Chapter 183: A Dance of Death

Olfred Warend

The thin, hair-like strands all across my armor waved like reeds in the wind, quietly dancing in tune with my inevitable demise. The air in my lungs shuddered once more, my continued breathing only allowed by the elven lance across from me.

I kept my hands raised in submission as I faced Aya. Her eyes were sharp and deadly, like the way she treated her enemies.

I'd lured the boy, Arthur Leywin, here on instruction from Elder Rahdeas. His disposal was supposed to be clean and quick, as my father needed. But Retainer Uto–damn the man–had opted to go and fight, leaving me to face off with Lance Phantasm–who Arthur had brought in anticipation of my betrayal–within the bunker I'd created for the Alacryans.

I only hope Rahdeas survives what is coming to him, I thought, feeling a vein in my neck pulse. The Council won't be merciful to him. But… but I will not be here to protect him.

I slowly nodded at the elven Lance across from me in acknowledgment. She had burns along her arms from where I'd managed to score her body, but the damage was minimal. "Despite our disagreements, it was an honor working with you," I said honestly, preparing myself to die.

I thought I saw a bare sliver of remorse in Aya's hard eyes, but I knew I'd never be able to confirm it. The air left my lungs, streaming out in a slow swirl. I fell to my knees, my vision blackening at the edges as I prepared for Mother Earth's embrace.

Will it only be darkness? I found myself thinking as shadow slowly overtook my body. Is… is that all?

My eyes finally closed, and I expected to never open them again.

But then something strange happened. A buzzing, barely audible, brushed against my ears as it neared. And suddenly, I could breathe again. My lungs burned as I gasped, my eyes shooting open as I coughed. I retched dizzily as my vision flashed, my hands digging into the earth beneath my feet.

Someone else stood over me, blocking the elven Lance from my sight. I blinked, struggling to focus my sight. Who…

"You managed to sever my mana strands," Aya said, the mist around us suddenly thickening once more. "Peculiar man. And who might you be, to interrupt my kill?" she asked, her voice dropping dangerously at the last words.

The man shifted from where he stood over me, bronze armor flashing in the low light. "Leave this place, Lance Phantasm," he said, his voice wavering unnaturally. "Olfred Warend will not die today."

"Now, that's not something you can so casually decide," Aya's smooth voice said, echoing from all sides. "To deny a Lance her fight. I've heard about you, though. The phoenix hybrid, wasn't it?"

I groaned as I struggled to pull myself to my feet, my body sluggish and unresponsive. I needed to fight, to–

"You're suffering from oxygen deprivation damage to your body. Retreat into the walls, Olfred," a voice seemed to whisper right beside my other ear. The voice of the man above me. "Scythe Seris is here to retrieve you. I can handle this here."

"So rude to leave a lady out of your conversation," Aya's voice feathered against my ear. "There's another Alacryan here, then? That means I can get three heads in one simple attack!"

Aya flashed out of the mist, her arm coated in a whirlwind of compressed air as she struck at the intruder. To my surprise, the man managed to deflect the strike, retaliating with a fist covered in burning fire. It went straight through the illusory form of the elven Lance.

A distraction, I thought. And it's going to hit–

The Alacryan thrust his hand out, throwing a trio of fireballs to the side. They impacted Aya's wind blades, but her attack scythed right through his own. The man leveraged a burning blade of mana, swinging it and destroying the wind attacks as they nearly reached my prone body.

"Go," the man snapped, his strawberry-blonde hair whipping as he spun on his foot. "I can't protect you and fight her at once!"

I squeezed my eyes shut, recognizing the truth of his words. Then I allowed the earth to swallow me, drawing me away from the coming battle.

Toren Daen

I exhaled in relief as Olfred Warend's body was subsumed by the earth, settling back into stance. Mission success on that end, I thought, my eyes darting around the pervading mist. I kept my ears strengthened with mana, trying to hone in on Aya Grephin's pulsing heartfire.

All around me, eddies of mist swirled in a familiar way. The obscuring effects were the same as Karsien's mist used to be, except even more pronounced. I felt contained; my senses compressed into a small box that was too close for comfort. Sight and sound and touch all became mute, like I was dreaming underwater.

But I'd experienced this before.

I leapt upward, dodging a few blades of compressed wind that would have cut off my legs. I twisted midair, swiping with my blade of shrouded fire. It bisected an illusory elf as they tried to rip out my throat.

Just like Karsien, I thought, feeling my pulse in my ears as I blurred toward where I sensed the faintest heartbeat. The illusions can take physical form, but Lance Aya can't hide her true self from me!

The mist parted around me as I shot through it like a rocket, my blade burning away every bit of fog that it trailed through. I appeared right in front of Aya Grephin, her eyes widening in shock as her Elshire Mist spell failed to mask her presence.

I swung my blade sideways, trying to cut at the elven shadow. But for all that I was fast, the elf herself was no joke.

A swirling whirlwind spear of wind compressed itself around the Lance's arm as my blade neared her head. She twisted supernaturally, my attack severing a few locks of hair as she ducked. She hissed like a cat, retaliating by trying to drive her arm into my side.

Sensing that I couldn't avoid this naturally, I made a split-second decision and engaged my telekinetic emblem. A few flashes of white appeared along the black-haired elf's body, pulling us closer with a lurch.

Her wind-clad hand clipped my bronze armor, rattling my body from the sheer force as it was drawn off course. But the punch that I sank into her stomach was more successful.

Except…

My eyes widened in surprise behind my mask as Aya Grephin somehow caught my hand, then twisted midair to throw me back down toward the ground. I tumbled through the air, the mist seeming to swallow me whole once again.

I twisted as I shot back toward the earth, barely deflecting another blade of compressed air with a pulse of telekinesis. But then a gust of wind streaked in from the side, sending me flying into a wall.

My telekinetic shroud cracked from the force as the wall rumbled, a crater opening behind me. I groaned in pain as I felt my ribs creak, but I had no time to adjust. The elven lance seemed to be able to almost teleport around her misty domain spell, her pulsing lifeforce echoing in flashes all around the cavern.

"If this is all you have to offer, Alacryan, I find myself almost disappointed in taking your head," a sultry voice said from all sides, the sound seeming to somehow fade both in and out as it entered my eardrums. "I'll have to find Olfred after this, too. Can't have your kind making more slave camps across our continent."

I allowed myself to drop, deflecting a crescent of compressed air off the flat of my shrouded saber. I felt the impact travel up my arm, rattling my bones and making my teeth clench.

"You cannot afford to hold back against this one," Aurora advised. "She is exceptionally skilled in her illusions. It is worthy of respect, even from one such as I."

I pressed outward with an unfocused nimbus of fire as I hit the ground, burning away a space of fog all around me. Yet more mist just seeped in like a creeping blanket, filling the area up once more.

Yeah, she's far more skilled than Karsien was, I thought with gritted teeth. If I'm not careful, I'll lose my neck.

"That won't work," Aya mocked somewhere in the mists. "This mist is that of the Elshire Forest. Your incursions will never see you through the dawn, Alacryan," she said, an almost simpering allure in her echoing voice.

I took a deep breath, then let it out. "I'm not much of a talker during battle, Lance Phantasm," I said, feeling my pulse settle slightly, "But if there are any with claim to the light of dawn, then I am certainly among them."

I engaged my Acquire Phase, the familiar warmth and insight traveling along my veins. I exhaled a bit of steam as Aurora's mind solidified near my own. The chains along my arm glowed, banishing the darkness all around.

Aya Grephin's presence concealing abilities were absurd. Even in my First Phase, I struggled to detect her mana signature accurately from how it seemed to reverberate everywhere and nowhere at once. She seemed to be able to become the very wind itself, granting near-perfect movement through the entire space.

But she could not hide the flame of her heart from me.

I held a hand out to the side, engaging my magic. Fire and sound mana met in a cacophonous tangle, and a beam of searing solid plasma erupted from my palm. It left a hole in the mist that refused to be filled as it trailed in an unerring line toward where I knew the Lance to be.

There was a sudden twist in the mana around me as Aya shifted, barely dodging the line of red energy. It slipped past her head, burrowing into the stone wall behind her. She stared, wide-eyed, at the hole of molten rock where my spell had melted a dozen feet through.

I locked gazes with the Lance, who suddenly seemed far more determined as she hovered in the air. "It seems you've got some tricks up your sleeve, Alacryan," she said, floating backward as her guard raised higher. "You'll have to show me how you use sound magic like that," she said, batting her eyelashes slowly.

I felt a slight frown tug at the edges of my lips as I added a layer of vibrating sound to my shrouded saber, turning it from fire to plasma. I flourished Inversion, which acted as a focusing base for my blade, then pointed it at the Lance. "I told you once, Lance Phantasm. Leave this place now."

The mist around us finally began to surge back in, patching over the hole my plasma beam had seared. "Oh, I'm afraid I can't do that," Aya said, her voice sounding as if it were right next to my ear. "Not when I'm so close. You'll have to forgive me, young man."

I turned my head, tracing Aya's red heartfire as she blitzed through her mist spell at absurd speeds. There was something wrong with that lifeforce, but I couldn't quite pinpoint what. It was… somehow compressed in a way that made each flare slow and tenuous.

I slid my foot back, squaring my stance as I leaned forward. "I'll need to show you the error of your ways, then," I whispered. Then I slammed a mindfire stamp into the earth, splintering the rock in a burst of fiery force. I blurred toward Aya's location, my plasma blade ready to cut and burn.

Within the mist, I saw how Aya's lifeforce snapped to the side, attempting to avoid my assault. A flurry of compressed blades of wind, each as large as I was tall, arced toward me from the shadows like angry swallows.

I didn't let her movement deter me. I used a few telekinetic pulls on the ground and ceiling, changing the momentum of my surge to whip toward the Lance. My saber bisected each wind blade with ease, passing through as if they didn't even exist.

Aya tried to move back once more, but for once, she met someone who could match her speed. I followed in hard pursuit, my blade deflecting anything that got too close.

An illusory clone leapt from the mists, trying to spear me with wind-shrouded hands. I peppered them with plasmashot, obliterating them as they appeared. Soon, I appeared in front of the Lance.

Her sharp face was a mask of determination as she thrust her hand out at me, a torrent of wind erupting that pushed me like a tornado. I tumbled away, each gale like that of a hurricane as it threw me back. I cursed internally as I was whipped backward, the sudden force disorienting and destructive. The mist coated my skin, seeping under my clothes and robbing me of heat.

I snarled, swiping my blade and releasing an arc of plasma. It surged through the gale undeterred, scything toward the still-retreating Lance like an executioner's axe. I sensed my attack hit, the gale sputtering out.

I tumbled once along the ground, then reoriented and settled myself on my feet. My breathing was slightly heavy, my pulse racing in my veins. I looked up at the hovering Lance Aya. Her face was a mask of pain as she clenched her shoulder, a smoking cut along it from my earlier attack.

I smirked slightly as I settled my breathing. Aya's powerset was a horrible matchup for my own abilities. She relied on her high mobility and undetectable presence to be a dagger in the dark, striking where one least expected her and evading easily in turn. She was an assassin true and true, relying on guerilla tactics and sly use of her illusions.

But I was almost as fast as the Lance, if not faster with my telekinesis. In this enclosed space, I could maneuver myself expertly using the ceiling and floor as supports. And my ability to see her heartfire negated her greatest advantage of stealth.

"It seems I need to take you more seriously," Aya said through gritted teeth, making her voice sound more alluring with her sound magic. "Such powerful magic for one so low," she mocked.

"You are going to lose this fight, Aya Grephin," I said with certainty. "Leave now. My objective is not to kill you."

"So kind of you to worry for my health," Aya said mockingly. "But if you're so eager for me to leave, it makes me wonder what you're trying to hide."

Just that I genuinely don't want to kill you, I thought with internal irritation. Ever think of that?

I sighed. "Okay then," I said, allowing my plasma saber to dissipate, leaving just Inversion in my hand. The white horn glowed with a familiar warmth. "Then this is going to hurt a lot more than it needed to."

I hurled Inversion at the Lance, accelerating it like a railroad spike with a pulse of telekinesis. There was a distorted boom as the horn broke the sound barrier, the mist rippling around it as it became a streak of white, orange, and purple.

Lance Aya zipped to the side, barely avoiding the horn as it streaked past her. The horn sank deep into the roof of the cave, but I was already moving.

I shot toward the elven Lance, my hands coated in vibrating sound as I threw a punch at her face. She ducked that easily enough, but my telekinetic knee that impacted her gut sent her body lurching higher up into the air. Even as the strike hit, however, she managed to turn slightly to lessen the impact of the blow. She grunted in pain, a bit of blood leaving her lips.

With a pull on Inversion above, it dislodged from the ceiling, surging back toward Phantasm. Aya seemed to sense the attack as it streaked toward her, beginning to twist supernaturally as her mist shrouded her body in a wraithlike figure.

I lashed out with a few telekinetic pulls on her body. They weren't strong enough to truly do any damage, but I didn't need them to. Only to keep her off balance. A spattering of fire appeared around Inversion as it streaked for the elven lance's body.

I surged up, and Inversion streaked down. Like the jaws of a beast, my pincer attack was poised to bite into the Lance from two sides.

Yet somehow, impossibly, the Lance managed to contort herself in a way that made me jealous as I shot past, arcing for the ceiling. Her eyes flashed victoriously as I caught Inversion, using it to try and deflect the spear of wind that sought my skull. But as I batted that aside, I left myself exposed.

Aya's singed hands shot out like a vicious snake, ensorcelling my dominant hand and holding it fast. She flowed like the wind as she grappled with me, forcing the hand with Inversion behind my back before slamming me up against the ceiling, pinning me against my own daggerlike horn. A spiderweb of cracks spread from the impact, and I felt my ribs creak and fracture from the blow. My weapon drove itself through my bronze soulmetal armor, piercing my stomach and erupting out somewhere around my spleen. Pain exploded across my body, blood leaking from my lips as I snarled.

Aya leaned in close to me, her breathing heavy and her mana shuddering as she held me against the ceiling. She kept my other arm pinned with her own, effectively immobilizing me on the stone as she mounted my chest upside-down. A forearm pressed against my throat as she threatened to choke me out. I could make out the perfect curve of her face as her lips brushed against my ear.

"You know, you're almost my type," she said sweetly, though the words came out as gasps. "It's been too long since I've had a good chase. Shame you're an Alacryan, though. Your head will look pretty when I deliver it to the Council," she whispered, seeming to think this battle was over.

My blood streamed down across Aya's white uniform, tainting it red that flickered with orange and purple. And as that stream of crimson splashed over the Lance's chest, the interplay revealed it to me. The strangeness that I felt in her lifeforce solidified into something more, and I knew what I had been sensing. "You won't have to worry about that," I ground out.

I built up a telekinetic push along my chest, a flurry of white mingling with my red blood. Aya sensed it well in time, of course, but she had to change her grapple to avoid the explosion of force. She released my hand as she shifted, building up another compressed spear of wind over her knife-like arm to drive into my skull.

I slammed a punch into her side, feeling my ribs creak and my body protest in agony. The elven Lance barely shifted, but that was enough. Her hand drove into the rock instead of my head.

Then I headbutted her. My metal facemask was certainly harder than the elf's bones, and I felt her nose crunch under my brutish attack. She reeled, blinking in surprise as blood sprayed from her face.

And she released my throat. That was a mistake.

I pressed my palm against her chest, fighting through the pain as I slowly bled out. I hissed through the blood coating my teeth, then released an explosive burst of telekinetic fire point blank across her sternum.

She shot back down to the ground with the force of a cannonball, the expansive mist evaporating as her mana core was rattled. The impact of the elven Lance's body with the ground sent tremors through the entire structure, causing dust to fall and chips of rock to tumble to the floor.

I fell from the ceiling myself, wincing as I tapped down on the ground. With a pained grunt, I ripped Inversion from my stomach, panting as I slowly healed over the wound. It wasn't an easy thing to mend, considering the level of damage. I had to be deliberate and intentional as I focused on healing.

"You did not fight to kill, Toren," Aurora admonished in my head, her worry palpable as I gradually regrew my inner organs. "And thus, this elf wounded you deeply. Were you more ready to use my plasma arts, this would not have been such a tough battle."

I don't want her dead, I thought, feeling my blood rise. But she made that kind of fucking difficult.

I marched over to where I felt the weakly sputtering mana signature of the Lance, a cloud of dust surrounding the impact crater. But through the glowing insight of my Acquire Phase, I could still see her flickering heartfire. And now that I'd seen the interplay, something else as well, streaking out from her chest.

I released a pulse of wide-area telekinesis in front of me, blowing away the dust around Lance Aya's body. She lay unconscious at the bottom of a crater the size of a house. Though her arms were seared and ragged burns stretched across her chest where I'd unleashed my last attack and I was certain she'd broken a few of her ribs on impact, I knew from her lifeforce that she'd survive.

I spat a wad of blood to the side. "I fucking hate mist users," I bemoaned as I watched the Lance's body, inspecting it for any sign of consciousness. "Stay down this time," I snarled, turning away when I saw none. Her rapid heartbeat had evened out in a manner that told me she was no longer awake, and her breathing had evened out as well.

I rolled my shoulders, running a hand over my side where my scaled armor had been pierced. It's a shame it got damaged so soon, I thought sadly. Sevren really put his heart into this.

But as I strode toward the exit, I paused as I noticed a strange reaction from the armor. It seemed to be… absorbing the remaining lifeforce from my blood that still stained it. If i looked close enough, I could swear the metal was regenerating. Like the sprouting leaves of the branches of a tree, reddish bronze metal seemed to solidify as it grew.

Well, that's nice, I thought absently. I won't have to tell Sevren about–

I snapped my hand out behind me on instinct, cinching my fingers shut like the sides of a vice.

Aya's arm, wrapped in a shroud of compressed wind, fell limp as her spell evaporated, a cool breeze blowing through my hair as it dissipated.

She gasped as she fell to her knees behind me, her eyes blown wide and uncomprehending as her last-ditch sneak attack failed. I held my hand out, my fingers coated in orange-purple lifeforce as they grasped empty air.

Except it wasn't empty. I held a red tether of heartfire tightly, feeling the flow of energy as it coursed under my skin. Aya's heartbeat increased as true terror suffused her intent, a primal sort of fear threading her bones as I held her life in my hand.

I saw how this tether led directly to Aya's heart, wrapping it in an almost familiar way, even though this vein of energy was not of my creation.

"Your Lance artifacts," I muttered, my hand gently yet firmly holding the chain that bound the elven Lance's heart, "They were made by a phoenix, Phantasm. An Asclepius. The tether that binds you to your monarchs is a weakness you never knew."

The Lance's breathing increased as she knelt, held in a rictus posture of submission as I grasped her binding oaths. She stared up at me, wide eyed and uncomprehending.

"I told you many, many times to leave, General Aya," I hissed, feeling anger rise in my gut at her attempted backstab. "This. Is. The. Last. Time," I snarled, feeling as my Phoenix Will burned against my mana channels. "So go. Tend to Lance Godspell and go back to your Council. If you don't, I will pull on this tether I hold, and your heart will cease to beat, as the artifacts intended. Do you understand?"

The elven Lance nodded slowly, her eyes focusing slightly through her fear. I narrowed my eyes, taking that as confirmation.

I turned around, walking away once more. This time, however, I maintained my grip on the Lance's tether as I went, denying her any chance to strike my back once more.

"Wait," Aya's voice called out, slightly nasal from her broken nose. "Wait!"

I paused, turning to look at the elven mage. Gone was her supernatural seductive aura, banished as her mana reserves neared empty. Her shoulder-length black hair clung to her bloodied face, her pristine skin covered in dust and scrapes.

"Why… why spare me?" she asked, still kneeling. "You could kill me. Remove a threat!"

I looked into the woman's eyes, seeing the confusion within. "This war is far more complicated than just Alacrya and Dicathen," I said sternly, sheathing Inversion at my side. "It is asura versus asura. We lessers are afterthoughts. Never forget that," I said with iron, turning on my heel and stalking toward the exit at last.