Chapter 95: Chapter 95: Rematch

The blinking text of Nay’s interface shined through the blood-red filter that had appeared over her vision. Mishell’s elbow smashing her helm sent a burst of stars into her sight. The half-maugrim girl had increased her strength to rattle Nay inside her armor like that. The sudden disorientation fucked up her sight. During her training with Quincy, one of the things he mentioned is that it’s hard to think straight if you’ve been hit in the nose. He was right.

But her interface was telling her something.

Kinetic Points 3/3.

Her last Shred attack on Mishell had filled her Kinetic Point meter. So the appropriate response was activating Rupture.

There was a shriek of pain as the wounds on Mishell’s torso burst, splitting open wider. Red blood splattered Nay and the air filled with nether vapor. The half-maugrim and part nether-being girl stumbled forward, clutching her side.

Nay didn’t waste any more time. It was time to end this now. She breathed in vigor and then released a considerable amount as she swung and crossed her arms in an X, activating Decapitate.

A Vigor Blade emerged out of the spectral vigor energy in front of her fists and flew at Mishell. They hit the back of her neck and clamped shut. There was a burst of crimson mist. When the mist fell, the Vigor Blade had disappeared and a thin line of blood was visible on Mishell’s neck. Blood poured out of the wound like a spurt of paint.

Nay’s foe fell to her knees. And her head fell backwards off her neck and rolled across the ground. The rest of her body fell forward.

Even though she hated Mishell and carried no sympathy for the girl, Nay was still shocked to see her head separate from her body.

“Stupid Elseworlder,” an unsettling voice said. “You think that was enough to kill her? The flesh is durable. Flesh can be stitched back together. The flesh is full of wonder and mystery.”

That’s when Nay realized it was the sentient mace speaking. She saw the pink tongues protruding from the spiked crimson and violet flower, the organic mace head, flicking back and forth as it spoke.

The strange shaft of the nether material pulsed with a red light. As if it was releasing some type of stored energy. Mishell’s hand that was wrapped around the mace shuddered and lit up. Accepting the transfer of energy.

Nay used her True Sight to see the vigor it had stolen from her when it battered her shoulder. It was mixed with the vigama of others the mace had kissed. It flowed through the nether network of Mishell’s new body, manifesting out of her neck stump as dark tendrils that oscillated across the ground, branching towards her separated head.

The tendrils reminded Nay of the ones she saw the Nether Sister using on Martygan. The appendages that had come out of her wrist stump that had violated the Gloom Ranger’s throat, implanting him with the dark energy that turned him into a thrall.

Nay watched in frozen horror as the dark tendrils found Mishell’s head and pulled it back towards her body. Bone reconnected to bone, flesh reconnected to flesh. She caught a glimpse of the vigama mending her back together on a cellular level. But the vigor was tainted with the nether substance. It entwined the cells, a dark helix.

“Bro, what the fuck,” Nay heard herself saying.

Mishell opened her eyes. A black and purple aura emanating from the cut that went all the way around her neck. She did a kip-up, flipping back to her feet.

“Now, finish her and feed me,” her mace said. “Restoring you has made me ravenous. And now that I’ve tasted her, I must have more.”

Mishell came at her, swinging the steel-headed mace, stepping forward and swinging the other mace, Fleshbane.

Nay came out of her shock and gritted her teeth. She danced back, curving around the Ygdar tree, weaving and ducking as her opponent came at her with renewed energy.

The maces hit the trunk of the tree. Bits of bark hit Nay in the face as the strikes meant for her left furrows on the trunk of the tree, exposing the white-green wood underneath the bark layer.

Nay ran off at a diagonal angle to put some space between them. She’d use her Fleet-Footed spell enhancement to create distance and then she could use her Salvo of Knives attack.

But Mishell caught up to her using Nether Portals. She disappeared in one and appeared right behind her. Nay picked up speed and then another portal opened up above her and off to the side.

Mishell came leaping out and Nay pivoted to parry her maces with ice scythe. The power of the mace blows vibrated through ice scythe and travelled into her hand arms. Even as an Iron Rank, she knew that a few minutes of this would weaken her if not totally cramp her hand up.

She pivoted her feet and twisted, landed a back-handed slash with Thorn. Or so she thought. Mishell twisted with her so instead of the dagger striking flesh, it just slashed across an incorporeal zone on her torso.

Then Nay felt pain again. Her opponent head-butted her helm. The interior ridge hit her already throbbing nose, making her see stars again. She knew Mishell was going to follow with a mace strike. It would be aimed at her head. So she instinctively raised ice scythe above her head and hot sparks hit her face as the steel mace head bounced off the scythe.

But then Fleshbane hit her in the side and she almost folded over it. The spikes of the organic petals bit through her maugrim armor, spraying that corrosive fluid, bypassing the absorption effects of the armor. The tips squeezed through the cracks and pierced her flesh.

[Armor Breached!]

Nay screamed and could feel the sentient weapon greedily feeding on not just her blood, but her vigor essence.

Mishell rammed Nay with her shoulder, knocking the wind from her. She felt onto her back and her foe stood over her.

The mace, Fleshbane, couldn’t contain its crazed excitement. “Pound her face in! Turn her head into jelly and bits of crunchy bone!”

#

Bjorbeln the Arborist felt the Ygdar tree’s pain as he fought off the undead creature. Never did he think that such dark and powerful magic would find its way to the tomb. Since his mothers had passed over to the next world, leaving him here to protect the tree, the place had been mostly quiet and empty for years at a time, a former shadow of the place that his mothers had built here.

Save for the occasional tree-robbers that came looking to violate his charge, this had been a lonesome and desolate place. But the song of pain the tree sung was loud in his head. He knew the intruders wanted the Fruit. The very thing he had promised his mothers he would protect.

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He needed to finish or get away from the bone giant and get back to the tree to stop the intruders. Make them pay for daring to hurt the Ygdar. He summoned the reserve of strength he stored away in his belly, like his mothers taught him. When he pushed it out and into his club, the club taken from a crown of Ygdar roots, his weapon would work its wonders.

His mothers explained to him that the green wood was special. It could help things turn out in his favor. He knew this to be true. But it had been a long time since he had to call on his club to be special.

But here were just too many intruders. And they all seemed powerful and greedy. Willing to use bone giants to do their bidding.

If he had to die protecting the Ygdar, he would do so happily.

He focused on the inside of his belly like his mothers had taught him. To focus on the fire there. He imagined himself throwing dry wood into the fire. Broken branches to help it grow.

The bone giant kept hitting him. But he had stopped feeling pain for himself a long time ago. He only felt the pain of the tree now.

He concentrated on feeding the fire in his belly more and more wood. And soon it was so big. It was blazing. And he felt he could no longer contain it. That was the point his mothers had taught him to let the fire spread into his club.

He could feel the weapon becoming more firm in his hand. He could feel it growing, strengthening. And this is when the club started talking to him in a way where only he could hear it. It presented him options and then pointed out the best one.

All he had to do was listen to it, wait for the option it pointed out, and then do that.

In this case, the club showed him that he could either head-butt the bone giant on top of him. Or that he could use his club to hit it on the side of the head. But the third choice, and this is the one it pointed as the best, was to punch his way through the bone giant’s chest and to grab the pink fleshy bit that was inside.

Once he did that, he was to squeeze with all his strength.

So that’s what he did.

The bone giant grabbed his neck and squeezed and Bjornbel had a hard time breathing. But he had enough breath to let go of his treasured club and punch the chest of the bone giant with his all.

He heard a giant crack. It was loud, like the time when fire from the sky first struck the Ygdar tree. That was when his mothers began their travels to the next world. They had told them that fire from the sky would come and hurt the tree. But part of it would still be left. The roots.

And his job while here was to take care of the roots. And if a Fruit should grow from the tree, to protect it until someone came along who could be trusted to treasure the Fruit so much they would plant its seeds. Only then could he cross over to the next world and be reunited with his mothers.

Bjorn punched the bone giant again and its chest came apart like one of the many stone jars in this resting place. The bone giant roared but that didn’t matter. It squeezed his next harder and he could no longer breathe.

But that was okay.

He shoved his hand inside of the bone giant and searched for the pink fleshy bit the club had shown him. He thought of it as the bone giant’s Fruit. His fingers found something soft.

He wrapped his hands around it. It squirmed like it was one of the tree robbers he had caught who tried to pluck the Fruit from the tree out from underneath him. He squeezed and pulled his hand out of the bone giant.

He felt the fleshy thing stretch and there was a snap and the bone giant finally let go of his neck. But it dropped all its weight on top of him and lied there.

Bjorn grunted and yanked his hand out of the bone giant. He brought his hand up to his face and opened his fingers.

The pink and red Fruit in his hand was mangled and it was spurting blood. A darkness floated off it. Red motes like the wisps he sometimes saw on the surface on certain nights drifted out of the squished Fruit and floated above.

He dropped the Fruit on the ground and he heard people next to him, scuttling around. One of them gasped as the Fruit hit the floor.

These men and women and maugrim were armed. But they didn’t matter right now. What mattered was who was at the Ygdar tree, giving it pain.

With a grunt he shoved the bone giant off him and climbed to his feet, groaning. He picked up his club and then used some of the fire stored in his belly to help him jump back to the Ygdar tree.

#

Mishell brought down Fleshbane and Nay rolled. The spiked organic flower cracked the ground where her head was just at.

The half-maugrim let out a battle-cry and chased after her with the maces. It was like a demented game of whack-a-mole. Nay kept rolling and the maces alternated pounding the ground. The ground and roots cracked around her with each hit.

Then suddenly, there was a huge crash and a bellow that sent Mishell tumbling. Something giant smacked into the earth. There was a collision that trembled the ground, the sheer power rattling Nay’s skull.

The one-armed ogre had landed next to her.

The Bjorbane.

He roared and raised his giant club.

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