Arienne stared at High Arcanite Deena with calm eyes, the rise and fall of her chest beating a rhythmic beat as she prepared herself for another exchange.
After witnessing Bishop Maels’s horrendous actions earlier on in the afternoon, she had immediately known that lingering in his company for even a moment longer could have put her in an even more precarious position than she was currently in. To think that the famous bishop that had sent ripples throughout the continent with his recent achievements was actually a traitor to the church and the faith that they upheld. She still couldn’t believe what she had witnessed in that desolate little glade; a bishop of the church, taking the initiative to summon a demon?
She wasn’t so easily fooled as his other followers, who had seemed to believe that he was merely dispelling some sort of invisibility spell that the demon had been employing. No, if that were the case then it would have relied on its obscurity to attack them the moment that they closed in on its location, or otherwise would have fled under the cover of its spell. Arienne wasn’t a mage, but she could easily discern that the medallion in the bishop's hands had been some sort of magical tool that had served as a catalyst to summon the man—beast, demon—whatever it was.
And those children…
Arienne gritted her teeth and pushed the disturbing memory from her mind. Demons? Those had been ordinary kids as far as she had been able to tell. And they had been intended sacrifices for whatever ritual the madman had designed, for why else would he gather so many Kets in one place and arrange them at strategic points along the magic circle that had been drawn out in the dirt?
“Is this all the great Arienne of Lahn is capable of?” came a mocking voice, though from where Arienne wasn’t sure. “And to think that I’d been preparing myself for a real fight.”
Arienne had never battled a high arcanite before, but she had killed seven of their lesser counterparts. Normally, she would trick the battle mage with a few feints before closing the distance with aura-enhanced speed and then delivering a decisive blow, always prepared to disrupt any offensive spells that the mage might cast in an attempt to slow her down. With Deena, however, it was virtually impossible to close the distance between the two of them.
“So withdrawn, this one. Do I frighten you, Arienne?”
There was no point in conversing with one’s opponent during a fight, so Arienne kept quiet and honed her senses on the surrounding area. Deena’s invisibility spell was a cut above most mages, but regardless of how well she could mask herself from sight, she couldn’t hide the sounds of snapping twigs beneath her feet or the stirring of air that her moving body might leave behind.
With her back to a particularly broad tree, Arienne was momentarily caught off guard when several branches suddenly slithered downward like agile snakes, though she dashed away just in time to avoid being entwined in their fluid grips.
Wood magic, a subset of earth magics. Thus far into the fight, Deena had only relied on spells from the latter, so it was good to know what other cards she might be hiding up her sleeves. Knowing that the surrounding foliage had become even more of a detriment than it had been before—fighting in a forest was far from ideal for any swordsman, for it limited how freely one could swing their sword—she made a quick decision and flooded the tip of her sword with a fine layer of swordsman’s aura, locking onto the surrounding trees with her heightened senses.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Settling on the warrior stratum’s most reliable slashing technique of the Crown Style, she slashed out in several directions while pivoting on her foot to cover a full rotation, over twenty of the broad, towering trees falling to the ground with spindly percussions in the moments that followed. In all it took her three seconds to unleash the barrage, after which she immediately leapt over one of the falling trees and landed at a neat roll about ten paces ahead of the toppled trunk, at which point she sprinted westward as fast as she could manage.
It was imperative that she find another stretch of open ground. If she couldn’t, then she could only flee.
Sensing an abrupt stirring of wind at her back, she wheeled around and deflected over a dozen spikes of hardened earth by carefully angling her weapon in a way that would minimize the amount of damage it received. Each projectile carried a tremendous amount of weight, far more than an ordinary rock should have boasted.
There, she thought, tracing the trajectories of the attack back to their original location.
Hooking a finger of her free hand into the looped base of one of the many throwing knives that were strapped to her sword belt, she covered it with swordsman’s aura, severed the connection and then hurled it at the point of focus with enough force to leave a whistling wind in its wake. A wall of earth arose to block the knife, though before contact was made Arienne had already slashed out with her sword and sent three energy projections sailing in that direction. One to the left of the wall, one to the right, and one that collided with its centre and smashed through the hardened soil with an explosive shower of dirt and debris.
Leaping several paces into the air to avoid the manipulated tree roots that had just attempted to wrap around her ankles, she tracked the subtly stirring wind about twenty paces ahead of her and slightly to the left, where Deena was likely relying on an advanced stability spell to maintain her movements across the uneven earth.
Surprisingly, Deena was the first to act, the ground for fifty paces in all directions beginning to shake with loud rumbles as if a localized earthquake were taking place with Arienne at the epicentre. Reacting quickly, she stabilized her feet with swordsman’s aura and dashed directly toward the high arcanite while cursing in her heart, for there was no way that Deena would allow her to flee to a more suitable battleground.
Before she could fully close the distance between the two of them, the surrounding earth exploded upwards with tremendous force. Maintaining her speed as she rushed into the mass of overturned soil and shredded roots, Arienne readied another of the warrior stratum’s key slashes, this time striking with the flat of her blade while covering it in a more loosely arranged coating of aura. The mass of earth was immediately cleared the moment she struck out, a powerful gale causing the surrounding trees to sway this way and that as Deena’s lean, pale figure abruptly flashed into view.
After successfully dispelling her opponent’s invisibility spell, Arienne closed in on her target with a few rapid leaps, the high arcanite conjuring a blinding ball of light while retreating backwards as fast as she could manage. Arienne instinctually closed her eyes and relied on her other senses to hurry forward and lunge with her blade in an attempt to pierce the other woman’s heart, but the ground beneath Deena’s feet suddenly shook and a massive pillar of earth abruptly rose up from the ground and carried the contemptable woman over fifty paces up into the air, the makeshift tower rising high above the surrounding treetops.