Surprisingly the Lord simply stood and watched as I shakily got to my feet, seeming to take some kind of sick pleasure out of watching me struggle. I stumbled as a particularly deep breath sent a wave of pain radiating from my torso, instinctively pulsing Lightning through my body to keep my mind focused.
His grin only widened.
“Well, isn’t this interesting? Your Affinity is growing even now! Did you do something? Some kind of Skill?” I ignored him, using the opportunity afforded to me to continue charging my Bolt, “Hmph, I should have expected no less from one of such- eh- humble birth, let’s say. Your lot has no manners whatsoever.”
I narrowed my eyes but ignored his continued attempts at a provocation, instead trying to focus on keeping control of my spell. I’d only fired a single Bolt so far, and with Charge it barely cost as much as I recovered whilst preparing it, so my Mana had only dipped a little from the few other Skills I had to use.
If I keep using Mana at this rate I don’t think I’ll last long. If he starts taking this seriously I’m probably dead, and I still can’t hurt him. Dang it, what in all the hells am I supposed to do here?
The entire time we were in this tentative stand off I hadn’t taken my eye off of him even once, he wouldn’t be making even a single movement without my knowledge. Except that wasn’t quite the case.
Almost his entire body pulsed with bright yellow veins, curiously excluding the red area around his heart, and a complex series of lines and curves appeared for an instant. An array- the first one I’d ever seen used in combat, though I had no time to so much as look at it before it was covered by the up close and personal face of Lord Ironhold.
Faster than I’d seen him move at any moment so far, he seemed to teleport within half a metre of me and launched a punch somewhere in my chest area. Fortunately, I didn’t end up finding out where it was supposed to hit before I found myself dashing away and deflecting what I could of the attack with my Cloak.
Unfortunately, my actual cloak trailed behind me enough that he was easily able to grab it and try to pull me back, only he hesitated and let his grip loosen for just long enough that I could slip free without losing the cloak.
Although it might be for the best that I drop it, since it’s clearly a liability.
That would be a good idea, but as I moved to follow through the Lord once again flashed yellow and appeared in front of, lashing out wildly as though with no actual thought or plan behind the attack.
Ok, what is he doing here? How is he doing this?
I desperately tried to figure out something, anything, that could possibly be useful as I backpedalled out of his immediate range. The previously lackadaisical and uncaring expression on his face had begun to shift into something more annoyed, clearly my continued survival was getting to him. And yet, not a flash of concern had appeared in those eyes, not even for a single second. It could be that he knows I can’t last, but he surely can’t either so there must be more to it than that.
Come on, come on. He can’t be invincible, there must be some kind of weakness, somewhere! He flashes a different colour right before each spell, could that be part of it? He needs to absorb Affinity, right? So does that mean…
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Oh, right.
My eyes widened as I finally connected the dots and came out with what I could only assume was the right answer. He absorbed Affinity from Mages to get stronger, and he has access to all of these conflicted Affinities despite not even being known as a Mage by the general public, or at least not by me.
He can absorb Affinity, that’s his main ability, but what if I happened to have something that perfectly countered that?
I flipped the mental switch to activate Scorch Affinity, feeling the slight change throughout the Lightning but seeing no reaction from Lord Ironhold. Despite myself, and despite the situation, I grinned.
“What are you grinning about? Did you figure out a new way to run away like a coward?” I had only spent a few seconds thinking, relying more on instinct and Battle Meditation than anything in order to run away, yet he was already this annoyed. Actually, I probably would be too if something just dodged this many attacks.
My Charge ticked over again, reaching somewhere between 5 and 7 Charges- though I’d kinda lost count at some point- so I felt like it was time to finally use the roiling ball of arcing Lightning.
The Lord only seemed to only be rushing in a straight line towards me, I guess because he doesn’t think I can hurt him, so landing the blow was as simple as taking the deepest Breath I could and, after a moment to gather myself, releasing.
The Bolt burned through the air, filling the clearing with the sound of violent static, before slamming directly into the chest of the unsuspecting Lord with a resounding bang. When the initial burst faded, the Skewer stayed embedded in the centre, constantly pushing back whilst also releasing wave upon wave of destructive static across the man’s body.
For a second he simply stood there, gritting his teeth and enduring the attack, but apparently his unique Path reacted oddly with my Skill. Rather than the relatively painless resetting of the Necromancer’s Path, he doubled over in pain, screaming louder than I think I’d ever had cause to, until the effect wore off a few seconds later.
During this time I hadn’t been idle, focusing fully on Charging another- more powerful- Bolt, but the progress I’d made on that was rendered useless when he finally stood up.
If the thunderous look on his face was nearly enough to break my focus on the spell, then the sudden wave of weakness that washed over me was the straw that broke the camel’s back. My Bolt dissipated harmlessly as I dropped to one knee, just barely keeping myself from fully falling over, and began to notice something creeping into the clearing from… somewhere. Maybe nearby.
His voice unnaturally still, the Lord of Ironhold spoke with a clam finality, as though his words alone were sealing my coffin, “It’s thick enough that even you can probably see it by now. All around you, and inside. This is a spell that I was taught the hard way, I had no Skills to help me whatsoever, you know? And it’s a tricky one too, despite being a simple transformation rune. Unfortunately they didn’t give me so much as a name for it when I bought the array formula, so I took the liberty of coming up with one on my own.”
Something red clung to the ground, a cloud of something that made me queasy just to look at. It was sparsely spread throughout the clearing, apart from a small area around me that was unusually saturated with the stuff. Just breathing it in made me weak at the knees, and breathing it back out made me feel weak in the head. If that even makes sense. It was getting hard to think straight, all of my thoughts just seemed to give up part way through without giving me a chance to even come to any kind of conclusions.
“You’ll find that the name is rather fitting. Especially for something so powerful. Why, I’d go so far as to say that this spell is the whole reason that killing all those Mages was so easy.”
What the hell is happening to me? I’m feeling kind of tired, should I just go to sleep?
A jolt of Lightning woke me from my near-slumber, and I scrambled to stand back up and prepare another Bolt.
“Well, I’ve built up the tension well enough, wouldn’t you say? This spell, its name, is The Blood Red Mist. It makes its way into your pores, through your veins and then, finally, into your very soul. The core of your being, since I highly doubt you have a clue what it actually is. Although that’s a rather minor function of the effect, its primary purpose is to take and take and take. It absorbs anything it can get its hands on, Mana, thoughts, dreams. Even that pathetic little thing you think of as yourself.”
Contemptuously, he waved a hand and the mist converged on the still Charging Bolt. It didn’t even dissipate like it normally would upon being disrupted. No, rather, the Mana seemed to be simply erased from existence.
“Shit.”
Wait, did I say that out loud? I’m not sure…
Lord Ironhold’s angered face began to return to a more neutral expression, and he burst into laughter, “Ha! Wow, you look pathetic! It’s almost enough to distract from the way you actually fucking hurt me!” The last sentence was spoken through gritted teeth, and the look of fury began to return, “I’m gonna make this hurt, Zeneki. You’ve made this far more unpleasant than it had to be.”
That sounds bad.
A fist impacted my skull and I fell backwards into the dirt, ears ringing but remarkably unhurt. My first thought was that I was somehow more durable than before, what with the previous force that he’d managed to hit me with, but that didn’t make any sense at all.
No, he said he was going to make it hurt, and he goddamn meant it.