The tier one elementals were only half the strength of the weakest of Eve’s guards, they were lighter, unskilled, and nearly impossible to put down. It was unsettling to slice a foe in half only for them to get back to their feet after a minute or two. Tristan had struggled with this as well, but Siren had found a way around it.
Custodian was not a pushover, but his skills were more dedicated to management than violence. Thus he had called several elementals to help him. Siren had created a scythe out of his cohesion force, a weapon that he hammered through the neck of each elemental and down into their hearts. It was not a tactic that everyone could use but, Tristan could.
A metal blade construct weaved itself into existence on Vulcan, just below the lamp head. It was a little ungainly, but was better than nothing. Tristan would attempt to use it like the war picks that were common to tier three warriors. He had done some training with them, but the two-foot blade of a scythe was much different than the five-inch pick of what he had trained with.
The two armies were positioned pin lines that stretched a mile, and two or three men deep with a five hundred foot gap between them. Eve was at the dead center. It did not take long for Tristan to arrive. All the elementals seemed to work on a type of hive mind, so the surprise strike through the opening at the top of the armor never happened.
Tristan targeted an air elemental that was attacking Lesley. She was not the best fighter, but it was always important to keep the healer alive. The air elemental spun to face Tristan, leaving its two companions to face Lesley without it. It dove at Tristan, swiftly getting within the effective range of the scythe. Not that it mattered, its fingertips were incapable of penetrating his armor, and he still had his dagger.
Punching forward he drove his blade through the chest plate. Tristan did not wait for it to dissolve, he shoved it to the side and pushed past it. The scythe cut straight down through the next elemental’s collarbone. Tristan's lack of skill caused him to miss the heart, but it was still great leverage. He jerked back and forth, cutting rents through the elemental’s circulatory system until it finally collapsed into essence.
While he was using the scythe on one elemental, he stamped down on the final one’s knee. Lesley was not a great combatant, but she was still more than enough to manhandle the tier one undead. Her war pick crushed its head and then she drove her fist into the armor and tore out the elemental’s heart.
“Pocket that,” Tristan yelled as he moved on to help Janis.
Lesley glanced at the organ in her grip before shrugging and stuffing it into her pocket. She went to assist Eve with the elementals she was facing. Elementals she was handling better than any of her people. Eve had drawn the long double edged water artifact that he had stolen for her. It was not able to ignore the plate armor, but its higher tier allowed it to punch through with well angled thrusts.
Now that she had a healer at her back, Tristan could start clearing up some of the elementals. Janis had used his hand cannons at first, but those were especially ineffective against elementals. He had a bloody scratch along the side of his face and had one arm pinned down by an earth elemental that had decided to clamp onto it.
A legless fire elemental was trying to bite through the mythical beast leather on his shin. It was not making much progress, but it must have been painful. A final two elementals, both were light were methodically slashing their fingertips at Janis, who was unable to defend with an arm pinned.
Tristan was accosted by two more elementals before he could reach the guard. They had peeled away from other fights, to engage Tristan. He kicked one in the pelvis to knock it back and caught the second by the collar before tossing the water elemental aside. The first had landed on its feet and immediately sprinted back towards Tristan on all fours. It was the perfect height to use a standard scythe strike, and Tristan marveled at how much easier it was to use the tool for its intended purpose.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
The quadrupedal elemental died permanently. Despite the ease of the kill, it still did not happen fast enough to allow Tristan to retrieve his scythe before the water elemental was back. He released the lamp post and grabbed the elemental’s grasping hand in one fist then pulled it into a punch that tore its head off. With no muscle or sinew the elementals were much less resistant to being torn to pieces. Tristan copied Lesley and tore the water kern out of its chest.
It was tier one and when mixed with his essence it would create a tier two reservoir. He would use Vulcan's essence though. A tier eight reservoir was always more preferable. Refocusing on Janis, Tristan was delayed for too long. The fire elemental had finished regrowing its legs and had grabbed Janis by his unarmored face. Janis was alive, but in pain, and he might never see again.
Tristan was not hindered a second time. He swept the scythe through both light elemental’s legs, removing them at mid-shin. They would not stay down for long, but it would be enough to let Tristan pry the burning fingers of the fire elemental from Janis’s face. He winced at the sight, charred skin stuck to the hands as he pried them off. Janis had fallen into his survival reflexes, he did not register his ruined face and eye, he simply started punching the earth elemental with his free hand.
Tristan winced as he heard the guard’s finger break on the elemental’s stone skull. Still, Tristan was left in a one-on-one with a fire elemental. He blinked, it was Elder Forest. No wonder Janis was doing the worst of every guard, he was the only one facing a tier three elemental.
“Hello Uncle,” The elemental could not hear the words Tristan said. He did wonder what regret fueled the Elder’s transformation. He had once told Eve that the best solution was to simply kill Elder Forest. Today, everyone probably wished that he had used that solution.
The creature that was once family charged Tristan. He was not a thirteen-year-old child this time. Tristan had grown massively in the last few years. He stabbed forward with the butt of the lamp post, denting the plate of armor, but doing little else. It succeeded in bringing the elemental to a halt, the perfect range. He spun Vulcan, bringing the butt down and the blade over like a pick axe.
Even in life Forest had not been a fighter, in death he was harder to kill, but somehow even less coordinated. The tier three bone put up some resistance, stopping Tristan from simply slicing straight through its skull and into the heart. He stepped in and rammed his knife into the armor. It would have been a kill shot, but the two light elementals had already recovered.
They tried tackling him but weighed little more than fifty pounds. It was enough to stagger Tristan, but not to knock him over. He pulled the dagger out and swiped it across both their skulls to little effect. It would have blinded a human, but such a clean cut healed before its effect could even be noticed. Growling Tristan brought his arm around in an arm bar that threw both of them to the ground.
Using the scythe, Tristan dragged Elder Forest over the two elementals. Its lack of footwork sent it sprawling atop the two light elementals. Tristan was fed up with these armored elementals, like cockroaches, they refused to die. Spinning Vulcan he planted the flaming end of the artifact into the ex-elder’s back. Pushing fire essence and combustion downward he melted a hole through all three of the elementals. It was not elegant, just a simple expression of frustration at the man who had saved his life to spite an enemy.
All that was left was a mess of arms, legs, and skulls. A glowing armor was cooling between the dissipating bones. He turned back to Janis to find the man being supported by another guard. Tristan recognized him as the fire kern tier three. The earth elemental Janis had been punching lay with a hole burned from the pelvis to the skull beside them.
“Thank you, Sage,” The man said.
The skirmish was winding down, giving Tristan a chance to glance back at Siren. Two dead men and several pieces of empty armor trailed the fight. Custodian was missing an arm and had been pushed back towards the enemy lines. Everyone seemed keen to leave the conflict full of emerald stone and razor sharp darkness alone.
“Sage,” Tristan turned to find Eve and Merrick jogging up to him, “Now that the catapults are taken care of we need to back across the trench where we have the terrain advantage.”
Tristan frowned, “Really, what about the cannons?”
Eve froze, “What cannons?”
Custodian cried out as the blade of Siren's axe sliced halfway through his neck, “You are persistent. Use the anti-emplacement munitions.“
Tristan had no idea what an emplacement was, but he knew what munitions were. He grabbed Eve and dragged her along no man’s land to the area he had cleared. Her bodyguards were too slow to stop him but were fast enough to make it to safety.