Blue and red light emanating from the fire spirits' bodies danced on two woman's faces, prophesying their future as their faces turned corpse purple while facing against the gathering of spirits.
"What do we do?" The tall elf asked Shiro standing beside her as she saw the higher-level spirits put themselves in their way of escaping. Her white complexion especially adopted the suffocated purple façade very well as she looked at Shiro for guidance.
"Our best," The demi-human did a remarkable job of her hiding the troubled part of her contained in every being which upon seeing the odds stacked against their survival would stay still like stone and hope for a quick and painless death. Whenever it was the cat's warrior soul or a gallows' reaction to the glom reality, Iris saw a thin feral smile appear on Shiro's face before she whispered to the elf. "Try to stick close to me."
Shiro's long white hair followed behind her as she exploded toward the water spirit. A large magical circle turned to glowing blue dust as the beast woman ran through its delicate structure and attacked the water spirit. The swirling water-making spirit's body stood little chance of blocking the tip of the dungeon weapon as it thrusted forward in search of something before being ripped out.
A blast of air hit Shiro's body off the swirling mass of water and caused her to be launched toward the wall. True to the animal she was resembling the nekos managed to gracefully land short of the wall on both of her feet.
The vague humanoid silhouette comprised of dust which was the greater air spirit moved its hand toward the undead, stopping her charge completely with powerful gale and allowing the water blob to quickly escape.
Like lighting, a Mana Missile ripped through the mostly invisible hand of the air spirit causing the spirit to painfully recall back from the magical attack. Shiro suddenly appeared in Iris's vision as she casted an Infernal Mirage on herself. The air spirit seemed adamant about staying in front of a tunnel instead of using its agility and fleeing behind the rest of the spirits whose loud lumbering footsteps shook the entire cavern.
On the ground in front of Shiro, hot-red magical circles appeared and droplets of molten rocks began to erupt from underground. Without fear the nekos jumped above the erupting spell, curling her forked tail around her body as a wall of molten rock erupted behind her.
As the hoplite's path to help the white fury was blocked with a wall of molten rock, she turned around and saw that the remaining spirits were herding them into a corner while the towering blue fire spirit remained in the back. She lunged at the earth's spirit thinking that its bulky body made from the large sections of the floor would be slower than the others.
Strong winds caused the erupting rock to be scattered forward as the stalwart air spirit tried to blow the warrior away. Its body bobbed and weaved between Shiro's thrusts. Bright orange and green light began to glow from Shiro's weapon as she activated another of her abilities, unleashing a fury of attacks which the nimble spirit couldn't dodge. The glowing edge of the spear looked to cause the air spirit a great amount of pain. Behind the humanoid cloud of dust, a wall of fire blocked off the tunnel causing the air spirit to vanish making the dust to move toward the fire spirit before falling down.
The risen dodged the fist of the looming earth spirit before feeling the ground below her rapidly ascend. She quickly hopped off before the square-shaped tile under her feet smashed into the ceiling. An unpleasant sound of bones cracking and flesh being pulverised echoed inside the cave as Iris didn't get her whole body out of the way of the stone pillar having her lower arm pinned on the jagged ceiling.
As if planned the larger water spirit casted a frosty spell which caused a howling gale to hit Iris. Her pale skin began to be slashed open as small wind-whipped ice shards found their way passed her armour. Before the other spirits could cast another spell at her, Iris said sorry to Kia as she casted Fortitude and pulled herself down as hard as she could. The sound of muscles in her arm being ripped apart filled the hoplite's mind for what felt like an eternity before she felt her body suddenly slip from her enchanted jacket.
A strange feeling of disconnection fell upon the undead as she felt little sensation after losing her lower arm and looking at the bloody wreck her elbow had become, her elven mind still expected to feel something as her blood squirted out in rapid pulses.
[HP 679/1950]
[MP 590/2250]
Snapping her mind out, Iris's weapon was engulfed by fire as a Firebolt hit her chest, harmlessly wrapping its flames around her body, nullified by Firebrand. The hoplite felt like she was about to collapse as both of her HP and MP were dangerously low but they were not zero yet.
The towering earth spirit raised its fist into the air as it relised that the undead hoplite was still standing and attacking it. The jagged black glass screeched sending sparks into the air as Iris thrust it with all the strength remaining between the two knight-like armour plates hitting something in the middle. The earth spirit silently screamed as its body arched backwards pulling both Iris and her weapon up. Pulling out her weapon as she landed on the spirt's torso, the elf felt her mana suddenly regenerate and she instantly casted Negative Life on herself, stopping her bleeding as she jumped off the earth elemental.
[HP 1009/1950]
[MP 1000/2250]
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Iris's deep purple eyes watched as the chest of the earth spirit opened wide and part of her eagerly waited for a system notification to chime with its gentle bell. In the corner of her eye, she saw Shiro fight both the fire and air spirit and somehow was manage to defend herself for now.
"Hm?"
The opening in the earth spirit's armour spew out the blue flame before its entire body was engulfed in the incredibly hot flame. The blue flame was so hot that the two water spirits quickly retreated into the two tunnels blocking them completely while leaving one exit open. Iris lowered her body to thrust her spear from under the protective coverage of the rock armour but another gust of burning hot air pushed the undead backwards.
"Shiro, watch out!" Iris screamed across the cavern as the nekos impaled the air spirit on her spear. The warrior's crimson eyes meet with Iris's eyes asking her silently, why was she distracting her?
*Boom*
The air spirit's body which was kneeling on the floor about to be executed by Shiro produced a massive air blast which threw the nekos across the cavern as the spirit unsteadily stood back up with its body changing into a silhouette of a man completely covered with blue fire.
"Shiro!" Iris caught the nekos with her one hand and helped her quickly stand up. "Are you alright?"
The demi-human appeared awful with scorch marks and ice covering most of her clothes while purple bruises and deep cuts were scattered everywhere Iris's eyes could see.
"Third one." The white nekos quickly reached to her belt and with her thumb removed the stopper on the vial with pinkish-red liquid inside. "... I'm okay for now. You don't look like you had fun either." She exhaustively sighed while she swiped an icicle aimed at the elf who extended her slowly regrowing arm to block the projectile.
"Do you have any plans?" Iris asked finding no time thank the demi woman.
"I can't even kill one of them with that spirit around," The white cat pointed at the slowly approaching blue fire spirit as the two hid behind a large rock. They quickly had to put their heads down as the blue fire spirit began to launch a seemingly never-ending torrent of Firebolts toward their direction. "I-I think I have an idea."
"That's it, then?" The tall risen carefully peaked over the rock which began to crack from the relentless assault.
The motionless earth spirit exploded with vigour as it shook its massive body as the blue fire disappeared from between the magically animated rock body. It looked furious and ripped a piece of the ceiling and smashed it into its body plugging the hole Iris was able to exploit. The stone golem swiftly began to close the distance between it and Iris surprising the two women before the blue fire spirit grabbed its shoulder and threw it backwards making the two hiding warriors drop their jaws. Seeing this all other spirits visibly shrank before disappearing, leaving the elements comprising their bodies to fall lifeless on the ground.
"That's made it much easier than before," Shiro said. "Let's run into the rain cave and kill this bastard there. Just buy me time and keep it in one place."
The two women silently nodded at each other before running as fast as their legs could carry them with the never tiring undead helping the older warrior. Behind them the blue light of the greater spirit glowed brighter as it turned into the tunnel, each step it took shook the entire cave to its very foundation making their escape that much harder.
Running through the wall of water Iris and Shiro ran into the cave shrouded permanently with heavy rainfall and almost instantly the elf lost sight of her older companion as she tried to peer past the dark wet veil around her.
Feeling like the defender of an ancient legendary city, Iris stood her ground roughly in the middle of the cave with her spear ready as her entire body tremble which each step the monstrosity took, its sinister blue light slowly seeped into the dark cave until each raindrop a tiny image of the giant burning golem appeared.
A loud hiss broke through the rain's roar as the water turned to steam before it even hit the spirit's infernal body. Even if no eyes existed on the spirit's rock housing containing the fire it produced the elf felt the spirit instantly locking onto her as a Fireball hissed through the rain.
Dodging the ball of fire Iris replied with her own spell which silently illuminated the path it took before hitting the spirit like a bottle hitting a boulder, shattering into tiny pieces without leaving much behind on the rock. She continued to cast Mana missile trying to hit the greater spirit somewhere where it was less defended but all of her projectiles harmlessly shattered upon hitting the spirit.
Unsure how much longer she needed to survive for, Iris began to pace around the spirit causing it to constantly have to rotate its clumsy upper body to keep Iris in its sight. Seeing a small gap in the rock near its spine Iris lunged forward with her spear in her one hand.
The blue fire burning inside the hollow shell which it controlled seemed to be burning brighter as if to express happiness before its slow lumbering body swivelled with unprecedented speed catching the elf off guard and smashing her into the cracked floor.
Iris could feel her lungs burn from the short contact with the spirit's hand as her HP dropped faster than the water falling around her. Looking upwards she saw the spirit looking at her inquisitively before extending its hand towards her. The greater spirit poked the elf a few times scorching her severely as if to see her reaction to this humiliation before looking satisfied with its examination.
Iris gave a prayer to every Aspect she could name to forgive her for failing Kia as the spirit powered up a spell at the tip of its extended finger.
*Boom*
Iris watched as the ceiling above her suddenly collapsed, bringing with it an entire river to fall on the greater spirit. A wave picked up the elf who casted a healing spell on her broken body before the water forced the air out of her lungs as it pinned her to the wall on the opposite side of the cave as more water poured on the blue fire spirit.
"... How!?" An echo of Shiro reached the elf as the waterfall above them turned into a gentle stream. In the centre of the cave, Iris watched as the fire spirit tapped its rock body causing large sheets of it to fall off before being instantly replaced by magic.
"On the Sun." Iris cursed as she felt a temporary lake disappearing around her while the five spirits appeared again, materialising beside the two exits to the cave.
"Iris!?" The elf felt Shiro's warm hand rest on her shoulder as she suddenly jumped from above her.
The nekos raised her spear alongside the one-arm undead toward the slowly closing in spirits, with both the earth and the air spirits stomping angrily at them.
The most powerful spirit of them all quickly got in front of all others looking ready to turn both of the women into ash. Before it reached the two its steady stroll slowed down a bit, causing the following spirits to stop completely while turning their heads toward their leader.
Seeing an opening the two spear wielders rushed in unison at the blue fire spirit. Before the other spirits could react Shiro lunged upwards aiming to sink her spear in the spirit's core while the tall elf casted a mana missle while aiming to destroy the spirit's legs.
"Ahhhh!" The spirit looked to snap out of whatever had clouded its mind, it didn't even move away from the two charging women and simply took the two hits on its thick rock armour before casually swiping Iris away with its backhanded swing and effortlessly grabbing the nimble cat from the air, burning her in its hands before throwing her like a broken toy on the ground next to the elf.
"Shi-!" The risen hit the wet ground, she felt most of her body not react to her mind as something important had finally been punished enough to fail. Feeling her body imperfectly snap her bones in place, the elf managed to stabd up and hastily limped toward the motionless nekos. Her voice suddenly disappeared as she felt her neck being lifted by the air spirit who had appeared behind her. She tried to claw at the spirit behind her but her arm couldn't reach her enemy.
*Click*
All the spirits who looked ready to murder the two women and were waiting for the order to come from the blue fire spirit appeared confused as the massive golem-like creature snapped its fingers causing the heavily burned nekos to start to cough up blood as all the horrible burns going right into her bones disappear inside a gentle blue fire which covered her like a blanket.
"Huh?" Iris felt her knees drop into a small puddle of water as a warm wave washed over her before the six spirits disappeared as quickly as they appeared, appearing disturbed and in a hurry.