Chapter Two Hundred and Thirty Nine - 239The Inquisitor howled in pain, and those Mana tendrils atop her aura flailed. She took the hit hard enough that it sent her flying into and through a plaster and wood second story wall nearby.
"Cal!" Evie cried out, but Felix couldn't see her.
DuFont stumbled, reeling from the blades in her face and the arm Felix still held. The Song that had buoyed her all this time faltered, a hitch in its beat. Felix dropped the arm and tore the Femur of the Envoy from his hip. His Blade of the Fang had been lost somewhere along the way, but this would do. He tilted the club sideways and flooded it with Essence and lunged. Felix's leg, half melted, gave out the moment he put his weight on it.
Adamant Discord!
Lightning flared and thunder boomed as the immutable threads of gravity launched him forward anyway. He slammed into DuFont, club braced, and pushed.
Adamant Discord!
Off-balance and wavering, DuFont still would not move easily. Felix poured his Mana and Essence into the Skill, flaring it with every ounce of his Aspects and stats. Yellow Mana bloomed, slamming into the buildings and street until the wood burst alight and the stone went red hot. Felix screamed.
Adamant Discord!
They became an incandescent bolt of dueling Mana, blue and yellow surging against one another until the alley walls shattered around them. They took off like a shot, Felix pushing with his club and DuFont bellowing. Down the narrow gullet of the alley.
"Reap the Maelstrom!"
"Raze!"
Deep blue and silver Mana sliced through the night, discharging into the dark. Lashing chain and twin axes buried themselves in the back of DuFont's legs. Armor sundered and flesh split before Evie and Harn's Skills, but Felix didn't stop his own Skill. No matter the pain.
Adamant Discord!
The both of them ripped past his allies, across the thoroughfare and through the wrought iron gate of another merchant's mansion. Felix hauled back, angling them higher, but the were moving faster and faster. DuFont rolled, her immense body attempting to blindly twist Felix from atop her.
"You're not escaping!" Felix snarled.
One wall, two, they plowed up a set of hardwood stairs and through the second story masonry. They skipped over a rooftop, shattering three chimneys in the process, before careening into some sort of squat tower. And right through it. DuFont let out a strangled scream as they emerged, and struck the Femur from Felix's grip. A bolt of lightning discharged in all directions and Felix was thrown backward, the club spinning into the night. The both of them fell.
"You-you've blinded me!" DuFont choked out. Felix's curved sword was still in her grip as they fell through the rainy dark. "Burning ashes! I'll kill you!"
Shadow Whip!
A cord of shadow caught at the Inquisitor, and Felix tugged, hauling himself onto her back just as yellow, gold, and a dark black Mana vapor coiled about her form. Felix grabbed the woman's gorget and clawed at her face. His own hooked sword met his claws, parrying a blow meant for the knives that still protruded from DuFont's eyes.
"Ascension of the Morning Star!"
Felix was inundated with a column of black and golden vapor that sparked into a massive, glowing blade above them. It dropped, like an executioner's promise.
Adamant Discord!
Lightning burst alight and sent Felix rocketing downward at an angle, still gripping tightly to DuFont's armor. She wailed in defiance, and the massive conjured sword hit the earth. An explosion of shadow, light, and heat Mana expanded outward, ripping apart mansions and parks and tiny, immaculate gardens. They were driven all the harder downward, into and through the roof of a massive mansion.
"UNF!"
Felix's Health was dropping too fast for Sovereign of Flesh to keep up. He tried to put the Inquisitor between him and the constant impacts but the woman fought against him, twisting in his grip and swinging blindly at him. They bulldozed through a parquet floor at an angle, out of one wing and into another. One house soon became two, then three, then four, a half dozen houses filled with masonry and woodwork, wrought iron and moulded bronze.
Armored Skin is level 62!
...
Armored Skin is level 69!
Sovereign of Flesh is level 56!
Still the Song of Fury sang unabated within her, despite the raking strikes and savage collisions. The blinded DuFont held onto him in turn, slamming into him with the butt of his hooked blade.
"That!"
*CRASH!*
"Is!"
*SLAM!*
"Mine!"
Adamant Discord!
Adamant Discord is level 57!
Rows of demolished blocks flowed in their wake. Lightning cocooned DuFont's ten foot frame as they emerged from a first story portico, smashing through no less than four columns on the way out. Felix gasped. They had come back, full circle, to the bulwark DuFont had raised. It still glowed a faint red-gold, the orichalcum of it's composition thrumming with System energy. His Skill dragged them toward it at breakneck speed.
"KEH! You want this? Take it!" DuFront grabbed Felix, driving the hooked sword against his back. Felix's talons slipped as some effect of the blade sapped the spells wrapped around him. She trapped his chest against her own. "Authority! Sing the Song of Seige!"
Activating the Song of Siege.
Ahead, the wall surged with light. Felix could feel it, far stronger than the Song of Fury within the Inquisitor, as dormant defenses came online.
"You don't deserve Authority, Unbound! It won't have you!" Around DuFont, her yellow heat Mana pulsed and flowed. It combated his own Skill and covered them with a cloying layer of intense warmth. "I'd rather die than let Haarwatch fall to someone else!"
Her spell flared and the heat Mana packed in around them. Felix's eyes bulged as they streaked toward the bulwark. Her Spirit was powerful, even with the dregs of her enhancement still running, even with two eyes blinded. Felix didn't bother with his Mantle of the Long Night; he couldn't compete with her Authority enhanced Spirit before, let alone now.
Adamant Discord!
He heaved on the threads upward, putting everything he had left into the action. With a lurching boom, they pivoted and shot straight up into the air.
Into the storm.
"DuFont!" Felix screamed into her face. "I Challenge you!"
"No! You cannot take this from me!" DuFont twisted and kicked. Her knee caught the edge of his hip and Felix tenuous grip slipped completely. They split apart, both of them still ascending.
Felix rolled, his body still wreathed in lightning. The both of them had almost hit the cloud cover and the rain had become all but impenetrable. DuFont was slowing but still rising, and her form glowed with a yellow radiance like the sun.
"This is mine by right! No demon from beyond the Void will claim it!" she screamed, and a sphere of blinding luminescence formed atop her hands.