This was another blow to Rieren’s expectations. Perhaps she had decided to put her faith in Elder Olg’s outrageous plan, forced due to circumstances that had spiralled out of her control, but she hadn’t exactly expected it to work so quickly or in such an efficient manner.
Nor had she expected his head to appear in place of the possessed Clanmaster’s in such a grisly and explosive fashion.
“You,” Essastior said. Bloody lightning still flickered around him, moments away from erupting outwards in violent arcs and bolts. His eyes had gone wide with surprised recognition. “I remember you! You were that bodyless head that came out of a beast’s gullet. Destrinn’s tits, what in the Abyss are you doing here?”
“I am—”
“Actually, I have no wish to know the truth. You and your disciple’s lies have pilfered through my consciousness more than enough. It is time you died.”
“Do your worst, Banishedborn.”
Rieren didn’t understand where the Elder’s confidence was coming from. She herself had barely kept up with Essastior’s power, and even with the possessed Clanmaster in the Dreadflood’s possession, it had only been able to hold back the Banishedborn for so long. Together, they might just be able to take on Essastior, but Rieren was nowhere near confident.
If anything, she was warier than ever.
The problem with more than one person facing off against a singular opponent was that it allowed the one fighting alone to make great use of unpredictability. Rieren wouldn’t be able to study and take advantage of any patterns in Essastior’s move set and abilities. With their enemy in a frenzy to tackle both opponents, things would be too chaotic to rely upon any suppositions.
Nevertheless, Rieren still vastly preferred the odds of taking on Essastior with someone like Elder Olg assisting her. Or perhaps, with him now holding the power of an S-Grade Abyssal and an Archnoble Clanmaster, she was the one helping him?
Regardless, Rieren was mostly just glad that he was in his right state of mind. That he was still her Elder, and not a monster out to destroy everything.
“Do you have a plan, Elder?” Rieren asked.
The corner of Elder Olg’s mouth curled upward sardonically. “To fight and win against him? Not really. I used up all my planning capabilities trying to figure out how in the world I could get where I currently am.”
That was fair enough. Rieren was curious how he had managed to succeed in his endeavour, but now wasn’t the time to assuage it. Essastior’s blood and lightning were growing in intensity. The battle was about to begin.
Their opponent gave no warning. Not that they needed one. Rieren’s gaze was fixed on every little twitch of Essastior’s body, as was Elder Olg’s.
It seemed that the Banishedborn had no intention of playing around. He started off with a thunderous explosion. The entire battlefield turned red as his blood burrowed beneath the surface and converted into lightning, the underground crimson turning brighter and brighter in mere breaths.
“Get close,” Elder Olg said.
Rieren didn’t hesitate to do so. The Elder was already erecting a defense, the dark liquid of the Dreadflood forming a flat surface that grew outwards beneath his feet and was reinforced by his Ashflame and the dark lightning.
At the outer edge of the dark pool, Rieren ensured her Domain was boiling with power and ready to withstand her aggressor’s imminent explosion.
The blast was impossibly furious. Far too bright as well. For what felt like at least a league around their position, the ground erupted into a massive lightning storm. The crimson bolts were everywhere, glowing so bright that the ground was now a pool of blinding red-white illumination.
Rieren was forced to squint her eyes against the furious display of her power. Their combination of Domains kept them safe for now, but it wouldn’t remain that way for long. Already the Elder’s dark shield and her water were vaporizing away.
As proven when Essastior attacked through his lightning storm.
“Back,” Elder Olg yelled, just as two enormous blood-crafted arms burst through the lightning storm.
Rieren threw herself to the edge of safety, her whole body tingling with in the air charged by the Banishedborn’s ability. Her sword was out, ready to defend herself, but the Elder was doing well to keep the fists from focusing only on him.
Before a curved spike of blood erupted out of the ground to stab into his guts.
Rieren reacted fast. A quick focus made what remained of her Domain shoot upwards in a heated geyser. The roiling water dissolved much of the Elder’s dark protection, but it also did the same to Essastior’s blood-forged, disembodied limbs. Most importantly, it had dislodged the Elder from the spike before the Banishedborn could take advantage of it.
“Thanks,” Elder Olg said. His Ashflame was already restoring his wounded guts to their original form.
“Not safe yet,” Rieren said through gritted teeth.
This was proven a moment later when Essastior fired his concentrated lightning beam. The horizontal column of energy flashed out of the dragon maw he had constructed over one arm with blood, roaring through the air as it charged straight at them.
Elder Olg righted himself as they reached the peak of their ascent. He crafted a quick shield of his three elements. It wasn’t enough.
While the worst of the crimson beam was stopped by his shield, the impact still gave rise to a furious explosion. The rippling shockwave and smaller red bolts flying everywhere hammered into Rieren and her Elder to send them both shooting backwards.
The only saving grace was the fact that all of Essastior’s lightning from the ground had ended. He’d left behind a devastated land, but it was at least free from further burning red sparks.
Rieren had been shocked and numbed by the pain from the mid-air explosion, but she was able to recover enough just before she landed. Using Earthfall Blade against the ground a heartbeat before impact let her shift her falling momentum into a harmless direction.
A quick look confirmed that Eder Olg was alright. He had suffered even worse than Rieren from the explosion, leaving his body burned and half-broken. Then the fall had crushed his arm entirely.
All of which were quickly being repaired by his Ashflame. It seemed the Dreadflood had increased his regenerative capabilities.
Rieren’s own Divine Resilience was working hard, fixing up the wounds left from that blast. But she couldn’t wait until it was finished. More lightning was flashing to life around Essastior, moments away from being flung at them with destructive force and power again. She had to move. Fast.
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Silken Passage carried her forward. It was almost as fast as Gale Blade, her perception only able to keep up with the pace of her motion thanks to her Mind.
She was fast enough and far enough that Essastior’s lightning would never have struck her. He just wouldn’t be able to target her appropriately. So instead, he reformed much of the lightning into a stormy spray of blood, which he then flung in her general direction in a powerful, bloody barrage.
Rieren couldn’t have avoided that flurry even with Silken Passage’s help. There was Earthfall Blade at the highest Grade to help her, however.
Her skill allowed her to block the blood pellets shooting in as fast as thunderbolts. A great improvement for the skill at its latest Grade was the ability to add a tiny repelling wave every time Rieren blocked anything. This had the effect of throwing back all the blood heading in a wider area of effect.
In essence, if Rieren successfully blocked one pellet of blood, every other blood pellet in a radius of three paces was deflected away as well. She didn’t even have to block them directly.
Essastior’s attacks were relentlessly multifaceted, of course. It wasn’t enough that Rieren was dealing with a hailstorm of shocking, blood pellets accompanied by a barrage of scarlet lightning bolts. A separate limb constructed entirely of hardened blood created his enormous lightning glaive, which he proceeded to slam in Rieren’s direction.
She was able to jump over the wave while still using Silken Passage, but the skill’s use was going to end soon. Rieren needed to keep some in reserve just in case she really had to use it later in the battle.
That was when Elder Olg decided to save the day. He charged at Essastior with his body fully healed, throwing meteoric blasts of his Ashflame. Dark lightning and the Abyssal’s liquid body followed close behind.
Just for a moment, she and Elder Olg exchanged glances. It was too quick. If Rieren didn’t have her Mind stat, she would have missed it and what it meant to say.
But she knew that he was creating an opening.
The Banishedborn was already attempting to overwhelm him. His blood-forged limbs blocked the Elder’s attacks with ease, and his red lightning made short work of anything else Elder Olg might have thrown.
When he counterattacked, Elder Olg was faced with the full brunt of a Banishedborn’s power. Even with the Dreadflood’s strength at his disposal, which allowed him to block a devastating thunderbolt and restrain one of the bloody limbs from skewering him, Essastior still managed to hammer him in the face with a blurringly fast, lightning-wreathed fist.
Elder Olg was thrown off his feet and sent tumbling backwards. But at least he wasn’t hurt worse. Rieren intercepted just in time.
Wrath of the Swordwing burned to life behind her back, a thousand glowing swords materializing to life and power. A quick flip sent them flying in an explosive storm towards the Banishedborn, who was forced to swivel all his attention towards Rieren’s attack.
He didn’t have much trouble blocking most of the flying blades. A burst of wild red bolts and flying blood shot out of the arm he pointed at her. The collision between his counter and Wrath of the Swordwing made Rieren’s glowing swords detonate long before they reached him. Some made it through the explosion to fly towards their target, but they either missed or were shot down.
That was fine. The enormous explosion had created a wide cover, one Rieren was already using to great effect as she ran and circled around the Banishedborn.
She was right to get moving. Just as the blood swirling underground had done before, it broke out of the earth in spike appendages. Essastior had sought to take advantage of the explosion to lure Rieren into a false sense of security, which he would have taken advantage of to deadly effect.
But she had seen through it. That was why she was already running towards the other end of the explosion.
Right where Elder Olg had almost recovered from the Banishedborn’s blow.
“Now is our chance,” Rieren said as she passed him. “All I need is one, clear opening.”
Elder Olg straightened. His Ashflame was burning across his ravaged face to heal him up. “One clear opening… that might be all I can manage, but I will deliver it.”
As Rieren shot past him, her legs pumping as fast as they could and making use of every iota of her increased Body stat, Elder Olg ran forward. Rieren kept one eye on his attempt at creating the opening she needed as she continued running.
Empowered by the Abyssal he had possessed, Elder Olg flashed over the ground even faster than Rieren. Ashflame fireballs erupted around him to shoot at the Banishedborn. Dark lightning zapped ahead as a precursor of his power, seeking to weaken Essastior’s defence before the fireballs struck home.
“Pathetic,” Essastior yelled. “Die!”
The Banishedborn sent a crimson lightning storm flying into the Elder. It hammered into the Ashflame to stop the flaming barrage long before they reached their target. Blood-forged limbs popped up in time to block the dark lightning from hitting.
Elder Olg wasn’t to be stopped so easily. He kept on running, dashing through the explosion of the Banishedborn’s lightning with his Ashflame. More power burst out of him. Relentless Ashflame fireballs, ceaseless dark lightning sparking to life all around him, and even the dark flood boiling to life to roar at Essastior in a black tidal wave.
The Banishedborn was momentarily overwhelmed enough to pay no attention at all to Rieren. A wall of blood went up in a desperate attempt to stop the incredible and surprising volley of power Elder Olg had flung at him.
There. This was the opening Rieren needed. She began using the last of her Silken Passage to keep circling while she closed the distance between herself and Essastior.
The exchange between the Elder and Essastior turned outright furious. Powers burst and flashed around them with incredible ferocity, so quick and in such a high frequency that Rieren could barely keep track of them. She knew that she herself would never have been able to stand toe to toe against Essastior in an exchange like that. Not in her current form.
Even Elder Olg couldn’t. Try as he might, he couldn’t keep it up for long. That was fine. All Rieren needed was one opportunity. Elder Olg had delivered that well enough.
Essastior’s barrage of blood and lightning got the better of Elder Olg. He had blocked the Banishedborn’s punches and kicks, but one thing he had forgotten was Essastior’s mouth. The red-haired bastard opened his jaws wide and spat out a geyser of lightning-infused blood that struck Elder Olg point blank.
It had the exact devastating effect one would expect a Banishedborn’s attack to have.
Elder Olg’s whole torse exploded in a gout of flesh, bones, and dark blood. Rieren had to cut off her scream at the sight. She was this close. Elder Olg’s sacrifice would mean nothing if she blew it now.
Nevertheless, Essastior still saw her. No problem. Rieren was close enough for her final ploy. She launched Swordstorm Severance.
When Batcat had once again used Call of the Past, Rieren knew she had advanced to a point in time where Gale Blade had been replaced by Swordstorm Severance. It was an upgrade over Gale Blade in many ways.
For one, it took Rieren towards her target with a furious burst of momentum that created a comet-shaped shield around her charge. Anything touching the shield would be slashed away by her sword. For another, the flurry of slices it unleashed was under far greater control of Rieren herself.
Despite all that, Essastior might have blocked it. He was a Banishedborn after all, someone in the Late-Fated realm at the very least. The wall of blood he was erecting as a shield that sparked with lightning might have been strong enough to halt Rieren’s charge, even when it was empowered by Swordstorm Severance.
Had it not been for Elder Olg.
Just before his body had been virtually destroyed by Essastior’s attack, he had thrown up a little cloud of Ashflame. Most of it had dispersed. But one ember had remained, floating just over the Banishedborn.
From this ember, Elder Olg’s arm had regenerated, complete with a fully formed dark lightning bolt. One of the same, towering bolts the possessed Clanmaster had used. Disembodied though the arm might be, it still hammered its enormous armament down on the unsuspecting Essastior, who was too busy preparing for Rieren’s imminent collision.
He screamed as black lightning coruscated over his body. The blood-forged wall he had been about to erect crumbled before Rieren could reach it.
Leaving the path open for her to crash into him with all her might.
Her first slash cut across his belly. The second one nearly tore off his right arm, while the third and fourth lopped chunks off his shoulder and blinded him in one eye.
Even still, Essastior managed to stop her before she could get anywhere close to killing him outright. Blood from all the wounds she’d left burst outwards, catching her blade and stopping it cold as the crimson liquid hardened instantly. Rieren was stuck, the momentum of her skill completely eradicated.
A second later, thunder and lightning exploded at the tip of Essastior’s foot. Rieren was at the exact position where contact with his rising foot would have torn her head clean off her shoulders. She couldn’t even defend herself with her blade stuck.
Except, freeing it was easy. All Rieren had to do was pull it into her storage ring and immediately pull it back out, already held in the horizontal position that would best block the Banishedborn’s lightning-wreathed boot. In that split second, she had also used Enchant to turn it into the Mountain Blade, the best sword of legend that could withstand any blow.
Though the worst of the hit was stopped by Rieren’s blade, Essastior’s kick still sent her sword flying and struck her torso hard, sending her sailing too. Even her scream was cut short.
The last thing she saw before pain turned her world black was Elder Olg landing down near the Banishedborn in a storm of Ashflame and black lightning. Rieren managed to grin through the all-consuming pain. Maybe she was the one who had ended up creating the opening.