Germaine Pov

I wielded my blade with ease. Every motion flowed outwards from my body, as calm and tranquil as if a mistake was not potential death on the claws of a demon. I could not afford to stress myself. I could not afford to be angry. I could not afford to exert my all behind every blow. The world moved at a crawl and my body moved slowly with it. Only just fast enough to deflect the claws. Only enough power to slice a path through space and fire to escape the breath of my opponent.

Many would call him a beast, but I knew better. My teacher had taught me better. No matter how animalistic they may seem, no matter how wild and violent and insane, a demon was a genius. Their minds were not those of men, but should they choose, they could apply knowledge far beyond anything we could muster. A feat proven as the ground beneath me grew warm, I kicked off the ground and rolled time seemingly stopped as I caught a glance of the magic circle burning its way to the surface of the ground beneath me. It was a masterwork, and I would have smiled if my body could keep up with my mind at this time. Instead, a quick burst of magic imprinted the view before me into my mind for later and time sped up once more.

A column of lava erupted where I had been a moment before as a leg swept out at my rolling form. It would knock me back into the lava if I didn’t act, and I sliced outwards with a cut mid roll. Enhanced by magic my blade could cut even the flesh of a demon. But I knew that it wouldn’t be enough here. I felt the grimace slowly stretch across my face as my blade cut into his flesh, cut deep, striking bone, and the force of his blow slammed into me. My robes wards flared, my own magic flowed into them to reinforce it, but I did not need too much power this time, no, I let it push me back away from him. My blade in his flesh twisted, and I used his own body as a point of contact before I was launched backwards. Using him to change my trajectory and avoid the lava.

I landed on my feet just beyond the giants reach and my magic pulsed. Giving me a view of my surroundings. The demon's magic warped the pulse near his form, but I could see him just fine. What the pulse truly showed me was the things behind me and things that I could not take my eyes from the demon to see. Things like the cliff behind me, the long plummet to the lake below. The rubble of the castle and the decimated army of nightbeasts, many being consumed by an undead creation. One that had Sera and Beuforlos entrapped within it, relying on the wards of the dragon eye to prevent his power from simply incinerating it.

The being before me laughed and spoke in the fell tongue. “Come saint, is this the best your blade can do? Do you think you can outlast me? Perhaps you hope one of the others will come to assist you?”

I shook my blade and the blood on it dropped to the ground where it sizzled. The wound that the blood had come from was already healed. “Are you worth me going all out?”

The demon growled, and chuckled. “Let me show you my power, mortal.”

I watched as from somewhere within him power began to radiate outwards. I breathed slowly, calmly, focusing as I drew in the moonlight, wrapping it around myself and borrowing its power as the demon began to change. It rose, standing on two feet. The sound of its bone shattering and reforming in new forms to accommodate this was unpleasant…but nothing I had not heard before. As it rose, I adjusted my mental state, an infinity of time available to my mind, an infinity that would drive many to madness.

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My teacher had taught me many things. Some great, some terrible. But one that I had relied on to build my power was the ability to adjust my own perception of time. This gave a person the ability to make the best choice they could in the hectic energy of a battle. To react to monsters too fast for the human mind to follow, to study magic and knowledge as long as one needed. I had mastered this ability. It nearly killed me. Humans are not meant to have endless time to think, every time I used it, I risked going too far, trapping myself in a moment of stress, anger or confusion, and driving myself mad. Every action I took in this state, risked me overexerting myself and harming my body or draining it as I overexerted it trying to move as fast as my mind thought my body should go.

In this case, most humans would have gone mad, watching a demon unleash its power, the glimpse into the energies of the Night, flaying their wills from their body. The realization on an instinctual level that what was before me was a higher being, born of the power of a divine being. Or simply the sight of lava flowing over its form, creating an armor that would burn or even incinerate me should I try to approach, while also shielding it from my blade. Armor, for a being whose flesh could turn aside all mortal blows. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to ask, why?

The demon reached out his hand, moving languidly and naturally, as if I was not watching the world crawl by at a speed where a falling leaf behind him had almost been frozen in place. His hand reached not towards me, as the lava crawled around his head, finally forming a helmet around his head, but towards the castle. I watched through my magic as the wards around the undead beast flared for a second, and then imploded. The magical energies redirected. The beast itself is torn apart, condensed, fire and heat tearing through it. And then its remains flew through the air to the demon.

In its hand landed a single edged blade, massive to a human, but merely chest height to him. Heavy enough that a human of equivalent size would be incapable of wielding it were it made of metal. I was unsure if a blade of carbon, bone and blood would be lighter, it would make sense. The blade was black, ash and skulls formed the back of the blade, a hilt shaped like a spine and razor-sharp bone spikes formed the edge. The entire thing flashed for a second, glowing red with the blood magic of the eye, before it settled into a dim glowing light in the eyes of the skulls.

The demon's other hand erupted into flame and a whip of fire grew from it as he smiled at me and spoke.

“Am I fitting your attention now…” I could hear the mockery in his pause, the laughing joy at the situation around him being chaos and the sheer overwhelming power he possessed. “...saint.”

For the first time this night, as the world stood frozen around us, I smiled cruelly, my lips moving naturally, unrestrained by worries of forcing myself to exhaustion. After all, against a demon prepared for war. Was there any meaning in holding back? I casually brought my blade up to a guard position, and the moonlight seemed to glow more intensely as it fell upon my blade. The barrier that Beuforlos has up should keep those two safe while I have a little fun. If my master could do it, so could I.

I could feel the magic draining from me with every moment. Even the stores of an archmage would not last long in this kind of battle. Even my magic, bolstered by the moon, would perhaps not hold out. Before this, every movement and blow was perfectly calculated to save energy, and even then, the demon's blows would drain me. My body, struggling to resist his strength. Before, his body simply healed any wound I inflicted. Now, his armor would turn aside my blows. Before, I could stay close and hide in his blind spots. Now, the heat radiating from him would cook flesh unless I expended more energy to defend myself. Before, he fought with claw and tooth. Now, he wielded an arcane blade equal at least to my Moonlight. As his form shrank, from two stories tall, to a mear 10 feet, better to duel with me. I wondered, how good with a sword was he?

Some nights, it is good to be alive.

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