Darkness and Hellfire

Chapter 9 Pick One.


Lenna's blade arched out with pure power and intent. The sword covered in her hellfire, created from both her aura and mana, plowed through the air with pure lethality.

The raid team leader's eyes went wide as he realized that she was going to just take his hit and cleave him in half at the same time. His charge had given him far too much forward momentum to stop in time so he did the only other thing he could, he went for her sword. The squad leader twisted and brought his sword up to meet Lenna's with everything he had. His sword shone brightly in the dimly lit cavern, bright enough that every drow present felt their retinas sting from the sudden flash of light, and his mana surged. His will solidified as he tried to slow her sword and strengthen his own with his aura at the same time. His entire body, mind, soul, and oath resonated as a sudden boost of power reinforced his action. His ancestors were with him.

Lenna's sword was on a collision course with the squad leader's left shoulder, and would have continued until it passed through his right hip, if he hadn't changed the target of his own attack from her to her sword. As he shifted, Lenna's strike came in line so it would cleave through his right bicep and maybe take a slice out of his chest if his sword didn't manage to save him.

The squad leader and Lenna's swords met each other directly between the two paladins. One paladin was a level sixteen at his prime, level seventeen if he survived his battle against Lenna, and the other was a level nineteen woman who was only at around ninety percent of her strength. The man's armor reflected the radiant purity of his conviction and dedication to the service of his god and his ancestors while the woman's armor was covered in concealing shadows and burning with otherworldly flames, with the barest flickers of embers seething beneath it all. The man's sword was enchanted and made of the finest steel, the most perfect blend that the V'Nova household had used for themselves and their knights for millennia, the woman's sword was coated in a mythical metal that was unreasonably tough in all but the most extreme circumstances.

Lenna's sword bit into the squad leader's as if the steel blade had personally offended it. Her sword cut deep and then passed through the shattered steel blade leaving glowing shards of metal blasting apart in its wake. Her sword continued until it hit the man's right arm and then it bit deeply into his armor. Her blade continued until it had passed almost completely through the man's bicep and vambrace, only stopping once it had finished carving through bone. Lenna's aura and mana surged even hotter as she imparted the perverted hatred of her broken oath, which echoed with the finality of mortality, directly into the squad leader's arm. Hellfire surged, raged, and rampaged through the squad leader's very being as Lenna's power tried to entirely consume him. The bones in his arm were turned to ash, the flesh became blackened sludge, and the blood quit being a liquid and ascended into the state of the formless air all around them.

The squad leader's arm dropped free as the last bit of the vambrace was melted through by Lenna's aggressive imparting of the nature of her power, her broken oath, and the shadow of Isaac's power. The man staggered as he was suddenly off balance and his arm was being burned away. He let out a cry in agony that quickly died in his throat as Lenna turned her attack into a backswing that went straight for his neck. As he hunched over from the pain and his sudden loss of balance, her sword found its way into the crack between his helmet and breastplate. Whatever the man wore under his helmet was no match for Lenna's power and his head was cleanly parted from his shoulders. One strike had decided the fight and the second one had ended it in no uncertain terms. In all, it had only taken a handful of seconds for Lenna to finish off her foe and begin to look for whoever was left.

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Isaac vanished and appeared within the midst of the backline trio of the raiding party. The two archers were ready for him, however, and already had swords drawn and were swinging towards him. The mage took a step forwards and teleported away just in case Isaac was about to try to end him in an instant, he was. While Isaac began a game of cat and mouse with the mage, the six knights who had started suffocating to death all scrambled to get their helmets off. The one who had tried to fight Isaac was still in a daze from the blow to the head so his gauntleted fingers were struggling to grab the tiny clasp under his chin. The one who had tripped at the beginning and another one who was just slow were lagging behind but the remaining three were already ripping their helmets off of their heads.

Isaac followed the mage through a quick series of teleports around the cavern while the two archers struggled to decide if they should have their crossbows or their swords at the ready. Isaac's first attack that would have connected was met by a Reality Shield, which had obviously been formed from an item, precast spell, or some kind of enchantment as it formed only once Isaac's sword started to part the mage's robes. Isaac got the mage's tempo down and quickly tested the limits of the defensive measure. It only took a handful of teleports for Isaac to start to arrive at the same time as the mage and once he did that, it was already over. Isaac stabbed a throwing spike into the mage's kidney immediately after his sword was stopped by the Reality Shield. The mage stumbled and his next teleport was interrupted. Isaac appeared and tried the same trick again but this time the mage was ready for him. The mage casted his own Reality Shield even as his enchantment or item formed a different one to stop Isaac's sword swing. Together, the two shields were able to keep Isaac from killing him.

"Annoying." Isaac commented and appeared directly in front of one of the crossbowmen. Isaac's sword went straight through the eye slit on the knight's armor. As the first archer fell, Isaac went on the offensive again against the mage. Their fight would go one of two ways, either the mage would cut his losses and run, or he would die at Isaac's hand. It was clear the exact moment when the mage realized that Isaac was never going to run out of mana. Their little game had served as a way to try and run Isaac out of mana while keeping the mage close by to the rest of the team and alive. That plan had gone out the window.

"Head my command ma-" The mage's voice was cut off as he took a throwing spike to the back. Isaac had thrown a pair of throwing spikes at him and then teleported in front of him and attempted to use the same trick as before. The mage tried to raise a Reality Shield before Isaac impaled him but it was for naught. The throwing spike that had lodged itself in the mage's back had been just the distraction that Isaac needed in order to get his hands on the mage. Once physical contact was established, the mage wouldn't be able to teleport away without him. Isaac drove his Truth the entire way up to the hilt through the mage.

"I can heal you," Isaac told him. "and you can tell me everything, or I can leave my sword here until you bleed out internally. Isaac was about to go take care of the last archer when he realized that he didn't have to. A V'Nova made shortsword went flying through the air like a diving falcon and impacted the last archer directly in the side of the head. The sword punched a handful of inches into the side of the helmet as he went down, dead. Isaac went back to dealing with his mage and this time grabbed him by the throat with his sword still straight through the mage's kidney. "Pick one."

Lenna, meanwhile, was taking out the trash. The knights that Isaac had started suffocating to death had been dispatched one at a time until there was only one remaining. Lenna had waited for each one to get up and brandish a weapon of some kind. After they had made their stance incredibly clear, she plowed through them with ruthless efficiency. Apparently fighting to the death was in style as the only enemy who had survived had been the one that Isaac had kicked in the head. In his dazed state, he had simply been struggling to get his helmet off to breathe the entire time until he was the only one left alive. Isaac's shadows still threatened to suffocate the final knight to death, even without his helmet on as it had been the shadows and not his helmet that had been suffocating him for so long.

Isaac was preparing to make sure that the mage would talk no matter what, sometimes it just took a little coercion to get someone's tongue to loosen up. But just in case he couldn't, Isaac was waiting to release his shadows from the knight that Lenna was watching over until the moment when the knight passed out. In the meantime, however, it was time to show the drow mage exactly how outclassed and out of luck he was.

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