Liliana only took a moment to locate her target.
[Battle Clarity] kept the impulses of curiosity at bay, so she felt little need to check on the rest of Zir’elon’s team, and she trusted her own team to know they’d handle their own parts. She had to trust them for this to work, and she’d already depended on Emyr and Alistair with her life countless times before. Trust in your friends during a class spar that was relatively low stakes, all things considered, was easy when compared to trusting someone to ensure a monster didn’t attack your back and end your life.
Liliana saw Dunstan, hulking vaguely humanoid constructs made of earth and metal, flanking him and standing before him. If she felt any compassion for Dunstan, she might have advised him after the fight to try creating automatons that were more animalistic, or to at least not stick so rigidly to humanoid shapes.
Two arms were great, but what about four? Six? Sword hands? Axe hands? Creatures full of teeth and claws and nightmarish in form, so horrific in their design the mere sight of them gave enemies pause. But she didn’t feel compassion for Dunstan, didn’t want to aid someone who she had firmly decided was her enemy the day he disparaged her brother. So she mentally shoved the thought down, a task made infinitely easier with [Battle Clarity], something to think about if one of her friends picked up Animation, or if she did one day.
Liliana ran across the sky, her steps feather light as the air itself held her high above her enemies. She dodged shots of earth and metal, something so easy now that she could see the projectiles. She had never truly appreciated the ability to see until it had been taken from her, another reminder of how weak she was. Another flaw to fill on a list of far too many.
“Can I have fun?” Polaris asked, keeping up with her despite her speed, seeming almost lazy as he dodged the attacks sent at them.
“Destroy him. I don’t much care how you do it.” Liliana told her Bond.
Polaris flashed his fangs in a vulpine grin as his wings tucked close to his body, flames made of darkness and light popping up by his tails, the telltale color of a Chaos element. He fell through the air, a bullet of darkness and light, as he aimed himself at the automatons surrounding Dunstan. Liliana felt her lips tug in a sympathetic grin. The party was really starting now, and it had been so long since Liliana had a chance to really let loose with her bonds.
“Nem, you remember what I did with Anya?” Liliana asked her Bond quickly.
Nemesis sent back an affirmative tinged heavily with suspicion. When the plan was pushed to her, the serpent only sent back resigned acceptance. Liliana pulled Nemesis off her throat and then, as she drew up above Dunstan and his army of earthen and metallic soldiers, she dropped her serpent.
In seconds, what had been a fairly ordered line of perhaps ten automatons devolved into chaos. Polaris hit first with his head start, his [Dark Kitsunebi] bobbing around him, deceptively harmless, until one of the floating balls of chaos connected with one automaton. Black and white flames roared over it, but they didn’t burn. They ripped and tore and twisted until the automaton was unrecognizable, a mass of earth coated still in entropic flames. Far less horrifying to look at than when she’d seen it used on a living being. But the [Dark Kitsunebi] was an opening move for Polaris and he was far from done.
Polaris reveled in twisting, in ruining, the minds of his opponents, as most Kitsunes did. It wasn’t enough to kill their enemies; their enemies had to beg for their death. Either because they were so enthralled by the Kitsune, or so broken by the things they’d seen. Kitsune were normally mischievous beings, pranksters by nature, but when you made an enemy of one, they were sadistic.
[Chaos Breath] followed as Polaris’ wings snapped open seconds before he would’ve collided with an automaton, dragging him back up as his jaws opened and he unleashed something from the depths of hell. A breath of pure, unadulterated pandemonium. Anything it touched as it leaked out of his mouth, spread further by his flight, was made wrong. Limbs twisted, deformed, remade. Earth, stone, and metal creaked and groaned and screamed.
An unholy symphony followed in Polaris’ wake as he banked back up into the air just as Nemesis made her own entrance. Her body, once small, expanded until she was at her full size, large enough to swallow a teen in a single gulp. [Earth Scale] reinforced her scales and [Poison Scale] made her very body noxious. As she landed, automatons, both whole and distorted by Chaos, fell beneath her bulk. She had hardly landed before [Earth Spike] tore through the man made army, limbs and bodies impaled through before the ground beneath them shook and trembled and tore. Cracks, small at first before they turned large enough for thick legs to sink into.
Liliana was almost disappointed as she stood in the air. A bare handful of minutes and Dunstan’s little army was in shambles, what wasn’t destroyed was broken, what wasn’t broken was immobilized. Liliana had been expecting a true challenge, but this fight was shaping up to be less challenging than Koth’talan.
“Is that all you’ve got, Rosengarde?” Dunstan yelled up at her, drawing his attention off of her, and if she could feel fear, it would be shivering down her back right now, leaking ice into her veins. Because Dunstan was grinning as if he’d just won. As if everything was going according to some unseen plan.
“All that cocky strutting you’ve been doing for weeks, thinking you’re untouchable with your Rank 4 Bond, and this is it?” Dunstan asked her, mocking her as if this was some grand joke.
Liliana’s hand tightened around her naginata and she sent out a quick order to Nemesis, who shrunk in a burst of petals and earth, sinking deep into the ground. Polaris was hovering next to her, unease flowing through their bond. Something was wrong.
“Little matter if your pet snake runs away. You all can exhaust yourself against my automatons while I sit back.” Dunstan called at her as earthen walls reinforced by metal surrounded him, a heartbeat later his automatons dissolved, returning to the earth as more than three times their number seemed to appear from the ground, rising like someone standing from a bath, dirt and rubble falling off of them like water.
More and more appeared, climbing or rising from the ground, all humanoid, standing seven, eight, ten feet tall, arms thicker than Liliana was around, legs as big as tree trunks. They made the ones from before look like children in comparison. Weapons bristled in their hands of all varieties, battle axes made of stone, metal spears and halberds, great claymores fashioned of earth.
Liliana had called his earlier group of automatons an army, but they were nothing compared to the thirty plus giants that faced her now. This was an army made real. This was a threat Liliana could acknowledge. This was something she wasn’t sure she could defeat, even with Polaris and Nemesis with her. This was a challenge. Made even more risky because Liliana didn’t know if Dunstan could keep replenishing their numbers. They weren’t like a human army, where too many casualties decided the result. Dunstan could keep raising more fighters until his Mana ran dry. And Liliana did not know how much Mana he had left. He could be running on empty, or still close to full.
Liliana looked at the enemies arrayed before her and felt a grin stretching her lips, bearing those inhuman fangs she’d gained. This was what she’d wanted, what she craved. A true challenge. Something that would push her to the edge, an uncertain victory at the other end. Something that would force her to go beyond her limits.
“Nemesis. I’ll keep [Wind Walk] going, feel free to take the ground out from under them. Poison won’t work on them, but Earth and Shadow will. Rip them to pieces.” Liliana sent the information to her serpent, still hiding underground, giving her Bond something she so rarely did. Full permission to do what had been denied to her for so long. To wreak unbridled vengeance on a human.
“Polaris, he wasn’t able to reabsorb what is still covered in Chaos. Taint it all. It doesn’t matter if he has the Mana to keep making soldiers if there’s nothing left to make them from.” Liliana sent the orders to Polaris, who yipped in excitement. This would be the closest thing to a challenge he’d experience here. They might be mindless drones made by a Rank 6, but even rats could kill a wolf if there were enough of them.
Liliana watched for a moment as her bonds set on the renewed and improved army, the earth shaking and turning against them even as Chaos twisted their false bodies. For every automaton that dropped, two more sprung up in its wake. She picked and discarded ideas. Liliana thought of her Quintessential skill, [Aspect Of The Beast]. She’d need to drop one of her channels to use it, but it would give her so much power. Ten minutes of strength far beyond what she could reach otherwise, even with all her skills and spells.
Her eyes turned to Marianne, still unable to move just yet, stuck with Alistair as Emyr focused on a new spell to knock out Remrence, who was trying to turn the ground around the tank into a mire. Remrence couldn’t do anything by Liliana and Dunstan without neutralizing Dunstan’s automatons, but she could cripple Liliana all the same by preventing any type of backup.
Liliana turned from her friends, discarding the idea of using her ultimate. Emyr would take out Remrence soon enough. When Marianne could get to her, she could unleash her full power with the help of the Mana boosting abilities Marianne had, but for now she’d cull what she could.
Liliana activated [Gatling Barrage] and pushed herself down through the air as she waited for her Mana to regenerate. Bullets of light cut through the earth automatons easily, but dented the metal ones. Liliana’s blade whistled through the air as she cut through an earth automaton, bisecting it from shoulder to hip before she twisted to block a hit from one wielding a sword.
Its reach was far greater than hers, but Nemesis’ [Earthquake] left it unsteady on its feet. Liliana didn’t suffer the same disadvantage as she kept [Wind Walk] up, hovering inches off the ground. Its blade slipped and Liliana ducked beneath it, activating [Radiant Ignition] as her blade collided with its metal torso. She had to exert far greater force to cut through its body than with the earth one, but still she persevered, her blade of light slicing through it and exploding, sending metal shrapnel flying everywhere, cutting through the bodies of other automatons around her.
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Liliana kept moving, her feet never touching the treacherous earth that didn't cease its revolt against the things treading upon it. Liliana saw flashes of Nemesis’ scales and hood, swimming through the earth with fluid ease, sending spikes of earth and waves of shadow to destroy everything in her path. She heard the yipping laughter of Polaris and felt the Chaos cracking in the air as he cavorted around the battlefield, leaving broken, distorted wrecks in his wake.
Liliana didn’t stop, her blade kept swinging, nothing more than a flash of silver around her and a ribbon of trailing light as she activated [Radiant Ignition] in between renewing [Gatling Barrage]. She lost herself to the fight, to the dance she made of it. Twirling around deadly swings that cleaved the earth when they missed her. Earth rained down on her, metal flew around her, hitting her at times and slowly tainting her shield yellow.
She was taking damage, but it was nothing on what she returned. Every rhythmic step, made to the tempo of her heart, saw earth and metal constructs falling, yet no matter how many she felled, still more rose. This was a battle of attrition and unless something changed, the end would be decided by whether Dunstan’s Mana ran dry, or if Liliana’s Stamina did first. His automatons were many, but they were slower than her, and what little hit her was glancing, barely chipping away at her shield. But if she ran out of Stamina, it would be over. All the Speed in the world wouldn’t save her if she couldn’t move.
Liliana didn’t know how long she fought, lost as she was to the intoxicating ballet that was battle, when a voice called out to her. Clear and loud it sliced through the delicate harmony of battle that followed the beat drummed by her heart, screaming metal and cracking earth the vocals that sung to her, whispering the secrets of victory in a language only she could decipher.
“Lili!” Marianne called out, a heart stopping roar following the shouted name that made even the brainless automatons pause and shudder.
Liliana turned and saw her friend sitting astride the Mirage Tiger, looking like some goddess of war with her body coated in blood armor, armed with a scythe that looked like it was stolen directly from the god of death, held high in her hands. Marianne dipped on Lelantos’ back, slicing a metal automaton in two, blackness turning the metal into something decayed and wrong, like Chaos in its utter unnaturalness but different.
“Mari!” Lili called back, making her way to her friend, her naginata a twirling hurricane of destruction around her as she made her own path through these never ending constructs until she stood at Lelantos’ shoulder, finally getting a chance to breathe from the onslaught while sheltered by his bulk.
“What can I do?” Marianne asked as she summoned spears of blood and water to cut into the surrounding army.
“I need more Mana. I can’t get to Dunstan like this. The automatons just keep coming. We need to take him out.” Liliana said, surprised at how out of breath she was as she panted the words. How long had she been fighting?
“How much Mana do you need?” Marianne asked.
“As much as you can give me.” Liliana said, and Marianne’s eyes took on an almost mad light as her lips twisted into a grin that promised nothing but violence.
“Lili, can you cut your hand for me? I need your blood. The shield will let you hurt yourself.” Her friend asked her and it was a mark of how much she trusted Marianne that Liliana didn’t hesitate before she dragged her blade deep into her arm. It had to be deep, or she’d heal in seconds.
Her shield took on a distinctly orange color as her blood dripped to the ground for a breath. Before more than two drops had hit the earth, the rest of Liliana’s blood lifted, twisting away from her and linking to a rope of Marianne’s own blood.
Something flooded Liliana, hitting her like a kick to the chest from Lelantos. She gasped in a breath as her mind understood what it was. Mana, so much Mana, far more than she had normally. It felt like her Mana pool was endless.
“[Bonds Of Blood], my other Quintessential skill. It lasts until our Mana runs out or we hit twenty minutes, but until then, our Mana and Mana regeneration will be shared. Now let’s really make it ridiculous.” Marianne said with a cackle that sounded distinctly maniacal as she covered Liliana in spell after spell, boosting her Health, Stamina and Mana regeneration even more.
Liliana understood after a moment why Marianne was so excited. Healers couldn’t affect themselves with their own spells, but if their Mana was bonded for the duration of [Bonds of Blood] then any Mana regen or increasing spells used on Liliana would help Marianne too. It was a loophole.
Liliana looked at her Mana and almost choked, the surprise breaking through [Battle Clarity]. It had been at five thousand with her own buffs, but now it was more than doubled. She was sitting on over fifteen thousand Mana. Her regeneration was at a hundred and forty per second. A manic type of joy overtook her shock and Liliana tilted her head back and laughed, the sound loud and so very alien when juxtaposed with the sounds of battle all around her.
Liliana turned to the automatons and let out another laugh as she activated [Aspect of The Beast]. She chose Polaris as the Bond to connect to for it and power flooded her veins. 40% of her Bond’s stats was a considerable boon and her Mana jumped once more. She didn’t even bother to look at the numbers. They were absurd. Liliana activated every skill and spell she had that boosted her stats. She felt like she was humming with power, her awareness increasing thanks to her frankly over powered Speed now, making the battle seem like it was proceeding in slow motion, every automation moving as if trapped in thick molasses.
“Go, Lili, we’ve got your back. Destroy them. Make them fear us. Make them regret making an enemy of the house of Rosengarde and the crown princess of Cista.” Marianne ordered, her voice filled with glee and an undertone of righteous vengeance waiting to be delivered.
When Liliana looked at her friend, covered in blood from her skills and with the light of battle in her eyes, Liliana could see Queen Gwendolyn shining through. Right now, in the middle of a battle, Marianne was every inch her mother’s daughter. It was terrifying; it was awe-inspiring; it was beautiful. Liliana was never more thankful than at that moment that Marianne was her friend and not her enemy. And she fervently hoped that she would never be her enemy.
Liliana turned from her friend, every movement so fast now, so quick that seconds felt like minutes and minutes were hours. Her heartbeat, that had felt so frantic before, boosted by adrenaline, was now a sedate drumbeat in her ears. Liliana moved, and she had destroyed three automatons between one beat and another. With her bonds flanking her now and Marianne behind her, Liliana became an unstoppable force of annihilation, her naginata moving so quickly it was utterly unseen. Automatons seemed to burst into shards or drop into pieces as she walked past, her movements relaxed and lazy for how swiftly she moved. She barely had to even try to destroy them now. It was no more effort than killing a fly.
It didn’t matter how many automatons Dunstan summoned, he could no longer keep up with how rapidly Liliana destroyed them. By the time he had summoned two, Liliana had destroyed thrice that many. What had felt like a never ending horde of earth and metal monsters was nothing but wheat to be culled by her blade. Liliana forced her way through the once impenetrable forces, her bonds and Marianne cutting off anything she missed as she headed with single-minded determination towards the center.
Liliana stopped before the reinforced bubble Dunstan had hidden himself in, far more formidable than it had originally been. Dunstan had been adding layers since this started. It mattered little now. With so much boosted power in her now, Liliana made short work of it, light and wind and metal blade chipping into it. One swing, two, three, four and she was through, cracking the bubble like an egg and revealing Dunstan standing there, looking at her with shock and something else. Fear. Liliana realized her manic grin had never dropped as she moved. She couldn’t stop it. The exhilaration, the sheer feeling of power, was too strong for even [Battle Clarity] to dampen.
This fight was over, but Liliana had always been one for dramatics, made worse after her bond with Polaris. A trait amplified, cemented, boosted by her Bond’s own theatric nature.
“I should thank you, Dunstan. For providing me with an actual challenge in this fight, something I hadn’t expected. But a useless piece of shit like you doesn’t deserve my gratitude. However, before I remind you who you should fear, who you should respect, I’ll give you the comfort of knowing I actually had to use a Quintessential skill for this. You made me try.” Liliana crooned, her voice mocking in its sweetness, her careful mask discarded, cracked to pieces like the automatons razed around her. There was an edge of battle madness around her features, the villainess she could’ve been flirting with her face and voice, a side of herself she kept under lock and key most of the time. Except when someone made themselves her enemy.
“Remember this warning. Next time you open your useless mouth to spew your noxious drivel, remember this. Remember what it looks like when I actually want to destroy something, because next time there might not be a shield to save you.” Liliana hissed at him, her grin twisting into something between a smile and a snarl, her sharp, too sharp, not human, canines on full display as she bent forward like she would rip his neck out with them. Perhaps she would, if she could. Sometimes when she was in the middle of battle, when her blood was hot and her heart was pounding, she felt more beast than human.
But not today. Today she pulled back as Dunstan stumbled back and fell, his face pale as he stared at her like she was Death itself standing before him. It did him little good, his pathetic attempts to put space between them. His back hit his own protections, now a prison rather than a fortress, as he scrambled away from her.
It took Liliana no time to step forward, to thrust her naginata at him, its blade shining with a light so bright it could blind, straight for his head. Her strike was so powerful, filled with every scrap of her enhanced Strength she could put into it, boosted by an anger she had kept chained every day, waiting for this one moment to finally be unleashed, that Dunstan’s body burst through his protections, flying until it hit the ring’s shield. His own personal shield was soaked red before he even hit the ground, where he did not rise.
“So dramatic, Lili.” Marianne chided as she walked up to her. She delicately stepped over the remnants of the bubble, now twisted and rent apart.
“You’re just mad you didn’t get to put the fear of the gods into him.” Liliana teased her friend as she turned to look at the rest of the fight.
Remrence was down, obviously. Coppercolt was a crumpled heap, the ground around him in a crater. Liliana didn’t know what Anya had done to him, but she didn’t think it was any prettier than Dunstan’s experience.
Anya was with Alistair, facing off Zir’elon, her shield a dark orange bordering red. It hadn’t been an easy fight for her either and even as Liliana watched, Zir’elon got a hit in that finished her shield off to a true red as Anya dropped. Liliana felt a snarl take over her face, an animalistic growl rumbling in her chest. It was a fake fight. Anya was fine, but it didn’t matter to Liliana right then. She had seen someone cut down her friend, and she didn’t take that lightly.
Before Liliana could move, even with her enhanced Speed, Alistair yelled something at the same time Emyr raised his hand. A shining sword filled with a righteous light came down at the same time six stars dropped from the sky, both attacks hitting Zir’elon in tandem and blasting him back and down, his body bouncing off the ground twice before it stilled, his shield such a bright red Liliana was worried they’d somehow actually hurt him.
The entire ring, the entire training room, which Liliana suddenly remembered they were in, went dead silent.
It was a class. Just a class. Not a real fight. No real deaths. No more people she loved dead, dead because she wasn’t enough, never enough. No more blood on her hands that she could never quite wash away, no matter how many hours she spent scrubbing her skin until it cracked.
“Win, team Rosengarde.” Rauk’s voice cut through the air, loud, startling, grounding.
It reminded Liliana of where she was, when she was. She almost stumbled under the weight of the relief, and as Liliana canceled her skills and Marianne did the same, she really did stumble, the exhaustion making her knees weak. Her naginata felt like an unbearable weight in her hands, too much to hold, too much to lift, so she dismissed it to her storage ring.
Marianne’s arm wrapped around her, offering support and a kind, sympathetic smile, and Liliana wondered what Marianne had gone through for her eyes to hold so much knowing in them. To somehow encompass with just her eyes, with her soft smile, that she understood that for a moment Liliana hadn’t been here, she’d been trapped in memories, in a nightmare of blood, death, screams and a guilt so great it stained her soul with it.
“We’re done, Lili. It’s over. We won. We’re alright.” Marianne whispered to her. Liliana nodded, mute, swallowing on a throat that she realized now was coated in dirt and so dry it hurt.
It was over. Just a spar. Just a class.
They won. They won so severely, so violently, that Zir’elon and his followers would remember it for a long time. They would remember that Death had breathed down their necks, only stayed by the shields placed upon them by an instructor that couldn’t be there every second of every day.