As the massive man's fist came crashing down from an upwards angle towards Tulip she stepped to the side, leaving the fist to impact the ground before her.

His strikes while powerful were painfully slow, they had long wind ups that left him open yet once they launched forwards they impacted with ferocious speed, leaving small craters within the brick tiles underfoot.

Her eyes stayed locked firmly upon his, it was the only reliable way to read someone, far more reliable than watching their arms just for their legs to move. When someone's eyes moved it usually gave away the exact motion they wished to do, and where they wished to do it.

Just as she had hoped his eyes flicked forwards, to her shoulder a moment before his fist came crashing down towards her, a moment just long enough for her to step in close, striking with the side of her arm to his elbow, using the cuffs still on her wrists as impromptu weapons.

Her teeth clenched down tight from the impact, even the exposed flesh at his elbow felt like steel, and the metal upon her wrists dug into the freshly burnt wounds in such a way she felt like screaming. Something she desperately resisted the urge to do while the man only laughed.

“Was that supposed to hurt? I thought you were some kind of prodigy child! And look at you now, nothing more than a worthless little runt who can barely even dodge.” He sneered as he leaned in, his left arm bent inwards to try and crush Tulip while she was still in close.

She was barely able to jump away, getting only a small, skimming strike from him as she expanded the distance between the two. Another punch came across, her eyes locked onto his barely giving her the room required to step away from an easily lethal strike had it landed its mark on her head.

‘How can I do anything here?’ She thought quickly, he was too fast to risk getting in range for her sword, his strikes were so powerful that she could only barely afford to be skimmed by them a handful of times.

And even receiving a skimming blow would be devastating for her with the amount of power behind his strikes. Another strike came across as the man spun for a ferocious kick, spinning with enough power that the wind following in its wake physically pushed Tulip back a few feet.

She had to let out a slow breath, the edges of the man's body were beginning to tinge a deep fiery red, she could feel the pressure and see the mana boiling off of him like steam from his terrible control.

Tulip’s focus felt unwavered, her heart was racing as the pressure built behind the Brute’s movements, he lunged forwards with a strike poised to come down from a high angle, while at the same instant his other arm came upwards in a motion meant to leave them clashing in the middle with Tulip caught inside the strike.

With one leg pulled back she moved around the colliding strikes, the pressure built by the impact was to some extent expected this time and she was able to use it to get a little more distance as she jumped just an inch or so off of the ground to slide back with the pressure.

The heat however was building with each colliding strike, as if he was using the friction from his skin to the air to build it, and it only expanded with his colliding fists now setting themselves alight.

“Stand still you little runt!” He shouted out, anger was clear in his voice. He turned in place, readying himself for another strike as he began leaning forwards with arms raised to his sides, one leg lead the other into a low stance like he intended to leap and grab.

“Temper as short as your wit huh… Guess that’s why you had someone keeping you on a leash.” She muttered out her retort, if she could piss him off enough maybe he would give her more of an opening. It was the only idea she could come up with when he was pushing her away every time she had a chance for an opening.

“You little!” The man roared out with hatred tainting his already cruel voice. He launched forwards as his front leg extended with such force that bricks were torn out of the flooring and sent firing back to the fire wall where they impacted with a booming echo that cracked part of the wall.

She was forced to step in, pulling the massive man into a better position before she moved out to the side, again barely dodging as he shot past like a bull simply chasing down a red flag in its blinded rage.

He collided with the wall he had been charging for, but it did little more than give him something to stop on before he turned and charged again. His hands and forearms were beginning to ignite with deep red hues as more heat and speed was being built up with his motions.

He was building more speed, he was getting too fast, more strikes kept whistling by Tulip while she desperately moved around to avoid them. Even as they fell into the same patterns, with each one growing faster she couldn’t keep up with the pattern.

Her lungs both literally and figuratively felt like they were on fire, breathing in the residual heat, and feeling the furious burn of foreign mana inside of her body as it was being purged.

She leaned back as a fist rocketed across, less than an inch away from taking off her nose, just for her to desperately move lower to avoid the other arm as it came across to clothesline her with enough force to take off her head.

She kicked her leg out to the side as his elbow came down in a dropping motion aimed for her back, she barely moved away enough to avoid a direct hit taking instead a skimming blow to her shoulder that left a painful bruise and burnt straight through her clothes and skin in the momentary contact.

She had to suck in a breath, clenching her teeth to avoid screaming in pain as she stood up. Stepping back she found herself with her back to the wall and no possible way to escape as the massive man was merely a foot in front of her with a disgusting, smug grin on his face.

A single foot stomped forwards while an arm reached out, punching the wall above her right shoulder, leaving a dent while Tulip’s breathing grew ragged.

“Out of places to run now aren’t you?... Hm… Not so smug now either are you?” He barked out a laugh as he spoke, incapable of keeping his face straight for even a moment. “Oh little Princess, you might have actually been fun to fight if Andrew would have let you out of those shackles.”

“You wouldn’t have lasted a minute.” She spat out, she was actually fairly confident about that too. His form was terrible and with her magic she could have far more easily avoided his strikes and performed her counter attacks easily.

His face contorted with anger, muscles bulging in his left arm as she heard the wall behind her cracking. For an instant she thought she heard movement behind the wall but her thoughts quickly moved on to focus in front of her.

“Still can’t help but run your mouth huh?!” He screamed out, she reflexively recoiled, closing her eyes as she felt his saliva splash across her face, only to be met with the extreme discomfort of feeling it then boil away into steam from the heat pressing against her. “Let's just shut that damn mouth of yours.”

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His other hand began reaching forwards, for a moment it felt like the world was slowing down in her eyes. His hand clenched into a fist as it poised itself to strike, her eyes flashed to his other arm, the underside of it was exposed from how he was holding her against the wall.

Biting back the pain she felt in her shoulder from the burn she clenched her fist, for a moment focusing on her magic, she could feel the cuffs heating up on her wrists but it was only for an instant.

Her sword appeared in her hand, reclaimed from her ring as she turning as violently as she could, angling it upwards, yet his reactions were on point, his hands twisted, blocking the strike to do nothing more than scrape along his armor as he increased the space between the two of them.

“Ohohoho! Now that’s a neat little trick? Where’d you get a toy like that? Oh who cares it’ll be mine once I kill you!” He lunged forwards again, his fist flashing to strike at Tulip’s mid section while she was still stuck against the wall.

But with a blade in her hands she felt somewhat more confident. She angled it across, she didn’t have to block the strike, she just had to redirect it. Which was far easier to do on someone so much bigger than her, even if he was fast.

She hit the angle just right, shifting the weight behind the man's punch to her side where it hit the wall just above her shoulder, giving her a chance to move back through the opening. As she gained distance she twisted, going for a quick jab that didn’t even break skin. She felt the heavy resistance of a closely knit shield covering his body.

“Cheap little tricks won’t get you far.” He smirked as he spoke, turning to face her with his eyes looking almost beady. The reflection of his fire illuminating them like mirrors reflecting roaring bonfires, the heat pressing around the hallway was becoming suffocation while it was taking everything she had to keep her nerves down.

“And brute force won’t even get you half as far. Though I guess it’s too late in your life to even try to start thinking.” She had to grimace at her own words, she hated bantering in a fight but it was helpful when fighting someone with such a short temper, and even more so when she needed to stall out a fight. “Really it’s impressive you can talk with how little you seem to be using your head.”

Words didn’t even escape the man's mouth as he began sputtering with rage, the heat boiling away from him began making him physically steam as any sweat on his body was blasted away from the heat. A guttural scream closer to that of a feral beast than a person escaped his jaw as he charged forwards with fat impacting the ground so ferociously that it left craterous impacts behind.

With a deep breath Tulip tightened her focus as well as she could, she had truly enraged the man turning him into little more than the enraged fiery beast he acted like. His arms flailing wildly threw forwards dozens of strikes in lightning fast succession.

Without mana to reinforce her body she couldn’t hope to keep up with even a quarter of the strikes, pushing them to the sides just for another one to break through, even when she stepped aside the residual heat was leaving her burnt just from the distance. Her eyes were burning from the dry heat, yet remained pried open so that she could keep focused.

A particularly heavy strike landed as she turned her blade into a cross block, slamming the flat of the rapidly heating blade straight back into her forearm with a painful thump that sent her to the ground.

Her eyes flashed up despite the pain shifting her vision white for an instant, the shadow casting itself over her face gave her barely enough warning to roll to the side, avoiding the stomping strike of the brute with just enough room to land with her eyes locked on the crater made in the floor where her skull had just been.

“STAND STILLLLL!” The Brute of a man basically whined like a man child, his other foot shifted around, slamming forwards in another stomping motion that she just barely avoided by shoving herself to slide a few inches backwards, with barely an instant to get onto her feet she quickly raised her blade before herself, her eyes narrowing and her heart racing.

Every breath felt like it was being forced into her lungs, with an agonizing burn mirroring it on its way out. It was as if she was breathing fire from the heat being put off, her face and arms felt painfully dry with parts of her skin peeling away from the heat.

“Really? Whining now?” Genuine annoyance filled Tulip’s voice, why did she have to die to a man child of all things? Was this seriously how she was going to go out?

“Get down!” A voice shouted out behind Tulip, shocking her for a moment as she was forced to turn, the Brute of a man turned his entire body into a ferocious jab that barely inched past her nose, so close that the flames on his wrists licked at her skin before she fell back down from the angle she had dodged.

A scream of rage filled the man before her as he turned for what looked like it would be a finishing kick, but as she saw the kick begin moving around with killing intent a flash of light blasted across the room with enough force to send the Brute careening into the wall on the complete end of the hallway.

“Tulip get up. Can you still fight?” Tulip looked over to the familiar voice- James. His silvery armor was already stained with blood, yet none of it seemed to be his own as he offered a hand to her, in his other hand a curved blade was held.

“I… I think so. I can’t… Do much.” The lack of breathing was finally catching up to Tulip as she took his hand, being pulled back to her feet she reaffirmed her grip on her own blade. “What’s going on? Why are all of the guards going crazy?”

“I’ll tell you after we’re done with this. A lot has been happening already and we need to find Kirin now. No one is safe inside the Keep.” James shifted his grip towards a two handed one raising it high with the curve turned downwards to the ground as he took a stance, the silver blade painted a dark red with someone's blood had golden dust flaking off of it slowly.

“There’s another one somewhere- A taller lady with a spear. I don’t know where she went.” Tulip quickly informed James, she took her own stance with her straight sword tilted forwards, it was the only thing she could rely on with her mind racing so quickly.

“Noted.” James muttered before he advanced forwards slowly.

“Awh now there’s two! Where’s the fun in that!” The Brute whined out as he pulled himself out of the wall. He didn’t appear very injured, with the armor around his chest where James’ magic had impacted being notably gone. His chest was bare and visible, and reddened slightly from the impact.

“Impressive fortitude.” James spoke in an undertone voice, though he wore his helmet she could feel his gaze flicking back to her, requesting information.

“Fire magic, he builds up heat with his speed. And he seems to have predominant strength enhancements.” Tulip answered quickly, advancing alongside James. “His shield is particularly durable from what I felt with the few strikes I landed.”

“That should be enough. Keep safe while we fight.” James spoke before launching forwards, his steps flicked across the ground so quickly it looked like his feet barely even impacted before he was pushed forwards, shifting to a single handed grip he was on the side of the Brute in less than a handful of seconds, a feat of speed that left the massive man surprised as he brought his arms up to block.

Jame’s brought his blade down, sparks of fire and golden light collided with each other while Tulip was sprinting to get across the hall in time to help. Despite the fact that the Brute was clearly a lower class of mage to James he was impressively durable.

“Flash.” James spoke as golden light coated the tip of his blade before blasting out with a blinding light directed at the Brute's face over the top of his block.

She brought an arm up, even with the light not directed at her it was painful for her already tired eyes to look directly at it. And for the Brute it was clearly even worse as he let out a pained scream, his magic faltered for a moment leaving James’ blade to cut down hard into the man's blocking forearms leaving two massive gashes in it.

Tulip slid to a stop, staying out of the way to the back as she just watched James utterly take control of the fight. Spinning with his immense speed he came around to slam a kick with the bottom of his boot straight into the freshly opened wounds, throwing the Brute back a few inches.

Another spin saw his blade come down, and with a wince Tulip had to avert her eyes and hold a gag in as she heard the noise of a man's throat being cut open, and his last breaths which came gurgling out of him.

She kept her gaze well and fully averted from the now corpse as James walked over.

“Sorry about that. But none of them have the right to live after their attempt tonight. Let’s go find Kirin, quickly.” James spoke as he placed a hand on Tulip’s uninjured shoulder, guiding her away from her corpse as her breathing quickened.

“How many people… Have you killed?” Tulip had to ask, her own fear escaped her. She had never taken a life, and she never wanted to. Yet, she knew it was going to be inevitable in this world.

“Enough for one life. But there will always be more who are after Her Majesty.” James spoke with a low tone, walking calmly, yet his voice for a moment did waver.

She could tell for a moment that he felt the same as her. He didn’t want to kill, but he knew he had to.