Edward even washed off her helmet for her before removing his thumb from the end to lower the water flow to a gentle stream. “Hold your breath.” He told her. He gave her two seconds before pouring water over her face. Once he was done he gestured to Isaac. “Roll her over.”
Isaac did so as gently as he could and Edward went back to pressure washing Lenna’s armor while she was in it. Once he was done Lenna put her hands under her shoulders and started trying to get up. “Do you still need water? Are you cooled down?” Isaac asked worriedly.
Lenna shook her head and then nodded wearily. Isaac helped her up into a sitting position. “Never… again.” She said quietly, her voice barely louder than a whisper.
“Yes. Please don’t do that again.” Isaac told her with a stern look as his hand found its way to her cheek, guiding her eyes to his. “It’s pretty hard to worry about you but you’ve been making me worry recently.”
Her head tilted to the side slightly. “When?”
“When you were thrown twenty feet through the back of the wagon, caught a greatsword with your forearm causing an audible crack by the way, and now when you were turned into a hu… elvish ballista bolt down that thing’s throat.” He explained admonishingly.
“They were hard fights.” Was her only reply like that somehow made any worry moot.
Isaac sighed and helped her over to the wall so she could sit against it. He dialed back her flames until they were barely visible across her skin. His mana started to slowly regenerate as he rose and met Edward’s eyes. “Someone made that.” He said, nodding at the corpse.
Edward nodded. “Yes.” He agreed. Chimera were not a naturally forming monster after all. “I have questions.”
Isaac sighed. “Death flames dust anything that’s not a monster or Lenna. Kahtesh is more or less my familiar if I’m understanding what a familiar is properly.” Isaac answered Edward’s questions before he could ask them.
Edward nodded slowly. “Alright.” He was trying to process and understand what Isaac had just said but, although he was mildly versed in magic as a whole, he was not a mage. He was still having trouble trying to figure out how something could dust a human but heal a dark elf when Isaac pulled him from his thoughts.
“My turn.” Isaac told him. “How did that thing find your scout? What monster were those armblades from? Why did it not feel pain? And do you think the drow military is behind all these chimera that have been milling about?”