“Bastard,”
With sword tip pointed to the sky, a gargantuan magic circle aquamarine in color formed beneath the Baron’s feet, spinning, and increasing in speed, until,
A great spear of crystal ice aimed for the Baron's face launched from the plateau.
Frantically, the Baron turned his head, dodging by a hair's breadth, but at the cost of his magic circle shattering, akin to glass.
“Your fight is with me,” the aged voice echoed.
The Baron flew in place, as his wings flickered, one moment in existence, the next not.
Suddenly, as if in a mad frenzy, he rushed to the plateau, so fast Nara could see afterimages.
And with venom in his voice, “I”LL KILL YOU,” the Baron roared.
No longer with a 5th star being’s attention directed at them, the alliance of border soldiers and Northmen split up into five armies, each charging in a separate direction.
Nara marched, and now at the very forefront, they entered the forest.
Eventually, running past a clearing, they came upon an open air camp, not met by a seasoned, well trained army, but by men not even wearing armor, and still with morning discharge in their eyes.
Nara stood in place, as if paralyzed with shock.
With fear in their eyes, some stayed, and fought. But most attempted to run.
“WAIT, WAIT, PLEA-” An Elorn, still a boy, with face smooth as a baby's bottom, and the voice of a songbird, was gutted in front of Nara’s eyes by an apathetic tribesman’s spear.
The boy’s blood, just until recently flowing in his body, was still warm as it splattered onto Nara’s face, blinding him.
In a panic, he dropped his sword, attempting to rub his eyes with his wrist, to no avail.
Nara felt his head being held in place.
Distressed, and forgetting all of his training, he struggled, and frantically punched out, hitting his holder in the side.
“Calm down,” the unknown figure chided. It was Ratka.
Holding his brother's head in place, Ratka rubbed the blood away with his glove, and after confirming that his eyes were clean, he let Nara go, joining in the ensuing carnage with his spear.
Slightly shaken, Nara picked his sword back up, and ran to join the battle.
The sounds of war entered his ears as he sprinted.
“DIE YOU FUCK,” an Elorn in plate roared, raising his sword to stab into a tribesman.
“HELP ME,” the man below, already bleeding from a cut in his leather armor, screamed, as the man on top, jabbed his sword into his enemy's eye socket.
Krshk, Krshk, Krshk, Krshk, Krshk, Krshk, Krshk.
Not strong enough to kill him on the first attempt, and sometimes missing and stabbing his face, sometimes hitting the eye socket dead center, the armored man continued the assault, even after the man below stopped moving by the fourth stab.
The heavy smell of blood entered Nara’s nostrils.
Running to the man as he wheezed heavily over the dead tribesman, Nara stabbed him in the back of his head.
Panicked, the man attempted to reach behind him, and stab, slash, and wound Nara to get him away from him, but he continually missed, and with each attempt, he gradually grew weaker, until slowly, he stopped struggling.
Retracting his blade from the back of the man's skull, Nara gave a cursory inspection of its edge to ensure it could continue to be used.
Covered in a translucent fluid and blood, bits of the man's brain and skull were stuck on the sword. Other than being slightly bent, it was completely fine.
Continuing on, Nara watched as ten men fought a single Elorn swordsman.
With ruthless efficiency, he cut down each of the men, going for the weakest first, and ducking and weaving between the ten men as he moved, effectively using each of them as living shields, so their allies couldn’t easily attack him.
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He was a veritable whirlwind of blades, constantly moving, and trading minor wounds, and scratches, for arms and heads, until none of the ten men were left alive.
In part awe and fear, Nara watched as the man stood in place, straight as an arrow and not the least bit winded, as he barked orders to those around him, until,
A tribe elder walked in front, and pointed his spear at the man.
Wearing the skull of an elk, fur pants, and little else, the elder had skin the color of snow. From the number of green ink lines tattooed on his back, he had at least 70 years of experience as an elder.
With grim determination, the swordsman held the sword with both hands, tip pointed at the elk warrior.
In an explosive burst of speed, the two rushed at each other, spear and sword meeting each other, and shockwaves bursting out from the point of impact.
The elk spearman’s blows were heavy, and unyielding.
Performed with the sole purpose of causing as much harm as possible with each and every blow, if his spear made contact with the swordsman’s body, he would most likely die. But every time the elder attacked, the enemy swordsman was one step ahead, dodging each and every thrust by a paper thin margin, and if that wasn’t possible, parrying with the least amount of force possible so as to cause the spear to veer off course.
Akin to two dancers who had honed their craft for a lifetime, they were mesmerizing.
So profound was the sense of awe their performance generated that the surrounding battles ceased, their fighters stopping so as not to sully the sacred performance.
But with the passage of time, the victor of the battle became evident.
While the Elorn effectively dodged each and every one of the elder’s attacks, the same could not be said for the elk warrior, where with each and every seemingly insignificant opening the elder exposed in the name of delivering as much power as possible with each thrust, the enemy extracted as much blood as possible, and the spearman’s body became littered with tiny wounds.
Despite the inevitable death by a thousand cuts the elder would face if he continued to fight in such a way, he seemed to only grow more spirited, his movements becoming more uncontrolled, and wild, until instantaneously, as if his previous liveliness was an illusion, his attacks stopped.
Seemingly exhausted, the elder quickly jumped back, eyes hazy, and a dozen tribesmen and Alom originally uninvolved attacked the enemy swordsman.
With every few seconds that passed, another soldier was cut down by his sword, while the swordsman himself still didn’t seem the least bit tired even after fighting the elk warrior.
With the passage of half a minute, 10 of the 12 were quickly slaughtered, when suddenly, the elder roared,
“FOREFATHER BLESS ME!”
And from his body, hundreds of bone spurs stabbed out, and enveloped his entire body, save his head.
Some wrapping around his skin, some sticking out, a great bone armor was formed.
“Quasi 5th tier Blood Bone,” Nara muttered in awe.
Still wearing the skull of an elk, the elder regained his previously lost vigor, as he broke off one of the many spikes sticking out from his body, and hurled it at the enemy swordsman.
Frantically finishing off his two remaining opponents, the swordsman ducked beneath the spike, only for it to impale a different spectating Elorn in his eye.
To the sound of the blinded man’s wails, and the frantic movements of the remaining Elorn to get out of any future thrown bone spear’s paths, the sword and elk continued their dance, but to a different rhythm.
With each thrown bone spike, the swordsman dodged, else he blocked, and the elder exercised more control over the tempo of their fight.
Suddenly, and without warning, the Elder launched a bone spur at an exposed Elorn, destroying most of his neck, head only still connected by the thinnest strip of flesh and skin.
Taking advantage of the opening, the swordsman, in a burst of power, launched himself at the elk spearman.
The swordsman, on the offensive, and leveraging his attacking first, maintained and increased the pressure on the elder, but to no avail.
With each attack on the elder, the Elorn’s sword slightly chipped, or lost a bit more of its sharpness, while inflicting minimal damage upon not even the Elder, but upon the Elder’s bone.
Jumping back, the Elorn raised his sword to the sky, and in turn, the Elder too stepped back, and pointed his spear at the swordsman.
The swordsman’s sword faintly glowed blue, and as if nature itself recognized the swordsman’s prowess, as his sword grew more radiant, increasingly strong winds blew out with him at the epicenter, when suddenly, as the light completely solidified, the wind completely stopped, and the Elorn pushed off of the ground, attacking the Elder.
The Elder, cackling in amusement, met him in combat, and in a single exchange, their dance ended.
In a single swing, the swordsman cut through the Elder’s spear, and severed his head from his body.
The Elder’s head flew in the air, as the swordsman gasped from exertion, when abruptly,
SHTFF
The dead Elder, in his last conscious moments, shot out each bone spur on his back, impaling not only the swordsman with the brunt of the spears, but a dozen other tribesmen and Alom.
The swordsman’s mouth welled up with blood, as the headless elders body fell to the ground, coloring the snow crimson with the liquid leaking out of his stump neck.
“UNCLE” a high pitched voice screamed in horror.
A veiled figure rushed out from behind a crate, and as a magic circle started forming in the air from where her hands made a triangle, the figure started chanting, veil and blonde hair blowing in the wind, exposing her face.
“Goddess’s arclight, I beseech you, heal yo-”
THWIP
Suddenly stopping, the magic circle disintegrated, as she looked down in horror at the arrow sticking out of her heart.
Her white robe began to be colored scarlet red, and not a sound was heard on the battlefield, as slowly, the light in her eyes dimmed, and she fell to her knees, before toppling over onto the ground, tears streaming down her cheeks.
In the wake of the three’s deaths, the archer that stole the female mages life roared, “KILL THEM ALL,” and immediately activated his 1st tier Blood Bone, a pair of bone blades jutting out from his elbows.
The battle continued once again, the planet still spun, and the greater universe at large continued on, indifferent to the suffering of those inhabiting it.