The solid bone floor of the tower cracked like a bird’s egg.
The force of the impacts were such that there could be no more fighting, both of the battles within the base of the tower came to an instant standstill as the shell began to crack. The monster Steel Fever screeched in confusion while his opponent simply shook her head and smiled, saying “of course” while she did. On the other side of the room, a similar reaction was occurring in the majaal siblings.
“He really is something, isn’t he?” Shade yelled over the cacophony. Neither of the two had any illusions about who or what was causing such a scene. Shade called over to Fa Lian. “It will not be long before Ah Dan returns and it would be bad form to let him take the credit for everything.”
Fa Lian shouted back an ululating approval and both turned back to their adversary with renewed vigour.
Shade finished his brother in a single attack. With an incredibly fluid, precise movement, Shade ended the fighting. Shade had been preparing to land this technique for their entire combat, tricking Mania into complacency. Each time their weapon’s had clashed, Shade had pressed down hard and pushed his brother back. The frustration of being pushed around had irked Mania and each time Shade had been met with more and more resistance.
This time they struck each other, Shade let his sword, raze, vanish the moment the blades met. Mania was thrown completely off balance by his own muscle memory and nearly launched himself into the air in preparation of Shade’s shove. There was a glorious moment as Mania registered the trick and fury began to creep over his features. Shade brought his fists down together like a hammer and consciousness flitted away from his brother.
Fa Lian was not laying traps for her opponent to walk into. She had no need for such tactics. Overwhelming, overpowering and unstoppable force was her now favoured approach to a fight. She wanted to give Steel Fever no quarter but she had been trained in more than just combat over her life. Hunting was a skill that her father held in high regard and while Fa Lian had never had much love for showing her strength against wild animals, she knew when they were most dangerous.
There were no corners to this circular room but the look in Oblax Claré’s dominated eyes was one Fa Lian knew well. With their back to the wall, a vicious creature like this seemed to find sharper claws and more ferocious strength. Steel Fever would be no different. The very air she was breathing felt laced with murderous intent as the wild eyes of the monster searched for escape.
Fa Lian was waiting and watching. She saw the moment that the cursed thing decided the only way out was through her. Good, she thought, bring everything you can. She would let the creature smash against her and finally break it. Another tremor struck the cavernous place and the ground began to bulge in the centre of the room.
“Hurry up.” Fa Lian curled her finger and taunted Steel Fever before tilting her head to the disturbance in the floor. “We don’t have all day, you know?”
The goading did as she expected but it also be fair to say she did not expect the explosion of power that Steel Fever saw fit to unleash. The only warning Fa Lian had was the lightning fast swipes that preceded Steel Fever’s attack. The world around her turned black as everything, including light, was devastated by the combined magic of Oblax Claré and Steel Fever.
The ability was wide reaching and destructive on a level that even Fa Lian herself could not reach. If the attack had been thrown by anything other than the symbiotic scum she saw before her, she would have been impressed. Instead of any gratifying emotion, Fa Lian only felt derision. The creature’s attack cut off any escape she may have tried to make.
Because Steel Fever thought like a coward.
Fa Lian pooled mana in her arms and legs and gave the dragon scale weapon a new form. She controlled the scales and they were masterful at becoming whatever she needed in the moment. Right now was no different. With a burst of speed that frightened even herself, Fa Lian exploded from within the mass of voidblack destruction and essentially appeared behind Steel Fever. The scales had not only known how to give her the speed she needed, they had acted to give her an airbrake, too.
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She wondered how she would have appeared to Shade, Ah Dan or even her brother, if he could see it. With a splay of her new wings, Fa Lian had stopped directly at the back of her enemy and wasted no time in completing the move. With a fierce, determined swipe of her hand, Fa Lian sent Steel Fever soaring into the wall nearby. With a flap of her dragon scale wings, Fa Lian gave chase. She did not use the wings to slow her this time.
She used her feet, instead. Planting both of them directly into the torso of Oblax Claré, there was a grim satisfaction in the crunch she felt under her boots. His spine, ribs and anything in between were completely shattered. Without letting up the assault, Fa Lian gathered her own mana.
Originally a burden forced upon her by a mother with no options, now a gift to defend the Guan and herself from dangers, the corrosive, withering mana of Guan Fa Lian burned with a black flame on her hands, in her eyes and within her core. Although she could not have known, some instinct - her own or a boon from Ryong Aang - told her how and where the next attack would come from.
Like a parasite leaving an insect, a silvery tendril snaked out from the broken body of the once ambitious priest. Steel Fever reared itself up, an attempt at intimidation and misdirection before it attacked. There was no recourse for the creature. Fa Lian looked at it and knew that she would not let it get one inch further. She would not let Ah Dan save the day. This monster was an enemy of her people, first and foremost, and her responsibility.
As though it had been choreographed, the next set of movements were akin to ribbon dancing. Fa Lian thought of Xiaomei as she weaved past the stabbing attacks and clinging constriction that Steel Fever desperately threw her way. Practice really had made perfect in this case, the movements Fa Lian was forced to make felt natural due to the hours of sparring the girls had done.
The gathered mana was ready, potent and powerful, so Fa Lian struck. She dodged to the left of a swipe from Steel Fever and brought her own counter to the fore. She chopped her hand down on the monster and her hand was a hot knife through butter. She sheared away a screaming piece of steel, the sound of metal being ripped apart screeching through the room.
Two more times Steel Fever lashed out, like a viper trying to scare away a… well, a dragon. The dragon doesn’t flinch. She swiped away two large swathes of its mass and suddenly there was no fight to be had. A whimpering, pathetic squeak was all that the monster with world-ending aspirations had left. Covering her hand in dragon scales, Fa Lian reached down to the body of Oblax Claré and lifted him up. As she did, she grabbed the last vestige of Steel Fever with her other hand.
Then, her muscles rippled. She began to pull. She had decided to be more like Guan Ah Dan and the drumming of his return had not shaken that thought from her mind. Oblax Claré was an enemy but not one that needed to die. At least, not by her hand. Her arms began to scream, a magical force much stronger than anything physical was fighting back against her will. Steel Fever knew that this was the end.
“You never should have left the armour.”
Fa Lian spat her final message to Steel Fever out through gritted teeth. With a scream of exertion, punctuated by another crash from beneath the floor, Fa Lian tore the remnants of Steel Fever from the priest’s body. There was an instant assault upon her arms and her mind.
The sound of metal scraping off ancient stone coursed through Fa Lian’s mind. She could feel the source of it, Steel Fever was injecting her with mana and trying to overwhelm her. This was its process, the means by which it bent a body to its will.
Such a ragged attempt would find no purchase upon the mind of the woman who brought a dragon to heel. It was almost quaint and more than a little fortuitous. Fate had brought Fa Lian to Ryong Aang before Steel Fever ever had a chance to infect her. If her uncle, Guan Po Shang, had been chosen by the dragon, perhaps he and his son would still be alive.
Having reminded herself what Steel Fever had taken from her, Fa Lian felt the burning energy course through her. There was a spot in her mind where Ryong Aang sat comfortably watching her actions and she thanked the dragon with every fibre of her being that it had given her the power and the trials by which to deal with a threat like this.
There was a reverence to Fa Lian’s movements as she began the final step. With Steel Fever’s form wrapping around her arm and body, nowhere left to run, the final piece of the puzzle had fallen into place.
She took a deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Once more.
Then she erupted.
Black, unstoppable flames exploded from every pore of Fa Lian’s body. She screamed with release and pain as the brutal fire ripped its way out of her core and burst through her skin. Her scream was mirrored in agony by Steel Fever, who tried to leap away from her as quickly as it could.
Fa Lian grabbed the slippery, silver eel of metal and held it firmly to her chest as it writhed and struggled. She intensified the heat and amplified the output. The room became a furnace and Shade would have to defend himself in some way but there was a job to be done and Fa Lian was going to do it.
A final wail was lost on the winds of buffeting heat that Fa Lian expelled. The vile Steel Fever melted away into nothingness and all that was left was a bitter taste of iron her mouth and the angry memory of the lives the monster had taken.
For a moment, Fa Lian took no pride in her actions, getting back up and surveying the room. When she saw that Oblax was not getting back up and that Shade had defeated his brother, there was a moment of confusion.
Then she realised that they had done it.
They had won.