Chapter 124: Chapter 108 – Pride and Downfall

"Beware old elves who stuck to their passions for all their lives. These people almost always become so stubborn and prideful, little can make it through their thick skulls anymore. It was the main reason we slowly weeded them out of the council of elders and brought in more of those who lived transitory lives. Those would happily serve a term, then just as happily leave and wander elsewhere without any issue." - High Elder Nydia Celearwen, of the Great Emerald Forest.

 

Bastille had not held back, and all twelve of his razor-sharp serrated wheels flew towards Cal as a swarm. They attacked her from every conceivable angle and direction, and aimed for spots that would easily disable her. If she was a normal person that is.

 

While Cal was not born ambidextrous, her decades of war had seen quite a few occasions where she was injured so badly she had to fight on with just one arm. Ever since the second said incident, she trained until she could fight with her weapon with just either of her arms.

 

The halberd in her left hand twirled as she blocked and deflected the six wheels that came from that direction. Two from the front, she dodged by a hair's breadth, while the sword in her right hand deflected away another three. Those three wheels almost fell down after contact with her blade, which gave her confidence in her theory.

 

One last wheel from Cal's right flew in low, aimed at the major tendon behind her ankle. She waited until just before it reached, and in one swift movement raised her leg and stomped down on the wheel. Then she drove her sword directly through the metal and pinned it to the floor.

 

She saw how the metal ted to shift shapes - Bastille's manipulation had nowhere near enough power to move the wheels when it was pressed under weight - after she stomped on in to escape her grasp, but once her sword pierced it, the shapeshifting stopped, and it became just an inert piece of metal affixed to the ground.

 

Anti-magic enchantment in direct contact was sufficient to cut off Bastille's connection to the metal it seemed.

 

When the remaining eleven wheels returned on another attack none of them came in low, and Cal had to pin one down with a maneuver between her halberd and her sword. The effort earned her a pair of cuts from when she stayed still to pin the wheel down, but she showed no sign that it bothered her.

 

Conversely, it was actually easier for Cal to disable another four of the wheels with her recurved knives. The design, which was built for chopping power in the first place, allowed her to just chop through four more of the thin metal wheels, and she left them stuck in the floor as she advanced towards her foe at last.

 

Now with her halberd in both hands, she swatted away any flying wheel that approached, usually with the sides of her weapon, to let the anti-magic enchantment disrupt her opponent's control over his weapon briefly.

 

By now Bastille had a more serious look on his face. His opponent was far from the hotheaded girl he expected, given the way she methodically neutralized half of his weapons with only minor cuts taken. The way the girl advanced and wielded her strange halberd also spoke of experience, not of one who trained relentlessly, but of one who had used the weapon to take the life of others.

 

He lashed out with his Urumi whip-sword the instant Cal entered his range. The thin, razor-sharp metal curled and weaved as if it was a living being, and forced Cal to take a step back after she parried the blows with difficulty.

 

A stalemate between the two combatants lasted for a few seconds as they took measure of their opponents, before Cal broke it and charged directly at Bastille.

 

The old elf was not flustered by her charge, and countered with his weapons, both the whip-sword and the flying wheels.

 

This time however, Cal refused to pull back. She dodged and weaved between the attacks, those she could not evade parried away by her halberd. One tricky slash from the whip-sword almost struck her, but she managed to lean away from it at the last moment, and the blade only left a cut across the bridge of her nose instead.

 

Bastille withdrew two of his wheels back, and leapt atop of them, as he used his magic to move them - and him - away from Cal. Due to how different people's mana interact, that method of transportation was only usable by metal mages for themselves and no others. That bought him time and distance, but Cal quickened her advance in return.

 

She took more cuts and gouges as she prioritized the rapid advance this time. One slash from Bastille was aimed at her eye, which she dodged partially with a twist of her head. The blade struck from her forehead, cut across an eyebrow, barely missed her eye, and sliced her cheek until it exited by her chin. She allowed the cuts she had taken to bleed slightly, to sell the illusion that what Bastille did so far were effective.

 

Nobody in the heat of battle noticed that the blood either flowed back into the wound or into another wound instead of falling to the ground.

 

When Cal pushed her to three meters from him, Bastille withdrew his four wheels, and converged them at the head of his whip-sword. The metal reshaped itself and melded with the whip-sword, and it formed. Semi-circular blade akin to that of a swinging guillotine's at its end. It was this heavy blade that he swung forcefully at Cal.

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To his utter surprise - and gasps from the spectators outside, not that either combatant heard it with the wind barrier between them - Cal neither dodged nor married the blade. Instead she let go of the halberd with her left hand and held it nearly by the end of the shaft with her right.

 

When the blade struck her, she too struck out, the beaked hammerhead at the back of her halberd swung with all her might towards the flat side of the whip-sword that was at its full extension. The anti-magic enchantment on the adamant covering broke Bastille's magic and control over his sword, while the hammer itself struck the thin layer of mithril that made the whip-sword with such violence it directly shattered.

 

The price was that Cal took a heavy blow from the blade at the same time, as the blade cleaved its way through her leather armor and flesh and left deep cuts on her ribcage. She felt how it sliced through several organs as it made its way from her right shoulder to exit just above her left hip, and had to use her magic to stop her entrails from spilling out of the wound.

 

On the other hand, that moment of surprise allowed her to not just temporarily disarm her opponent, but also bought her a moment of surprise, which was all she needed. She leapt straight at the hovering old elf, with another swing of her halberd leading the way.

 

Bastille chose to take the blow with his left arm - a sacrifice he self-justified in that he could just get it reattached later after the fight - and sent his remaining two wheels at Cal as he landed on the ground. Both wheels reformed themselves into wedges during the short flight, and struck Cal on her chest and abdomen.

 

She ignored them and only clenched her muscles to keep them in place instead, as she tackled the now one-armed Bastille to the ground and stepped on his chest, with her halberd leveled before his face.

 

"Take back your words and apologize," Cal stated as she stood tall before her opponent. "Or lose the tongue."

 

Bastille apparently hadn't given up, and unbeknownst to Cal channeled his magic to the severed blade of his whip-sword.

 

Those who spectated on the other hand saw it clearly. Some cried out in warning, Unitia and her family especially, but their voices went unheard due to the wind barrier.

 

Cal had not seen the reformed spike of metal that flew towards her back. She felt its approach only when it was far too close to do a thing about it. Nor had she cared to. That final attack by Bastille just made the decision for her instead.

 

The spectators gasped as the metal spike pierced through Cal's back and emerged out of the front of her chest. They lamented when they saw Bastille laugh cruelly from where he lay prone beneath Cal's feet. None of them realized the anomaly until Cal moved and spoke.

 

By then Nydia had lowered the barrier so everyone heard her voice clearly.

 

"You made the choice yourself. So be it then," she said in an all too-calm tone for someone who had just been impaled by a metal spike the size of an adult's arm. The spectators' eyes boggled as Cal grabbed the metal spike that had literally gone through her heart with her free left hand, and slowly, excruciatingly pulled it out of her body.

 

Bastille no longer laughed, he saw the look on Cal's eyes, and the impending death they promised. He tried to struggle, but his last two wheels were stuck in the grip of Cal's rock hard muscles, while the spike was in her hand, and her mana prevented him from connecting with it.

 

Before anyone could say a thing - or call an end to the duel - Cal slammed the metal spike she had just pulled out of her body into Bastille's mouth with such force that it crushed through his spine and the back of his head on its way out before it was embedded into the wooden floor.

 

Bastille twitched once, twice, lost control over his bladder and bowels, and trembled before his body laid still and breathed no more. His wide open eyes were full of denial and disbelief as they stared vacantly into the blue skies.

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