“Do not think that this battle is won just because you know how my magic works,” Lust said. “You may know how I can use other people’s magic, but you don’t know what types of magic I have at my disposal. I’ve been doing this for over five hundred years. I have more magic in my fingertips than you have comebacks.”
Jacob narrowed his eyes. “We’ll see about that.”
The moment of ensuing silence only lasted until their battle began anew.
Their clash caused the very atmosphere to tremble.
***
Enyo ran behind Fellis. They had already escaped the tower. The drawbridge was down, likely because Jacob had lowered it sometime during his fight. Behind them, explosions went off like fireworks. If she turned her head, Enyo knew that she would see the two massive auras of clashing energy from the fight between Jacob and Lust.
Of course, she and Fellis had other things to worry about.
“Ignis! Flamma! Impes! Ustrina! Incendium!”
A fireball crashed into the ground half a meter to their left, detonating with concussive force. Enyo felt the heat wash over her back. It was too far away to do any damage, but having something explode so close to her and not seeing it was nerve wracking.
She and Fellis were running down the cobblestone street. She didn’t know how far they’d run. It felt like they’d been running for hours, but she could still see Tallus Caelum in the distance, so it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes at most.
From the moment that she and Fellis had run across the drawbridge, they’d been chased by several knights. She didn’t know how they had responded so quickly. Indeed, considering the battle that was going on between Jacob and Lust right now, she would have expected them to let her and Fellis go in the confusion.
That hadn’t been the case. Now they were running for their lives. What made it worse was that they had no way to lose them. Everything was open plains here. There was no forest, no trees, not even so much as a large shrub.
A roar from above alerted her to more trouble. Enyo looked up. Several drakes were practically on top of them.
I have a bad feeling about this…
She couldn’t hear any chanting because they were so high up, but she could tell they weren’t going to just fly above her without doing anything. Her foresight proved to be a blessing. Seconds after they appeared, magic rained down from the drake riders—lightning, fire, wind, light. Enyo was left with no option but to chant a spell.
“Finis. Sepio. Opsideo.”
A dome of light appeared around her and Fellis. The barrage of different magic spells slammed into her shield, which shook as it was assaulted. Fortunately, the people attacking her did not have the sheer power that she did. The shield held up against the barrage, and when the assault ended, she dismissed the protective dome and kept running.
“We need to lose these people,” she shouted at Fellis.
“Undoubtedly,” Fellis agreed. “Unless you think you can take them on from a distance?”
Enyo might have been able to take on one or two people at range, but she didn’t have the ability to fight off multiple opponents like that. She shook her head.
“Then let’s keep going,” Fellis said. “Jacob said there was a bridge up ahead.”
Thinking about Jacob made her remember how they’d left him to fight off Lust. She hoped he was okay.
More magic spells came at them, but she and Fellis either dodged or blocked accordingly. Enyo tried to use her magic sparingly. She might have had a lot of magic at her disposal, but there was no telling how much longer they would have to fight. It was better to conserve energy for when they really needed it.
A mountain appeared up ahead, and before the mountain, slowly becoming more visible, was the Jovis Bridge. Like Jacob had described it, the bridge was large. It spanned across a massive ravine that was even bigger than the one in the Phantasma Forest. As they neared it, she realized that it was a standard bridge made of wood and rope. There was a noticeable curve, and it swayed as a strong breeze blew across the ravine.
“I’m not sure I want to go across that,” Enyo said.
“That’s too bad,” Fellis countered. “We really don’t have much choice.”
“I know that,” Enyo grumbled. “I was just saying…”
As more attacks flew by, she and Fellis raced onto the bridge. Her heart leapt into her throat as the bridge rocked back and forth. She grabbed onto the ropes and tried to ignore the fact that she was running across a rickety bridge, with a several hundred-meter drop, and that the ropes were burning her hands because she refused to slacken her grip.
Following behind Fellis, they made it about three-fourths across the bridge before they had to stop. The drake knights who’d been following them had flown to the other side and landed. Now they were blocking their path. The man in front, the same one who’d been hounding them this whole time, stood with his sword poised and a self-righteous expression on his face.
“Thieves! I demand that you surrender yourselves now! Do so, and I will guarantee you safety and a fair trial.”
This man clearly didn’t know how the world worked. Safety and a fair trial? She and Fellis were members of the Dark Clan. What’s more, she had stolen the gate key. Even she was not naïve enough to assume they would be given a fair trial after this. As for safety, well, Enyo had faced more assassination attempts than most people were capable of counting to.
“I hope you have a plan, Fellis,” Enyo said. “Because I have no idea what we should do.”
“That would depend. Do you trust me?” Fellis asked.
“I have always trusted you.” Enyo’s immediate answer.
“Good. Then, please wrap your arms around my waist and hold on tight.”
Enyo didn’t hesitate to do as she was told, even though she suddenly felt wary, like her former maid was about to do something incredibly stupid. She was right. Almost as soon as her arms were secured around Fellis’s waist, the woman lashed out with her whip. The steel tip sliced straight through the ropes that held the bridge together.
Enyo barely had a chance to open her mouth before a sudden feeling of weightlessness overcame her. Her stomach leapt into her throat. Her feet were tingling. The wind rushed by her, howling on all sides like vicious, snarling animals. Enyo thought she was going to be sick—no, she was sick. Everything blurred by, making her eyes swirl. She wanted puke. The ground was getting closer. She couldn’t breathe. She was—
Cold. Enyo felt coldness seeping into her bones, her skin, her everything. The weightlessness was still there, but a sense like she was being yanked in a random direction accompanied it now. She wanted to breath, but her lungs wouldn’t let her take in any air. It took her a moment to realize why.
Water!!
Opening her eyes, she realized that she and Fellis were underwater, with a strong current pulling them. The coldness seeping into her bones was freezing water. The reason she couldn’t breathe was because water was filling her lungs.
Enyo struggled to break the surface. Fellis wasn’t helping her for some reason, so she was left to do the work alone. She kicked her legs while keeping a firm grip on Fellis. Her lungs burned, her chest ached, and her body felt like lead, but she did her best to ignore these feelings.
Her head broke the water’s surface, and she inhaled a deep, grateful, lungful of air. Fellis was weighing her down. Her friend and former servant wasn’t moving at all.
“Fellis?” She coughed as she struggled to keep her head above water. “Fellis?”
The woman still didn’t respond. Enyo couldn’t see Fellis’s face. Water was splashing in her eyes, and she was doing all she could not to get sucked back under.
Realizing that she couldn’t afford to stay as she was, Enyo kicked feet. She couldn’t fight the current, which was stronger than her legs, so she moved sideways, across the current. There was a rocky ledge several yards away. It was covered in vines and other things that she could grab onto. However, it was also wet
and slippery. She grabbed a vine, only to have it slide from her grasp. It didn’t help that Fellis was keeping her from being able to stay above water.
Come on… come on… yes!
Enyo felt a moment of triumph as she grabbed onto a vine and wrapped it around her arm. Unfortunately, climbing up proved harder than she thought it should have. In the end, she was unable to climb up unless she wanted to let go of Fellis. The vine slipped from her grasp, and the current pushed her away.
Enyo was swept along.
***
Magic clashed with energy. Pillars of darkness rose into the sky before they were sliced apart by blue crescents that rent the very air itself. Massive balls of blue energy burst apart as they were pierced with spears of darkness.
Jacob leapt backwards as several serpentine-shaped magical attacks tried to latch onto him. Unleashing another burst of energy, he blasted away the attacks before they could reach him, and then he sent his own attack at Lust, who countered by slicing the air in front of her, cutting the wave in half.
Nasally gasps escaped Jacob’s mouth as he ran, avoiding a series of earth spikes that jutted from the ground, trying to impale him. He leapt into the air. There was a giant fire bird there to meet him. Lust must have set this trap in advance. Scowling, he hacked the bird-shaped flame apart with impunity and landed back on the ground.
A lapse appeared in the battle.
He and Lust had been fighting for over fifteen minutes, far longer than most battles took to conclude. It was a testament to this woman’s prowess that she barely had a scratch on her. Her clothes were scuffed, ripped in some parts, and she had a few cuts here and there along her legs and arms, but nothing beyond that.
“You’re holding back,” Lust declared. Her expression was narrowed, as if she was angered by this fact.
Jacob grimaced. “You can’t expect me to use all of my power here. If I did that, this entire city would be in shambles.”
Thus far, Jacob had been able to limit damage to the city to this one section near the wall. No attack had strayed too far, no magic cast had gone near the city itself. While the area around him was covered in pitfalls, scorch marks, cracks, and wreckage, everything beyond the fifteen-meter zone of their battle was pristine.
“Ho?” Lust grinned. “So, you are protecting the people of this city, then? How admirable of you to protect a people that you’ve already forsaken. Still…” Lust raised her hand and a crackling orb of lightning appeared, hovering before her palm. “… I don’t much care for these people.”
Jacob felt all the air get driven from his lungs. “What are you doing?!”
Lust grinned. Jacob tried to charge toward her, but it was too late. The orb fired off. It blasted into a building, destroying it completely. It didn’t stop there, however. The orb shot through another building, and then another and another. Jacob could only watch in horror as several dozen buildings were decimated in half as many seconds.
“Wha… why?” Jacob asked, turning back to Lust. “Why did you do that?”
“Are you really asking me why?” Lust scoffed. “You, a hero, should already know the answer to that.”
Of course he knew. It was the same reason that Alucard had been so willing to massacre others, even his own people. This woman was just like him—no, she was even worse. Alucard’s desire had been obvious: the domination of the continent. This woman? She was just testing him. She wanted to fight him at full power, and for that reason, she was willing to massacre people.
“Fine,” he ground out. “If that’s how you want it, then I won’t hold back anymore.”
There was no warning, no great surge of power that foretold Jacob’s next attack. One moment, he was standing a dozen meters from his opponent. The next he was right in front of her. Being so close, his sword already swinging, Jacob had just a split second to see the way Lust’s eyes widened before he sliced her in half.
Lust burst into flower petals.
“What?”
“Ha ha ha! Yes! This is what I was looking for!” a voice rang out.
Jacob turned around. Lust was standing on an undemolished roof. She leered down at him from her position on high, her lips peeled back in a face-splitting grin that revealed her pearly white teeth. He wanted to punch those teeth out.
“Come on, hero! Show me the power that defeated the Dark Lord!”
The challenge was issued, and Jacob responded to it. He swung Durandal down, unleashing a wave of energy that sliced through the ground, struck the building, and demolished it. Lust had not been hit. She leapt into the air at the last second, laughing like a maniac—until Jacob shot into the air like a cannon, appeared over her head, and struck her in the face with a heel drop.
Jacob felt nothing but the utmost satisfaction as he watched Lust hurtle toward the ground. When she slammed into the earth, upheaving the road and gravel as cracks spread along the surface like an endless spinneret, he smiled.
At least, he did until a massive beam of darkness shot from within the expanding cloud of dust. The attack slammed into him, causing his mind and vision to go white. His skin burned. His body boiled. It felt like he was being melted from the inside out.
He gritted his teeth and poured out more energy, creating a thick layer of chi that surrounded him like a fiery aura. The pain lessened, though the damage had already been done.
Lust was down below. She was bleeding profusely from a wound to her head, and her left arm was limp, hanging at her side like a wet noodle. Despite that, she wore a grin that reminded him of Alucard when they had fought.
That smile enraged him all the more.
Roaring out his anger, Jacob swung Durandal at the woman. There was no massive beam of energy this time. The swing was purely one of strength. A storm of force-like wind was created from the swing. It slammed into Lust, who merely laughed as she thrust out her hands as if that would protect her.
Roots shot from the ground, the massive roots of a tree that could have been thousands of years old. Each one was as thick as he was wide. They converged around her, protecting her from the wind storm.
Jacob cut those roots down with Durandal as he fell into them. As he removed the obstacles in his path, he revealed the other side, where Lust should have been.
Should have been, but was no longer there.
Where did she go?
Jacob didn’t much time to search. Several dozen pillars burst from the ground, ascended high into the sky, curved around, and then tried to smash him.
Taking several massive back leaps, Jacob shouted as he spun around. A crescent erupted from Durandal. It cut through most of the pillars, though several still made it to him. Those he sliced apart the regular way. Finishing the pillars off, Jacob was about to begin his search for Lust—when a searing pain dug into his side.
He withheld a gasp and looked down. There was a spear of light jutting from the left side of his stomach. Jacob blinked. Somehow, the spear had pierced through his protective chi barrier.
H-how…?
“I bet you’re wondering how I broke through your barrier,” Lust said, appearing several yards to his left. She wore an exhilarated smile. “You see, a shield created by Linked Energy Manipulation is a lot like a really hard bubble. Sure, most things simply bounce off the bubble, but if you focus a really strong attack into a single point, well…” She gave a dainty shrug, “… this was one of those weaknesses that I was talking about earlier. It looks like you haven’t stamped most of them out, after all.”
Jacob grabbed the light spear and, with an application of power, shattered it. He turned to face Lust, whose smile only grew wider.
“Are you sure you should still be fighting with that wound?”
“I’ll be fine. I was in a lot worse shape when I fought against Alucard.”
“Hmm…”
Swinging Durandal around with his left hand, Jacob generated a fierce wind that knocked Lust backwards. As she skidded along the ground, Jacob thrust his right hand forward, allowing
a ball of blue energy to shoot from his knuckles like a bolt from a crossbow. It was blocked by the black shield that she favored. Jacob was already prepared for it to come up. He switched his grip on Durandal, drew his left arm back, and threw the weapon forward.
Durandal pierced straight through the shield. There was a shrill cry of agony from the other side. Cracks appeared along the shield before, without a single warning, it shattered, revealing Lust standing on the other side, Durandal impaling her left shoulder.
“It’s over,” Jacob said as he walked up to Lust, stopped in front of her, grabbed Durandal, and yanked it out of her chest.
The woman gasped as she fell to her knees. Blood sprayed from her shoulder and back like geysers shooting hot water. Looking down at the woman, Jacob felt only satisfaction at knowing that she was about to die.
“You’re right,” Lust rasped. “It is over.”
The atmosphere shifted. Jacob had only a second to become aware of the danger. Lust looked up at him.
Her lips were curved in triumph.
“For you, that is.”
Six monoliths rose around him, obsidian stones that had numerous archaic symbols drawn on them. They formed a circle around him. Jacob reached out to touch one, but he hissed when a barrier sprung up and stung his hand. He considered using Durandal to slice through it, but then something happened, and Jacob found himself unable to do much of anything.
He fell to his knees as something intangible pressed down on him. It felt like he was being crushed by some unidentifiable force. Electric arcs like tendrils skittered along the surface of the shield before, without warning, they converged on Jacob, inducing more pain than he could remember feeling.
Opening his mouth, Jacob tried to scream, but no sound came out. His back arched as pain flooded through him like a storm. He heard something crack, and he could’ve sworn it was his spine. As the pain heightened, his world suddenly went white, and then…
… everything went dark.
Journey of a Betrayed Hero- Volume 1 Page 25