Chapter 260 - Bottom of the Sky VI

A disgruntled Claire flicked her tongue through the air as she watched the erdbrechers take up their positions around her. There were eleven of them in all, twelve counting the groaning bull slowly pushing himself off the ground. His steps were still unsteady, but when their eyes met, he grinned, a broad, toothy smile that left her fist as itchy as a rash.

It was precisely his obnoxious, taunting smile that drove her arrow’s course. Targeting any of the others would have been far more efficient, but she was happy to aim it right between his eyes. The icy projectile grew with every meter traveled, swelling from a tiny twig of a bolt to a galleon-sized blade. It exploded when it reached its target. The surrounding air crackled as it was flash-frozen, turned in an instant from gas to glacier.

Another three such arrows were unleashed as soon as the first slowly manifested its remaining effects. The erdbrechers en route scurried out of the way, only to find themselves victims of the lyrkress’ trickery. None of the second wave’s projectiles exploded, nor did they even find their marks. The icy blades disintegrated upon reaching a certain size, melting away as the magic within them ran dry.

The mercenaries to her rear fired back, but the invisible pony on her shoulder opened its mouth to meet their arrows and spells. The projectiles were sucked straight into its gut and consigned to the void. A quiet murmur spread through the enemy lines following the inexplicable phenomenon. Claire took the opportunity to plant her feet into the ground and fill her lungs, but an elephant clad in fishnets and purple cloth attacked her before she could unleash her breath.

She led with a flying kick, transitioning into the attack from a distance of roughly fifteen meters. It was telegraphed; her trajectory was straight as a line, but the lyrkress barely raised her guard in time. Alya suddenly accelerated during the last leg of her journey, quintupling her speed in the blink of an eye. Her next attack was subject to the same phenomenon. The windup was slow and obvious—she was transitioning from a landing into an uppercut—but she broke the sound barrier at an arbitrary point during the transition. Again, Claire barely evaded the erdbrecher’s body. And she completely failed to dodge the accompanying blades.

The metal device around the desert-dweller’s wrists whirred to life as she struck. It was a crude metal contraption, activated through the pull of a wire to deliver a trio of needles into her hands mid-swing. Two of the miniature blades glanced off the lyrkress’ cheeks, her scales repelling them with a ting, but the last left a cut across her face, a deep gash between the silvery plates of natural armour.

Claire stumbled half a step backwards before retaliating with her tail. She laced it with a medley of poisons and whipped it across her opponent’s body. It drew only a few drops of blood, but the effects were immediately apparent. The elephant was in the middle of her next swing, a heavy uppercut with her needles extruded when she was interrupted by a violent sneeze. A stream of parachutes erupted from her trunk, stalling her just long enough to meet the edge of a sword.

Boris cut across her chest, effortlessly gliding through her unarmoured frame. Claire twisted the blade as it ate Ayla’s flesh, but again, she was denied a log entry. The needle-wielder minimized the damage by moving with the sword and propelling herself back toward the mercenary line.

Claire unleashed her breath to chase, but Gunther inserted himself between them. He held his arms in front of him with all his trinkets spinning. The living shield grit his teeth and cycled his gold to disperse the spell, as he had on the previous encounter, but she gathered it with her vectors each time he blew it away.

His accessories froze a few seconds after the cast, with his arms following suit soon after. Everything above his elbows cracked apart and turned to dust, vanishing into the night. Claire charged at him with Boris drawn, his form akin to that of a dagger. One of his allies threw up a golden barrier, but the lyrkress was undeterred. She vaulted over the shield and flipped through the air as she assumed her true form.

She opened three dozen sets of eyes and immediately identified the healer in their ranks. He was dressed like most of the others, covered in full plate with a spiked mace in his hands. But while his form was easily overlooked, his position was not. The man was kneeling, holding his weapon in front of his face whilst silently muttering some prayer or other.

Vector magic was the first thing she tried. She extended a claw and pulled him towards it, but while not completely unaffected, the man slid at an agonizingly slow pace.

The others in his vicinity were not as fortunate, however. A man with two blades was pulled straight into her other hand. He slashed at her scales, but she repelled his daggers with a flick of the claw and seized him between her talons. He was pinned to the ground and smooshed, his bones bent out of shape with a sickening crack.

His allies tried to save him. Their ranged attackers launched spears and arrows, a second priest formed a barrier in her palm, and four elephant men charged her head-on. Futile attempts at salvation.

The projectiles were eaten by her pony, the barrier was crushed with brute strength, and the four rushers were repelled with a sweep of the tail. The fishnetted girl suddenly appeared beside her face and drove a needle toward the longmoose’s eye, but she opened another on the side of her head and froze the rogue with an empowered glare.

She turned to the girl with her jaw wide open, but Gunther interfered again, tackling her out of the way with a primal roar.

That was when the matriarch entered the ring.

“Stand down. Stay back unless I say otherwise.”

She trumped another order as she stepped forward and brandished a long, blunt staff. It was only one of the many weapons she carried on her person. There were three spears strapped to her back, four swords mounted to her waist, and a seemingly endless number of daggers embedded into the various compartments scattered all over her armour. She may as well have been a bouquet of blades, a walking storm of metal adorned with a gemstone necklace. And somehow, a kindred spirit.

“I am Emelia Braunn, wartusk broodmother, and the matriarch that heads the Braunn clan and company.” She curled up her nose as she spoke and sucked it back into her face.

Claire paused for a moment before taking her foot off the corpse and reverting to her humanoid form. She turned her cloak into a dress, specifically one suited for the battlefield, and greeted the warlord with a traditional curtsy.

“It is a pleasure to meet a mercenary of such repute,” said the qiligon. She wanted to grin, knowing she was about to steal Pollux’s prey, but she kept her face blank. “I am Claire, abyssal hoarfrost scalewarden and the heir of forgotten blood.” The fox’s projection opened its mouth to complain when she listed her race, but Claire grabbed it by the maw and stole its mana before it could speak.

“I’m guessing you won’t let us pass, no matter how nicely we ask?”

“I won’t.” She flashed the elephant a soft, gentle smile before lowering her stance and hiding Boris behind her back. “Your client dies today. Whether Arciel succeeds or not.”

She waited for the warrior to prepare before leaping into the air and turning draconic again. The lyrkress circled once before diving like an eagle, her talons extended and her wings folded inwards. The matriarch sidestepped her claws. She gave them a wide berth, retreating a full two meters, but the movement only exposed her to the follow-up. Claire spun around and extended her hooves to deliver a two-legged, horse-like kick.

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Emelia raised her staff with both hands and warded off the attack with a parry. The full metal rod groaned, bent, and creaked when the feet made contact but snapped back to its usual shape as soon as the hooves were repelled. She drew a sword with her trunk and swiped at the qiligon’s legs before she could regain her footing, but Claire evaded with a flap of the wings. Not relenting, she rose into the sky and repeated the airstrike again.

Emelia was more confident in facing the second attack; she exercised less caution on her evasion and remained closer to the attack’s source—but it was precisely in said confidence that the lyrkress had relied. Claire grabbed the mercenary’s trunk with a vector and yanked it forward right as her claws impacted the dirt. Even with ten thousand points of magic, she could only get the matriarch to budge a few inches. Still, it was more than enough to throw her off balance.

There were two splurts of blood, one when her talons dug into the elephant lady’s flesh and another when the matriarch’s sword was plunged into the side of her leg. The blade dug through her scales and ripped her flesh apart, stopping only at her indestructible bone.

Claire turned lyrkrian as she called Boris into her hands and brought him down upon her foe. The dagger was driven straight toward the back of the elephant’s head, but her hands were stopped before the blade pierced her skin. There was a trunk wrapped around her wrists, and she couldn’t break free from its grip. It wasn’t a matter of strength. Her joints were stuck, locked in place by the mercenary’s nose.

She was too close for Emelia to use her staff—a fact of which the erdbrecher was well aware. She dropped it without a second thought and reached for two daggers placed all over her body. Claire barely managed to escape by paralyzing her with a glare. The magical glower loosened her grip just enough for the lyrkress to free her hands. She retaliated with a knee to the erdbrecher’s gut, followed by a taloned kick that opened a distance between them.

Claire patched herself up right away, closing her wounds with ice whilst raising a hand. She focused for a moment before grabbing the empty space in front of her and twisting it into the realm of eternal frost. She accidentally pulled a few audience members in with her target, but they were summarily ignored. Her sights remained set on her foe.

The snow was already falling, draining the erdbrecher's resources and restoring her own. But while it certainly affected the mercenary queen, the realm alone would never kill her. Like Gunther, Emelia had far too much vitality. Her mana was being drained at a rate of fifty thousand points a second; even with a seven-digit stat, Claire was sure to run out of magic before her target's stamina was depleted.

She moved as quickly as she could. Blending into the storm, she dashed behind the erdbrecher and delivered a heavy strike with her lizard axe. It was parried, swept aside by an elephant-sized spear. The warlord twisted her wrists and raised the butt of her weapon, transforming the block into a counter, but Claire closed the distance and smashed a spiked gauntlet into her chest before she could strike back. There was a loud crash as the bladed lizard met the breastplate, followed by a groan. The warrior furrowed her brow as she regained her footing, but another blunt strike, delivered with a heavy club, deformed her helmet and smashed it into her jaw.

Claire grabbed the warlord's metal protector with a vector and yanked it off her face. The older fighter’s mouth was ripped open. A long gash started at the corner of her lips and extended to the back of her neck. Her armour was dismantled as well. Not all its pieces obeyed the lyrkress’ commands, but those that did were thrown to the winds. When recognised as separate entities by the realm, they were swallowed and destroyed.

She turned Boris into a glaive and began a furious assault. Having grown faster with her gear removed, the erdbrecher avoided most of the attacks. But in the realm, her defense was not so easily sustained. It continued to sap her stats, bestowing them to the lyrkress, who became more fierce and rabid with every sweep and stab. Her attacks shared the snowflakes' effects. Every block and parry cost the warrior a fistful of numbers. By the fiftieth, her strikes were powerful enough to completely displace the erdbrecher’s weapons and expose obvious gaps in her defense. She constantly changed Boris’ shape and nulled her momentum to further break through her foe’s guard, but still, none of her follow-ups ever seemed to land. There was always a dagger, a sword, or a spear ready to intercept. The only attacks that touched the erdbrecher’s body were too light to note.

With half the time still remaining on the clock, Claire dismissed the snowscape and flapped her wings. But her escape was cut short by a thick, muscular trunk. It grabbed her by the ankle, peeling the flesh right off her bones as the matriarch's strength returned. She lashed out with her other talon, but a pair of swords were jabbed straight through her scales.

The warrior’s muscles bulged as she locked the blades in place and pulled, ripping through the lyrkress’ tendons as she returned to the sky.

Both claws were immediately fixed with patches of ice. She grew out her bones to replace the flesh torn off one and glued the other before it could be severed. The frost did nothing to numb the pain—the burning sensation in her legs continued to bite at the back of her head with all the fervour of a holy duck—but she clenched her fists and endured the agony as she unleashed a breath.

Emelia retreated out of the spell’s path and spun a spear in front of her to dispel it. Though her necklace gleamed through the mist, she lost her weapon and a few of her fingers as well. But Claire was still annoyed. She had just invested all her points, but it still felt like she was at an impasse. The problem wasn’t brute force anymore. She had more raw strength than the matriarch, who she had deemed a pure warrior, but her speed and technique were still lacking. She had to begrudgingly admit that the gap was too wide for even the realm to secure a win.

Still, she engaged again. She dove toward the elephant with an axe in hand and delivered a heavy overhead swing. A paralyzing gaze kept the matriarch from sidestepping it, and a vector yanked her foot and threw her off balance. She raised the sword in her trunk to meet the massive cleaver, but she couldn’t hold it back with her prehensile nose alone. Her arms were added to the equation, holding additional blades to reinforce. With the extra limbs, she pushed Claire back.

That was when the lyrkress put her plan into action. Paralyzing the elephant again, she thrust her tail towards her neck and seized her glowing amulet. She ripped the brooch away and threw it into the sea, where it vanished with a distant splash.

The following vector she crafted flung the matriarch against the arena and threw her into one of its walls. It was followed by another that lifted her into the air and a third that seized her trunk.

Claire grabbed and pulled, yanking the limb with all her strength, but she couldn’t remove it. Even without her magic resistance bolstered, Emelia was too durable to be ripped apart. The qiligon squeezed her throat to break her spine, but the warlord’s neck was too thick. Her powerful muscles pushed back against the spells, refusing to be bent too far out of shape.

As much as it frustrated her to know that her magic was still lacking, the lyrkress didn’t complain. It had already enabled the coup de grace.

She kept the elephant locked where she was as she approached with a halberd in hand.

But a sharp pain spread from her chest when she raised it overhead.

Another one of the erdbrechers had silently landed on her back and jabbed a series of sharp needles straight into her spine. Her bones had suffered no injuries; they had easily deflected the blows, but that only meant that the weapons had been lodged further inside her flesh. She could feel the deepest one against her heart, prodding it whenever it beat.

Claire bucked the passenger off her back and assumed her tiny, child-like form. A hand made of true ice grew out of her back and removed the needles, while another wrapped its fingers around her slim frame and transformed into a thick layer of armour. She turned back towards the matriarch once the bodysuit was complete, only to find that she had accidentally released her. Emelia was already barreling across the ring with a sword and two spears equipped.

There was enough time for the lyrkress to evade, but she didn’t bother. She stood stock still instead, watching idly as the blades made contact with and failed to pierce her icy veil. It was a perfect defense, but the shell slowed her, often taking a full second to respond to her commands.

She already knew the source of its fault.

It was excess.

She had far more control over her divinity when she had only a few points in total. It had still been somewhat tenable when her pool grew to just over a hundred, but with over six times that under her belt, she found its manipulation almost impossible. There simply wasn’t enough Claire to regulate and control all of it at once. But it didn’t matter. Her armour was unbreakable—an extension of her skeleton grown directly from her spine.

With its protection, she magically grabbed the matriarch and closed the distance again. The air around her froze as she raised her hands to the elephant’s neck and closed her fingers around it. Even through the ice, she could feel the folds in the desert dweller’s skin, the pulsing of her veins as she clamped them shut.

Victory surely would have been hers.

Had a royal hand not prevented the mercenary’s demise.