Chapter: 532 – Raw Fighting Prowess

Tala, Lyn, and Ron were standing in the sanctum—with Terry sitting on Tala’s shoulder—watching the view that Alat provided. It was as if they had front row seats to a truly unusual fight, from a mundane perspective.

To Tala’s eyes it made perfect sense.

Rane matched Meallain in raw fighting prowess strike for strike… about half of the time. To counter the other half, his body simply moved out of each given strike’s path in ways that no humanoid could have gotten the leverage to move.

On his part, Rane would occasionally seemingly strike at empty air, causing Tala to tsk. “Her concept almost forces your instincts to be wrong. You know she’s about to move one way before she moves the other. She’s clever with it too. Your instincts won’t always be wrong. She capitalizes on your thinking, gets in your head. Letting your instincts be right until you actually count on them. She’s survived and thrived specifically by dancing that line with each given opponent.”

Though, if she wanted to, she could simply overwhelm someone and take them out.

Ron was clutching the simple short sword that he’d pulled free of his tower shield of iron and white steel, his enhanced strength making the weight seemingly a non issue. “Let us help him, Mistress. Please?”

Tala grimaced. “You’ve seen her fight now. How many of you would stand up against her?”

It was Ron’s turn to grunt. “Ten. Don’t bring Kedva, please. Her family still needs her.”

And just like that, Tala understood what the man intended. Ron’s plan was to be a shield for Irondale, to spend his and the Talons’ lives to let Rane or Terry finish the fight. Tala stood, instinctively drawing as much authority to herself as she could in that brief moment before pronouncing, “No. You will not go to die.”

He opened his mouth to object, but her anger flared.

“If you believe you can contribute to the fight, I’ll send you in immediately. If your plan is to go and die in a vain hope of that helping, I say no.”

Ron grimaced then. “Fine. Five. Myself, Kedva, Torrap, Nalcof, and…” he hesitated for a moment, considering, “Rinnor.”

Tala gave him a long look, during which Rane and Meallain clashed a half-dozen more times.

Ron touched his shortsword to his shield, and the white steel flowed, altering the weapon into a one-handed, thrusting spear instead. “Please?”

Terry stood and trilled, signalling his readiness to go.

A portal opened beneath the flier on the superficial, drawing it back into the sanctum, and the five Talons were forewarned of their upcoming role.

Finally, Tala nodded. “Go.”

She opened a tiny portal right in front of Terry even as she willed the five Talons to the superficial.

The five appeared in a circle around Meallain, tower shields held protectively before them, spears already thrusting forward.

Enar had already informed Rane about the incoming backup, and so he was mid-assault when they arrived, Force lashing out in tight, ever-changing patterns.

A pulse of power radiated outward from Meallain even as the five appeared, her eyes widening.

Tala saw her concept hit everyone around her, and four spears shifted their points of impact, guided by expert hands following deceived instincts. Force was deflected off of Meallain’s shield even as those four spears thrust through empty air.

Ron’s spear, however, didn’t waiver. He seemingly ignored his instincts—that were likely screaming at him to shift his point of attack—and put his blade through her low back on the right side, just above her hip.

I’m glad she’s not wearing her armor.

-Well, she seemingly wasn’t on the warpath before coming after us. It would have sent an entirely horrid message to anyone she was speaking with to show up in full armor.- Alat let the implications hang heavily in their mind.

Hey… I’m not that bad. I usually don’t let people know I’m wearing it.

But that was all the time they had, in the fraction of an instant between the spear strike and the result. The hit made her scream—mostly in irritation, but there was definitely pain involved as well—even as both her protian weapons became great lengths of bladed chain, whipping out to strike everyone around her in a sort of metal cyclone that Tala did not want to face herself.

The Talons caught the blows on their shields, the power of the strikes throwing them all backward. Even so, their training and power held true, and they landed, skidding backward rather than tumbling into heaps.

Rane got Force up in time, and his own magic moved him back rather than letting the chain wrap around his block to strike him regardless.

That left Meallain alone on the hilltop, eyes locked on Rane. “You were the distraction? You had five more powerful warriors available, and they sent you? Are you gated insane?” Then she froze, her eyes widening further. “Not gated? And you’re burning power like stuck pigs. How do you have this much power with absolutely no finesse?”

She shook her head as if to clear it, at the same time, her magic was sealing up the wound in her low back.

“What the rust is going on here—?”

That’s when Terry struck.

He appeared with only the smallest blip of dimensional power, his talons already raking across her left shoulder, alive with void magic that was pushed back into the weapons and away from her flesh by the sheer power of her aura, even as she twisted, avoiding much of the attack, striking out and causing Terry to flicker away.

Did she just focus and concentrate her aura and authority as a means of active defense?

-I… I think so? I think we’ve seen things similar, but to actually suppress magic on the edge of a blade? That’s insane!-

At the same moment, the Talons sprinted back in, and Rane launched himself forward, imparting a truly staggering amount of kinetic energy into himself to cover the distance to arrive first.

By the time she’d finished her warding strike against Terry, Meallain had Rane’s blade through her back… or she would have if she hadn’t decided that things had gone far enough.

The zeme of the entire region changed in an instant, becoming a massive vortex, pulling power in toward her. The Talons weren’t actually bleeding power, it was more that they were using power at a tremendous rate. So, blessedly, they weren’t giving their enemy more power to work with.

Even so, a truly staggering amount of magic was coming toward the Eskau.

There was an odd flicker of power to Tala’s magesight, and then Meallain went up like a funeral pyre, burning with power for all the world to see.

That won’t make things better…

-No kidding…-

Tala stood, her armor growing over her in an instant, and only then did she realize just how much inspiration the Talons had taken from her defenses, despite the fact that it should have been instantly obvious.

Not the time for thoughts on fashion and armor choice, Tala.

She was about to will herself to the superficial, but Lyn held up a hand. “Wait! Tala, wait.”

Tala ground her teeth, a habit she’d never picked up, but it seemed appropriate in the moment. “Why?” The one word came out with such force—echoed by the power she had over the entire sub-dimension around them. “Why should I let them fight alone?”

“They aren’t fighting alone, and if you don’t show yourself, she might still be driven off. This is how we fight. We need to wear her down.” Lyn touched Tala’s armored shoulder. “If she sees you, she won’t ever retreat, not in the state she’s in right now, maybe not even if she was of sound mind.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Tala almost stomped her foot in irritation, but she realized that would be exceedingly childish.

She then almost turned and broke her throne with a punch, but not only would that have been needlessly destructive, it would have required her to take her eyes off the display.

Sure, she could still perceive the battle taking place, but it wasn’t the same. At least that’s what she convinced herself of to help leash her fury… and fear.

On the superficial, things were going… interestingly.

Terry and Rane were striking hard and fast and pulling back to keep themselves alive.

The Talons were keeping a careful distance, thrusting their now longer spears forward whenever there was an opening.

Meallain engaged them all, her weapons a blur as she blocked, dodged and counter attacked, despite being surrounded. The only evidence of any injury upon her was the damage to—and staining of—her clothing, through which her perfect, pale flesh showed.

Not all of the Talons were equally skilled in feathering their use of power, and while those who ‘bled’ more were more powerful as a result, they also burned out faster.

Tala watched with growing trepidation as Meallain pulsed her power, spiking its use only when and as she needed it.

Honestly, the control and finesse was a thing of beauty. Despite effectively using five or six times more power than she had been, the Eskau’s usage was barely more than her average had been.

As a result, when the first Talon bottomed out on power, Meallain had barely used five percent of her reserves.

The elf woman sneered. “Pathetic.”

Torrap’s eyes widened as she closed on him faster than seemed possible to his now mundane sight.

Tala barely willed him back into Irondale in time.