by Andrew Rowe
I could feel her disappointment at that.
We’ll find someone else like you someday. The other sacred swords, at least.
I gave her a pat on the hilt, then reached down and pushed the Pale Crescent back into its scabbard.
Hm. I guess I could wear it on my back, but that seems like it could get awkward. Maybe I could use the chain as a kind of belt?
Uh, yeah. Did you see what it could do? Realizing what her reaction was likely to be, I quickly continued. It’s not as impressive as you, of course. But these items have synergy with our existing abilities. We could probably get you to learn some of the other sword’s techniques.
She still sounded a little hesitant.
Dawn, we just won an amazing battle together. I’m not going to abandon you for some other sword, okay?
Yes, I promise.
<...Good. The pact is sealed. Your soul is mine.>
I snorted. That’s not how any of this works.
I was just about to reply when I felt something that made me draw in a swift breath and swing my gaze toward the doorway.
Power. I felt it even before it struck.
The throne room’s doors, still shut and reinforced by glowing runes, shattered in a single instant. The remains of them blasted inward.
And through the now-open doorway strode a woman carrying a crimson-bladed scythe with a bright red crystal embedded near the blade.
I recognized her in an instant. I’d seen her in the preparation room for my preliminary match, and more importantly, I’d seen her in one of the most important memory crystals I’d been given.
As she stepped forward into the room, she raised her scythe and offered me a sun-bright smile. “Keras Selyrian. You’re not the one I expected to be here, but you’ll do.”
I raised Dawnbringer into a defensive pose. “Wu Xiaofan, I believe?”
“That was the name this body used, once.” She stretched her arms, then cracked her neck.
My eyes narrowed. “You’re possessing her, then?”
Xiaofan — I’m going to call her that for simplicity’s sake — gave me a disdainful look. “Possession makes it sound like I’m a ghost playing parlor tricks. No, I’m not possessing her.” The corners of her lips turned upward. “It might be more appropriate to say that I ate her.”
My jaw tightened, and I felt an involuntary shiver.
I wasn’t planning to.
I wasn’t sure how much of a choice I’d have if she made the effort to attack, though. My muscles ached and my injuries burned.
I was in no shape for a fight with an opponent on her level. Using Body of Dawn had taxed my essence to its limit. I was weaker and slower than before I’d formed my first bond with Dawn, and from what I’d seen in the memory crystals, Xiaofan would have been a danger even at my strongest.
Xiaofan walked closer. She made no effort to reach for her scythe, walking right by it as she advanced across the room toward me.
“You’re the one who’s been killing tournament participants, aren’t you?” I tightened my jaw. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked when I was in such bad shape, but I had a feeling that if she wanted to try and kill me, she was going to do it regardless of how much I knew. She’d already admitted to eating someone, after all.
And it wasn’t like I was going to back down from fighting a monster like her, even if I could. Plans were already running through my head, and I was quickly taking stock of the few resources I had left at my disposal when the fight began.
“I’ve made a few sacrifices in the name of my master, but I can’t take all the credit. Many have worked to prepare for his arrival.” She’d crossed half the room.
I shifted to a more aggressive stance, preparing to move. “And you’ve been preparing by eliminating anyone with powerful fire magic. Is that his weakness?”
Xiaofan snarled. “My master has no weaknesses.”
“Right, right, sure. Well, if that’s the case, I suppose the you’re using the power you’ve stolen from those flame sorcerers to fuel something.” I waved my sword toward her scythe and the cracked crimson crystal embedded in it. “That crystal wouldn’t happen to be Venshara, the Fire of Summer, would it? She’s damaged and leaking mana, and you’re trying to fix the problem so you — or your master — can use her. And, from the way you’ve got her embedded in a weapon, I’m guessing she’s not completely under your control yet?”
Her grip tightened around the shaft of her scythe. “How could you know of this?”
I grinned. “As it happens, I’ve fought one of Vendria’s aspects before. I won, of course. Throw down your scythe and surrender, and we can talk about this further. If there’s any bit of Xiaofan left in there, I’d rather not take her away from her sister.”
She came closer, closer... “My, you’re a confident one. I like that. And I can see, even from here, that you have a marvelous aura. Your body will prove an excellent replacement until I can wear his.”
I hadn’t expected her to accept my offer to surrender, but I had to try. “You know, I really appreciate the compliment, but I’m going to have to decline. This body and I have a pretty long history together, and I’ve gotten used to it.”
“I wasn’t asking. Now, would you be a dear and hold still?”
And there it was. The trap. The reason she’d kept walking toward me, full of confidence. She carried power in her voice. With every word, she’d spread mana through the air. And, with every step she took closer, the easier it was for her to target me. By letting her talk, I’d let her hide her weapon in plain sight.
I felt a horrible, withering cold spread throughout my body, threatening to freeze my blood and the moisture on my skin.
Worse still, it felt as if the air itself was compressing around me, holding me in place like a vice of force.
She continued advancing, pulling back her hand, still stained with blood from her last victim. “I’d be doing that body of yours a disservice if I harmed it overmuch, so I’ll make a single incision. The soul will be easy enough to remove from there.”
I didn’t move. My veins felt like ice, and the pressure around me was overwhelming.
Xiaofan pulled back her hand, a black glow forming on her fingertips.
That was when I moved.
Body of Fire.
Flame mana flooded my body, melting away the cold in an instant. I shoved destructive energy outward, shattering the cage of force around me.
Sure, I’d told Dawn I’d try not to use my destructive aura against the Pale King, but this was a little different. Xiaofan was actually trying to kill me, and I had no illusions that I could hold back and hope to survive.
To beat a dangerous opponent while I was in such terrible shape, I acted fast. The moment I was free, I brought Dawnbringer down in a flash of silver, arcing straight for Xiaofan’s chest.
She caught the glimmering blade between two fingers of her free hand. “Hm. It seems you can still move a bit. No matter.”
I tugged on my sword. It didn’t budge — her grip on it, even with just two fingers, was overwhelming my strength.
Huh. That’s bad.
Apparently, I’d lost even more strength than I’d realized. Either that, or Xiaofan was simply that strong.
The reason didn’t matter in that moment. My mind raced to outpace her attack as Xiaofan shoved her other hand forward, still visibly radiating dark power.
Spell Deflection.
My mental command signaled my new ring, and a burst of light emanated from my bo
dy. Then her palm smashed into my chest so hard that I felt something begin to cave in my chest.
I lost my grip on Dawn.
The sheer force of the attack carried me across the room, slamming me into the stone wall next to the door, which cracked on impact.
I fell to the floor, landing face-first and bursting into a cough. My chest burned with agony. There was a burning, hand-shaped hole in my shadeweave tunic where Xiaofan had touched me, and a blackened mark on the skin beneath.
And that was after it had gotten through the protection of my ring. The Spell Deflection effect had been discharged, it simply had failed to stop the attack.
Dawn’s voice screamed in my mind — and along with it came a flash of an image, for just an instant.
While she was clutched in my opponent’s hands, Dawn was seeing through Xiaofan’s eyes.
Xiaofan crossed the space between us in an instant, but I was already rolling, dodging a kick that left a trail of crimson in its wake. The blur of energy ripped through the stone floor, and I didn’t like the idea of what would happen if it had hit me instead.
Another flash of an image came from Dawn.
Xiaofan had pulled her free hand back behind, channeling sickly green energy this time instead of darkness. That image was accompanied by a feeling of lethal toxicity.
I got the message.
I didn’t have enough time to stand, and even if I could, I doubted I could properly dodge it. She was going for a wide-area attack that would cover the entire floor.
I tumbled, then concentrated on the stone ground.
A pillar of stone erupted beneath me, carrying me upward just in time to avoid Xiaofan’s attack. The green essence blasted outward, coating the ground in a choking mist.
She snarled at the missed attack, turning upward, and pulled back a fist to smash the pillar. The ground was still covered in the toxic cloud, and I didn’t like the idea of falling or jumping into it.
I briefly wished I still had an intact purestone, but I suspected it would be insufficient for whatever that horrifying cloud was.
I stood rapidly, still concentrating on the ground. I created a second pillar, jumping toward it the moment before Xiaofan smashed mine apart. Then, I repeated the process, creating more pillars and quickly rushing across the room.
“Useless.” She appeared in front of me mid-jump, swinging a hand toward me coated in a cutting aura of darkness. She held Dawnbringer behind her in her other hand, now gripping it normally rather than simply between two fingers.
That was perfect.
Luminous Arc.
I wasn’t carrying Dawn, but she could still hear my thoughts, just like I could see the images she was sending me.
And so, when I sent that command to Dawn, she understood my intent.
Her blade flashed, light mana swelling within — and flowed backward, straight into Xiaofan’s hand.
Luminous Arc was a powerful attack, even when focused in a beam at a distant target. When directed inward, straight at the user’s hand?
The results weren’t pretty.
Xiaofan screamed as her hand was obliterated by the light mana flowing into it. That distraction threw off her swing, and I threw a punch of my own, slamming a fist straight into her face.
It felt like what punching a wall must have felt for an ordinary person, as opposed to a casual wall-puncher like myself. I broke the skin on my knuckles and bruised the tissue beneath, but the punch did an important job — it knocked her out of my way.
And, still missing a hand, she fell into the toxic cloud below.
I landed on the edge of the next pillar unsteadily, but with the improved balance I’d gained from weeks of Dawnbringer fueling me, I managed to keep my footing.
Dawn herself had slipped free when she’d blasted Xiaofan’s hand apart, and I heard her clatter to the ground just before Xiaofan did. With a moment of concentration, I focused on her and used a burst of magnetism to pull her back toward my hand.
I’d barely managed to grip her hilt when the the pillar beneath me lurched, then began to crumble.
“You...” Xiaofan’s voice was furious, and that fury carried power.
Dozens of phantasmal sickle-like blades appeared in the air around me, rotating in circles, then shot inward.
I didn’t have the speed to dodge them all, even if Dawn had tried to guide my movements.
I had one option left, and it was a terrible one.
Body of Dawn.
I felt a surge of pain as I activated the technique again. My body simply didn’t have the essence left over to fuel the effect properly.
Where I couldn’t provide it, Dawn saved me. I felt a surge of mana flow through our bond and I made immediate use of her power.
All around me, the sickles seemed to slow in the air. The effect wasn’t as pronounced as the last time I’d used the technique. Even with Dawn’s help, we simply didn’t have enough mana remaining to fuel it properly.
Still, it was enough. For an instant, I had my strength and speed again.
A flurry of rapid strikes shattered the sickles to pieces — but the pillar was still crumbling beneath me, and Xiaofan jumped from the floor to the pillar right next to mine, her entire body now surrounded in a sickly green mist.
In her single remaining hand, she now held her scythe. And, from the way she was pulling it back and preparing to swing, I had a pretty bad feeling about what would happen if I jumped straight at her.
She swung. A shockwave of sickening essence flashed outward.
I jumped straight up, my legs bolstered by Body of Dawn. Even standing on a pillar, I wasn’t close enough to reach the ceiling with a hand — but I was close enough to jam Dawnbringer straight into the stone, then command the stone to flow down over her and hold us in place.
It was a precarious position at best, and Xiaofan realized that in an instant. She pulled back her scythe to swing again, and this time, I had no convenient angle to dodge.
Unfortunately for her, the stone ceiling was still a part of the same room as the floors and pillars. And, with my senses shared with Dawn’s, I could feel the entire structure of the room.
And if I could sense it, I could bend it to my will.
With an instant of focus, I liquefied the stone beneath her. Not the whole pillar — just a central section she was standing on, like making it into a cup.
Even if you’re fast, dropping into liquid isn’t easy to react to. And, when she did react, it was to reach out and try to grip the side with an arm that now ended in a wrist leaking ichor rather than blood.
She sank down to her neck before I sent another command, solidifying the stone around her.
I’d copied one of the Green Guardian’s tricks.
Then, I formed another pillar right beneath me, released the stone around Dawn, and dropped with her below.
Release Body of Dawn.
The additional power within me fled as I fell, but I’d held it too long already. I could feel my body trembling, and I could feel a sense of absolute exhaustion coming from Dawn, too.
I stumbled as I landed, barely able to keep my footing. My breathing came in ragged rasps. We have to hope that holds her for a moment. Maybe we could—
The stone around Xiaofan trembled.
My eyes widened. I’d expected her to break free using magic, but it seemed she was cracking the skin-tight stone from inside using raw strength alone. She shouldn’t have had the ability to move enough to exert that kind of force.
I steadied myself, pulling back Dawn and concentrating.
Xaiofan pulled back her scythe to swing, black mist trailing from the weapon’s edge.
If I was fighting a traditional opponent, I might have tested my blade against her own — but this wasn’t a duel.
As she prepared to strike, my destructive aura surged at my command, wrapping around Dawn’s blade. I swung upward before she came within reach, a wave of disintegrating mana ripping through the
air.
Magic weapons are tremendously resilient, some of them so much that they can, for a time, resist being cut by my destructive aura. But I’d learned a valuable lesson in the days before I arrived on Kaldwyn. Not every part of a magic weapon was equally enchanted.
And so, when I swung at Xiaofan, I didn’t aim for her body — I aimed straight for the warped wooden half of her scythe.
A clean slice traveled through the wood and straight into Xiaofan’s remaining wrist, severing it.
She let out a shocked shriek as her hand and scythe fell away, even as she continued flying through the air toward me.
I caught her by the throat with my free hand.
Body of Iron.
I’d drained most of my essence beyond safe limits, but metal had always been my preferred type of magic. I still had metal essence to use, if I was willing to pay the cost when the spell expired.
I could see little other choice.
My grip tightened as I lifted her, then hurled her down against the pillar. Stone cracked beneath her, and black ichor poured from the stumps where her hands were missing. The sickly green aura around her had faded, likely due to her loss of concentration.
Xiaofan screamed again, trying to push herself upward, but I lowered Dawn and pressed her against Xiaofan’s chest. “Stop.”
She froze, then let out a low, bestial growl. “You cannot kill me, mortal. If you slay this body, I will merely find another.”
I gave Dawn silent confirmation of my understanding. I’d have to wrap this up quickly.
I felt tightness in my shoulders as anger mixed with my pain and exhaustion. Even with Dawn’s comforting influence on my mind, the idea of monsters that devoured the bodies and souls of others was absolutely sickening to me.
“You’re wrong.” Destructive power flowed along Dawn’s blade. “You see this essence? It can obliterate you. Body, spirit, shade — everything.”
Her eyes moved to the blade, then widened with shock. “No. That’s...not possible, but...I sense it. The power to end all things. What are you?”
I pressed the blade downward, burning a hole in her shirt. “I’m Keras Selyrian, and that’s all you need to know. Release this human’s body and leave this place forever, and I’ll consider sparing your existence.”
