Heroes to Hunted

Lilia's massive blood whips hovered over her back, their edged tips trained directly for my chest.

"So... You've got another trick up your sleeve. I'm somehow unsurprised," I said with a light chuckle.

"You shouldn't be surprised. Something like this is to be expected from fullkin royalty," Lilia arrogantly gestured to her blood whips. "Consider yourself lucky you got to see it before you perished."

"Oh, I do. It isn't often one gets to see a member of your kind in a fight; you fullkin prefer manipulating others into fighting your battles, so it's quite an honor!"

Lilia crossed her arms and proudly asserted, "Of course! Why waste time frolicking with oafs? It's just...so tiresome."

While Lilia shrugged in exaggerated fatigue, I averted my sights downward toward my hands, more specifically, my shield and flail. 

'Yeah...these aren't going to cut it anymore,' I sighed and tossed them to the floor. The shield created a deep dent in the earth with its landing.

Lilia tilted her head in obvious confusion. "You're throwing your weapons away? Have you gone mad, or have you just given into hopelessness?"

I smiled back at her. "Neither. I think it's time I let loose, too." I dug my hands into the ground and performed the motions to reapply my armor.

I thought to myself, 'Hopefully the captain is ready, because I can't wait anymore,' as I simultaneously gave an order to my golems using a subtle seismic vibration to begin their work.

"Oh, really?" Lilia's curious expression formed a wry smile as she crossed her arms. "And you think I'd just let you prepare? That I wouldn't...say...CHOOSE TO KILL YOU BEFORE YOU COULD?!"

Lilia leaped forward; all her inflamed whips grew in length and roared through the air as they swiped for me.

"Of course not," I mumbled with a smirk. I wasn't worried. After all, I had a hidden hand left, literally. 

A huge stone arm that was crafted from dirt and stone sprung up from the ground in response to Lilia's presence. The hand's rigid fingers wrapped tightly around Lilia's body and flung her backward with great force.

"When will you learn? Your tricks only serve as irritants! They mean nothing to me!" Lilia scoffed and swiped half of her inflamed whips for the stone arm, shattering it to pieces. 

The other appendages acted as extra legs and impaled the ground to recover Lilia's balance. 

"I-" Lilia began to speak when a dozen spears formed at her feet. They ejected out from the ground as a storm of skewers. 

As expected, the fullkin used her whips to twist and maneuver in evasion, but there were too many to completely escape unscathed. Some spears met their marks and obliterated several of her blood whips.

However, it was a victory that wouldn't last long. They instantly re-congealed and reignited from the puddles of black blood below.

Luckily, though my traps didn't last long, there were many of them; I'd layered many runes beneath the surface during my buildup of power earlier - a precautionary measure in case my attack failed. All of which were set to detonate when under the lightest pressure.

"Gah! These tricks of yours are getting..." Lilia sliced clean through a stone wall. It crackled from the flames and smashed to the ground with repeated thuds. "...really annoying!"

Meanwhile, a thick layer of granite traveled up my limbs as I simultaneously gathered green orbs of energy - buffing magic to improve my body's natural capabilities. 

In this case, my goal was to enhance my muscles' capacity to carry heavy loads and vastly improve my speed. 

Despite her obvious inexperience and youthful impulsiveness when fighting, her raw power and regeneration left Lilia on a level rivaling many of the deadly opponents I'd fought in the war. 

I needed, at least, this much to fight this woman on even terms.

The various joints and crevices of rock covering my body crackled as they fixed into place. However, I still wasn't finished; I needed to secure my safety against Lilia's flames.

'Thank the maker I was born a gebbran," I smirked. 

Due to my blood, my birth gifted me a magic no other race could emulate. A magic that allowed me to manipulate and modify the properties present within any mineral.

Sadly, like all racial abilities, mine had a drawback. If a gebbran used this ability too much, they'd risk suffering dire consequences. 

Still, I made full use of my race's magic, of Transmutation, in this moment. 

An explosion of bright light shined from me as I channeled power into my stone armor. Then, in a stunning transformation, the dull gray surface gradually shifted to a pure, cloud-colored white.

Once a standard granite, my armor was now modified with higher percentages of quartz and rutile. They'd bolster my defense's hardness and heat resistance, respectively.

By the time Lilia smashed through the final trap, I was ready. Ready for a deadly confrontation against flames and sharpened whips.

"Die! Your kind's magic won't save you!" Lilia shouted. She thrust dozens of her blood appendages for me. They closed in with a roar, giving the guise that I was being swallowed whole by a fiery maw of death.

One, two, three...seven whips closed in on me; all aiming to drill through my chest. 

'I won't die just yet,' I squeezed my hardened fists tight and raised them in front of my face for a pugilist's stance. Then, right as the whips entered range, I ducked to the right and threw a flurry of forceful punches.

My first strike landed on the closest whip. It exploded into a rain of inflamed black blood. Likewise, I intercepted three more in the same way. Each scattered and plumed around me in splashes of liquid flame.

Two more of her whips glanced off my defense as I leaned to the side. They screeched and scraped over my left shoulder before being reflected, leaving darkened black streaks across the quartz-white surface.

I shot several impaling spikes from my armor in retaliation. The sharpened stone stabbed the attacking appendages and blew them apart in blasts of blood and dust.

The last whip was a direct hit. 

'No evading this one!' I leaped backward, knowing a collision was imminent. The blood whip's tip crashed into my gut and sent me skidding across the ground.

"Agh...shit," I said through wheezed breaths. My knees buckled slightly as I recovered from the dull throbbing within my insides. "I can't take too many of those." 

I averted my sights downward to see that my chest armor, though fortified, was noticeably caved in from where Lilia's whip attempted to piece, and a webbing of shallow cracks surrounded the small crater.

'Sure am glad I made the jump...' I sighed. If I hadn't, her whip would've hit at full force and likely pierced straight through. 'So even this isn't enough to resist her strength.'

I brushed my gauntlet-encased fingertips across the damage; it quickly repaired and fused over. 

Unfortunately, the damage Lilia had suffered disappeared too. The whips I worked so hard to destroy had already regenerated.

Seeing Lilia's healing capabilities, I sighed to myself. 'So this is the strength of a fullkin... How the hell is she restoring so much? If fullkin have this level of strength and endurance, what separates them from gods and goddesses? What is their weakness? They have to have one..."

Meanwhile, Lilia snarked as always. She taunted me with curved lips that formed a condescending smile. "That was quite a hit you took; I wonder how many more till your flesh fails you."

I beat a fist to my chest. A loud thud and grind of stone against stone echoed through the air. "You've got to hit my flesh first for that to happen, don't underestimate proud gebbranian craftsmanship!" Though I feigned confidence, a sheet of nervous sweat appeared beneath my helmet. 

'I need to find her weakness...soon. I can't keep this up forever.' 

Lilia laughed in response with arrogance as she crouched low. "Heh, such a foolish man. Your confidence is misguided!" Her whips fully grew back to full length. So she began an offensive rush with speedy malice. 

"And your arrogance will be your undoing!" I replied back and matched her approach with equal aggression. Using the buffing magic that I'd charged up from before, I leaped several meters into the air. Deep imprints of my greaves were left in the soil as I left it.

"Prepare yourself, girl. I won't go easy on you!" I pulled my fist back and wound up a tremor-inducing strike. Dozens of fortifying spikes grew across my fist, arm, and shoulder.

"I could say the same to you, fool!" Lilia replied as her dozens of deadly appendages swiped and stabbed and thrashed for me. They filled the space between us like a cage made of black skewers.

The air stood still as the two fighters braced themselves for a lethal exchange of blows.

Above them, a suffocating shroud of smoke, as dark as midnight. Surrounding them, an envelopment of flames from a fiery ring that had formed from the blazing fields. 

This was their arena... An arena that could very well become one of their graves.