Akamori blazed with power, his aura flaring defiantly after having merged souls in a pact he made with a voidspawn shard of his own soul. He tried not to dwell too much on how absurd it all sounded and was just thankful for the boon at his moment of greatest need. He clutched the black and lavender crystal scythe in hand, casually draped across his shoulder, and his void shroud billowed about him like he stood outside on a windy day. He understood instinctively it was his aura supplying the turbulence. But it was still an order of magnitude higher on the cool scale.
Lucinda’s brow quirked with both interest and miniscule fear. What had been a handy rout was now turning uncertain. “So the pup has bite after all? Or is this just an outrageous display of defiance before I put you down for good?” she asked.
Akamori gave her a confident smirk from beneath his hood. The top of his face bathed in shadow save for the two glowing red orbs set in his eyes. “Hmph. Come and find out.”
Lucinda charged forward, but where she’d been a blur before, now she was more traceable. He followed her movements and lunged out with the pommel of his scythe, striking her in the abdomen.
System Info: You have inflicted the target with Death’s Shadow. Your attacks will deal increased damage for the duration of the buff.
Lucinda sensed the debuff placed on her but didn’t have time to puzzle out its effect as Akamori burst forward in a surge of speed. Blade clashed and hummed as he swung the scythe competently, but his lack of familiarity with the weapon showed. However, he more than made up for it with raw strength and speed, matching her own traits pound for pound. The two warriors traded blows for the fate of the world.
Akamori caught Lucinda with a wicked slash filling his Aether gauge enough to summon his voidspawn counter part for a joint attack. Black smoke coalesced in to the shape of a cloaked torso with arms that ended in long claws. The avatar brought its arm down in a slash that raked Lucinda’s flesh. The Arena champion grunted as the edges of the struggled to knit shut.
Akamori noted the sluggish healing and wondered if that was connected to the void magic of his void avatar. Lucinda countered with a lethal series of slashes and lunges that he evaded by the merit of raw physical potential. She had the lead on him in skill by a wider margin than he was comfortable with.
You’re still fighting with the mindset of using a sword. You have the reach advantage when I’m in this state. Use it! His sword transformed to a scythe, Thanaton counseled.
He let his grip on the weapon relax, letting the muscle memory of his body take over, flowing from set to set. It was awkward at first, but he soon found a rhythm that put Lucinda on the back foot. He unleashed another Soul Strike staggering Lucinda enough to take advantage of her opening. He brought the scythe around, almost removing her head from her neck.
His Enshrouded state was going to wear off soon, and he frowned. Even with the extra power being a Reaper had granted him, it wasn’t enough on its own for him to beat her.
Your doubt is losing this fight for you.
“Not the best time.” He growled back.
Magic is an extension of will. If your will is weak, you are weak. Channel your defiance. Your sense of justice. The desire to protect others from suffering as you have . Channel your emotions, and focus them against her.
“You want me to get angry?” He asked, confused.
No! Anger and rage are deceptive. Quick and hot, but they cloud judgement. Lead to irrational choices and unnecessary risks. A wise warrior is deliberate, selective, and adaptive. Rage prevents you from harnessing those traits by foolishly misleading you to think that short sightedness is more satisfying when it often leads to undoing you.
“That is incredibly insightful and detailed.” he said with a grunt, swatting away a strike from Lucinda.
I have more time and experience in combat than few other beings in existence. I have also crossed another ancient spell blade who routinely falls prey to these traps. Time and again self destructiveness undoes it.
He parried away a series of attacks from her that forced him back. A heel kick to his chin staggered him and sent him stumbling. Before she could capitalize, though, an explosive erupted between them that sent her hurtling away.
“Leave my LT. alone bitch.”
The sergeant’s burly frame leaned against the wall, with his massive conjured cannon held in one hand, barrel smoking. “Go, let’s put this situation to bed.” Sirsir shouted.
Akamori was in motion, sprinting after her prone form. A fire bolt spell crashed into his chest, but because of his magical resistances, it only dealt him a kinetic blow. He twirled and brought the scythe down, forcing Lucinda to retreat. Unfortunately for her, said retreat put her right in the big sergeant’s line of fire. Rapid fire machine gun bolts and several cannon rounds struck her, staggering her.
Seizing the opportunity, Akamori rammed the scythe’s blade into her chest. Then he fed it air, fire, and void magic. Electricity, flames and negative energy erupted from her wound, whipping her body wildly u til she dissolved into a cloud of Aether. The notes of magic formed the shape of a woman.
“Thanks for setting me free. I truly wish it hadn’t needed to end like this.” Lucinda’s soul said.
Akamori nodded softly, “Yeah. Me too.”
“Keep up the training. You may have beaten me this time, but there’s always a bigger fish out there. Tell Morwen I’m sorry about everything.”
“I will.”
The arena champion’s soul smiled sadly and closed her eyes. A long earned peace finally taking her. The shape of the woman broke down as the notes of Aether drifted into the sky like a cloud of fireflies. Akamori’s void shroud dissolved around him as his ability reached its time limit. He felt the power drain from him, back to the umbral plane to his other half.
Akamori turned to inspect the Sergeant braced against the wall. The sergeant’s right leg ended above the knee. His spell armor blackened and ragged. While Akamori had been fighting Lucinda, Sirsir had healed the amputation over into a stump. Akamori winced.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“See to Yasiin and Sala, make sure they’re ok, then head over to Amara.”
“Yes sir. What about you?”
“I’m going to tag in with Morwen.”
“Be careful, sir. That stunt with the spell armor was a one off. You get caught like that again. It’s game over.”
Akamori nodded wearily. “I know. But I can feel some intense danger from the ArchPriest’s chamber and she’s near ground zero.”
Sirsir nodded. “I’m not protestin’ the decision. Just makin’ sure you know what you’re jumpin’ into.”
“I appreciate that, Sgt. Keep it up and I might promote you.” Akamori said with a mischievous grin.
“Knock it off with that shit, sir. Now go on and save the day.”
The two shared a short laugh and went their separate ways.
#
Amara pushed herself up to her feet, ignoring the pain that radiated through her back. Her vision swam, and it took longer to push the fog from her mind than she liked. Across from her, Erlaut was groaning and prone as well. That much was a good sign. It meant she’d stopped his ritual casting.
Pushing herself upright, she channeled her aura through her hands again. The more she did so, the more refined the results. Erlaut rose shakily, still disoriented from the detonation that happened between them. Before the elder weaver got his bearings, Amara advanced, using her Maetrayops spell to focus in on the points in his body where the aether flowed the thickest.
Compared to someone like Sirsir or Sala, who relied on brute force, Amara preferred precision. It was why she’d come to secretly admire the degree to which Yasiin worked with his spell rifle. Sliding her lead foot forward, she focused on Erlaut’s arms. She would need to strike fast, light and precisely. She advanced, lashing out in a series of sequential blows. Predictably, Erlaut brought his arms up to block himself, exactly as she’d wanted.
One by one, two by two, she closed out points in his body where magic would flow. She was cutting the strings that bound his will to his magic. Mortals differed from divine beings in that they needed to still tell magic with their will what they wanted it to do. Whereas with gods, what they wanted simply was.
When Erlaut dropped his guard after realizing she was striking her very hard, confusion swept his features. She pounced, striking his toros this time and stopping the flow of magic almost all together. When she’d finished, he fell to his knees and coughed a bit of blood up. His body suffering injuries as the magic flowed erratically in his body.
“Well done, little priestess.” he coughed. “But you haven’t dealt with the entire problem yet.” Erlaut said with a glance towards the ritual circle on the ground.
“As a matter of fact, I have.” She said, snatching Erlaut up by the scruff of his robes and dragging him free of the ritual circle. With the magical bonds in his body closed off, he was paralyzed. Meaning the soul shackling was powerless without strings to puppet him with. It wasn’t a cleansing, but it would put a cork on the damage he could do until seen to by proper mage healers.
As she cleared the ritual circle’s magical dome, she saw Sgt. Sirsir hobbling around a corner using a spell cannon construct. She dropped Erlaut on his face. The elder weaver grunted in pain.
“Sgt! Are you ok?”
The big bald chocolate skinned man shrugged. His spell armor looked like he’d eaten a grenade mid detonation. She wrapped him up in a hug, even as he patted her shoulder plate.
“Yeah, I’ll live. That sword lady gave us a helluva beating.”
“Akamori?” she asked, her voice trailing off.
“He’s fine. Went off to go help the Captain. Said he could sense big trouble that way.”
Amara turned to focus on the ArchPriest’s chambers and her eyes widened in terror as she backpedaled into Sirsir. She shook her head in disbelief. “Of course it would be that dragon.”
“Which one?”
“Ominek.”
Sirsir cursed under his breath quietly. “Then we go help them after we deal with this. How do we deal with this?”
“It’s a magic bomb with poison rigged up to it. I’ve corrupted the poison spell to make it a mass of magic. The explosion was a different issue.”
“That you fixed?” Sirsir asked leadingly.
“That I fixed. He set it up to spread out to disperse the poison. But I’ve set it to go vertically like a column. That should reduce the blast radius effect.”
“Not bad for a private.”
“I’ve had some good mentors along the way.”
“So what’s next?”
“We get clear enough and then trigger the blast. My manipulations won’t last long and they’ll break down if we don’t act.”
“How far back do we need to be?”
Amara glanced around. “The end of that corridor should still give us a line of sight and be far enough back to be safe.”
“Should?”
She shrugged. “I’m way out of my element here. I’m just slapping at things and hoping the results are close to what I expect.”
Sirsir shrugged. “Works for me. I just blow shit up.”
The two mages dragged Erlaut to safety and then Sirsir hefted his conjured spell cannon up to point it at the ritual circle. Firing a blast into magic that tightly packed was never a good idea on the best of days. But sometimes bad ideas were all you got.
“Kaboom?”
Amara nodded, “Yes, Sgt. Kaboom.”
Sirsir grinned and fired a blast from his cannon as charged as he could manage. The two of them immediately dove behind a column for cover as the charged spell bolt hurled itself into the ritual circle and detonated.