The brute paid Dalric’s words no mind, instead silently inching closer to him. His accomplice however, was as vocal as ever.

“Mr. Dalric, that is quite the rude accusation.”

Though Dalric could hear his voice, he could neither see nor sense him. Even the voice itself was directionless, leaving no way to locate him. The man was all but a ghost to Dalric. That was an odd experience for him, he was unaccustomed to not being able to at least sense his enemy. It would matter little though.

In a flash, one of the streaks of black lightning shot from Dalric and encircled the brute. He lacked both the sense and experience to notice Dalric's intent before he did it and he would also lack the strength to break free. The lighting didn’t touch the brute, it would kill him, but it did render him silent and immobile for as long as Dalric wished him to be. A perfect capture.

“I have no interest in a verbal spat, the truth is in front of me.”

The room that held Dalric's former cell rested at the end of a hall that had two long rows of similar cells. A few of the cells housed oddly shaped creatures, but the vast majority were valinoids. Mostly humans of course, but there were some others. All of them were thoroughly shackled. For now.

He instantly gathered lighting in his palms, then spiralled it around his hands. Jumping from knuckle to knuckle, it rapidly gained momentum. Soon it zapped around his fingers so quickly it appeared as if he merely wore black gloves. If it wasn’t for the sound that is. Though the streaks were tiny in comparison to what Thunderfield was meant for, their roar still ruptured eardrums.

“AGH! You fuc—”

“Found you.”

Spotting the drop of blood falling from the ceiling, Dalric shot three streaks of lighting toward its genesis. He couldn’t be exactly sure where the man was and he didn’t want to accidentally kill him, yet, so instead of just circling his person he made the cage spacious. It was still cylindrical, like the one that housed the brute, but this one had a five-meter diameter. Even if he had moved since the blood fell, he’d be locked within.

And locked he was. The moment the cage closed around him, The man’s spell fell and his presence reemerged. He looked staggered, blood still flowing from both ears, stunned that his spell was broken. Dalric's lightning did a much better job of disrupting ahjer flow than any metal they could get their hands on.

Though he did hope the metal was good enough to protect the prisoners from his earlier soundwave. It wasn’t a spell, but the vibrations were still tinged with ahjer. He had gambled on the enchanted bars honing in on that and dampening the concussive noise.

There was no guarantee it would though, the enchantments they used out here were noticeably weaker than the cell that held him moments ago. To make sure, he peered behind the bars of the cell to his right. Thankfully, the creature inside looked unharmed. By him at least. Seeing the scars on all six of the creature's legs reignited the fire in his chest.

He’d free them soon, but for now the bars that kept them captive would also protect them for whatever Dalric had to do. Fortunately, they were all, as far as he could tell, unconscious. They could remain blissfully ignorant of what he may have to do.

"Now." He brought the cages next to him and reconfigured them to allow sound pass outward. "Whi—"

~"I conjure: Bear Skin Armor."~

Hm. An odd incantation.

It didn't work obviously, but the intent was clear. The peculiar makeup of the incantation piqued Dalric's interest, but he had far more burning concerns.

"Don't wast—"

~"I invoke: Break Chains."~

~”I conjure: Senna’s Shield”~

~”I invoke: Silent Whi—

"Silence! You disgusting, depraved animals. You will explain what's going on in this camp or you will feel the pain of a thousand deaths. I promise it."

The brute spoke this time, "You ain’t gon live long ‘nough to make good on ‘at."

Just as he finished speaking, Dalric’s hand seemingly teleported into the cage and clasped his throat, “Won’t I?”

He didn't squeeze, instead, he let the lightning hover above the brutes skin. Visually, nothing happened, but the deafening screams told a different story. The brute belted his lungs out, likely experiencing a level of pain he could have never imagined before. Dalric released him just as his body started convulsing.

He couldn’t let his anger control him. Though he knew they were some form of slave traders, he needed to make sure he understood the situation fully. Then, punishment could be dished out.

“Speak. Unless you would also like a taste.”

The other man just stared at him in shock, his eyes occasionally darting to peek at his still twitching compatriot.

“Right. You’re still deaf.”

The man grimaced as Dalric reached into the cage to heal him. He couldn’t move much, but he used the little movement he had to desperately shift away from Dalric.

“Relax.”

Thankfully healing his ears was a simple matter. Unlike the sight fiasco a bit ago, it seems eardrums were the same across species. The man squirmed in discomfort as Dalric’s ahjer flowed into him. Reconstructing something as simple as an eardrum wouldn’t hurt too much, but given what just happened the reaction was fair.

Once he was done fixing the man’s hearing, he went back to questioning him, “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“W—we ar..we’re just… pawns! We’re just pawns! This isn’t our operation at all! We were just hired to protect this place.”

Likely.

“I’m sure. What is ‘this place’, exactly?”

“It’s a… um. It’s a transfer facility. The uh… people arrive. They’re sorted and uh… they get shipped along.”

Dalric’s eyes desperately wanted to roll, but he tamed them. The bastard was stalling. The brute’s scream had clearly alerted the camp and Dalric could sense some similarly strengthed individuals making their way to him. Dalric couldn’t tell if there was even a drop of truth in anything he spouted or if it was all just an act to buy time. Alas, it would seem the brute wasn’t a good enough example.

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“We aren’t um… involved in uh any of the sorting though. Just secu—”

Dalric silenced him, “Hold that.”

Not even turning to look, he calmly caught the fiery red blade zipping towards his chest. He didn’t need to, the lightning would have stopped it anyway, but this would paint a more vivid image in the eyes of his soon to be informant. He’d identified the man as spineless and easy to intimidate, he just needed to show him that no amount of help would be able to save him. The blade in his hand attempted to set his whole arm ablaze for the offence, but he quickly overpowered it with his ahjer.

Hm?

As he brought it to his face to examine it, it dissipated into mist. Or at least that's how it appeared, in reality it’s conjurer simply dispelled it and called for another one. The mist part was a mere party trick, but the ability to create and sustain a fully ahjer constructed weapon without an incantation was fairly high level. For that weapon to also have an attunement? He’d be quietly impressed if he wasn’t still completely revolted.

He looked towards the new arrival, “Don't come alone, wait for your friends. It’d be tedious to do this more than once.”

That was only partially true, the full truth was he was rapidly running out of ahjer. He was almost completely out. If the fight dragged too long he’d have to disconnect from Thundefield and switch to using incantations. That would truly be troublesome.

“Amusing.” The newcomer had a distinctly Surunese accent.

A dozen red blades appeared between him and Dalric. They all burned brightly, brimming with fire-attuned ahjer.

“You won’t get chance to fight more than once.”

...

“Oh?"

Dalric briefly peered at the... man? He couldn’t actually tell who it was at the other end of the hallway. Beyond the broken hellgurian and surunese accent, their speech gave nothing away. They also wore thick, enchanted leather armor, layered with square patches of metal plating. The accompanying helmet completely covered their head as well, featuring an enchanted mask to obscure their face. It was the fact that their mask seemed to draw inspiration from a horrendous looking man that Dalric first assumed they were one. Give or take the horrendous part.

Their armor itself was quite beautiful, he’d seen a form of it before but never so… stylized. It was predominantly, and ferociously, red, but the leather underneath was dyed dark blue. The accents were a mix of gold and black and the mask was pure white. Extravagant for armor, but pleasing to the eye all the same.

Though it was eye-catching, it wasn’t actually what Dalric had his eyes on. He instead stared at the floating ahjer constructs between them, analyzing the opportunity they presented.

This could be worth the effort.

He smirked and spread his arms wide, "Then come.”

The multicolored conjurer obliged, rushing forward as they sent all twelve blades hurling at Dalric. For his part, Dalric merely strolled towards them, arms still spread.

Let's see.

The blades reached him first, smashing into the black lightning that still coated his body. Instead of disintegrating the fiery weapons, the ominous streaks of blackness assimilated them, stripping them of their fire-attuned ahjer and absorbing it. The streaks behaved much like a virus, infecting the ahjer constructs, breaking them down, and completely consuming them.

He managed to absorb eight of them before the conjurer noticed, triggering them to explode rather than be sucked in. Dalric merely covered his face with his hand. The force of the sword’s sudden explosion was minor, like the amount of ahjer he managed to claim from them. Before he could hiss over that fact, the conjurer themselves arrived.

A long, thin blade in hand, they lunged for his head immediately. Dalric moved to catch it, but abruptly jerked his head to the side instead, narrowly avoiding having his eye gouged. He followed the small jerk with a duck and a side step, expertly escaping the swordsman-conjurer’s insanely quick combo as they continued the hunt for his head.

That’s an… odd weapon.

Dalric didn’t have the time to think about that though. The sidestep, while buying a few moments, opened the space for another jab at his eye. They obviously took it, the tip of their sword fizzed towards Dalric faster than he could blink.

He stepped forward, letting the sword glance off his shoulder plates, and jabbed with his left hand. His gauntlet laced knuckles connected sweetly with their forehead, cracking their mask, but not sending them reeling like he anticipated. They retreated of their own accord, kicking off the ground and sliding backward.

Good enchantments on the mask as well. And…

He peeked at the deformed mark on his armor.

That sword is a serious problem.

They swiftly recovered as Dalrics eyes drifted away, spawning two scorching daggers before renewing their assault on his head. Though Dalric had an almost two foot height advantage their blade could comfortably reach the back of his skull, and with his weakened body and limited access to Thunderfield, it wasn't an impossibility that it would.

Are those daggers more, or less potent?

The ahjer made weapons floated above their shoulders as their main blade danced in their hands. Whether by special materials or special enchantments, the sword was resistant to the naturally forming lightning of Thunderfield. At its current level at least. Which meant as Dalric weaved his way around their attacks, the lightning that covered him had zero defensive use.

It did still have one offensive use though.

Dalric gradually made some distance between himself and the swordsman-conjurer. Nothing great, just enough to force them into lunging territory. It took a bit for them to take the bait, they’d grown comfortable in slashing range, but they inevitably did. Just before they made their move though, Dalric flashed the lightning around his torso white. The sudden shift from deep darkness to blinding brightness stunned them, giving him just enough time to step forward and fire a haymaker. They could never see it coming.

Boom!

They also didn’t need to. It never landed.

Instead, once his fist got within about half a foot of their face both of their daggers dived in front of it, exploding on impact. The entire force stored within his punch diffused along with them. Dalric came out of it unscathed but unfortunately so did they. They reactively leapt back a few feet even as their eyes struggled to adjust. He mentally shook his head as he watched his perfect surprise attack go awry, he could only chastise himself for not considering what the daggers were for.

Ugh.

He returned his lightning to its natural state. They both lost a power tool in their arsenal in that exchange. Though the swordsman-conjurer seemed content to resummon the daggers and attempt to use them again.

Dalric physically shook his head this time. He was comfortably sure his experience and reflexes outpaced their sword skills, but continuing this duet would just burn time and ahjer. It would have been preferable to defeat them without expending extra ahjer, but as he deftly dodged another lightning fast slash he admitted to himself that he had been arrogant. He wanted to win effortlessly, while conserving his ahjer, while also absorbing some of their ahjer. That was a lot to do at once, too much in fact. He underestimated his opponent greatly and now he’d wasted precious time for nothing.

Keeping the cages active cost quite a bit of ahjer and he’d already burned through the tiny gains he made earlier. He wasn’t even winning easily. Though he wasn’t yet in life-threatening danger, he’d been on the defensive most of the time. That wouldn’t strike fear into anyone. His future informant was likely more hopeful of escape now than they were before this bout started. All in all, he was at a notable net loss. Thankfully, to save him from this horrendous predicament, the reinforcements finally arrived.

~"Great Winds."~

Dalric stuck out his arm and a massive gust of wind knocked the swordsman-conjurer another six meters back. Their backup quickly rushed to their side. Everyone included, there were now four enemies in front of him to eliminate. They were all in one place now though. No need to waste anymore time, he just needed to be quick and decisive.

~”Come, Blood Hunter.”~

He augmented the incantation with his own ahjer, straddling the line between efficiency and efficacy. Blood Hunter was an unruly beast, a massive halberd that mimicked the most legendary weapon in giant folklore. Its natural size was twenty-three feet and it weighed over ninety kilograms. Trying to summon it with pure ambient ahjer would take ludicrously long.

Dalric sized it down obviously, even as a giant he never liked using weapons two-handed. The Blood Hunter he currently wielded was only six feet long. Though reduced in size, it lost none of its luster. It still glowed an ominous red, it was still three different blades held together by Reaper’s moss, each blade still had its own attunement. No matter how tiny it looked in his hands, it was still Blood Hunter. And it craved a hunt.

Dalric looked towards the four as they arranged themselves and quickly discussed strategy. He smirked, feeling the now foreign sensation of Blood Hunter scratching his subconscious. It may have just been an ahjer made mimic of an actual soul weapon, but it behaved like a true one.

“Now then.” He spoke to himself, “Let’s try this again.”