Its branches extended, solid and thick as ironwood, and one lashed out with enough force to split stone.
Keiser’s sprint faltered, montum halting as he slid hard across the dirt. The impact ca on his left side... his ribs rattled, his breath caught. But he managed to twist just enough to avoid being pulverized.
Another branch thrashed toward him.
He t it with the princess’ short blade, steel grinding against bark that felt more like bone. His boots dug furrows into the ground as his body skidded backward under the force.
He knew... without the sigils burning, bleeding into his skin... he would have been hurled across the clearing, or worse, crushed into the soil.
Broken in more ways than one.
The Arbores did not relent. It drew back another limb and slamd downward, the earth shaking with each strike.
Keiser blocked one, but the weight of it made his arm tremble violently, the blade nearly wrenched from his grip. His teeth ground together as the sigils etched along his neck, back, and spine writhed like living things, crawling outwards his shoulders, searing him to reinforce the strength to this untrained body, that Muzio did not naturally have. His flesh was not built for this, and yet it burned and held, straining to obey Keiser’s will.
But for every branch he caught, another ca.
The beast’s limbs split and multiplied, sweeping in from the flanks. One aid directly for his undefended chest. Another curled low, hungry for his legs. Keiser’s instincts scread the truth... he couldn’t hold them all. If he leapt back, the branches would rake through him. If he stood firm, his body would give out.
He calculated in the span of a breath.
’He could sacrifice my legs... shatter the bones, tear the tendons. At least he’d still be alive.’
His stance shifted, bracing for the impact, ready to trade flesh for survival. The sigils burned hotter, veins of fire writhing under his skin, preparing to detonate every last ounce of strength just to keep him standing...
But those grim thoughts. His willingness to break his own bones just to live another breath.
Halted in an instant.
A blaze of violet fire swept into the fray.
The princess had returned.
One of her twin swords carved through the air in arcs of burning light, purple flas licking off the steel like living serpents. The swing circled around the massive branch hurtling toward Keiser, the fire curling up its length before the blade bit into solid wood. The branch shuddered, split, and the fla devoured its end in crackling embers.
The Arbores shrieked.
A hideous groan rattled through its trunk, the sound like a forest full of trees splitting at once. Sap sprayed like blood, hissing where the blade cut and burn it simultaneously.
Keiser barely had ti to register the sound before she slid into place.
The blade flashed forward as she caught it, intercepting another branch just as it ca down toward his chest. She braced, almost kneeling as the force drove her back.
Sparks and ash burst between them as she skidded to a halt only a hand’s breadth from Keiser’s front, the violet fire streaking across his vision like lightning.
And then she turned that montum into fury.
With a twist of her body, Yona used the recoil of the branch against her, pivoting low, her blade already whipping down into the ground. She drove it into the writhing nest of roots beneath the beast. Fire bit into the soil, searing through roots that recoiled and twisted like serpents in agony.
The Arbores staggered.
Its massive form lurched as though the earth itself were trying to yank it off balance. Branches that had been pressing on Keiser recoiled in a frenzy, thrashing madly in retaliation, snapping and whipping through the air like whips.
The sudden release of pressure nearly sent Keiser sprawling.
His knees buckled, his grip faltered, but his instincts snapped back into place. He adjusted, lunging to catch the next branch before it could crash into Yona’s exposed flank. The sigils writhed hotter against his skin, burning down his upper limbs from his shoulders, reinforcing him enough to parry with desperate strength.
Sparks of pain shot down his spine as if the mana itself wanted to peel his flesh away, but he endured it.
More branches whipped in from the sides, not aiming at him this ti... aiming for her.
Keiser gritted his teeth, pivoting his whole weight into intercepting them, blade and burning body moving in reckless tandem. He knew what Yona was doing, she wasn’t aiming to hack through branches. She was cutting at the core--- the living heart hidden in the roots.
And if she succeeded, the beast would fall.
The roots convulsed under her strikes, clawing at the soil as if to drag the whole tree deeper underground, fighting not to be exposed. The ground trembled as cracks split outward in jagged veins.
Dirt and debris flew, but Yona pressed harder, her short blade burning in furious violet arcs, slicing root after root. The sll of scorched sap filled the clearing, sickly sweet, mixing with the stench of charred earth.
Keiser snarled as another branch hamred down, splintering the ground beside him. He twisted, blade biting deep into the limb, forcing it away from Yona’s path.
Each impact rattled through his bones, yet he stood firm, sigils blazing hotter, skin blistering under their fire. Keiser gritted his teeth until his jaw ached, his whole body trembling under the strain.
Every nerve scread at him, every muscle on the verge of tearing apart. The sigils burned like molten chains, tightening, eating into him, and yet he forced himself to keep the branches at bay, to buy her every fraction of a second.
The princess pressed on, hacking her way deeper into the roots where the beast’s core writhed like a pulsing heart. Her strikes were relentless, violet fire sparking and scattering embers, but Keiser could see it... her movents slowing, her breaths sharper, more ragged.
They were both running out of ti.
And the Arbores knew it.
Its massive fra groaned as it shifted, funneling its trunk upward, its branches spreading wider, as if ready to abandon the fight and simply barrel past them into the open forest. The thought chilled Keiser, if they let it escape, they wouldn’t be able to stop it, it will crush anything in its path, and all their suffering here would an nothing.
That wasn’t an option.
"Burn it!"
He saw her head snap up, violet fire reflecting in her eyes as his words cut through the shrieking and thunder of breaking branches.
Without hesitation, she thrust one sword down, burying the flaming steel deep into the knot of roots at the beast’s base. The impact sent a wave of light through the clearing as the fire surged outward, a violent pulse of purple fla that instantly latched onto the wounds she’d carved open.
The severed branches shuddered, their ends glowing red like smoldering coals, brittle and fragile.
Keiser knew what to do.
His grip tightened on the other short blade he had been using. It wasn’t awakened in his hand--- no core fire thrumd in the hilt for him, it would never answer his call... but the heat radiating from her unleashed blaze was enough. The blade quivered, faint wisps of purple fire kissing its edge.
The princess glanced at him, blood streaked across her cheek, lips twisting into a grin that was both feral and knowing.
A single glance.
That was all.
She understood.
He understood her.
This was what unfortunate and unlucky folks shared, words weren’t needed, not when instinct and survival spoke louder.
Perhaps it was her sly fox core beast whispering through her veins, granting her that cunning sharpness... but Keiser didn’t dwell on it.
He moved.
Her body burned brighter now, the hue of her core fire almost consuming her entirely.
Blood boiled on her skin, hissing into steam that drifted from her limbs, leaving behind blackened flakes where it dried. She was unraveling herself for this strike, sacrificing flesh for fla.
And then she let it loose.
The fox erged.
Purple fire erupted, surging outward in a form that made the beast seem small.
A massive fox of fire coiled around her, tails whipping through the air like burning scythes, fangs bared as it lunged for the Arbores. The flas swallowed the tree whole, racing up its trunk, coiling around its branches as it shrieked in a scream that shook the ground.
The Arbores thrashed, trying to retreat, but Keiser was already moving.
He hurled himself across, ignoring the white-hot pain of his burned skin and screaming muscles. His blade, glowing now from the heat of her unleashed core, hissed as he swung it down into the largest branch still thrashing wildly. The steel bit deep, the wood cracking, splitting under the searing force.
Fire leapt from the wound, racing along the limb. Keiser grunted, feeling the heat sear his arms, blistering his flesh as the sword all but keep the burning wood from thrashing. Still, he pressed down, teeth gritted, until with a deafening crack the branch gave way and collapsed to the earth in a storm of sparks and ash.
The beast shrieked louder, staggering as its burning body lost balance.
Flas consud it, climbing higher, devouring every root, every branch, until its entire form blackened and crumbled.
And then, as with the other fallen beasts before it, the fire left behind nothing but ash. The monstrous trunk collapsed inward, disintegrating, a hollow shell that dissolved into dust as the fox-fire ate it alive.
At the center of the withering remains, the core was revealed... once a throbbing, pulsating mass of unnatural life, now shrinking, shriveling like a dying ember. It glowed faintly, then dimd, smaller and smaller until it guttered out on its own, no strike required.
Silence followed.
Keiser staggered, half choking on the smoke, half on his own breath. His arms trembled around the sword still clenched in his hand, his skin blistered and raw.
The sigils seared against him, still glowing faintly, reluctant to release their hold.
The princess stood amid the ashes, her body cloaked in the last wisps of violet fire, shoulders heaving, the faint grin still ghosting her lips.
And this wasn’t even the real battle yet.
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