Jura joined them, the others of her kind and the alfen alike gathered in a ring. There was a crowd below, watching from the walls, the guards long surrendering any thoughts of convincing them to leave the restricted area. Nobody could blame them, even those same guards were staring up into the sky alongside well practiced mages, and neither party could believe what they were seeing. Their 'king' flying into the stratosphere before jumping off the platform with no flying artifact or any kind of safety measures, to fight... An 'elf'...
A show of fireworks, bladed blossoms and the discs of sound barriers being broken. Two birds of prey falling from the sky in washes of crimson, flitting about on wings of nothing for one, and fire for another. Actually using fire to keep himself airborne... That was something, any mage would call it a supreme waste but it took a certain finesse, and the flashiness was what worth celebrating if not the creativity...
“He's going to kill her.” Sigi commented bluntly, not pleased with the idea. She, along with all humans had no idea what alfen were capable of, but if even a shred of the myth and rumors surrounding the mysterious race were true – they were strong. Strong allies were nice, they'd need all the help they could get. Unlike Tyr, she was not so confident in their chances of victory against a force that outnumbered them a least thirty to one. If mages were truly the backbone of all military might, the world would be ruled by them. In reality it was the other way around, mages were oppressed in many nations and the world was their overlord. Their holder of shackles, it was like that in many places even where the primus' did not walk.
Above, Tyr had become a spray of scarlet sparks, flipping around and catapulting himself through the air on tongues of fire to batter her until they had stopped falling and begun to rise in altitude instead. Again, the imagery reminiscent of fireworks at a festival, he had become a rapidly moving storm of magic assaulting the limp body of a seemingly defenseless woman. A figure of rage and bestial wrath, everywhere at once and with insane speed. An infusion beyond the likes of which Sigi had ever seen, no proper spellcasting coming from him. Every time she looked at him he'd come even further, irritated yet proud at the fact that he'd earned these powers through rawness of tribulation.
“You will see.” Harkon said, and that's all he'd say. Neither he nor Remus looked concerned for their companion in the slightest. Eve was still young, comparatively, being in her 90th cycle – but she'd spent her entire life laboring away at perfection in the martial. There were few more uniquely capable of dealing with an opponent like Tyr Faeron.
“Your mate...” Kul nodded in satisfaction towards Jura. “I did not know what to think upon first meeting, he is so small, his limbs too thin for my tastes. Skin too pale. But he is doing well, I approve of this challenge. It is exhilarating.”
“Exhilarating?” Micah snorted, craning his neck upwards with eyes squinted to get a better look. Divination magic was worthless here, that energy Tyr had described known as spira gave him a headache when he tried to use it. “I can barely see anything!”
“Of course he is.” Jura huffed, casting a sidelong eye at the massive chieftain. “Would I have chosen him if he was not of good stock?”
“As you say, greenblood.” Kul said with a... A smile? His fleshy lips seemed to snarl instead to anyone educated on more human expressions. “The highest of the humans are truly mighty, and this mate of yours is a youngling not yet grown into himself. Soon to stand tall amongst us, and if he is an oath keeper our people will flourish. This is good.”
“Terrifying is what it is.” Ayla didn't speak much around the others, content to watch, but her slim figure was always somewhere nearby, almost creepy – Tythas in particular often observing how she'd stand there in the darkness beyond the light of mana crystals and just stare at them. She had a talent for standing and moving in a way just on the edge of a persons vision, the inconspicuous mannerisms of a born hunter. Regardless, she wondered what would've happened if her own world had possessed any of these 'primus' class individuals. Perhaps it would be them lording over the arachne, rather than the other way around. Tyr was not so impressive on paper, but if he was the least able of his kin? Even now...? “In my er... Village, we have some questionable rituals but nothing so violent as this.”
“The cosmos is violent.” Remus addressed her with a tone of respect that he did not show the others, though he noticeably made no attempt to get closer to her. When she moved, so did the alfen, just barely inching away. One acquainted with the alfen would similarly be acquainted with their almost racially uniform fear of arachnids, even the humanoid ones. Arachnids, aquatic creatures, these were the things they feared, sharing few other common phobias with mankind. In contrast, alfen loved serpents, even those that came from the sea. Practically revered them, but they had all wanted to eat the flesh of snakes and vipers, but only the land dwelling ones. “A living thing has only two paths, to kill all threats in its radius or become so powerful those threats cease to be threats at all.”
“We do not share a penchant for bloodshed or dominance like our northern friends.” The female that accompanied Kul offered. Speaking in reverent tones beneath the silver clouds of sparks and blossoming petals of crimson above. “But to struggle is indeed to be alive. Civilization left unchecked weakens you, breeds and teaches helplessness. The law of the wild is one we hold to as well. While only symbolic, this is a good representation of how important it is to claim dominance in a quest for survival. The strong breed the strong, mold and shape them into worthy successors. The weak perish, one should only seek to mate with an able partner.”
Alex once would have disagreed with this. Struggle begat progress, but it must be measured and controlled, the way the primus' controlled all things. But now she wasn't so sure. Tyr had ensorceled her, and she was aware that any order he gave would be a base instinct to her now. Something that failed to properly dominate, it was more like suggestion and knowing what she herself actually wanted was a lesson in futility.
She was for all intent and purposes a slave unless she managed to resist his voice, or simply refused every suggestion wholesale. Something they had not properly tested as far as she knew. It was a path chosen, and while she didn't regret it just yet, there was some pending anxiety nonetheless. In that moment of connection between their spirits, where his had wormed it's way into her own, that struggle had seemed more sacred and holy than every church she'd stepped into combined. To fight and kill, rail against one another, they were both better for it in ways that were hard to articulate.
And this was but another interpretation of that.
Standing below those blossoms of bright flame bursting into life amongst the clouds.
–
Tyr's surroundings erupted into a crackling blaze every time they connected. Eve clashed against this distillation of the prime fire and was pleased to find her own force lacking. It shouldn't be, his approach to their battle was a disadvantage. Every thread of spira laced magic was sustenance to her, feeding off it.
Her arms broke and repaired themselves almost instantly through her connection to the world's energy. And yet it seemed infinite, wearing her down mentally if not physically. Her eye, that wellspring and focus of alfen ability, was the eye of wrath and retribution. The more she was hit and the more magic he generated to strike her down, the stronger she would get. There were limits to that, as with all things, but her tolerance for pain was very high.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Alfen culture was not inherently bloody, but it was violent, once every lunar cycle her clade would gather in what they called the 'carmine grasses'. A literal name, the red fields being what they were, and it was a sacred place where earthly anima was at its thickest, that biological energy that only existed in the physical world. At which time they would beat one another into submission in a mass battle royale and the winner would be given various rewards until the next trial took place. Hundreds of alfen bludgeoning one another with great ferocity in a bid to win, she had never participated considering she couldn't leave the shrine – but Eve had watched.
Alfen were at first glance a versatile and adaptive race, prone to whimsy and change. True, from a societal standpoint, but their spirits were far less prone to change than mankind. That's what made this male a good match for her. Eve was wrathful, violent, headstrong, and impetuous – especially when she saw a wrong. Chasing it down to the ends of the earth if needs be, to the point where her elders didn't know what to do with her and ultimately decided to keep her locked away. If not for her heritage, she might have been culled, or branded and exiled beyond the fog like so many before her. Those who could not control the wildness at the core of all their race, the emotion that was felt many times stronger than so many others. Tyr was the same as her in so many ways, eyes mad and smiling as he pummeled her, not slowing in the least or making any attempt to actually subdue her.
Honest enjoyment of the conflict. Equals, none of that self righteous 'oh no, I'm hitting a woman' – only of the worst things about the other races, and not just men, was the consideration of gender and roles.
Halfway toward the ground he had dug deep inside of himself to reveal a layer of intricacy to how his power was reflected in the physical plane. First it was the chains of raw spira, something divine, cold and dead. Phantoms made manifest, such an incredibly flexible power that was made something as crude as a weapon through his lack of creativity. She'd batted those aside with ease, they were not a challenge to her unique command over spira. The magic though was not so easily understood, however.
Tyr had found a way, albeit a clumsy one, to 'weave' threads of mana and spira into his magic. In essence, his fire was not magic, it was a blend of magical fire and true elemental fire. Mages could propagate fire via a spell and only once it spread was it 'real' in the traditional elemental sense. But his was both real and part of the ether at the same time She could defend against one, but when the collection of threads was disrupted and frozen by her eye – it released a tremendous amount of energy in a kinetic reaction that made her teeth rattle in her skull and her eyes burn from all the light. Armor piercing, just in a metaphysical sort of way, it was incredible.
Never had she in her near two centuries of life heard of a nim variant using true shaper magic. Shaper 'magic', that's what they called it, and while Eve was familiar with nephilim shapers as a concept she'd never seen anyone so close to a true exhibition of it. Then again, most of that life had been spent cloistered below the lonely arches of temples, filled with silent monks and droning song. Or with the great ones who rarely woke from their slumber, sleeping for decades at a time. Sometimes longer, she'd been locked in there and not permitted to leave until now. There was much that no book, scroll, or lexicanum could teacher her.
“Crimson Lotus!” Tyr roared, his voice carrying over the whipping winds and sending the all too familiar fire crackling with such force to shake the air. His hands ignited, spinning him like a top and firing a swarm of thin strings at her, bursting at their ends in a very flower-like shape. Lotus indeed, and she found herself shocked at how beautiful a form such a deadly and destructive force could take. An exhibition of faith magic as well that had been stolen, repurposed, made his own. Talent lay in that, being so close to an element as to push beyond the barriers that demarcated the celestial, physical, and elemental planes.
She chopped down with a heel on the first flower that had begun to bloom, avoiding separating the threads and pushing the mass of energy downward to erupt in wild eddies of cherry red sparks. Another approached her and she paused for less than a tenth of a second, before attempting what many might think impossible given the strange nature of his magic. Her eye and aspect were wrath, any violent action against her was punished on demand and she rarely need move a finger. So she didn't, instead opting to accept the spell wholesale and force the magic inside of her.
Alfen didn't generate mana, they used the spira on the baseline, but any kind of energy was capable of being harnessed if one had the right mind for it. Mana and spira were twin catalysts, like water and fire that might power a steam engine, opposites generating a reaction. It was painful, the heat he was producing was nothing special to her, it was the intent behind it. Every ounce of it was empowered by raw emotion that tore at her with a thousand claws.
Radiant. Electric. Pure energy, the wild intent to kill and maim and conquer incarnate. Not fully realized yet but the origin of all fire filling that she'd begun to suck into herself was palpable. Painful, but ecstatic just to see it. She'd come all this way expecting to be disappointed but this was the moment she'd been looking for her entire life. Human magic that went beyond human magic. The human magic, when they'd been the greatest race to ever walk the land, elder slayers and army breakers.
Tyr paused in his assault, watching as the blooming fire took her with no small amount of trepidation filling his heart. She was wreathed in crimson flashes until he could no longer see her, the flowers blooming all around in a crimson aurora, leaving him wondering why she'd risk an impact. His magic might not seem like much to an alfen, but it was made to kill. That was his intent, to kill her. He didn't want to kill her, but he needed to win if only to validate the trials taken thus far, forcing that belief on his weaved spells. Eve had asked for, and deserved that kind of respect, both of them wanted to see his best and chances like this were rare. On high where nobody else could be hurt, where mistakes were of no concern to him.
His relief that she was fine was short lived, though. Her 'eye' burning with the radiance of a sun and sending all of the collected energy back at him, multiplied several times by her own unique ability.
He was falling and there was no time to correct his position. Eve raised her arms in a wheel and returned all of it. A collected mass of compressed mana greater than any spell he'd ever felt, lancing through the sky in a dense beam of energy straight towards his face. All of his waste and backwash taken advantage of and redirected with an efficiency beyond man. Wondering again whether or not his body could regenerate from nothing if even his bones were made dust.
Waiting patiently for the lance to strike him, he knew there was no time to move, it all happened so fast. A perfect counter similar to what Lucian was capable of but so very different. He knew she was growing stronger through punishment, but this was a bit much. Lucian simply returned damage, multiplied by his own strength. A factor of 1 to 8 makes 9, additive with the factor present in him reflected back. It made sense, a saint was strong and an equal exchange of force was something supported by basic math, but what Eve had done had no such regulation to it.
She'd taken more from him than he'd given, and 'created' energy of her own, not manifesting it.
Multiplicative. Insane and impossible.
It wasn't that she was stronger than Lucian, not even close, even an alfen was no match for a saint. Saints were the slayers of leviathans, with force that could exterminate cities. Despite that, she managed to multiply the energy by at least a factor of eight times. Improbable because Eve was by no means eight times stronger than Tyr. They were roughly matched in terms of the energies that lay within them that would facilitate this kind of emission. Waiting for the end, for oblivion, and he smiled at the face of the void as it howled at him, inching closer as time seemed to still.
An old friend, she'd taken of him and that lance seemed to be made of everything that comprised his truest self.