60 Blood Arts (2/2)
I bent my neck towards the right before her strike busted my other eardrum. All I could hear was a deafening ring in my ears now. She lifted her right hand up and slammed her right palm to my face. My neck bent again, but she kept her hand there. I couldn’t move my face as she lifted her left hand and smiled.
It was a vicious expression. There was no mercy in it either. She intended to pound my face to a pulp. Good. I wanted the fight to be that way. No matter who you are, you will try harder as the stakes are raised.
Pulling from the rush of battle, I came up with a plan and acted off instinct. I lifted my left knee, linking the movement with a wave of telekinetic force to deflect her strike up from my jaw to my forehead. At the same time, I reformed my armor on my face into a sharpened horn. I angled the horn, making the point land dead center between two of her knuckles.
The blade pierced her skin as she slammed her fist down, digging three inches deep into her hand before she howled. Her head whipped back, so I lifted my right leg. The heel of the foot barely caught around her throat, but it was just good enough of a grip for me to pull backwards with the leg.
This caused her to arc backwards while I grabbed her legs with my hands, holding her in place. I placed my left heel into the ground, my left knee bent upwards. From that joint, I grew another sharpened horn. The back of Kessiah’s neck stabbed into the horn, piercing an inch into her spine. At that moment, I activated oppression.
She howled again, blood gurgling in her throat before I sent spines of my armor into her flesh. The needles sucked at her life force, devouring the enormous energy within her. She struggled for a moment, but she couldn’t muster up any strength or leverage from her position. That and my face was turning purple with how hard I struggled holding her there as she writhed.
My health regenerated rapidly, both from my own health regeneration and from sapping hers. The moment it capped back out, my hearing returned and my ascendant mana roared into action. The vapor poured from my runes like a sizzling fire just underneath the surface. My strength returned as her strength waned. My death grip tightened, like a boa constrictor choking its prey to death.
Something in the air changed at that moment. A cold, sinister air formed over Kessiah before she lifted her bleeding hand above her arched chest. The blood from her hands pooled upwards, from her neck and her hand. The air around us vibrated, like it could hardly contain the welling of some unknown power. Pieces of stone floated upward, the vision around us blurring.
Across the violet skin on her neck, veins of black formed. The blood pooling above her poured into the markings, making them suck the light out from around them. The brightness around us dimmed, bending the light to the blood. My senses dimmed, not from my own weakness or lack of sensing. It was like whatever Kessiah called forth was draining everything that could be sensed. What could be heard, seen, even felt, the force drained it all.
She lifted her head from my knees. My armor snapped with ease. Her head arched upward before she stared at me, her eyes piercing. A chill ran up my spine as she grinned,
“You wanna play with the big boys? Then let’s play.”
The needles of my armor flowed out from under her skin before she grabbed my neck. She crushed down, snapping the bone and severing my nervous system in an instant. She lifted herself upward with a single arm into a one armed handstand, handling her immense mass without struggle.
The weight pushing down on my neck cracked the ground further. With her eyes still facing me, she fell into a back bend. With a near comical level of force, she pulled on my neck. I can’t tell you what happened right afterwards because, to put it simply, it was too damn fast.
The ground appeared, and I lost all sense of sight, sound, even touch for a moment. The electrifying might of the collision didn’t even let me comprehend it. When my sight returned, I was facing the ground. Control of my arms returned, along with my sense of hearing.
Torix was arguing with Kessiah,
“Do you want to kill him? This was a spar, not a deathmatch.”
“Did it look like he wasn’t trying to kill me? Seriously, if he can pull out all his stops, then why can’t I?”
I shook my head, shaking bits of rock from my head. They both stared at me, stunned into silence. I tried lifting my leg, but it refused my commands. I glanced backwards, and I could see why. My legs were completely bent out of shape. I sighed, lifting one of my now fixed arms.
I pushed with my hand, leveraging the force with my telekinesis. The redirected energy snapped a bone back into place in my leg. A few more pushes later, and my legs began healing again. About halfway through fixing my neck, I surge of nausea hit me. I vomited up a pool of blood before breathing in. Turns out when Kessiah grabbed my neck, it crushed my armor down till it was choking me.
I pushed myself up, stepping onto a leg. It felt new and familiar at the same time, like riding a bike after a seven-year hiatus from cycling. Once you know how, you can always ride a bike. Doesn’t mean you want too.
I shook off the sensation before setting back into my stance. When I tried surging my runes, they didn't answer me. Kessiah’s attack shredded my armor so badly and so completely, I would need to redo the runes.
Shutting oppression off, I let out a tsk while letting my hands flop to my sides,
“Well fuck. I don’t stand a chance without my runes. Sorry Kessiah. I’m going to need an hour or two before we continue.”
Torix and Kessiah still just stared at me though. I frowned, peeling my helmet back to unveil the expression,
“Uh...What’s wrong with you two?”