What Azaarath expected was for his sword to continue unabated, what he didn’t expect were the two men that jumped over the wall. One of the men stopping the blade with a weapon of his own, the other punching him square in the face. The attack is more a surprise than anything as Azeraath isn't even hurt, but he did jump back to get a good look at the new opponents. They appear to be some kind of monks, most likely the real defenders of the temple. One of them wears robes of white and has a long ice saw which he wields like a polearm. The other has fuchsia robes and appears not to have any weapon at all, that is until Azeraath sees the glimmering brass knuckles.
Azeraath can feel the magic circulate around the two men; they are real warriors but not a threat. Still he can not help but feel that he has been getting hit too much in this weird world. In his own realm he never had such difficulty fighting enemies so much weaker than himself. He can feel that there is something wrong with him. He has been too reckless and once he focuses on himself he notices something. Alien thoughts creep into his mind and force him to abandon reason and simply kill. It is the voice that brought him here, it did something to his mind that made him manic. Even after realizing that he is being controlled he can not stop himself. He has to kill and destroy regardless of anything or anyone in front of him.
“You encroach upon holy ground, monster!” The fuchsia monk yells in indignation. “Turn and go back where you came and never return and we will have no quarrel with you. This is your only warning!”
“You all die now, Meat!” Azeraath says before he even realized it himself. “Everyone here dies!”
The monk in white swings his ice saw around and gets into a lower stance. “Then pray the Goddess shows you mercy for we will not.”
No further words need to be exchanged, not that Azeraath has anymore to say to what he knows will be corpses in a few minutes. Since Azeraath doesn’t know their names and has even less of a desire to find out, he mentally labels them White and Fuchsia. He sizes the men up using his magical senses to determine which would pose the greater threat. He then remembers that out of his two pursuers, the man and woman from earlier, the one that had the greater magic was lacking in skill. Maybe in this world there is more to look out for than magical ability. He takes in a breath and recenters himself as he dodges an incoming barrage of bullets.
The two men lunge at Azeraath as he evades the hail of gunfire, their motions smooth and well practiced. Azeraath realizes that the gunfire is to distract him and hopefully get him off balance. It does not work as he is fully ready to leverage every bit of his superhuman reflexes. The two monks broke off from one another to close him in a pincer attack and it takes only mere moments for them to reach him. White jabs the end of the serrated ice saw, which came to a deadly point, at him in quick repetitive motions.
Azeraath easily and skillfully deflects the polearm expecting his sword to cleave the monk's weapon like a twig. However as his sword clashes he feels the same sensation as when his sword clashes with the war machete held by the male pursuer. It is something unlike anything Azeraath felt in his world, almost like clashing against an immutable relic, something even beyond the ancient Forge Masters of his world. The power in the ice saw is greatly muted as compared to that which resides in the war machete similar to comparing an ocean to a lake.
Azeraath senses Fuchsia closing in behind and uses his magical senses which gives him an understanding of his environment to track the movement of enemies. Once Fuchsia is in position he does not close the distance to attack but instead stands back. Azeraath can sense magic billow around the monk then at his feet. He disengages from White and jumps back as a spike of ice extends from the ground mere milliseconds after he moved. As soon as he touches the ground he once again feels the magic beneath him and he repeatedly has to dodge to keep from being skewered.
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As he dodges one of the spikes, the end of the ice saw rockets towards him passing through the ice as if it weren’t there. Azeraath twirls in midair using his momentum to evade the next spike while simultaneously catching the saw with his blade. The blade became stuck in one of the saw teeth as White also phases through the ice spikes much like the ice saw. Even in the heat of the moment Azeraath caught a glimpse of a smile on White’s face indicating some sort of trap. White and his weapon are immune to the magical ice which to Azeraaths surprise allows him to run through the ice as if it were not there. Azeraath concludes that it is all part of their plan to trap his sword and leave him vulnerable. As he lands he will have to choose to avoid the spike and lose the sword or get impaled by the attack.
Between the bullets, the spikes and the monks there is not much room for Azeraath to think. Instead he has to move on instinct and skill, luckily for him he had skill to spare. As he lands he uses his superior strength to pull White with his sword closer to him. Azeraath reaches out his hand with blinding speed grabbing the monk by the neck. Azeraath looks the surprised man in the eyes as emerald green energy flows from the sword to his hand then into the monk's body.
Azeraath says with bitter vitriol spraying the air. “Binding Forge.”
In a breathless moment after Azeraath proclaims his spell his emerald green energy wraps White in a cocoon. The warrior is too low a level to resist the magic of a Forge Master the ice saw limply held onto Azeraaths blade without its master pressing the bind. Azeraath easily avoids the next spike and the few after that as Fuchsia launches more at him in quick succession in hopes to save White. In Fuchsia’s desperation he becomes more predictable to Azeraath and much less of a threat. Ironically the attempt to save White is allows Azeraath the focus he needs for the Forge Magic.
The emerald becomes more and more brilliant around the body of the dangling monk who offers no resistance. Soon White begins to collapse in on himself, folding with sickening cracks and pops as bones snap. The body became impossibly small as the folding only increased faster and faster. Upon the completion of the spell the emerald energy stops flowing and Azeraath holds a bone white necklace in his hand. He can feel the new magic within the item he forged and only needs to place it around his neck to gain White's most impressive ability, at least to Azeraath.
Fuchsia screams enraged.“Casidy. What did you do to him? You monster.”
Azeraath laughs as he examines his works while lazily dodging bullets and spikes. He then places the necklace around his neck and lets the next spike impale him. The spike ran straight through his gut and out of his neck. Then more and more spike rise stabbing through Azeraath over and over until he looks more like an ice porcupine than a person. The laughing does not stop as Azeraath walks through the ice spikes as if they were not there. He did not have a scratch on him as he again examines his new necklace. He then casually slides the saw from his blade and picks up the unusual weapon examining it for a moment before looking up Fuchsia whose face is twisted in tearful anger.
“You are next, Meat.” Azeraath says as he points to the end of the saw at Fuchsia.
Fuchsia reaches into his robe and takes out what looks like the branch of one of the sevfal berry plants. His magic suffuses the plant causing it to grow rapidly around his body. The plant incases him in a living wooden armor. Azeraath can tell it is not normal wood as the magic circulates between Fuchsia and the plant in a closed loop as if the two are feeding each other in perfect symbiosis. Only the gleaming brass knuckles are not encased in the wood armor as Fuchsia runs towards Azeraath in a boxers stance.