*three months before the tournament*
A bolt of blazing red energy shot into a tree pulverizing it, a black and silver blur barely moving to the side in time to dodge a giant of a man in full silverish red plate wielding a gigantic hammer charging through the trees. Phoenix landed on a branch of an undamaged tree before looking pointing her guns at the armoured man as a small storm ball and a tiny little star floated above her shoulders.
“Jeez, Ilmarinen, you trying to kill me?”
“*sigh*You should take this a bit more seriously, even if were only sparring… Though you aren’t letting your guard down, which is good, you should really be fighting as if I were trying to kill you…”
“Yeah… I guess… Shall we?”
He huffed and swung his hammer, a red wave of energy slicing straight through the trees in front of them as Phoenix leaped into the air, her guns lighting up with energy and her two constructs lobbing bolts of energy at him. She flew up, dodging molten chains that he created, destroying those she couldn’t avoid with her guns, barely squeezing off a couple of shots at Ilmarinen before a chain wrapped around one of her wings startling her for a second before she vanished. Ilmarinen let out a wry chuckle and casually waved his hand, creating multiple barriers around him.
“You realize that hiding won’t make this go any faster right?”
The sounds around him stopped, the air around him seemed to go perfectly still as he looked around, peering into the forest which was now filled with shadows. Unfortunately for him, he failed to look up, as the sky was suddenly filled with billions of stars, forming impossibly intricate constellations and patterns, one star shining brighter than all the others.
Suddenly the shadows surrounding Ilmarinen started moving, before three Phoenix’s stepped out, opening fire, which splashed harmlessly against his barriers as he destroyed the constructs with a twitch of his hand, before being blasted off his feet, losing his grip on his hammer, his barriers shattering around him, revealing Phoenix in her full glory and floating, bathed in silver starlight, as he calmly stood up shrugging of her shots without a problem, his armour glowing red, runes carved into the metal flaring to life, his hammer flying into his hand as he leapt into the air bringing it down into an overhead swing, small gouts of flame accelerating him down. Phoenix dropped her guns, barely catching the hammer thanks to her armoured right arm, straining against the force. Above them the sky seamed to collapsing onto itself, swirling towards the brightest star, which in turn was slowly dropping from the sky, straight at the fighting pair. Phoenix was forced onto a knee, as she grinned at her opponent, her magic flaring, causing Ilmarinens eyes to widen before he threw himself to the side, leaving his hammer behind and barely dodging the beam of energy that impacted Phoenix’ hands and shattered his hammer into dust.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The forest around them slowly vanished revealing Achelois’ sanctum and the goddess herself lounging in a chair as the ground around them mended itself, removing any signs of battle.
“What the in the name of Balance was that? That could have killed me!”
“A fusion of stellar and balance energy like my little bolt constructs mixed with time and storm energy to create the constellation, after that it was rather simple to use the storm energy to combine the energy and pull it towards me. I think I could add metal energy to be able to direct it to a specific spot like an orbital strike!”
“That is a rather clever use of your power and I do believe that the thing with the metal affinity would work, similar to magnets if I understand you correctly? You do owe Ilmarinen an apology for breaking his hammer, however. Also, do you know why it just turned to dust dust?”
“S-sorry Ilmarinen… A-about the hammer, I don’t know… A-also after the attack the gauntlet felt, I don’t know, more complete?”
“Hmm, this might not necessarily be a bad thing… Girl, imagine yourself holding the hammer and channel your energy through your gauntlet while doing so. It is possible that you accidently absorbed the hammer into the storage formation I made for any backup weapons you might want…”
“O-ok…”
She did as she was bidden and the hammer appeared in her hands, although it was no longer dark grey and brown with glowing red runes, instead it was a thing of silver and blues with ornate black runes pulsating ominously.
“Incredible, it would seem that you not only absorbed the weapon into your gauntlet, you also changed its affinities to match yours instead of mine… So, now to the real question. Do you want more weapons and if so which ones? You currently have two remaining slots for weapons so choose wisely.”
“I-I don’t know, I think I’ll wait and see what other weapons are out there before I make my choice…”