Desecration Chapter111: What Control Do I Even Have?

What was it to listen?

There were words being spoken. All the ti really. The grass liked to speak in a soprano, while the trees humd a deep rumble. You just had to be willing to hear it, had to open your ears to the World. There was one ti where I really listened to what it was saying. Absorbing every note like a sponge to make sothing better.

I never could rember what it felt like. I was too tired when it happened.

Was it sothing like this?

A disc of glass arced for my shoulder. It sounded like an echo. I dodged it not because I felt the instant mana ford the spell, but because the World was clear in what would happen. There was concept there. A thousand thousand mirrors to create an image of perfection.

I didn't care for it.

I applied so of my spell to my shoulders, back, and arms so that I could impart as much power into the swing as the mana I used would allow. She could've dodged, but that would've led her right into Xae.

Instead I felt her cast a spell that used a massive amount of mana alongside my muscles tearing.

Xae barely had an instant to register that she was facing the opposite direction before the woman stepped out of my range brought down her glaive to cut my friend open. To her credit, Xae barely reacted, creating distance before turning back around to face the mage.

I swung as hard as I could.

A prism appeared where my blade would've connected with the woman. Small, about the size of my fist. My greatsword collided with it.

It exploded.

My arms rocketed back from the force and a myriad of shards struck my body.

None hit the woman.

She looked at and smirked.

I dodged or parried the next three spells with relative ease, making sure to keep an eye on her glaive in case she decided to use both.

Xae got back in the fight and closed the distance insanely quickly.

The mage stepped aside and covered her nails in glass before swiping at Xae's face. Luckily, my friend managed to dodge. I'm not sure I would've cared either way. The World sung an opening and I stepped forward.

I could feel muscles strain as I localized my spell. It was easy to ignore because it was distant. Like my body wasn't really my body and I wasn't really a person.

I stabbed forward.

Just before my blade would've connected another prism of glass appeared to push back and pellet with shards. Annoying. The woman summoned a disk the size of my body to separate us and I could see through the material that she'd decided to focus on Xae.

Okay.

Mana into my spell into my arm into my fist and the thing shattered with a punch.

A distant part of myself winced at the pain of my muscles ripping and bones shattering.

The woman glanced back with surprise and Xae capitalized with a short swing to her thigh. Aiming to incapacitate? What was she planning? Didn't matter. Blood left the woman's leg and I swung to add to the chorus. She dodged. Again.

So I swung again.

Over and over our dance went, both parties accumulating wounds along the way.

Us more than her, but that was fine.

Could I do sothing with the blood I was losing? Hmm...I didn't know. Now wasn't the ti to experint. The mage danced around and behind Xae. The girl barely managed to parry a swing aid from her neck.

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Xae was bleeding a lot.

A casual observation, one that didn't matter in the grand sche of things. I kept fighting, ignoring the litany of cuts on my body and pushed forward. My blade collided with another prism.

This ti, I wasn't pushed back.

It seed as though if I was willing to sacrifice enough mana then I could overpower the sudden burst of energy, how fun.

It wasn't so fun for the mage.

My sword carved open her side, stopped by sothing solid (likely glass) just before it would've severed her spine. She let out a hiss and extended a hand towards my head.

The World scread at to dodge.

So I did.

A torrent of glass grew from her arm to make a tree, I had to back up so more as the glass kept growing while trying to engulf . I wasn't able to avoid the shards of glass already in my body exploding.

I let out a grunt.

Then the mass of glass she had created moved. It was a strange lattice of chaotic designed that approximated to sothing like a prism? It was as tall as Loklan and twice as wide.

Every piece of the lattice reached out to impale .

I didn't know how to dodge.

So I didn't.

Dozens of spikes the size of pencils penetrated my body. I avoided the ones that would've killed instantly, the rest I could heal later. They started to grow in my body.

But they didn't.

The glass mage shot a confused glance, distinctly looking away from Xae. That earned her a gladius through the lung.

I just focused on what was mine.

The body wasn't just the biological. Stretch it far enough and any foreign entity was technically a part of it. Extrely inefficient. Luckily I managed to push a droplet through alongside so mana.

I could feel it working as I willed the glass to beco brittle and shatter, letting move freely towards the mage. Free and cut up all the more.

It took a lot of mana, too much to be used for anything but desperation.

It let carve into her side and open up her other lung, maybe even cutting close enough to her heart that I'd severed her aorta.

The woman coughed out blood and blocked a swing from Xae before looking at with fury in her eyes.

Mana.

Too much.

One mont I was there, then the next I was however many feet in the sky. Higher than the trees at the very least. I fell, too fast for to register anything other than shock.

A warning.

I didn't think. I twisted to the side and felt as plenty of flesh was sheered off my back by a spike that would've impaled my heart. I didn't manage to avoid the other one unfortunately.

Pain from trauma was easy to handle. Unless it ca from the kidneys.

I could feel pain sing at the new log thrown in the fire.

I twisted too far, putting my body directly on course for a spike she had made near the start of our fight. I hissed and swung my blade on instinct. The spike was too close for it to matter.

I was stuck.

Stuck ant dead in a fight.

So I sucked in a breath and pulled myself free.

I could still hear Xae fighting in the background. She needed as much as I needed to kill the woman. I would suffer this gladly to help with both. I managed to free myself after what might've been multiple seconds or just one.

I rejoined the violence.

The woman seed surprisingly composed considering one lung had been impaled and the other was carved open. Couldn't forget the deep rent that almost hit her spine.

Bunch of other shit, but each of those alone should've killed her.

Composed and not coughing.

She must've had a way to ignore the damage. How? She was...well, maybe not a glass mage considering the teleportation, but the concept shouldn't be capable of brute forcing through injuries either way. Nothing for it but to keep fighting.

A fight we were clearly losing.

Badly.

That was okay. Just had to keep trying and maybe we'd find a miracle. Didn't have a choice, we couldn't run after all. Would I have even if there was a chance at escape? I looked at the glass and let the fresh mory flash through my mind. Probably not.

But what was another dead loved one?

Plenty, it turned out.

I could handle more than enough mana to keep moving and increase my strength sowhat. It'd be enough. I charged.

And promptly froze at the sound of sothing strange.

Strange words from a familiar voice, except warbling.

The glass mage snapped her head to the source and her eyes widened at the sight of a witch.

Thin enough that his skin acted as a leotard for bones and organs. The upper half of his toga was hanging from his waist, revealing a myriad of tattoos I could've sworn I hadn't seen when I last saw him in this form.

The sight of Umoa was almost enough to break from the trance I had entered.

His face was neutral and he extended a hand forwards.

The markings started to glow as incomprehensible language left his mouth at the speed of a galloping horse. Worms made of bone dug out of his skin like maggots and jumped in the way of projectile glass, dissolving it as though it were nothing.

It was a corpse. Walking and walking and walking in an endless dessert made from powdered bone. The corpse was rotting, pieces of itself falling off only to be replaced by new flesh.

New yet still necrotic.

His chant ca to a cracendo as the glass mage kept trying to interrupt him. So focused on the witch that Xae managed to get a few deep cuts in.

The chant ended.

For the first ti since I t the witch, I saw Umoa smile.

So wide and so happy.

Then his right arm twisted into a gory ss until it snapped off his shoulder and fell to the ground, dissolving almost as fast as it detached.

Beside him a smiling woman with green skin stepped into reality as though she was always there.