The clash of our blades sends a flurry of red-gold sparks flying through the elevator chamber.
I push against his weight, through the strength running through his arm. Even through his armor I can tell his arm’s barely applying half the pressure he could really bring against me.
Toying with me…
We’ll see about that.
[Blink]
His sword slices back as I swing my blade from his behind.
I roll right through his legs and strike at his knee-joint, feeling my sword rip apart his corrupted armor.
He staggers back, drops to one knee, and I take my chance.
[Glittering Thrust]
His eyes flash before me.
ACTIVAT-
CRUNCH.
My insides – they – they’re…
I only register what’s happened after the fact – looking down to see the chestplate of my armor totally caved in.
My breathing becomes raspy. Sharp. I can’t feel my chest. My lungs – it’s like they’ve been smashed to pieces.
Only then does the pain come, surging through me in a wave of nauseating agony.
“You strike well, Lightborn,” Thorn says as he stalks towards me, sword swinging. “But you should have gone for the chest.”
My mind pleads with me to retreat – to get out of the way of his impending strike.
[Blink] cooldown: 5 secs
Not enough..
[Tailcopter]
ACTIVATED
I get in the air not a moment too soon. His blade comes down in an arc that shears through the support beam behind me and the ceiling wobbles. The entire place is ready to collapse.
Then, looking down, I see what should have been the impossible:
My left-front paw – its…it’s nothing but a bleeding wreck.
[Tailcopter]
DEACTIVATED
I fall right into his waiting strike, and for a moment I see my own fear reflected his onyx blade .
[Swallow Swipe]
The arc of azure sends him back, putting him on the defensive while I right myself, hobbling like an invalid, while my mind tries to catch up to the reality of the bloody stump where my fluffy paw once was.
Don’t look at it. Don’t look-
“Fast, but sloppy,” Thorn says, swiping his blade through the air and pointing its tip at me again. “Lacking in discipline and the drive to push through your own torment to see your duty fulfilled.”
I bare my teeth, swallowing the pain radiating up through my lower body.
“SHUT UP!”
[Repulsive Bark]
FAILURE
Target is immune to fear.
He strides through the shockwave created by my bark with little more than a shrugging of his shoulders.
“Come now,” he says. “Surely you have more than that?”
I limp around the edge of the dais as we circle eachother again. Only this time, I’m just wounded prey.
[Dig]
UNAVAILALBE
Surface (Wood) cannot be penetrated by a [Dig] action.
Damnit!
[Glittering Thrust]
I watch the lightning storm dance along the tip of my blade and send it flying right at him.
He does nothing but stand tall, keeping his sword pointed at me, and I watch in mute horror as the energy from my attack is absorbed by his blade and coats his weapon with even greater intensity than it did mine.
He speaks two words that shock my to my core, before administering a very real shock to my system:
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“Glittering. Thrust.”
I barely have time to send another [Swallow Swipe] flying to counter the brunt of the attack, but the force still sends me hurtling towards the far wall of the chamber, causing another wooden beam to crumble to the ground.
“You – how?!”
His mirthless smile doesn’t fade as he answers me.
“You did not presume you were the only champion who could look into the Beyond and channel its power, did you?”
I feel his every step rebound against the haziness of my mind. Like the echo of a demon beating in my chest.
But I steady myself. Through all the pain, I rise. I have to. I’m never backing down again.
Swiftrunner, Myra, even Palka – they all need me.
“You…aren’t…leaving here…alive!”
[Blink]
I smash into the chink at his armpit from behind him, managing to draw a sliver of his blood before he catches me and sticks a steel boot in my face.
I roll back. I taste blood. The world gets fainter, every movement heavier.
But that’s not gonna stop me.
[Glittering Thrust]
I launch the attack at him as he braces to absorb it, and, seeing him hold his sword aloft and get ready to re-direct my strike, I choose my target just behind his left ear and move.
[Relentless Blink]
ACTIVATED
He’s still in mid-cast as I thrust towards his neck, seeing him only catching my movement out of the corner of his eye.
My blade meets his skin. I feel it. I feel his flesh give way. I feel my steel sink into his neck like a fang biting through supple meat. I feel…
…air.
Where his body once was, now I’m seeing nothing but a shimmering ghost. A spectral image that floats before me like ripples on the surface of a waterfall, while behind I feel the hard steel grip of gauntleted fingers on the scruff of my neck.
CRACK.
I hear the sound before I feel the intensity of the strike. I feel my nose buckle and break under the pressure of his fist.
I rise unsteadily on my remaining paws and watch the blood trickle down my busted snout and pool on the carved wooden floor beneath me.
“Hah!” I dimly hear him shout from somewhere distant. Somewhere in this dust-caked room with its wobbling beams and shaking foundations. “Seneca was indeed mistaken in underestimating you. You have learned some useful tricks, even if you have stumbled your way into them.”
I straighten up, looking at his dark shadow flickering within the dust.
“I thank you, Raziel,” he continues, bringing up one hand to touch the back of his neck. “For a fleeting instance, you reminded me of the curse mortality places upon us all. I have not felt the sting of a blade in some time, nor have I needed to employ a [Spectral Shift]. One often requires such little reminders. It steels the resolve of even the veteran warrior in their cause.”
Spectral…Shift…
To be there and then…not there…
The whole room vibrates against the chaos of the world above us. I can dimly make out the sounds of another boulder hitting Glenheim’s walls, sending more of the stronghold crashing down.
“You…,” I start, coughing up more blood. “You…talk too much, old man.”
“Hah! You have the wit of the old Raziel, still,” he laughs, striding forward with mocking certainty as splinters of the ceiling start coming down all around us. “Tell me – did it bring you joy to see Seneca die by her own hand? There is some poetic justice in that, is there not?”
“She…she died…by your hand,” I spit back.
My mind’s racing through this whole exchange.
A way out. A way to beat him. There’s always a way, right? There’s always –
“She was never a stable servant of the Lady,” he says as he stalks forward, blade coated with my life fluids. “Too single minded. Too preoccupied with her own petty grudges. She lacked the foresight to see the true gift Lady Gyko brings to this world.”
“What…gift?”
I blink once, and he’s closed the gap between us.
“The only gift that truly matters: the end.”
His sword comes down. It’s edge sending droplets of my own blood spinning towards me, so that when I struggle to lift my sword and repel his strike my eyes are slathered with crimson.
I stare through it at his face. He’s focused. Present. Nothing like Seneca. There’s no joy. No rage. No passion.
There’s nothing at all in those eyes.
The shrine rumbles again as our blades meet again and send a wave of power rippling through the elevator chamber. I can feel the floor quake – the walls starting to give way. They’re on their last legs. And so am I.
“Is this resistance really worthwhile?” Thorn asks as he feints and thrusts forward again, knocking me back against the wall as I just barely parry the blow. “Yield, and let nature take its course. You don’t have to follow the same path the Greys did.”
Through every aching muscle in my shivering body, I direct all my strength to my eyes – trying to see any weak point I can. Any chink in that armor.
His neck’s still exposed. I can see the small sliver of red where I nicked him.
“Don’t submit to the inane hand of ‘destiny’,” he’s saying as his blade pushes mine ever closer to my bleeding, broken snout. “Let go of this world. Why protect something that cares not one jot about you?”
I tense up, ready for one last ditch effort.
“You…Talk. Too. Much!”
[Repulsive Bark]
It catches him this time, and as he stumbles back I let go of my sword entirely and lunge for his hand.
[Disarming Bite]
ACTIVATED
I hear his sword drop and before it has time to clatter against the floor I use the momentum of his flailing arm to lunge for his neck.
My teeth clench round something. Something…hard.
Armor?
No. There’s a chain around it.
I have only a fleeting second where I feel nothing but air as his form disappears again, and I see what it is that I’ve made of with – a silver locket that opens up to reveal a picture: two women sitting together against a warm sunset…
Then agony radiates up my lower back.
I don’t even hit the ground before a stout kick snaps apart what’s left of my snout and sends me spinning against another wooden beam, winding me.
I blink through the pain to see him charge at me – a dark juggernaut flying through dust – to pick me up by my neck and slam another fist into my eyes.
He drops me to the ground.
And this time, I can’t get back up.
Darkness creeps in across my vision and I can only make out the vague vision of the General pick up the silver locket with a tenderness that seemed impossible.
“Clever boy,” he says through clenched teeth. “Perhaps there is a little spark of memory in you after all.”
He bends down, shoving the picture in my face.
“Do you remember how they died?” he asks me. “Do you remember what you did to them?”
When I don’t answer he merely brings his gauntlet across my face again.
No…no more…
The room is wobbling. Beneath my paws I feel the whole edifice ready to come crashing down.
And even worse than the agony of my injuries is the knowledge, deep in my heart, that I can’t do this.
I was in over my head right from the start.
He kicks my sword towards my crushed paws and picks up his own blade again, swiping it through the air in challenge.
“Go on,” he says. “Do what you do best. Sow discord and misery on this world. Witness the truth of the Lightborn’s curse: the more you try to save, the more you shall see die. It is what you do best, Raziel. Destroy.”
Through another torrent of coughed-up blood, a dry, dark laugh escapes my parched throat.
“You’re…right…” I hear myself say, though maybe it’s not me at all. Maybe it’s someone else entirely.
Thorn’s eyebrow raises.
“I…only…destroy…” I say. “But that…doesn’t mean…I can’t…still…save lives.”
[Swallow Swipe]
It’s nothing but force of will – either mine’s or someone else’s – that propels me forward to grasp my sword and send my azure arc towards the finally wobbling support beam in the room, and just as Thorn makes to lunge and finish me off, the whole ceiling finally comes crashing down upon us.