Chapter 24: One and the Same

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The wight lurched forward at speed.

Brilliant strands of shimmering light cascaded from the edge of its blade as it moved into the middle of the chamber. Quickly, Xander stepped off and met the creature's blade with a parry of his own, causing a burst of coalescing energy to rip roar throughout the entire area. As their weapons echoed, a wave of sweltering heat instantly brushed past Blychert’s face, forcing him to wince somewhat at both the temperature and the intensity of light on display. However, it didn't last long. And as the glow subsided, it became readily apparent that the undead was much stronger than perhaps it appeared to be at first glance, easily shirking Xander aside with a single flick of its arm.

Skittering backward, Xander stumbled to catch himself, and the wight made its advance in equal stride. But thrusting his own arm outward, Bly immediately cast a swiftened shield to block the incoming attack.

The iridescent blade arced through the air from overhead, easily ripping through Bly's defensive spell as if it wasn’t even there. Even still, it had given Xander just enough time to find his footing.

A hard clang resounded; with Xander’s shield firmly set in front of him now, he just narrowly avoided the attack head-on. A split-second later, Bly muttered an incantation, sending three icicles hurdling towards the wight in rapid succession. Reeling a few steps backward, the wight lifted its blade with speed, cutting all three elemental projectiles down to a fine dust.

It’s fast. Bly thought to himself worriedly.

Without Vineta present, he was going to have to focus largely on keeping the wight's attacks off of Xander. However, were he to go all out on defense now, Xander wouldn’t have any support in attack. Bly's mana pool wasn’t maximized, but that wasn’t necessarily a problem at this current juncture. Seemingly, the biggest issue would be staying alive long enough to make a difference.

Maneuvering himself into a new position, Blychert steadied his groggy state of mind and compelled himself to focus even more.

As Xander launched himself back into a series of blows, his seven-strike attack pattern flourishing with blue energy, Bly began to channel his mana in such a way as to maintain a defensive cluster around Xander’s form. Sure enough, this allowed him to readily resupply the defensive spell with more mana once it was broken or wearing thin, whilst mitigating the downtime between effects. And where Bly’s barrier spell failed, the swordsman’s physical shield covered the gap.

They were holding steady.

Blow for blow, Xander and the wight swept across the chamber with their blades. Streaks of blue energy and iridescent light sparked to life each time their blades met, filling the entire area with brief bursts of illumination. Xander’s face was etched with singular determination, his attacks growing more and more ferocious as time went on. For its part, the undead creature’s beady red eyes met the swordsman’s challenge, though offered no sign of emotion whatsoever.

It didn’t even make a single sound, it simply fought. And furthermore, second by second it seemed to be gaining the upper hand.

Controlling his breathing, Bly took a brief mental note of just how much mana he’d burned through in the last few minutes, quietly contemplating their tactics. Xander was visibly weaker and wearier by comparison, all but confirmed by how easily the wight parried and ran the swordsman ragged. Bly's defensive spells were keeping Xander in the fight, but it was evident that both of them were struggling. Meanwhile, the wight didn’t seem to have even suffered much, if at all. Xander had gotten a few good licks in himself, strikes that would have been fatal to almost any other spawn they’d come across outside the boss’s lair, but it still wasn't enough.

If we can get that blade out of its hand, maybe there's a shot. the thought crossed Bly's mind all of a sudden, and he quickly pivoted into it.

“Binding element, let the depths of frost take root.” He began to mutter, lifting his right hand to aim at the wight, “From the heart of winter’s embrace, I summon with might, an icy bond, swift and merciless. Freezing chain.”

The elemental energy ushered across the chamber, puncturing the wight’s blade-wielding hand. In the same motion, Bly extended his arm again and anchored the chain in place on the wall behind him. Turning back to face the other two, the wight's entire assault was immediately stifled by the binding chain around its arm, hindering it from attacking Xander any further. And seemingly needing little more of an opportunity than that, Xander dropped his shield and lunged in.

The swordsman and the undead creature wrestled over control of the blade for a short time, as Bly pumped it full of elemental spells from a flanking position. And just as it seemed that Xander might finally have the leverage he needed to pry it away, the wight twisted its arm completely. A sickening crunch of bone and flesh resounded, and the blade shimmered unlike it had before. And in the blink of an eye, a crackle of light filled the chamber.

“Xander, get down—!” Bly shouted, darting forward as he prepared to cast a shield over both of them.

But he was too slow.

A billowing surge of light exploded, sending him flying back in the opposite direction. He tumbled to the ground, rolling for several feet before coming to an abrupt halt.

“Guh…” Bly groaned, feeling the punchy weight of the stone he’d just slammed into all at once.

Glancing up, he realized that he had been blown out of the chamber completely, and was now slumped against the opposite wall of the exterior corridor. Ahead of him, a smoldering path of smoke and sundered stone stood between him and where the wight now stood. The blade in its hand was dim again, but within its silhouette, those red eyes turned and stared across at Blychert. Slowly, it turned, grabbed hold of the chain in its other hand, and yanked the entire thing out of the wall in one pull.

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Stumbling up to his feet, Bly tried to steady his breath as the wight advanced towards him. But he was lightheaded, and he was out of ideas.

A small frown creased his lips.

For a sliver of a moment, Bly couldn’t help but indulge the idea of simply casting invisibility on himself and running away. It would have been a cowardly thing to do, but then it would have been easy, and he might just survive if he did.

Glancing past the wight, he could see the dazed form of Xander now slowly rising to his feet.

This was what Xander had wanted, but what did Blychert want?

“Damn it…” He muttered under his breath, “—Damn it. Damn it!”

The wight was drawing nearer, the iridescent blade firmly in its grasp, sparkling with latent light. There wasn’t any more time to think, only to do.

“System command. Activate ability, x-p transmogrifier. Execute mana replenishment.” Bly murmured wearily, his hand somewhat unsteady as he issued the order, “Input spell override. Execute hasten. Execute conjure weapon. Swift shield—”

The wight’s blade crashed through the yellow energy of Bly’s defensive spell in a flash, but the immediate hit of speed he’d just received from his alteration spell allowed him to dodge out of the way before the blade could reach him. Rolling forward, Bly turned and thrust his hand outward, commanding the shimmering form of his own conjured weapon to engage the wight. Within only a few exchanges though, the undead’s blade had cut down the summoned weapon like it was nothing. However, Blychert simply issued another spell override, another weapon, and started the whole process all over again.

One by one, his summoned swords took on the wight as best they could, intermittently broken up by several elemental spells just to draw its attention outward. Another freezing chain restrained it for only a few seconds, and even a wild casting of ensnare slowed it just long enough for Bly to keep his strategy alive. And yet, he could feel himself slipping, his focus stretched thin. The wight was fast, unrelenting in its attacks, and always seeming to adapt to whichever spells Bly threw at it. Exhausted, Bly tripped over a cluster of rubble in the dungeon behind him, and within a matter of seconds the undead warrior was standing over him.

The iridescent blade rose through the air, a light now beginning to grow along its sharpened edge. Two red eyes glared down at Bly, lifeless beyond compare, and the blade descended.

All at once, a flash of that fated day in the guildhall of Darskaart coursed through Bly’s mind; a memory of the administrator towering over him just as this spawn was now. His heart raced, sweat poured down his face, and his arms trembled. But even still, Blychert lifted his hands, surer of himself now than he had been back then, and forced himself to fight.

If not now, then never.

“Swift shield, threefold lattice—!”

The iridescent blade pressed down into the blooming shield with tremendous force, sputtering hot wind and reverberations down the corridor. Bly gritted his teeth, doing everything he could just to repel the wight’s attack, but gaining little ground. He channeled more mana—practically pushing it through his skin as he urged his barrier spell to hold fast. A quarter of a foot of magical energy was all that stood between him and his own annihilation.

He had to hold this time, no matter what.

“Hyah!” the sound of Xander's voice echoed amidst the colliding noises, whose shadowed form sprung into light from behind the wight.

The attack was immediately thwarted, as the undead pulled away. Blychert dropped his barrier spell the second he felt safe to do so, gasping for air as the hold of spell fatigue gripped his entire body.

“Come on—” Xander huffed, pulling Bly to his feet in a flash, and quickly ushering both of them down the corridor ahead.

Bly glanced over his shoulder, taking note of the wight as it steadied itself. Those red eyes turned and stared down the corridor, as if directly into Bly's soul, before the rest of the body began to move forward slowly. Which was just the same, because Xander carried a limp, and Bly could barely keep his own feet.

Swiftly they continued forward, turning down one corridor, and then another, until they came upon a large but vacant chamber thereafter.

"I need to put you down—" Xander groaned, helping Bly towards a piece of stone, before reeling back to catch his own breath.

“Here—” Bly gasped, removing the pack from his shoulders as he begun to dig through it. His fingers were shaking, but he quickly produced what he was looking for and shoved the healing potion in the swordsman’s face, “You’re bleeding.”

Xander paused, seeming to consider the action for a moment, before nodding. He chugged the whole thing in one gulp, before tossing the glass vial aside. The cut on his arm looked bad, but the potion would have to do for now. Taking a step back, the swordsman craned his neck for a stretch, and looked towards the chamber entrance.

“System command. Clear all inputs. Disengage all abilities.” Bly held out his hand, hardly concerned at this point that Xander could hear what he was saying,” “Input spell override. Execute conjure weapon. Execute hasten, single target. Execute summon swarm, jackalwings. System command. Activate ability, radial ward, single target.”

One after the other, spells and abilities began to fire off—some familiar, some having gone unused for a long time. Whatever came to mind, Bly was willing to expend right here, right now. The shimmering of a conjured sword, the hastened state of being, the buzz of summoned jackalwings, and the radial glow of a protection ward surrounding Xander's entire body... all of it sprung to life in a matter of seconds.

Xander's expression suddenly shifted, as he looked back towards Bly with a look of both confusion and curiosity, “What was all of that?”

Bly closed his eyes, his heart racing at the question.

For the longest time, he'd been so afraid to be seen as anyone other than Trelen, that it was Blychert who had become exactly what he accused Xander of. And yet, all he could think of right now was standing his ground next to the swordsman. Because despite everything, there was still some semblance of a party between them. And if Xander couldn't look past a classless renegade, then so be it, maybe Bly didn't deserve such clemency. But even still, that changed nothing in this moment.

Taking a deep breath, Bly glanced at Xander, and said with confidence, "I lied, and I'm sorry. I'm not really Trelen, and... I don't have a class. But I am a sorcerer, that was the truth. So, if that's good enough for you, then I'll give you everything I've got."

The swordsman’s eyes widened, but before he could respond, a noise beyond him caught their attention. Bly glanced past the swordsman and gestured towards the archway, to where the wight’s silhouette was now standing there at the threshold of the chamber.

"Always full of surprises, not Trelen." Xander grunted, almost as if amused by the sudden turn of events. Exhaling slowly as he turned, he added, “Okay. If that’s how we're playing it, then you'll just have to accept this as my confession too."

Firmly grasping the pommel of his own sword in both hands, Bly watched as something unusual, and yet strangely familiar begin to take shape. The entirety of Xander’s blade began to glow. But instead of the deep blue, or even green energy that Bly had grown accustomed to from the swordsman's battle aura, it was a completely pale and radiant form of energy. In fact, it's energy signature was more akin to the magic of clerics, like that of Annie, purely divine energy. However, it began to shift beyond even that.

“Heaven’s martyr, beyond oblivion,” Xander murmured, the entirety of his blade rising to a burning, amber glow, as energy twisted around him, “Witness my pact, unbroken. By thine own accursed blood, heed this call. Breathe dark into light, rend light from illusion, and cleave the fallacy of this world in two!”

Blychert’s eyes squinted at the pulse of strange, radiant light, in full witness to either a miracle or a heresy. Whichever the case, it was self-evident that both their cards were now firmly on the table.

Come heaven or hell, this was their final gambit.