NOVEL NEXT 73 – Underplanned to Face the Beast of the Storm
The world slowed to a crawl for a moment as the Fulgur-forged caestus took shape, something new spontaneously built upon the foundations of her existing techniques - this technique could not have taken shape if Zelsys hadn’t spent all that time in the dungeon struggling to extrude Fog through her skin and form lightning around it, in this she was certain.
Fist met fist. A thunderclap sounded and her ears started to ring.
She felt the ice sublimating into steam almost instantaneously, and releasing her mental focus on the lightning-fist proto-technique as to not annihilate his hand, she felt the residual current flow into him. In that exact same moment the momentum of his punch was absorbed and instantly sent back where it came from in the other direction, and not all of his joints stood up to the strain unscathed.
Berga had been able to watch comfortably during the first bout. It was a fight beyond the bounds of normalcy, that much was true, but it was within reason. Exceptional, but nothing more.
The second bout was not a fistfight. It was two forces of nature battling for supremacy, like the Living Storm itself raging against an Ice Volcano. It seemed a stalemate for a while, both of them probing at the other trying to feel out weaknesses and lashing out wherever possible… Until Jorfr got a solid hit on her.
A beastly madness flashed through her face as she hit the wooden barrier feet-first, staring at her opponent for but a split-second before she leapt off with such force it shattered the old wood.
He didn’t know what it was that she did next. He just saw her fist become enveloped in sizzling white something, there was a thunderclap, and next thing he knew, Jorfr’s arm was hanging dislocated from the socket with the norseman staring at it in disbelief as Zelsys hit the ground, rolling by him to regain a footing and whipping around on her boot-heel expecting him to keep fighting.
If Jorfr was going to respect anyone other than Berga, it would be her.
For a few seconds he just stared at his arm in disbelief, chest heaving so forcefully it had the limb swaying slightly as each forceful breath jetted out between his teeth as a white-blue gust.
He turned in place ever so slowly, ever so cautiously, just far enough to look at Zelsys and remark with a combination of pain and exhilarated surprise: “By the Revenant King’s Throne, that’s a first. Twice now you’ve surprised me such that I have no choice but to concede. Give me a few minutes to fix this and get your winnings.”
She gave him a simple nod.
“I concede!” he belted, turning all the way to walk past Zel, to which she happily got out of his way, strutting around the pit once more flexing and boasting. As he got to the door he looked up to the edge of the pit and said: “Pithand! I will need some help setting my shoulder!”
That very same pithand who had bound and unbound his arm twitched in place, nearly falling into the pit before he leapt down and followed Jorfr into the locker room.
She chose to keep the Breath Engine metaphorically idling by slowing down both her breathing and heart rate to a more normal pace, burning what Fog she got by making lightning jump between her bicep and forearm with each flex, moving on to just taking off into a Fog and Fulgur-fueled sprint around the pit and running horizontally on the barriers as a notably smaller shower of coins rained down.
After circling the pit twice, she cautiously pushed off one of the logs, and with a backflip, landed on her feet in the middle of the pit, leaning into the showy boastfulness with an exaggerated, ostentatious bow to the crowd.
There was a sudden reverberation, a noise below hearing but loud enough to be felt in her bones. Out of nowhere she felt a presence behind her and her instincts screamed danger, as if whatever was the source of this danger had come into being where it was.
Pain shot through her back. An ice-cold finger reaching through her ribcage, into her lungs and her heart only to instantly retreat. Once. Twice. Thrice. Her heart stopped beating for a moment before she reflexively willed it to not only continue beating, but to beat slower to mitigate blood loss. The urge to cough gripped her as her lungs filled with blood, but she suppressed it and forced her lungs to just expand as she whipped around to strike at the attacker, burning Fog to both enhance her own physicality and to force her body to move with the absolute peak speed and precision it was capable of.
Even still, the would-be-assassin moved at speed beyond the limits of mortal men, and would have eluded her grip without issue, only… A missile of light there issued forth from the pit’s edge and sent the person spinning uncontrollably back down, accompanied by Pentacle’s clang and a lance of smoke.
An ankle gripped in her hand, and the figure slammed down on the ground mid-jump, dragged by the spinning motion. By the time Zelsys got her bearings there was a wracking burning that filled her wounds, that of cut meat being forcefully pulled together, the holes in her organs plugged. Without so much as another moment of consideration, she forced her heart to beat a rapid marching rhythm and her lungs to breathe as the cylinders of an engine, reveling in the pain, for it was different, distinct from that of gaping holes. A simultaneous fit of coughing and laughter came over her as the would-be-assassin writhed on the ground staring up at her, tossing daggers that she just weaved to the side of.
She recognized that figure, that aggressively drab attire which at this angle was revealed to be concealing chainmail, that plain wooden mask and the numerous knives. One of his hands still gripped a blade, while the other was a shot-apart mess of gore from which the thumb had somehow miraculously survived.
Filled by a seething malice, Zelsys burned a lungful of Fog for pure grip strength, squeezing and twisting until she felt the bones of his ankle grinding against each other and coming apart.
