Whatever conversation was beginning between us was swiftly shut down by the wild roar of a blood-crazy Berserker. Out of the corner of my eye, without taking my concentration off the Pandorian, I saw Ethan rampaging against the building army of golems encircling him. His roar was so tremendous it shook the walls of the dungeon, causing even more loose rubble to tumble to the floor.
The Pandorian glanced toward Ethan for less than a second, but for that split moment, he was distracted, and I surged forward like a bolt of lightning. My heart's energy crackled around me in small explosions of power, wrapping around me like a physical aura as I leaped into the air to meet him at eye level and swung my sword at his neck. He raised his axe in panic, my attack catching him momentarily off guard. The edge of my blade struck powerfully against the flat of his axe, sparks of fire igniting off the clashing steel.
He tried to push me back, summoning his own heart energy and an aura of magic around him, but the crackling power I’d summoned kept me temporarily suspended in the air, my sword stretching for his neck. There was no stopping the adrenaline of battle that flooded my system and hyped the hurricane of rage deep inside me. Not him. Not his minions. Not his golems that had begun to turn toward us, sensing their master’s struggle.
Before the constructs of rock and the mercenaries could turn to aid their commander, Ethan, and Nida cut them off. Ethan bellowed a challenge at the golems while Nida spun her spear in the direction of the approaching soldiers with a beast-like snarl.
Once again, the two of us shifted our heart energy into Authority, battling for dominance. The forces collided and our bodies were blown away from the point of collision, both of us sent spiraling backward. I felt myself slam into a wall of the dungeon; collapsing face first into a sticky mass of dirt, gore, and thick red blood. The taste of iron and dirt filled my mouth. I didn’t have time to ponder how disgusting it was. I simply spat the blood out and snarled toward the Pandorian who was similarly uninjured other than a few cuts on his bare face. And a growing black eye. Served him right. I glanced down at the sword in my hand and its shattered blade scattered to bits around me. Then I noticed the Pandorian’s battle axe was also broken, though only into three pieces.
Without a word of warning, both of us dropped our shattered weapons and exploded into a flurry of movements ignited by our Cores and adrenaline. To say we clashed would have been an understatement. We went to fucking war.
Each strike was brought with the force of a falling tree. Each block with the stubbornness of a stone wall. Both of us circulated our heart energy to block and strike with lightning-quick reflexes, not pausing for even a moment's respite. The first to stop would be the first to die.
Despite my decades of training and the effort I’d expended to raise Lilliana’s physical attributes, enhancing her physical body so far beyond its limits would only work for so long before her bones began to break and her muscles tore. The amount of heart energy I was forced to circulate in my body and the speed at which I did it were already causing internal damage. I could feel it in the roiling of my gut.
Just as the warrior landed a mighty uppercut to my stomach, breaking through my weakening defenses and shattering at least a couple of ribs in a single strike, a black spear shot through the chaos. It wasn’t nearly as fast as we had been moving, but it was damn near invisible as it soared toward us.
Toward the Pandorian.
His focus was so intent on me that he didn’t notice it. Ashwash, I barely noticed it and I was staring directly at it. The tip of the spear slammed into the Pandorian’s back with a deafening BOOM that reverberated throughout the dungeon like an avalanche.
Although I couldn’t see where the spear struck, I knew it had penetrated his armor by the look of utter shock and disbelief that twisted the Pandorian’s features. It hadn’t killed the warrior, but I could tell it had done some damage. In his moment of shock, I pulled all my energy into my fist and jammed it into the center of his chest. He didn’t have time to circulate his heart energy to the area to strengthen himself, even if the spear in his back wasn’t disrupting his ability to properly distribute the heart energy within his Core.
My fist crunched through his armor, a hole forming around my empowered strike. Unfortunately, the armor itself had still been quite tough. Tough enough that with my decreasing amounts of heart energy, it was able to put up a strong enough defense to shatter my middle and index fingers on impact.
Neither of us winced, both were used to pain. Both of us were already in significant pain anyway. My entire body was beaten sore despite the protective shield of heart energy I’d been circulating through it. The Pandorian was no better. With the spear, he was much worse.
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“I thought…” he hissed, “this was a duel?”
“What in the worlds gave you that idea?” Nida said, her silver hair dyed red with the blood and gore of mercenaries and guards. Blood dripped from her mouth, her fangs flashing in the orange flickering light of Nasq’s flames overhead. She didn’t have her spear anymore.
The Pandorian’s face flushed purple with anger, but there was nothing he could do about the spear without leaving himself open to my attack. “Bastards. The Goddess will curse you for all eternity.”
I laughed at that. “I have been cursed since the day I was born. The Gods have failed to keep me down and they have had decades.”
He looked at me with confusion at first. Slowly, it looked like a sort of understanding was dawning on him. “You… you are not Lilliana Silverwater, are you?”
All at once, I felt the excitement of battle give way inside of me to something darker. Something sinister that had been waiting patiently, all the while boiling with anticipation of release.
“No,” I said. “No, I am not.”
He stood to his full height with a struggle, a renewed look of determination on his face. Gone was the look of fear that came with certain death. Gone was the uncertainty. The Pandorian glared at me with a look of righteous indignation and zealous obsession. “Then, in the name of the Goddess and the Church of Light, you must be killed.” The Pandorian dropped into a martial stance. “Today will be your last day in our realm, demon.”
I paused and just stared at the male, remembering that he was not just a High Pandorian. He was an elite of the Church of Light. One of the most powerful religious organizations in both Lysoria and Cael. His words and actions showed a religious determination, a belief that his death would be a worthy one.
For the first time since I’d come to Graedon, I realized I had finally found the perfect outlet for all my anger. For all my rage.
I had been betrayed and hanged. Then I was revived in another body only to be nearly killed. Again. And again. And again. It was all like some cruel, sick joke.
But this being before me, this elite warrior, this High Pandorian, thought I was the demon? A devil to be slain?
I was so fucking sick and tired of it. So. Fucking. Sick. Of. It. All.
My energy exploded unbidden from me in a tsunami of rage enhanced by the raw adrenaline that always drove me forward. The Pandorian must have noticed the change in my expression to one of pure, unbridled rage.
If he thought I was a monster, then so be it. A monster he would get.
I launched a flurry of attacks at the Pandorian that caused my previous strikes to seem slow and weak in comparison. Whatever emotions the warrior had previously been contemplating quickly fled his mind as they were replaced with an expression of heightened focus and determination.
I didn’t care that he could wield magic. That he had a Heart Core. He was a silver core. A lowly fucking silver core and he dared to stand before me with such arrogance? A mere bug who hadn't even discovered his attributes?
He would kneel before me. He would grovel.
And then he would die. He would die pathetically and worthlessly, without a shred of meaning or honor to it.
Just like how they would all die. Every single one of them that put me in this situation would face my wrath, be it in Ordite or Graedon.
And I knew how I would do it - how I would defeat this warrior with double cores. I would take everything he had. I would steal everything that mattered to him like he was trying to do to me. Heart energy poured into my eyes and the world lit up with the rainbows of colors that detailed for me where the Pandorian would move to next - just as Gronch had taught me.
A scream of rage tore itself from my throat as even more power erupted from my Core like lava from a vengeful volcano. I could see all haughtiness vanish from the Pandorian’s face as he experienced true terror in the face of a superior being.
He tried to disengage.
“You aren’t going anywhere!” I roared, refusing to allow his attempt at disengaging. I tore into him with every last shred of my heart energy.
I reached deep inside of me for my Soul Weaver attribute energy. It came rushing out, mixing with my lunar attribute as both attributes fed from the pure heart energy released from my core.
The Pandorian threw himself to the side with reckless abandon, taking a massive hit from my combined attribute energy that slammed into him with a fury. I saw him twist with the hit, grabbing a nearby sword of a fallen mercenary and thrusting it toward me with desperation.
Heart energy rushed to protect my vitals, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough to completely stop the sword and that was okay. I only needed to stop the blow from killing me outright. I didn’t resist as my protective shield failed to stop the Pandorian’s attack.
I did not so much as wince as the sharp steel, empowered by magic and energy, stabbed deep into my side. I simply shot him a smile.
His eyes widened in belated understanding, but it was too late.
I had let his attack reach me. I wanted it to. With only the momentum of his force and no pushback, he was off balance and had no way to retreat. He was mine.
I stepped forward, pushed the sword deeper, and slammed both my palms into his chest. My Soul Weaver attributed energy flowed from me and into the Pandorian in a torrent of unbridled power until it found his Core. And his soul.
His Core may have been on a higher level than my own, but mine was better developed. My energy broke into his weakened Core, cracking it as if it were no more than an egg. All protection it had provided to his soul vanished within a blink and I commanded my soul aspect energy to extract the Pandorian's very soul from the confines of his withering Core.
Without even a whimper, the Pandorian's soul fled his body and presented before me in an intangible reddish-orange mass of energy.