Chương 84: Arm Wrestling

June poised the obsidian dagger and imbued his Will into it to temporarily enchant it with a notion of sturdiness. His forearm slowly produced an oily, clear substance, which slowly solidified into a milky bracer of bone. His eyes were narrowed at the sister Dreamer, who was spinning her meteor hammer and walking counterclockwise from June as he moved.

The space they stood in was another natural clearing made by the canopy of leaves, blotting out the sun; drips of rain pattered and slid off an invisible barrier created with the help of his Will-filled eye and water spirits. The outside world beyond the barrier was dark and blurred by a watery veil. June and the sister Dreamer kept walking in circles, mirroring one another's actions and waiting for the other to strike first.

Her weapon was sturdier than his; one strike would shatter or chip his borrowed blade, but at the same time, if June successfully parried it, regardless of the dagger's condition, he would be able to close the distance in a heartbeat and deal just as much damage with his fists. The circular dance continued with only the sound of sloshing footsteps in mud and pattering of rain outside the barrier, filling the air that surrounded them; their predatory eyes pierced each other's vitals mutually.

He watched the sister Dreamer's veins bulge in her arm; her constant twirling of the hammer did not deviate, but June felt an attack coming. He watched her hand with a burning intensity; he waited for the micromovement that would spell his end and tensed his own body, priming a parry.

"The longer you wait, the more time I have to cover myself in armor." The armor he covered himself in was by no means as thick as the gauntlet the sister Dreamer smashed, but even then, it was enough to deflect grazes, which was better than nothing, since with or without armor, a direct hit would be devastating. June continued to walk in circles with his eyes dead set on her. He slowly put a hand behind him and reached into a bag before muttering quietly in a conspicuous tone.

"Drop the veil when the light spirit does its thing." June plucked one of his final eyes from the bag and whipped it at the ground. FLASHBANG The eye violently exploded into a brilliant, blinding gold when it imploded against the ground, and the barrier holding back the rain suddenly fell, dropping dozens of pounds of sudden rain onto them and knocking the blinded Dreamer off balance. June sprinted at her, kicking up mud and tackling her and sending her tumbling several meters back.

He leaped at her with her brother's knife and jammed it into her inner thigh in hopes of severing her hamstrings. He then punched an incoming forearm with a quartzite dagger in hand, rattling her arm and making her lose grip on it, sending it away into deep mud and out of sight.

"Won't get me with that trick again!" If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. He grabbed her forearm and pressed a foot against her ribs and another against her jawline and pulled with all his might, tearing it off with muscle, veins, and blood flowing out like a bloody cheese pull. He used his Will to still the vibrations in the air to silence her groan, in the same way he did with Martin.

She turned to the side while on her back, and despite the fact of losing an arm, she threw her legs up and wrapped around June's arm, putting him into an armbar despite him standing; her remaining hand clawed her fingernails into his forearms with a finger or two worming their way in.

His sprawling armor slowed and stopped growing on him as he let out a groan and forced calories into his arm before burning them suddenly, causing his arm to burst into flames and forcing the sister Dreamer to drop from her grapple and make some distance.

"SHIT! God, that hurts like hell." His arm was charred and black, with boiling blood oozing out of the holes the sister Dreamer made in his forearm.

'God, I hope I didn't just ignite in the real world; let's not use that again, just in case.'

'…'

'Wait a second.' June clawed a bone-covered fist and pierced his bicep with his hand and tore it off with a stifled yelp. He let out a shaky breath before lumbering over to the sister Dreamers' separated arm, plucking it and placing it onto his. To his surprise, his body connected with the arm swiftly, and it functioned despite its disproportionate size compared to his normal arm; the coloration was off, too.

He glanced at the sister Dreamer, whose face was twisted in horror, and seeing that, he forced his face to twist into a sinister grin. He slowly walked over to his torn arm and hugged the charred flesh against his new arm as the crusted flesh slowly melted off and the sufficient pieces conjoined around the new arm, making it nearly indistinguishable, other than it being unnoticeably smaller to anyone, but him, and noticeably paler.

The sister Dreamer did not remain idle while he fixed his arm; she scrambled in the mud and grabbed the meteor hammer that fell a short distance from her when she was tackled. She poised herself and began helicoptering the hammer again, ignoring the gushing blood from her arm and the snapped stick embedded in her side. June narrowed his eyes and watched her once again.

He maintained eye contact as he slouched on his back and reached behind himself as the string within writhed its way out of his skin like worm-like parasites. They burned as the raindrops ran over his bare back and past them, but June held his hand out and waited as a proper sword with a written hilt made from stiff muscle and tough bone formed. The rugged blade had a jagged row of molars and canines instead of its old spinal segments that used to act as the teeth.

"Why have teeth on your bone blade be anything but real teeth?" June tilted his head to the side away from the sister Dreamer, and put a palm out, grasping nothing, and a few seconds later, an arrow flew out of the opaque veil of rain, piercing through his hand enough to nearly meet his eye. He raised his eyebrows and glanced at the sister Dreamer, who looked at him in horror.

"That's what happens if you don't reinforce your body with Will, even if it's an Aspirant, no, a simple rock could kill you if thrown right." A one-armed meteor hammerist could be dangerous still, that is, if they knew how to use it with one arm. He pointed the tip of his toothy sword at the sister Dreamer. He could smell the scent of hopelessness, the scent of giving up.

If he played his cards right, he could kill his enemy without her being able to react; he just needed to project confidence to support his horror. His smile grew as he laid the spinal sword on the shoulder.

"I'm going to borrow that meteor hammer now." He casually walked up to the sister Dreamer; her hands shook violently, her face was pale, and she was unable to stand up properly due to the knife jammed in her thigh. June banked on her fear and his acting skills to scare her into a preferable scenario. June suddenly increased his pace, ducking another arrow, and he lunged at the female Dreamer, impaling her with his serrated, toothy sword against a tree.

He plucked the meteor hammer from her and used a revenant to turn invisible. The battle was not over; if he let his guard down, even a lucky Aspirant could kill him. And there were a dozen left and one angry Dreamer.