Chapter 78: Navigator Against Assassin

"You are trespassing on the domain of the Wild Hunt, half-elf. It would be best if you left before I decide to end your life." says the in a deep, dark voice.

Saibus sketches a bloodthirsty smile. "No, Caranthir Ar-Feiniel, Navigator and Lieutenant, as well as dog Eredin Breacc Glas, today marks the end of the Navigator and Wizard of the Wild Hunt."

"So be it. The noble Di Vine family will pass away in honor of the battle."

Caranthir moves his specter, and with this simple hand gesture, a wave of frost is projected toward Saibus and Elana. But, unfortunately, the latter also conjures a wave of flames blocking the ice.

The shock of the two opposing magics creates a magical and seismic tremor. The room shakes, stones collapse, the earth cracks, and the vegetation is destroyed. But, on the other hand, the world tree shows no damage.

The stones falling from the ceiling crash to the ground with a bang, increasing the earthquake's magnitude. The powerful wave of magic finally fades away after five minutes, bringing the seismic tremors to an end.

The enchanting and lush atmosphere is no more. It has been swept away by the magical gust that has left only destruction in its wake. Only a sea of flames and frost is covering the earthen floor, devastating the hall.

Caranthir looks at Saibus and Elana with an icy, dull gaze, empty of any feeling, whether good or bad. His look expresses nothingness, his total disinterest in the two people in front of him.

This is in perfect contradiction with the look that Saibus and his mother have. One can read the gravity of the situation in their eyes. Both sides of the room stare at each other without moving, ready to attack, waiting for the right moment to launch the offensive.

Finally, both sides carried out the offensive at the exact moment. Caranthir uses the power of his wand to summon several portals from which several Wild Hunt ice dogs and an Ice elemental emerge. The ice elemental is not standard as it wears armor and a necklace with chains pulsing with chaos energy.

The elemental roars and rushes forward with the dogs. He blows at Saibus, but the latter dodges to the right. The power of the elemental's blow is such that the ground cracks and creates a small crater. The dogs do not attack Saibus but run beside him to go and crush Elana. The six dogs appear and rush on Elana. The first to arrive jumped to take her by the throat. They almost pierce the throat of the archaeologist but are pushed back by a wave of flames that wounds them.

She takes advantage of this moment when the two dogs are wounded and pushed away to incant a spell that creates a large wolf of flame bigger than the dogs of the Wild Hunt. This dog is the result of the magic 'Aenye Bleidd.'

The Wolf jumps directly on the two rising dogs in front of him. He crushes the first one under his paw. The second dog jumps on the Wolf. He bites the Wolf, who suffers a small wound due to the dog's Cold. The four other dogs get within range of the Wolf, but a fire spear impales them on the spot. The spears prevent them from moving but do not kill them instantly. Elana eases their suffering with a fire arrow each in the head.

On the other hand, the fiery Wolf slaughters the last dog with his claws, creating char marks on the dog's body despite the mighty Cold he possesses.

Meanwhile, the ice elemental tries to turn Saibus into frozen mincemeat. He uses his elemental magic to trap Saibus in a corner. He shows his power and that facing an essential, even when prepared, is not easy. Although the elemental is much more potent than a traditional ice elemental, Saibus manages to inflict wounds and damage his armor.

Saibus dodges yet another punch from the monster and casts a fire spell, creating a mighty fireball that pushes the ice creature back. Saibus takes the opportunity to override the elemental and sprint towards Caranthir, with his back to them and his hands against the World Tree.

The elemental tries to slam his foot on the ground throwing a bunch of ice spikes toward Saibus, but he is interrupted by an ice wolf that bites his neck and drags him down because of his weight. The ice creature falls heavily to the ground. At the same time, a fiery rain falls on the elemental who tries to get up. The ember wolf takes the opportunity to scratch the elemental's legs. He tries to break them and prevent the elemental from getting up.

The fiery rain falls on the monster's upper body. The sounds of passionate tears on the armor resound with a heavy echo. The armor degrades and ends up with several holes. The ice giant throws a fit and struggles in all directions—ice forms around him from his attempted attacks. Unable to get up, the end of the Wild Hunt Ice Giant is sad and imminent.

In parallel to the battle between the elemental, the fiery Wolf, and his mistress, Saibus engaged Caranthir, who had full attention on the World Tree. Knowing that Saibus is approaching, Caranthir stops paying attention to the World Tree. He turns around and avoids an arrow of fire launched by Saibus.

Completely turned towards his opponent, Caranthir raises his stick and slams it on the ground. This shock creates a wave of frost that surges toward Saibus.

The assassin creates a fire shield by combining the Quen sign and the Aenye spell. The fire shield protects his summoner from the freeze, although it slows him down. Caranthir takes advantage of Saibus' slowdown to conjure several ice spikes with his wand.

The spikes fly towards Saibus. The spikes break against the shield and are dodged by Saibus or cut by his sword. Saibus, who is no longer slowed down by the ice, whispers a spell that makes him walk on the ice without any problem. The Navigator is not fazed by Saibus' advance and continues to use chaos to make ice magic.

Caranthir's spell is unusual for a member of the Wild Hunt. Instead of creating a wave of ice to freeze Saibus, he summoned a torrent of water breaking everything in its path. The water pours into the room from the wand. Saibus, less than twenty meters from Caranthir, react immediately and jumps into the air. Saibus jumps high in the air dodging the powerful water current. But he doesn't land in the water. On the contrary, he makes two more jumps in the air, allowing him to fall on Caranthir.

Caranthir points at Saibus with his wand. An icy light lights up and grows at the end of the magic gem of the staff. The light overgrows to a sphere of 50 centimeters in diameter.

The sphere bursts, and a thirty-centimeter beam of ice magic rush toward Saibus. Saibus dives towards Caranthir as the wave continues into the room behind him, destroying the space even more.

The beam passes through Saibus' torso, coming out of his back. The shaft continues on its way to the ceiling, which also pierces. A hole of thirty centimeters is created with around traces of frost. The debris of the spot crystallizes during the fall and comes to fall in the water of the torrent.

Then, the temperature of the room increases significantly. This increase is followed a few moments later by the appearance of an immense quantity of water vapor. Caranthir can see towards the room's entrance, the shadows of flames dancing behind the wall of steam that starts to spread everywhere inside the World Tree room.

Caranthir suddenly raises his scepter to his right.

'Clang'

The sound of two metallic things colliding can be heard. Then, turning his gaze towards his scepter, Caranthir observes a blade, Saibus' blade.

Saibus takes advantage of the proximity between him and Caranthir to throw a powerful Aard sign that pushes Caranthir back a few steps. Then, Saibus uses this tiny timelapse when Caranthir is made before to cover his blade with flame with the spell 'Cadfan's grip.'

Caranthir stabilizes himself and, unlike Saibus, wraps his scepter in ice. The ice makes the temperature around Caranthir and Saibus drop drastically. The ice covering the baton is not traditional magic ice or anything else. It is much more than that, ice from the Biting Cold.

"You control the White Cold? No, no one can control it. Instead, you use your magic and Navigator power to create a rift in the White Frost to hold your weapon. That's also why you use it so little. Even you can't fully control it."

"You are much more intelligent than you make yourself out to be, Seidhe Bloed. But that doesn't change your fate. After all, I saw your blood flowing under my feet in front of that tree." says Caranthir with a deep voice.

"We will see about that, Caranthir, of the two of us who will emerge victorious. An Aen Elle of the Wild Hunt or a Sei'oine," replies Saibus with a mocking smile.

During this little exchange, the steam occupied the room's space and covered the area thoroughly. The disappearance of Caranthir and Saibus in the steam marks the beginning of their hand-to-hand fight. A fight between ice and fire as well as steel and magic.

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Clang

Cling

Cliiiiiiiinnnnng

Sounds of collisions between pieces of steel spread through the steam. At the same time as metal clattering, sparks fly, faintly illuminating the mist and revealing the silhouette of two people.

One is towering over the other in size and power while the other overwhelms it with agility and speed. Neither figure seems to have the upper hand in the fight despite their differences. From time to time, the steam moves aside to make room for Caranthir and Saibus. We can observe them very clearly. The steam quickly regains its disappeared territory but ends up straying again because of the waves of magic performed by the Navigator and the assassin.

The sword and the scepter clash, and the fire and the Cold of the other try to dominate each other for supremacy. And despite the power of fire, the White Cold is more powerful. As a result, the flames on Saibus' blade slowly diminish until they are nothing more than a thing of the past. Knowing this would happen, Saibus increased the intensity of his flame spells against Caranthir by drawing more chaos into them. But this had no effect, as Caranthir did the same to his ice spells.

During an exchange between Saibus' blade and Caranthir's icy scepter, a deformation becomes noticeable on the assassin's sword. The following discussion of blows amplifies this deformation, which spreads on the blade.

Saibus' eyes darken, and his sword will soon break if he continues the fight as it is.

"Your blade is about to give way, Sei'oine. If you surrender, I promise to kill you painlessly, swiftly, and with the honor you deserve, " says Caranthir in his cold, deep voice.

"Never. I'd rather die in battle taking it with me to the other world than bend to the Wild Hunt." retorts Saibus with vehemence.

After this short exchange of words, the two continued the fight without discussion.

The crack grew, and it finally broke the blade of Saibus. Caranthir smashed his scepter on Saibus' head. The latter blocked it with his sword, which broke into three pieces. The point, the length of the sword, and the base of the blade remained in the handle.

Clang

Cling

The two pieces fall to the ground with a metallic thud. Caranthir strikes a decisive blow to the side of Saibus, who is pushed back and wounded. Saibus went back and threw his broken blade in the direction of Caranthir. The Navigator dodges to the side and moves forward. During this time, Saibus takes out his twin blade and casts a fire spell, throwing a fire arrow at Caranthir.

Caranthir retaliates with his ice spell, which cancels the arrow. The two come into contact for another round, but as they collide, Caranthir lets out a grunt of pain, blood spurting from his right shoulder. The pain runs through him, weakening his blow, allowing Saibus to get past his guard and make a deep cut in his left arm.

Caranthir, in a difficult moment, pushes Saibus back with a 'Wave of Naglfar,' a Wild Hunt spell that creates a wave of ice. Saibus moves back about ten meters to be away from the ice wave. Caranthir removes what went into his shoulder. He sees the base of Saibus' broken blade, which he throws on the ground. The handle and the bottom of the broken blade bounce off the ground a few times toward Saibus before ending up at his feet.

"Magnetism. Well, then you've signed up for a slow and painful death." Caranthir summons several ice spikes that shoot toward Saibus. Caranthir also gathers some ice dogs. Saibus dodges the ice spikes and lunges to slaughter the ice dogs. He covers his blade with flame using 'Cadfan's Fist' again. He slices the dogs as if they were nothing and continues his race toward Caranthir.

While Saibus takes care of the ice dogs, Caranthir only incants a portal behind him from where Saibus can see a world made of ice, a gigantic world covered with white. A world conquered by the White Cold.

Saibus finally arrives a few meters from Caranthir. Several arrows of fire come to plant themselves in Caranthir, but few cross his weapon before disintegrating. But this is enough to allow Saibus to destabilize the Navigator and disrupt his spell. Although the spell is cast, its power is less.

Although much less powerful, a surge of ice emerges from the portal. The ice spreads without giving Saibus a chance, and he is engulfed like the rest of the room.

Five seconds, that's the time it took for the room of the World Tree to be covered with a white and blue coat.

In front of the World Tree lies Caranthir, weak in a restful silence. He is bleeding from the wound on his shoulder and arm. He used a lot of magic to protect himself from the White Cold that he partially used to kill Saibus.

"Well, your death, as originally promised, is quick, painless. It is an honor to die by the White Cold." Caranthir speaks softly as he looks at the sea of ice and snow before him. He looks back at the World Tree. He steps forward, exhausted from using the chaos too much. He touches the World Tree and takes a breath.

"Well, his Majesty Auberon is content."

'Crac'

Caranthir turns around and sees Saibus covered in flame, blue skin, covered in water that evaporates, leaving behind a trail of steam.

Saibus slowly moves forward with his blade scraping on the ground. Then, his pace quickens to a race. Caranthir raises his wand to strike a blow, but his body freezes for a second, giving Saibus time to deliver a fatal crash to the Wild Hunt officer. Or, his impact should have been disastrous because Caranthir could regain control of his body to shift to the right, losing his left arm, which falls to the ground but keeps his life.

Caranthir screams in pain. His blood spurts like a fountain staining the ground, his armor, and Saibus. His blood spills on the floor and forms a puddle.

Saibus doesn't say a word and stabs his sword into Caranthir's chest. But Caranthir doesn't want to die here, not when he is about to accomplish his mission ordered by the king of his people. So he dodges his left stump and freezes his wound. Then, holding his staff with little strength, he creates a wave of repulsive force that sends Saibus flying five meters away. The assassin falls heavily to the ground. He, too, is injured and exhausted from the magic he had to use to protect himself from the White Cold.

He struggles to get up but manages to do so by leaning on his sword. Then, he raises his troubled gaze to Caranthir, who walks through a portal with his staff and left arm missing.

"SAIBUS."

Exhausted and out of breath, his vision goes appropriately black. Saibus then collapses onto the one with the last memory of his mother's voice calling out his name.

AN:

This fight was hard to write because I didn't know what I wanted in the ending. I wanted to show the strength of Saibus but also show that he was not the strongest. He can't win so quickly against the n°3 of the Wild Hunt. I didn't know if Caranthir should die or if he should come out unscathed if Saibus should be hurt. But I'm pretty happy with the outcome of this fight.

Tell me what you think and what you would have done in my place.

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