Chapter 37: Chapter 37: A Dance of Ice and Fire

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

A Dance of Ice and Fire

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It wasn’t difficult for my glaive to reach the emissary, because, by some lucky happenstance or trick of the Norns, the path between me and our enemy momentarily cleared of hostiles. In that instant, we clashed. Me with my glaive cleaving through the air and he with his curved black blade slicing through the space between us.

I dodged his slash so Liara could lock swords with him as she came up behind me, allowing me to complete my glaive’s swing down on his head. The emissary wasn’t very accommodating, however, as he used the sharp nails of his free hand to parry my strike.

“Godsdamn monster!” I spat.

Then, with strength beyond that of mortal men, the emissary pushed Liara back, freeing himself up to send the butt of his sword careening down on my shoulder. It was the same move he’d used to bring me low last time we fought, so I was sufficiently prepared to counter.

I stomped my foot on the ground and sent my magic which was enhanced by my open grimoire to rush into the earth, which then exploded in a shower of volcanic ash and molten fire that sprung on the emissary’s unprotected naked ass.

“I told you he was weak to magic!” I yelled.

As if proving me right, the emissary was forced to his knees while flames licked at his cloak and flesh. The ground burnt around us, ensuring that Scorched Earth’s area-of-effect condition was active; increasing all my stats by three while weakening his abilities temporarily.

Yes, this wasn’t going to be like the first fight with Mistress Lorelai where we competed on purely martial skills until the very end, each of us vying to take the high ground and gain the advantage over our enemy. I knew his weakness now, and now that my magic wasn’t completely depleted like before, I planned to take full advantage of it.

“Maybe…” From behind me, Liara raised her arm forward. Ice was already beginning to form around her palm, and its tip was as sharp as a spear point. “Let’s put your theory to the test.”

With each ice spike launched from her palm, Liara strode forward like a gangster unloading her handgun at our kneeling foe execution style.

Two out of those first six spikes penetrated the emissary’s flesh, while the rest were cut down by his curved black blade swishing through the air at inhuman speed. He was also quick to weave and bob out of the way of the next six spikes like a seasoned boxer rushing in to counter the she-elf’s magic.

“Hello!” I said as I swung my glaive forward right before he could reach close enough to attack Liara.

One, two, three, four—our blades sang in the air and then crashed against each other as sharp metal ground against metal. His blade was bigger, his swings heavier, but I parried each one with the finesse and skill of the well-trained student of a celebrated master swordswoman who’d bequeathed onto me the first-level skills of her patented Draconic Blade Art.

Yep, I’d only ever used these techniques against Master Doomsday, so one would be forgiven for forgetting this particular work of art had been on my status bar’s active skill list this whole time.

Despite my blade skill at full display, and even as each one of my swings turned his sword away, each parry, block, and counter were becoming harder and harder to achieve, forcing me to admit that this bastard was better than me, at least when it came to sword fighting. However, as I kept telling everyone, I wasn’t just a warrior.

Besides, I wasn’t looking to win this confrontation with just swordplay as we’d already established that the emissary was the better warrior. Why else did I bring back up like Liara?

The she-elf was way ahead of me, though, and she was already swinging her glowing spell-saber down on the emissary’s back while I kept him preoccupied with a twirling sword dance that was the Draconic Sword Art’s ‘Flow’ step.

I’d like to think her slash might have been a killing blow for most monsters, but this emissary was an entirely different breed of beast. Even as my swirl of slashes and thrusts kept him busy, he still managed to turn around inhumanly fast and catch Liara’s side with long-nailed fingers that were already beginning to reshape themselves into beast-like claws. Funnily enough, this was exactly what the she-elf had been aiming for.

As his claws raked across the cold aura wrapped around her body like ghostly armor, the emissary triggered ACB’s cheat of a trap and was blown back while the ghostly armor shattered into hundreds of ice shrapnel that pierced into his body, but melted into water as they neared the warm aura emanating from the trinket on my necklace.

Liara herself remained unhurt, but I assumed she was beginning to feel the strain of keeping her grimoire open as I did. The paling glow of the tiara on her brow told me as much because the light of my Flameheart was beginning to dwindle as well.

“Okay, I’ll admit it, ACB’s pretty groovy,” I conceded.

“How do you know about…” she frowned slightly. “Could you really be a prophet?”

I was too busy capitalizing on Liara’s effective counterattack to react to her crazy suggestion.

“Spirits of flame, lend me your will of fire…” Yes, Liara’s chantless ice magic was pretty dope, but to effectively wound such a powerful adversary, I still believed a spell from the school of invocation was absolutely necessary. “Breathe life into my blade so my foes can taste my all-consuming ire!”

Flames more golden than any I’d summoned before—an effect of having Flameheart completely open for the short duration I could manage it—licked to life at the edge of my glaive’s blade, turning it into a white-hot tool of death.

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Once again, I wanted to say something groovy like “Yippie ki yay, mother fu%#er,” but I’d yet to workshop my official battle cry. For now, I went with the usual, “Die, die, die~~e!”

Again, this bastard wasn’t accommodating me at all. Even though he’d yet to regain his footing, the emissary still managed to send his curved black blade to strike at my fully committed attack, which, once effectively blocked, suddenly put me at a disadvantage.

My ‘Elemental Weapon’ did manage to cut the top three-quarters of his curved black blade—suggesting it was nowhere near as strong as Doomsday’s Executioner’s blade—but I was in a tough spot, and it would have cost me dearly if Dess hadn’t stepped in to block the Emissary’s follow-up strike with her round shield.

“I’m admittedly not at Will or Liara’s level yet”—she shoved her shoulder against her shield—“but I can keep you distracted long enough for them to kill you!”

I just loved how confident she sounded when she said ‘yet’ as if promising herself that she’d reach the heights we were on too, but I was also very impressed with how perfectly Dess had stolen the emissary’s aggro, giving me and Liara the opportunity we needed to each land our first clean hits on the bastard’s body.

With Liara’s spell-saber coated in a sheet of ice and an aura of golden flames still wrapped around my glaive’s blade, the she-elf went high while I went low. We hacked at him once, twice, thrice, and then a fourth time in a dance of ice and fire that broke his sturdy defenses, burning him and freezing him in equal measure.

“Switch!” Dess yelled.

Noticing the counter that he was about to unleash on us, Dess dove past me and Liara to block his sort-of broken sword for a second time. And, while she locked his curved black blade with her shield, Dess twirled her spear around and hooked its tip underneath the emissary’s hand, cutting into his wrist and forcing him to drop his weapon.

“Switch!” Liara and I yelled together.

Dess backed away just in time, giving us the space needed for Liara and me to resume our dance of ice and fire. Empowered by our open grimoires—which also technically put us on a time limit—each stroke of our blades ripped into the emissary’s flesh, while even his claws couldn’t completely repel our magic-fueled attacks.

“Switch!” Dess yelled again.

The fairy had become quite intuitive to the danger before us, because, even as the emissary’s fully-formed claws—these yellowing inch-long curved nails—curled toward me and Liara in a well-positioned counter, Dess was already there to absorb the blow for us.

As a cost of her save, Dess’s battered shield was torn in half as monstrous claws raked over its wooden front side. Her shield arm fared no better as the tips of his claws grazed her skin and made fairy blood flow down her arm.

I grabbed at the collar of Dess’s armor and pulled her back and away from danger.

“Switch!” I yelled.

“Switch!” Liara agreed.

Together, Liara and I stepped past his overextended arms and sent our blades to crash against his flesh and bone. Once, twice, thrice—each blow fueled by our grimoires’ powers—drawing blood from his wounds and gibberish from his lips.

We hoped it was enough. We hoped we could win this after all. We hoped this dance would finally end the fight. Only it didn’t.

The emissary let loose a guttural growl that sent warning bells ringing in my head.

“Baldr’s balls!” I cursed.

In an act of pure self-preservation, I pulled back from my next attack and tackled Liara out of the way just as the head of a monstrous wolf appeared in front of us to bite at the space that we’d been at only a second ago.

We fell tumbling on the ground so that Dess was forced to get between us and it. She raised her broken shield just in time too so that the shockwave emitted by the massive patchwork wolf’s howl didn’t completely blow all three of us away like it did the other combatants nearby.

When the dust had settled moments later, I glanced around while worrying that my other friends might have been caught in the blast. They were, but I could already see Zen and Brunhilde—the largest of my companions—beginning to pick themselves off the ground too.

On the bright side, the chaos of our surrounding battlefield had abated because even the snake women and lizard men who’d followed the emissary were beaten back by that unholy howl.

I heard a growl from right behind me. It sent pain streaking up and down my chest—a phantom pain of wounds that had caused my earlier death.

So, I glanced over my shoulder with wide-eyed frustration. “Right… you’re a boss monster, and every boss monster has a second form.”