Aina appeared before the enlarged Anselma, slamming out a palm. Her montum was akin to the skies—vast and unapproachable. It was impossible to tell where it started or finished, or the exact mont when dusk shifted into a dense night.
Anselma swung to et her. She was imposing in her own right, a towering mass that went beyond just her size.
The clash shattered the world's concept of sound, a vacuum more vacuous than the depths of space in heart and layers ford, palm and axe blade echoing off one another in pulsing waves.
The two separated for only a brief mont before they clashed once more. A flurry of exchanges expanded the vacuum, forcing more and more Force into it.
The world whined against its limits, the tears of the World Spirit falling from above in a torrent of rain that washed the blood beneath and only stung against the Thronebearer's skin all the more.
And then it gave way.
All but the trees. They were instead enveloped by a powerful aura, diverting from Aina and rooting themselves in the depths of space.
There was a shocking wave of pressure that filled all sides, and in one mont, the world had been there, while in the next, it was vaporized to ash.
"Diverting your power like this will be your death!" Anselma roared, her Founder's Axe multiplying its blades in the air as she swung. Ti rippled and reality warped.
Aina didn't respond.
In the depths of the void, it was only easier to do such things. There were no World Spirits, no Regulators, no constraints.
Just violence.
Aina drew a circle through the air with one palm, a wave of blood following it. Her Clairvoyance seed to radiate out of her body, and the blood rippled. Force Arts spontaneously blood in a cascade of Natural Force.
BANG!
Palm and blade t once more, but this ti, Anselma's arm snapped back so hard and fast that it nearly dislocated from its socket. All the power she had built up in that reality-bending strike was countered with a single blow.
Aina took a step forward. After the last words she had spoken, she hadn't even so much as parted her cherry lips again. She had said all that needed to be said. All that was left was death.
Her fist shuttled through the void, a ring of blood appearing around her arm. It sparked with lightning, and clouds ford above, more Natural Force Arts spontaneously taking shape.
Anselma hurried to defend, but she was too late to bring her Founder's Axe back. Without a choice, she could only surge out with her own defenses, her blood churning and fusing into the ruby armor that adorned her body.
CRACK.
Aina's fist went right through, pounding against flesh, crunching through blood, ripping out tendons and sinew.
All the air seed to have left Anselma's body as she was sent flying backward. Her body almost shut down entirely, her own blood control countered by wisps of Aina's own entering her bloodstream.
Anselma quickly tried to assimilate it all, and when that failed, she pulled on her heart and sent out a violent pulse.
A surging geyser of blood erupted out of her chest, spewing into the surroundings and fusing into the rain that suddenly began to fall from above, originating from the clouds of crimson above Aina.
At first, Anselma thought that she was feeling the splashes of her own blood, but very quickly, it beca obvious that this was not the case.
Her eyes widened in horror, but Aina had already appeared high above her.
Anselma roared, swinging out her Founder's Axe. Even with all the damage she had taken, she managed to keep it under her control.
However, what t it was a bolt of crimson lightning from above, a single flap of Aina's wings sending her flying far out of Anselma's reach, while the latter was buffeted by winds that felt akin to a thick, steel wall.
BANG!
The tears of the World Spirit, Anselma's blood, and Aina's own rounded the skies, as Aina almost delicately raised her palm for one final ti.
The rhythm of the world fell to her beck and call as her eyes t that of Anselma's.
The Imperatress' eyes widened further, her heart—or what was left of it—skipping a beat as she felt so many things flash before her.
And then Aina struck.
Most of her life, the Imperatress thought herself to have sat at the top of the world. She stood at the pinnacle, matched only by those most ancient of Ancestors.
She thought it was her palm that could call rain and command the skies… until she saw a young woman without even a world to call on form it herself.
The tears of the World Spirit remained not because of the World Spirit. That existence had long since been wiped out, unable to withstand the blow of their battle.
It remained… only because Aina commanded it to be so.
What could only be described as the blood palm of a World descended from the skies, enveloping Anselma. She didn't even have the right to resist, her body collapsing practically from the inside out.
And yet, just when she thought she was dead, and her life was hanging on by nothing more than the faintest of strings, she felt sothing pull her out.
But it was no savior.
It was a calm woman, beautiful beyond compare, and even more unmoved by the world than that.
Aina pulled Anselma up by her hair, volatile energies that could shatter stars swirling around them as though nothing more than fireflies in the night.
And then, she slowly crossed the skies, approaching the Black Wood Tree.
Anselma's body shook, her pupils trembling.
"No…"
She struggled, but her tendons were ripped out from her body, her blood had all been drained, and her bones didn't have a single intact piece left. Even her face had deford into a flat, grotesque ss.
"You are… You are a Brazinger… You can't do this… to your Ancestor…"
Aina didn't respond, slowly pinning her to the tree. Only when Anselma's agonizing screams were sealed into her body did Aina speak again.
"My na is Aina Morales. I haven't been a Brazinger in a very long ti."
Reviews
All reviews (0)