Her [Bloodfire] began to drain immediately as she leapt into the air. Famine's horse moved away from him at an odd angle, apparently intent on performing the pincer maneuver that all their horses were so fond of.

Famine raised his scales with one hand and held the other up, palm-out. Just as it had with his warp-blocking spell, a smokey ripple of energy emanated outward from him in a fast-moving sphere. Only now, as it passed over Ashtoreth, she was afflicted with a different debuff.

{[Theft of Power] debuff: -788 DEX}

His spell washed over her in the exact moment that his horse came at her from the side, and she beat her wings and launched herself upward to avoid the oncoming steed, then dove back down toward Famine.

Dark wings that seemed to be made of tinted glass stretched out behind the horseman as he leapt back out of her path, and for a few moments she simply chased him backward across the arena until he'd run up against one of the steep walls.

Seeing her chance to close with him, she swept her palm through the air to conjure a broad swathe of bright, intense hellfire. At the same time, she launched herself forward toward Famine, bringing her hands together within the cloud of flames as she drew them inward to coalesce into a weapon, leaning forward as if she was about to thrust with her massive sword.

Only she didn't.

Her posture was all deception, and the weapon that she formed within the cloud of obscuring hellfire wasn't her sword, but her cannon.

She'd conjured it backwards.

She gripped the trigger awkwardly with one hand as she feinted toward Famine, holding the barrel of the cannon with her tail and angling it upward at the horse approaching her from behind.

Then she fired, launching a [Draining Round] into the oncoming black horse as Famine swiftly dodged out of the way of her fake attack.

If the horse had simply ignored her cannonfire, it would have bowled her over. But she guessed that as soon as it saw her muzzle flash it assumed that an [Armor Piercing Round] was coming, and it veered to one side.

Her shot struck it across the chest, and she stole almost a thousand of the creature's [Dexterity] as she launched herself off the ground, flipping backwards as she gripped the cannon with both hands to fire another shot at the horse as it sped away from her.

Again, she stole a huge portion of [Dexterity] as her shot struck the horse across its back. She tracked the beast with her cannon as it bounded across the ground below her, its movements made awkward by the sudden need for evasion and the loss of its usual stats.

Then she pulled the trigger and heard a click.

Somehow, Famine had depleted half her magazine.

She felt a bolt of magical power collide with her back a moment later. She looked and saw that she'd been afflicted with another debuff, one that had just under 2 seconds remaining before it would expire.

{[Severed Potential] debuff: you cannot spend [Bloodfire]}

Oh.

She finished spinning to face him a moment later as another wave of dark energy washed over her and she was affected by a second application of the [Theft of Power] debuff, one that stacked with the first to peel away more than 1500 [Dexterity].

She'd made it up with the [Dexterity] that her cannon had stolen from the horse, but it didn't change the fact that Famine himself was still up a significant portion of stats.

A corner of her mind had to appreciate Famine's build.

He had very powerful auras that would turn any long-term engagement in his favor. Combining this with high base [Dexterity] and the ability to steal [Dexterity] while also flying around on a mount meant that he had an incredible capacity to simply dodge his opponent while his aura bled them dry.

If he kept hitting her with his massive area-of-effect [Theft of Power], he'd soon become completely unhittable.

And all that didn't include his spells.

She dismissed her cannon rather than try to reload it midair, unsure if her spare mag would even have any rounds in it. This created a cloud of hellfire, and Ashtoreth was happy to sense that she could manipulate the flames even with Famine's [Severed Potential] still affecting her; physical hellfire wasn't [Bloodfire] even if she could spend it as if it was.

Still, she couldn't form a new armament without spending [Bloodfire] to add more flames because her conversion rate wasn't perfectly efficient.

Rather than form a few hellfire javelins to throw at her enemies, she let the flames disperse. She didn't want Famine to know her workaround until it would really make a difference.

The black horse came at her a moment after Famine struck her with [Severed Potential], charging her with just enough coordination to reach her in almost the exact instant just before the debuff expired.

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She couldn't spend [Bloodfire] on [Powered Flight] to launch herself out of the path of the oncoming animal, and it slammed into her full-force, crushing one of her wings against her chest and pulverizing several of her ribs with the force of the impact.

She fell down through the air toward the stone floor of the arena below, launching herself to one side to avoid another one of Famine's projectiles once the [Severed Potential] debuff wore off and noticing that despite her having done almost nothing with it since the fight began, her [Bloodfire] was getting dangerously low.

The black horse descended, its hooves making small craters in the stone as she threw herself back across the arena to avoid it, pulling a heart from her locket as she slid across the ground and turning to scan the arena and find Famine standing on the far side, raising his set of scales.

She began to charge her [Spellsteal] as the horse closed with her, rising to flare her wings out behind her as they finished regenerating, then dancing back toward the wall as the horse advanced.

Another wave of smokey energy overtook her, applying another stack of [Theft of Power].

She growled as she finished charging her [Spellsteal], then began to conjure her sword.

I'm going to need you in a second, she said, sending Dazel a brief image of what she would require.

She got the briefest impression back, a sort of damn, boss, but as a sharp flare of emotions.

The fight had only gone on for fewer than ten seconds, but she could see that she'd been right about everything. If she couldn't kill him, and quickly, attrition would end it instead.

She had less time than the six remaining hearts in her locket suggested. If Famine cast any more [Dexterity] draining effects, he'd be untouchable.

And she hadn't even killed his horse, yet.

The horse charged at her once more, and she dove forward, past it, then pivoted to strike out at it with a [Mighty Blow]. The horse used its flight to quickly leap back away from her sword, then came at her once more.

Show me, she said to Dazel as she fought with the horse.

He quickly gave her a brief impression of Famine's position, relative to her.

The black horse charged and thrashed, its hooves smashing the stone at their feet and sending pebbles and dust flying into the air. She knew she needed to be careful, to time her attack perfectly and layer it in as many surprises as possible.

An instant later the horse charged and batted at her with its head, and Ashtoreth disregarded dodging to instead hit it with a [Mighty Strike] from her sword, launching the weapon into its side.

The combined force of its blow and the recoil from her own sent her careening backward across the floor of the arena, but this was what she'd intended. She used her racial flight to guide her tumble across the floor, righting herself and diving toward Famine with shocking speed, quickly turning her momentum into a charge toward her true enemy.

Famine launched a bolt of dark power at her, and she knew it was too risky to slow herself enough to avoid it. She took it head-on, and was afflicted with the [Severed Potential] debuff just before she collided with the horseman, claws outstretched, to slam him back into the arena wall.

She tried to pin him, but he was too fast and recovered too quickly. He spun away from her, her claws tearing at his arm where she gripped him.

Here! Dazel cried in the same moment.

A shadow swooped through the air toward her. She reached out with a claw, swiping it through Dazel to tear him almost completely in half, destroying his body instantly.

Her sword was still conjured, even if it was sticking out of a wall on the other side of the arena from when she'd launched it with [Mighty Strike]. And because her sword was still conjured, her claws bore all the passive enhancements that it did.

Meaning they did hellfire damage.

Meaning they could ignite his flesh.

Dazel burst into a bright gout of violet hellfire that consumed both Ashtoreth and Famine. She was moving before the flames enveloped them, drawing the fire inward to coalesce another armament.

And once again, her stance and the motions of her arms made it seem as though she was conjuring her greatsword.

Instead she conjured her scythe. At the same time, she used her [Power Tap] for the first time to increase her [Strength].

As Famine instinctively dodged to one side to bring himself out of the path of her feint, she yanked the haft of her scythe with her tail, swinging the weapon around behind her body to grab it with both hands and drive the point through his back, the blade bursting from his ribcage with a shower of blood as he was impaled.

It was a beautiful moment, seeing the look on his face.

After all, what did it take to kill one of the horsemen?

She'd surprised him by purposefully taking a hit from his horse and launching her sword to charge him out of nowhere, then further surprised him by using abilities even with no [Bloodfire], then further surprised him by stealing his [Theft of Power], then further surprised him by converting Dazel to hellfire, then further surprised him by feinting with her sword when she was really swinging with her much-lighter, much-faster scythe using stats that were boosted by an ability he'd never seen her use before.

And to her immense satisfaction… he looked a bit surprised.

Famine tried to draw away with his racial flight, but he'd been impaled. Ashtoreth yanked herself along the haft of the scythe, springing onto his upper torso while he was surprised. She wrapped her legs around him, forming her claws and digging them into his neck as he scrabbled at her with his hands.

The black horse reached them a moment later, frantically charging as fast as it was able despite the wound in its side… but Famine was too focused on struggling to provide the concerted burst of motion he'd have needed to throw her into the path of his horse.

She jerked them both backward and the black horse collided with the nearby wall. A moment later the [Severed Potential] debuff wore off and she bathed his head in scythe-enhanced hellfire as she fixed her claws beneath his jaw.

Then she tore off most of his head, leaving a meat-covered spine behind as if she'd pulled the cap off a mushroom.

Famine's body burst into a cloud of white ether, dissipating at the same moment that his horse vanished in a flash of light.

{You gain [Archangel Famine Core]; Tier 3}

{Vampiric Archfiend Ashtoreth is the victor}

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