The black lightning swallowed her, coursed through bone and through all the neurons of her mind. Blood boiled and singed, bone popped and cracked. She grit her teeth and refused to scream from the wrongness and the pain, but she felt it devour her very being, and quickly. The spell was draining health and mana with disturbing speed until they were both nearly depleted. Fear trailed through her mind like the cold fingers of ghosts as she was forced to kneel in front of her foe, but she paid the presence of that fear no heed,knowing it had no power. She choose, instead, to fill her heart with the determination she'd chosen long, long ago.

Nay. I refuse… Estelle thought and steeled her steel-honed mind.

… her HP and mana started fighting back. Through sheer force of will, they replenished at a speed unexplainable by science, at an astounding rate. It overtook the damage dealt by the abyssal damage, slowly, dramatically, point by point.

She raised her chin, defiantly, and stared at the mage with determination unyielding. Or, at the spot she knew where he stood. She was trapped in a giant torrent of voidblack darkness, after all, and saw absolutely nothing.

But, in her heart, she knew the mage was crooking an eyebrow and slightly tilting his head, as he took in the strange sight of a person just straight up ignoring the rules of consevation of mass and everything science knew about how health and mana is supposed to replenish for no fucking reason. Her well-honed instincts told her so and they rarely failed. Then, her instincts told her, the man shrugged, and the power of the lightning suddenly became twice what it was. She grit her teeth, her jaw cracking and reforming. The foul energy became as a torrent, a waterfall crushing down on her, the absolute abyssal silence within it both eerie and maddening. The fire in her heart fluttered and fought.

HP regain and HP deterioration clashed and pushed against each other deep in the bleeping reds. Sometimes, it seemed Estelle was making a comeback, and sometimes, her 999.999 health points dipped into the single digits. She could do no more than remain kneeling, all her focus required to keep her unyielding grip of Helliondragonbunnyhounds handle to keep herself from falling. But her will yielded not to this evil. It never would. She believed, if nothing else, in her own will to fight, and she refused to fall. In the worst case scenario, Estelle swore to die with her hands still gripping the handle. Falling any lower was not permitted.

The mage looked at his watch, back at Estelle.

“Listen, crude barbarian," his disembodied voice echoed within the silence, "I have a schedule. Can’t you die alreadaaaAAAAARGGGGH!!! GRAAAH!! AAARGHAAAAAH!!-”

“NEIGH!”

The black lightning that assaulted Estelle disappeared immediately at the mage's horrifically gurgling scream, and she gasped and coughed half-disintegrated pieces of her innards and the smoke of previously burning lungs. The crushing, abyssal darkness around her was gone, parted like curtains, and she could see again. The mage was impaled through the torso on Stormshards horn, the unicorn windmilling the old guy. She smiled at her old, reliable friend, taking the brief respite to regather her strength.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAA-!”

“NEIGH!

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAA-!”

“NEIGH!”

“GRAAAAAH! VERMIN! UNDYING COCKROACH! I SHALL-”

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“NEEEEEIIIIGH!”

SPLATCRUNCH.

The mage went flying into a brick stone wall, crackles sent sprawling into the pale solid marble around his broken form.

Estelle gasped for air as the lightning ceased to assault her, and coughed up bits of her near-disintegrated throat and the smoke of previously burning lungs. She looked at the mage, who was still stuck in the wall, his limbs splaying in uncomfortable directions. There was a great deal of blood, but she sensed in him still the spark of life, and so she moved to extinguish it. He is too dangerous to keep a hostage, it seems, Estelle thought, and pulled her 400 kg sword out of the ground, flinching only slightly as she moved.

“... no. I can’t fail now... not here.. not when everything is at stake…. we... were… so close….” the broken mage faintly whisperwheezed.

“Your last words are weak.” Estelle remarked and raised Helliondragonhoundbunnyslayer. Not dramatically over her head, as she usually would to honor her fallen enemies' last moments; just casually, not even drawing back her arm, for this man deserved not the politeness. She swung it.

It stabbed into his already bleeding chest. It was as wide as his ribcage. He coughed up blood, and wheezed.

"This isn't the last you'll... see of me.... I refuse.. I refuse to... this... isn't... ove..."

She twisted the blade, and his voice spluttered out, wheezing out his last broken breath. She infused the blade with mana until it glowed from the heat, and he made no more sound.

She pulled the blade from the wall, and his body fell to the ground. She stabbed him a few more times with the 500 °C glowing sword, just to make sure, taking the time to get both the heart and the head, and - though none of those cultivator types she’d ever met would get caught dead in such drab-colored robes - all locations of his major meridians. Smoke came from the body, from his throat, from his wounds, as if his body was burning from the inside. The gaping, blackened wounds spread, slowly, from the abyssal energy he had commanded rather than from the burns she had inflicted. His skin paled unnaturally fast, and his body sagged, as if the darkness was hollowing him out from within. The blackness dissipated silently in the wind.

Debris fell from the broken wall in large chunks, covering his body, crushing what remained of his bones.

“If you made one mistake, aside from being an utter world-invading traitor of a slugturd with no courage, nor morals…” Estelle remarked at the dead man, “... then it was to call the armor of a lvl 700 unicorns rider a ‘strippers outfit’.”

“Neigh. Neigh, neigh, neeeeeeiiiigh.” Stormshard said and rolled his eyes, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Yeah. And called me a crude barbarian. Looked like the academic-ish type, too, with all those runes and fancy sigils, but one gotta wonder if he ever read a book.” Estelle said with a shrug, as she glanced at the HP and mana bars in the corner of her vision. They were both back to about a quarter, ticking up slowly.

The flashes of enormous dragon breaths kept lighting up the sky, throughout it all. They seemed evenly matched, neither of the two having tired in any way measurable to Estelles eyes. Teeth snapped and castle-thick tails lashed out to the sound of cracking and displaced air, mighty wingbeats sending small storms across The Lair. The abyssal lightning crashed on. When another pillar of white fire lit up the amalgamation invader, Estelle set her eyes at the black clouds that billowed out of the invaders wounds. It wasn't a normal blackness, which was hardly surprising; not like the smoke of a poorly fed fire. It seemed Abyssal to Estelle, flimsy and whispy rather than having the concentrated thickness of the lightning, but essentially, the same. The depths of its wounds seemed to simply swallow the light.

Estelles eyes narrowed as she thought.

“Stormshard, my old friend… I’m going to do something immensely stupid, for the sake of a stunt that may not pay off. Are you with me?”

“Neigh.” Stormshard said mightily, and Estelle smiled at his poetic words.

“You’ve never let me down. Come then.” she said and got back onto his back. “I need to get on the back of that invader. Lets go.”

And Stormshard ran. He ran at blurrying speeds, his glowing rainbow mane waving mightily in the mighty wind. He ran towards the battle, and then, he leaped. He leaped mightily.