novelzi Ch 1.25: Talkative
Ch 1.25: Talkative
Ch 1.25: Talkative
The woman, Myriala, stood pointing, waiting. Elaina raised her arm, knowing the lull wouldn’t be for long; her opponent had signaled the start to the fight after all. She launched her crystal chain towards the woman, wrapping it around her right arm and leg, tying them together and then conjuring another chain to shackle her left arm to the pedestal in the center of the room. Carline charged, spear thrusting forward.
“Hmmm, so this must be what you did to that Waine you were talking about,” the woman mused, more interested in the the chains around her than she was her actual opponents. “It probably worked fine, on a mortal.” She yanked her arm forward, snapping the chain from the pedestal behind her and slashing at Carline, who had to dive to the ground to avoid getting sliced in two. Carline slid along the metal floor, sneaking a quick jab into the woman’s ankle with her spear as she went under the woman’s blade.
No blood was drawn.
“A glancing blow from a wooden weapon? Tsk tsk, little pets. It’ll take more than that to wound me.” She hopped away on her free leg before Elaina could try and restrict her again, still with an uncanny grace. “The crystal chains though are somewhat bothersome, I must admit. But how long can you hold them in place like this?”
The woman started to pull at the chains, rapidly draining Elaina’s mana. She’d bonded them together the same way she had bonded them to the wall against the starhounds, and that at least was making the mana use more efficient than holding them together by sheer force, but it still wasn’t sustainable.
Elaina froze herself with [Personal Restraint], halving the effort she’d have to expend, at the same time Carline had managed to get up and start a second charge. Myriala again went to slash at Carline with her elbow blade, but Carline stopped just outside of the slash’s range, letting go of the front of her spear and thrusting it forward with her back hand, feet planted in the ground.
The speartip connected this time, actually connected, and thick blue blood fell out of the hole it left when Carline jumped back, out of a wound far too small to matter. “Actual blood drawn?” the woman said, smiling. “Impressive; I can see you’ve actually practiced with weaponry before. But, pray tell, isn’t your little group a bit unequipped for this? Your healer is the one doing the attacking, after all. I thought you mortals kept more balanced parties.”
She jumped back into the wall, and launched off of it with a kick, free arm’s blade headed straight towards Elaina. Elaina had to drop [Personal Restraint] and run to the center of the room, but she still got cut on her uninjured side. She looked down at her torso—less severe than before, but still not good—gaping at it as a foot crashed into her chest, launching her to the carved out entrance of the cold metal room, her back landing on the jagged metal. She looked up at Myriala from the floor, realizing the woman had broken free of the crystal chains in the time Elaina had dropped her skill and been injured.
“Such a shame.” The woman was speaking as she engaged with Carline, the white-robed Vitalist jabbing into her reach with her staff. “You were interesting, but I should have known an environmental-targeting mortal wouldn't be up to par. Guess your System had to scrape the bottom of the barrel for an Administrator.”
Carline was a force of nature: light on her feet, keeping her opponent at bay with her weapon, and, for some reason, keeping her party member alive. Elaina couldn't believe it, that her stomach was healing yet again as Carline danced around the room, utilizing the System itself as a barrier to keep distance. Carline was also woefully outmatched.
Elaina closed her eyes, partly to fight back the tears, and partly to let Carline activate [Unseen Watcher]. Gods I'm useless. She had one job, to hold back one set of limbs with what should have been an unbreakable chain, and she'd failed even that. Carline was over there fighting her heart out while keeping Elaina alive, even dulling Elaina’s pain.
“Carline!” Elaina shouted, running towards her friend.
“It really was a good move though,” the woman said as the chain around her faded, scratching away at the abrasions on her neck with her good hand. “A lesser member of the Red Order might have succumbed, one not willing to make the sacrifice to escape.”
Carline was breathing, alive, but spilling blood from her forehead.
“She needs help!” Elaina shouted, for some reason trying to plead with the monster in front of her.
“Tsk tsk, little one. Too sentimental for your own good. I won't let her die—she's clearly worth keeping—it's you I'm undecided about.” She walked forward, pulling Elaina’s teary face upward again. “On the one hand, you're quite a clever little bitch, but you're just so temperamental! Freezing up in the corner while your poor, dear friend was fighting all alone, and now sitting here crying?”
Elaina jerked her head away, struggling not to explode. The woman was right, though. If Elaina had acted earlier, been smarter from the beginning, then maybe things would have turned out differently.
“No, as a warrior, you're no good, just a girl who happened upon a cave where she really had no business being. As a pet, though?” The woman pressed her bloodied, mangled hand to Elaina’s face, pushing her back into eye contact, smiling at her with cruelty in her eyes. “You're cute enough, even cuter than the useful one. I think we could make this work. What do you say, little puppy?”
“Fuck you!” Elaina said, grabbing Carline's spear from the ground and shoving it upward. Myriala looked shocked, almost in disbelief as the weapon struck her in the center of the chest, staggering backwards as the haft slipped from Elaina's fingers and clattered to the ground.
“You, insolent—” Myriala stammered, looking down at the wound, a wound sure to kill, as blood poured out of it, right from the heart. Thank the gods...
But then the blood slowed. Elaina watched in horror as the stream of blood crawled to a trickle, then again as it stilled entirely, the wound closing completely. The woman's crushed hand cracked and popped, reforming itself as she glared down at Elaina, eyes brimming with rage.
“Even my starhounds never made me discipline them the way I'm about to do to you, little pet.”