Chapter 10

Lavinia swipes, scratching away heaps of rock and debris from the thrashing rock-serpent. Leaping off as its igneous form lashes out, smashing the ground with a rumbling tail whip. Landing on its body Lavinia digs in as a pest, Essence infused claws sunk deep she starts off sprinting.

"Aaahh!" letting out a battle cry of her own she claws out a line of crystal, dirt and rock as she runs up the rock-serpent. Another slam and unworldly hiss, the rock-serpent whips and tosses, forcing her off as it battles with the cave walls for space.

"Your Chosen is lost, a bloody paste between rocks!" The Berserker starts, rejuvenated and without any of the wounds Ken inflicted thanks to his Caster. Waving his massive sword at Lucy he demands, "Submit, Caster."

Looking up from the embrace of the shrubs where the Sniffer had fallen, Lucy measures the Berserker and casts a glance at on looking Lavinia before gracing an answer, "He would've won if you didn't cheat, Casters aren't meant to get this involved."

"Haha, the restrictions always have loopholes, animating dirt and magic-sensitive crystals into a mindless monster isn't against the rules." The Berserker's Caster quickly defends himself, walking up behind him with a wide grin, "Once you join us, you'll learn many techniques."

"Can't have two Casters on a team." Lucy counters, gripping her staff.

His grin grows as he sizes her up, "Who said you'd be joining as a Caster?"

Lucy's lips curl into a sneer, "Well then, I'll have to decline your offer. Lavinia!"

Lavinia, startled by her own name jolts away from the tossing rock serpent, it roars after her, releasing itself from vertical confines to incline on its rocky belly. It's maw rages, snapping at Lavinia's dust trail as she leads the mindless creature towards the bickering humans.

Lucy raises her staff, ignoring the leers and positioning of the Berserkers group behind her as she channels power into the end of her staff and strikes the ground once Lavinia dives face first through her legs. A shimmer of her power ripples through the air and the rock serpent smashes its head into incorporeal wall Lucy's divined. Rock, crystals and dirt splatter through, bathing the Berserker in his trump card's remains.

Lucy snaps to him, pointing the staff tip at his head, "Not a step closer." She warns, pulling Lavinia away from her legs without looking away she commands, "Lavinia, watch the other one."

Facing another being with the same energies as Lucy is a larger challenge than even the rock-serpent. Exhausted of Essence she bares her fangs up at the fiend as is all her strength will allow.

"What do you think you're doing, Caster? Your Chosen is-!"

"A bloody paste between rocks? I heard you the first time." Lucy drawls, "But I'd rather die than submit to a brute worse than Ken, and you are worse than Ken."

The Berserker breathes so heavily Lavinia could swear it billows the hairs on her neck standing behind Lucy. His voice booms with an enraged response and Lucy take her first step back, forcing Lavinia forward to the Caster looming over her.

His staff nothing like Lucy's strange blood metal. His is a long rod with roots growing out of the sides. Up till now this Caster hasn't looked a Lavinia, he flashes his row of teeth at her, unable to keep a grin off his face as he says, "You snatched yourself a familiar, a strong one too…assuming I don't snuff it out of existence right now."

Lavinia steps back, uneased by the man. He lurches forward to snatch Lavinia, she swipes but doesn't reach him as the earth crumbles around his feet. Embarrassed, he loses the grin as on all fours he struggles to pull his feet out, "Ah! W-what's going on?" he gasps as he's drawn knee-deep into the ground. "Nei! Nei, I'm-!"

He's taken neck deep in one go, dirt and rock fill his mouth before another word can be uttered.

"What are you doing?" The Berserker roars, brushing past Lucy to address his Caster. Lavinia gives the towering Berserker some breadth of space as he squats beside the sinkhole. Grabbing a handful of hair of his unspeaking Caster he pulls and yells, "Get out of there!"

Blood bathes him as the severed head of the Caster is all he drags out, "No!" Without the head the body sinks away and a pool of darkness forms where it bled. Distracted by his Caster's head, the Berserker is that last to notice Ken's curved blades slice out of the pool of darkness. Stealing two swift slashes at the Berserker's eyes and neck, Ken rises out of the gap, his head and hair drenched in the Casters blood and his eyes trained on his screaming foe.

Ken presses forth, his blades set to skewer the Berserker but a man catches his wrists. "Enough, this is pointless, the Sniffer is dead, isn't it?"

Lavinia recognizes the man in an instant as the one she slashed right as the battle with the Sniffer started. He should be dead or injured but all proof of her [Reais Smite] is in his ripped white shirt.

"You let them kill the Caster!" Nei, the Berserker cries, crawling away from Ken with squinted eyes. "You let them kill the Sniffer too! What a useless Chosen you are, Henry."

Henry, the Berserker's Chosen only holds Ken's bloody glare, letting up only when Ken looks away, "And now we're two teams without a Sniffer, one without a Caster too." Ken groans to his feet, stumbling back into Lucy's arm he manages to prop himself up against a mossy wall.

All four humans look between themselves, Lucy breaking the tense silence, "Why didn't you intervene earlier, Henry?"

"I couldn't." his eyes glimpse at Lavinia, pouring a cold stare over her as she rethinks her earlier evaluation of the man. He is no mouse.

Lucy purses her lips, the curt answer clearly unsatisfactory she glances at a heaving Ken— the rock-serpent riddled his body with punctures and covered it all in dirt, it's amazing he managed to end their Caster.

"No matter, we win now. You're outmatched." Nei says, growling as he hoisters himself up. "Leave everything behind, including that familiar of yours, or die."