~*Galen*~
I braced myself as Strom’s trident came around as he spun and landed the back swing cleanly against my spear. I felt the ground give slightly as I slid backward from the force of the blow. He may not have been proficient in his Blessings of Wind or Soul but he was definitely an experienced fighter.
I turned and whipped my spear up bringing a shower of rocks in its wake. Strom spun his trident in front of him creating a small vortex to deflect the rocks away. I didn’t give him any time to counter as I stabbed my spear in the air above my head causing the ground to rise up around Strom’s feet in two halves. The two slabs of rock tried to sandwich him in between them and crush him. To my surprise Strom leapt into the air and took off flying overhead. I had to smile, if he thought he was going to gain the upper hand in the air he was sadly mistaken.
I launched myself into the air and made straight for his chest. Slashing my spear through the air in his direction, I sent a blast of wind to throw him sideways. My efforts were rewarded as I heard him let out a shout of surprise when he was tossed to my left and I corrected my trajectory to follow.
Strom threw out his arms and legs to stop his tumble by letting out a blast of wind to counter the gust I had thrown at him. I was closing in on him when he raised his trident up in the air and nearby clouds swirled around him concealing him from view. I stopped and hovered in place waiting to see what he’d do next.
I didn’t have to wait long as shards of ice began to come rocketing out of the cloud. I flipped backwards in a large loop to avoid being impaled. As I righted myself I stopped the next few in mid air with my own will and sent them right back into the cloud. I heard a thud and some muffled curses as I had managed to score a hit or two. I’d have to inform him that his projectiles could be used against him if he didn’t keep control over them.
Huge chunks of ice started to hurtle out from the cloud now. These would be harder to redirect just on sheer mass and speed. I didn’t have to worry too much about these since there were fewer in number and his aim was more sporadic and haphazard now.
Well, since he didn’t seem to have any inclination of coming out from his cloud any time soon and he appeared to be pulling more clouds to him to give himself more ammo to throw at me. I raised my spear into the air and began to slowly move it in a side circle overhead. Aurum had explained how this worked a few times for me but I didn’t understand what he was talking about. Something about gathering particles into position to execute this move. All I know is that the movements seemed to make it easier to make this happen.
I pulled Earth and Wind Blessings together for this. I may not be too proficient with Earth and Fire to manipulate metal, but this didn’t require precision to work. Just as long as you were able to mass raw power and then just bash them together you’d get the desired effect. Fine tuned targeting was the issue with this, that could be a bit unpredictable if you didn’t line things up right. However, since my target was hiding in a large cloud of frozen water, my chances of a successful hit were pretty much guaranteed.
I whipped my spear down, flinging Wind down in the cloud as I pulled Earth up from below. The two colliding forces met in a dazzling display of violence. The air became charged and the hair on my body stood on end as the wild energy ignited.
“INDIGNATION.”
There was a loud crack of thunder followed by a few residual bursts of charged energy and I watched Strom’s form fall from the cloud. His Aegis giving off wisps of smoke in its wake. An Aegis was a powerful set of armor that protects its bearer from many forms of damage, unfortunately, his was Water aligned and there was no protection from a lightning bolt.
I chased after him as he fell. He wasn’t moving and I didn’t think showing up with a dead recruit would look good for morale. I got close to him and gave him a little shake “Strom, wake up!” He started and slashed his trident at me. The fool didn’t realize what’s happening. I spun in rotation of his stroke narrowly avoiding taking a prong to the faceplate. Using the momentum of my spin to bring my spear down in to his abdomen with a satisfying clang and let out a grunt as the wind was knocked out of him. My satisfaction quickly turned to worry as I noticed the ground coming at us with alarming speed.
Strom used my distraction to kick me in the chest and spin us around so that I was now falling below him. He stabbed his trident towards my neck and locked the prongs in between my breastplate and helm. He had managed to capture my spear in the trident as well, essentially capturing my weapon against my chest.
I didn’t have long to struggle as we crashed in the ground, me taking the brunt of the impact while he was standing on my torso. Thanks to my Earth Blessing I was able to soften the blow and not have my bones shattered and organs rupture. The abrupt stop was still jarring and I took a second to get my bearings.
Strom was thrown off balance slightly from the landing and even though I could see through my helm as if it wasn’t there, all I saw was a vague ghost outline of my armor, I couldn’t see through Strom’s but I knew he was smiling wickedly.
His face plate slid open and I was right, he had a huge prideful smile plastered across his face. “Looks like this is my Vic-”
I was filled with an extreme surge of satisfaction as his smile quickly turned to confusion as I kicked my leg up connecting with his back and sent him flying through the air. With being back on the ground came the return of my Earth enhanced strength. I flipped up back on to my feet and watched as Strom flew through the air and snow swirled up around him and he landed with a squish. I would have to let him know that was also extremely resourceful of him to cushion his landing.
I walked back at my leisure. I wasn’t too worried about him jumping out and attacking me anymore. His snowball trick cost him more than he thought it would. It had tumbled for a bit before coming to a sloshy stop. I heated the tip of my spear and waved it through the slush until I found Strom laid sprawled out on his back. His faceplate still open and a dazed stare on his face.
I tapped lightly on his helm until his eyes tracked over to me. “Draw?” I offered up.
“Sure.” I offered him my hand and he shook his head. “I think I’ll lay here for a bit, its cool and squishy.”
I shrugged. “Suit yourself. Don’t be too long, we have to get back on the road. Now that you’re flying has gotten more proficient, we should just finish this the fast way.” He nodded in response. I arched an eyebrow but walked back to our packs to wait for him to finish his quiet contemplation.
~*Aurum*~
I just stood there frozen in place.
There were no more Shadow Knights. They had all been wiped out after The Rivening and thus the War for Power ensued.
Yet, here was one before my eyes. Alive and well. I glanced around, somewhat alive and well.
I stood there in silent shock at first, then in fear as his alpha pheromones hit me. He was silenting trying to warn me away with a warning. Then I heard his deep voice drift over to me, ragged and hoarse.
“What’s wrong, never seen a dying man before, Omega?” His body shuddered as a small coughing fit took him. He quieted back down with deep irregular wheezes.
I did another visual inspection and this time I actually took in the extent of his injuries with a more discerning eye.
His deep black Aegis was built for someone with a large muscled physique, he made Galen seem slender by comparison. There were deep gouges from claws across the armor. One particular slash mark had ripped open his helm and I could see one deep smoldering golden orb glaring at me from within the shadowed recesses.
I took a few steps closer to him and a deep warning growl began to emanate from the large alpha.
Really?
Alphas hate to appear weak or need to help. Shadow Knights were notoriously prideful. To the point of self destruction.
Case in point.
I leaned over and placed my arm under the large trunk of the fallen tree and lifted. I had to strain a bit as I had already been stretched pretty thin the last day and a half. The tree let out a deep loud creaking groan and a small thundering crash as I tossed it to the side. The body of the Corrupted hissed as the sunlight poured down on the bloated blotchy body. It didn’t dissolve as it should have in full sunlight and I was confused as to why not I took another step towards the downed Alpha as I thought of the reasons why.
“Stop!” He raised his arm to me to ward me away.
“What is your pro-” I froze again as I saw the dark shard of Dythzeoid that was sticking out from the right lower quadrant of his abdomen.
“Where did that come from?” I asked in a harsh whisper. That would explain why the infected body wasn’t dissipating away. The Dynthzeoid was fueling its form.
“You know what this is?”
Regrettably, yes. I continued to stare in silent horror as he attempted to grab on to the shard of metal and pulled it out of his body. It pulsed and his hand and arm spasmed as if he had been shocked and his arm fell to his side.
“As you can see, there isn’t a way to remove it. I will turn into one of those.” His head turned slightly to glare at the body of the corrupted. “But, I think you already knew that.” His chest heaved slightly as he tried to take in more breaths. “It’s apparent that you have a Blessing in Earth, at least. I suggest you use that Blessing to crush me and then bury my body as deep as you can get it. Hopefully then, this-” He motioned to the Dynthezoid. “-won’t effect anyone or anything else to cause any more horror.”
His breathing continued in ragged rasps. That one golden eye continued to smolder from within his helm as he stared at me. I had to suppress a shudder as a chill went up my spine. I took another tentative step to him and knelt down. I placed my hand on his thigh and scanned his body with Soul. The Dynthezoid had impaled him clean through and was pinning him to the ground. Even if this had been a normal piece of metal all the jagged pieces splintering off of it would have made it almost impossible to remove it from him. A majority of his left ribs had been crushed and his lung was slowly filling with blood and being squeezed down to the size of a pancake.
I gathered up Soul, Wind and Water and began to heal the damage to his ribs and lung. His legs would have to wait as a majority of the bones from the femur down had been crushed, no, shattered. They weren’t as big a priority as breathing right now.
“What are you doing?!” He hissed at me. His pheromones surged in anger. He snatched my wrist and yanked on me until I was staring at that one blazing eye. “I told you I’m already dead! Stop trying to help and end this!” His grip on my wrist loosened as his body was wracked by another fit of coughing and his arm spasmed from the Dynthezoid digging further into his flesh.
I gently removed my arm from his hand. It had completely engulfed my wrist almost twice over. His hand was massive. Everything about him was just . . . BIG.
Including his attitude.
I scoffed. “Imagine, a Shadow Knight asking for death. No, begging at this point. What would the great Kageyami say to that?” His eye narrowed at me. Hitting him in the pride definitely worked as he went silent, having mentioned the founder of the Shadow Knight Order.
I shuffled over closer to him and placed my hands on his breastplate and went back to fixing his chest. Once that was done I focused on his legs. Pulling the bones back together, specifically dense load bearing ones wasn’t slow arduous work. I listened to his grunts and watched his body twitch as the bones slowly slid back into place and fused.
Painful work.
“Why do you do this? If you know what this is-” He waved his hand towards the Dynthezoid. “You know as well as I do that you are only dooming me to continue on as a undead nightmare. That will go on to infect others and spread this horror.” His breathing had become easier but it was still strained from the wound to his abdomen.
I could see why he didn’t free himself from his predicament. He couldn’t. Dynthezoid rendered most Blessings inert. It was the raw form of a Subjugation Band. The reason why my Earth Blessing had been thwarted was because of this shard, Normally it wouldn’t have had such a wide area of effect but it was feeding off the Shadow energy that this Alpha possessed.
I was only able to use my Blessings because of my own special circumstances.
Speaking of . . .
My hand strayed towards the Dynthezoid.
“Stop!” He went to grab my arm but caused his body to move and the metal dug into his flesh more and he spasmed and went still.
“Why do you keep trying to stop me? Isn’t it obvious that I know things you don’t?” I let out a steadying breath and let down my spiritual wards. I almost immediately felt the warm rush of power well up within me. It was quickly starting to get to the point where it was becoming a burning hot instead of a welcomed warmth.
I gazed right into that golden eye and took a hold of the Dythezoid. “However, there are a few things that I’m unaware of and for that, you are needed to provide clarity.”
Reality seemed to be reduced to nothing but brightness as everything faded away in the white.
Then all that was left was the void of darkness.
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