Shadow-Geuse Hands

"Shit." he mutters as he stands and allows Henrietta to see the glassy-eyed Agnes and Louise staring at them. "Fucking Ring of Andvari." he grouses, shocking Henrietta at the name of the artifact.

"Then they are-"

"Controlled." he finishes for her. He draws Derflinger from his waist and cuts her bonds before turning towards Sheffield. "I'LL LET YOU GUYS HANDLE THEM! SHE'S MINE!" he shouts, loud enough for Tiffania and Ralf to hear.

With that, he pounces towards Sheffield, leaving Henrietta standing there weaponless as her mind-controlled subjects slowly advance towards her, weapons at the ready.

She slowly backs away, unsure how to react in this situation, or even if she should run or stay and help them break from the spell. Her eyes trail off to the side where her entourage of soldiers and mages begin marches up the hill towards her. Did this Sheffield woman intend to have her killed by her own subjects?

Fortunately, a shadow flies over her and blocks the sun temporarily, quickly landing and allowing the man named Ralf to leap forward and block the musket ball shot by Agnes. Tiffania quickly hops off of the dragon next, turning her attention towards Louise who seemed to be absent-mindedly casting an explosion spell, only to be forced to dodge to the side as Tiffania's own 'Erase' spell flies past her ineffectually.

"Princess, stay behind me." she says, hoping to prevent any casualties from Sheffield's magic... Even if such a thing was terribly unlikely.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Michael shoots towards Sheffield like a bullet, his Essence Shift passive wasn't stacked at all, so that combined with Shadow Dance being inactive massively lowers his usual speed. But he's still significantly faster than your average person.

He quickly arrives atop the hill where Sheffield was standing, the woman tucking the Prayer Book in between her breasts as he holds out her palms towards Michael in a combat stance.

"I've been waiting for months to do this! Take this you cunt!" he exclaims as he uses Blink Strike, appearing behind her and chopping down heavily with Derflinger as said blade cheers for his partner's success.

*Thwip!*

His blade passes through nothing however, as Sheffield rolls to the side, obviously having anticipated such an attack from her previous experience observing Michael. Still, the speed of his attack has her stumbling to avoid it, forcing her to swipe a hand at him, causing her shadow hand to manifest and smack him in the chest with a backhand.

"Argh!" he grunts as he's sent tumbling away from the force of the attack, eventually sliding to a stop as he finally catches himself. Her attack had knocked the wind out of him, but it hadn't done in real damage, none that he couldn't heal in a second or two at least.

"Not looking so tough now, Gandalfr." she chuckles as runes he'd never seen before begin glowing on her forehead under the fringe of her hair.

"Mjöðvitnir?" he mutters, quickly recalling anything he'd read on it. He knew she was a Void Familiar, but what runes she had was another matter entirely. Mjöðvitnir was known as the Mind of God, which had something to do with magical artifacts... Kind of expected given the many shiny baubles she always seemed to be wearing.

The runes on her forehead grow brighter with more intensity as more shadows manifest around her bracelet. The single hand of shadows splits into two, then four, then eight. This continues until there were around thirty large shadow hands sprouting from her shadow.

Things don't just end there however, her boots flash with light as she literally steps on the air, as if standing on an invisible platform. She jumps again as Michael picks his jaw up off of the floor and begins to act, but by then her shadow hands were already darting towards him.

"Time to show your worth, Derflinger!" he exclaims as he swings the magic eating swords towards the shadow hands.

"I have no idea what you mean, partner!" the sword yelps, unaware of his own abilities due to some kind of mental block or senility only found among old sentient artifacts.

Fortunately, the blade swings true, sucking the shadow hands up like a vacuum cleaner every time he comes into contact with them.

Sheffield squints at the ease with which her summoned appendages are eliminated, but just focuses and summons more of them, though, this does come with some costs. Her bracelet cracks slightly as her runes glow brighter, the enchantments on it being overtaxed.

Indeed, her Mjöðvitnir runes didn't just allow her to easily use any artifact. But use artifacts in ways their creators hadn't intended. Her bracelet was known as the 'Shadow-Grasp Band', as was only intended to summon a single shadow hand at a time. Additionally, it these hands could only manifest from the bracelet itself, instead of Sheffield's shadows.

Her boots were no different, only intended to create temporary footholds so that the user could 'double-jump', but the footholds she was creating lasted as long as she wished... At the expense of her boots durability.

Not that Michael was aware of any of this, content to continue destroying her manifested shadow hands with Derflinger. Unknowingly sucking the Shadow-Grasp Band dry of its enchantments as Derflinger continued eating the magic made manifest by it.

Sheffield growls, and retrieve some inconspicuous-looking spherical stones that occasionally pulsed with red light. She focuses on them with her runes before tossing them at Michael in a haphazard manner. She lacked accuracy, but the number of projectiles she'd scattered made up for it.

Michael notices this, but isn't willing to flee until Derflinger shouts in fright, "Partner! Run! Firestones!" he exclaims, causing Michael to sweatdrop. Firestones? Like the Windstones used to summon a gigantic tornado in Antomiers? "Shit!" he murmurs, quickly summoning Counter Spell and simultaneously Pouncing away, just in time too, as the stones explode with a tremendous *BOOOOM!*.