Chương 111: Chapter 110- The Siegebreaker

Elias's eyes shot wide as a giant beast of a man crashed into the courtyard, not more than a dozen feet in front of him, cutting off his view of Astra from behind. The man stood up in the crater he had left in the ground, and as Eli took in the man's appearance with a glance, his first impression was that the figure had more in common with a shaved bear than a man.

The man was definitely the figure that Eli had seen from the ramparts, a massive figure at least seven feet tall, with shoulders broad enough to make Cooper look like a bookworm. He wore a tattered armored skirt, a heavily battle scarred breastplate, and a full coverage steel helmet that emitted a large plume of steaming breath into the air on impact. His shoulder and arms were mostly bare except for a metal ring around each bicep and wrist, and Eli flicked an [Identify] at the man on reflex.

Ding [Dread Siegebreaker- Lv 31] Elias swore to himself as Tia startled and took to the air, shit. Tier three, and not a fresh one. As the figure stood, Eli spotted a heavy chain around one hand that was cause for concern bringing a frown to Eli's face, but as the other hand rose wielding a massive warpick, Eli froze for an instant as panic and fear shot through his heart.

Eli remembered Mira's lessons well, a warpick is a knight-killer, a weapon designed solely to peel open their armor like a tin can shredding the occupant inside, and at the sight of the pitted steel spike rising in the air, a massive wave of adrenaline flooded his system. The panic vanished like a morning mist before the warmth of dawn, his eyes dilated as the song rose, roaring with fury deep within his chest.

The fury of the drums in his chest quenched the fear leaving no room for doubt, only the desperate need for action." The FUCK you are!" Elias leaped, vanishing from reality, his joints rapidly multiplying exponentially as his flesh writhed and rippled, only for the enormous number of extraneous limbs to vanish as he snapped back into existence mid air above the Siegebreaker's pick.

His poleaxe spun spearpoint down as he plunged downwards, his lips drawing back in a rictus as the tip skittered over the rock hard skin and muscle of the arm beneath him. Elias cursed in anger, only to pause and grunt in satisfaction, as the tip caught on the band of metal around the wrist and plunged deep. The combined weight of the blow drove the warpick into the flagstones below and Astra sprang free, pirouetting mid air to face her new opponent as she cleared the distance.

He spun, planting his feet on one massive arm and kicked free, the hymnal chorus rising from the tether a balm to the ragged edges of his heart. As Eli landed the man's other arm swung, the heavy chain around the fist uncoiling as the weight on the end rocketed in his direction, leaving him only a moment to tuck and shift into a sloppy roll to clear the new threat as he screamed at Tia in his mind. STAY BACK! HE'S TOO FAST FOR YOU!

Only the heavy supernatural boost to his agility, given to Eli by the System from his dexterity score, when combined with the dodge training from Mira allowed him to react fast enough to survive. He pressed himself flat as an uncoordinated yank of the chain whipped the links through the air, twisting and writhing, as they passed whistling through the air less than a foot from his face.

Eli rolled over, kipping to his feet as Astra darted forward, the point of her greatsword leading the way, only to have to jump clear as the pick descended for a blow arcing towards her chest. Attempting to take advantage of the distraction, Elias lunged aiming to spear the tip of his poleaxe in the joint of one knee, only for the other hand to swing, sending the chain whirling around behind the man.

It was an inelegant blow, more brute strength than skill, but his strength was enough for weighty links to produce a whip crack as they rippled in the air, and caused Elias to lose his footing and leap over the low sweep, tumbling and rolling once more. Eli gritted his teeth as he pivoted trying to maneuver behind the man so he could join Astra in flanking him in a pincer move, but the man kept both of them in sight.

As the song rose, their rhythms joined, and the pair's preternatural awareness of the other blossomed fully once more, a grim smile spreading across both their faces in a synchronicity that would be eerie to an outside observer. Eli and Astra took heavy advantage of their awareness of the other's position each, each acting as a distraction for the other. When the man would swing for one, the other would dart in, attempting to punish the movement.

However, the man proved that reaching Tier 3 was no easy feat as he moved with the ease of an experienced fighter, a brute, but still a warrior who earned his power through blood, battle, and a lifetime of shattering men and walls alike. As the fight wore on at a blistering pace, the trio stamped back and forth ranging across their corner of the courtyard, as Elias and Astra sank deeper into the song.

A small corner of Eli's mind, determined not to forget the lesson he had learned in blood just a short while ago in the bunker, prodded his psyche. While the pace was far too rapid for fully conscious thought, he clamped an iron grip around the drums in his chest, refusing to submerge himself fully into the beastly instincts within. Astra flashed forward to lash out with a feinting strike at a knee and, as she planted her forward foot, she pushed backwards as the pick descended.

Eli leapt over the other shoulder poleaxe angled downward, scoring a strike against the back of the wrist as the pick crashed into the pulverised stones below, blood welled up from the wound, but his excitement at the blow was tempered as it quickly sealed like many of the others before them had. By unspoken agreement, they were using their mana sparingly, not knowing what they would find inside the manor, but as the fight wore on their resolve to conserve energy waned.

Their enhanced strikes were better able to pierce whatever defenses made the man's flesh as hard as marble, but the openings were few and fraught with danger. As Elias dodged back from his recent strike, a series of images flashed into his mind down the tether. Tia, Left Shoulder, Shield, Chain, Poleaxe, Left Elbow. To anyone else the images would have been little more than disjointed fragments, but she was just as much his counterpoint as he was hers.

After countless sparring matches and more than a few life-and-death battles, Eli knew Astra well enough to understand exactly what she meant. Eli grinned as he shot a rapid message to Tia in between dodging blows, Spike. Left shoulder. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Coming brother, ten seconds.

Ten seconds was a lifetime in such a rapid battle, but as the pair burned through their stamina on the pyre of survival, having a plan and no longer relying solely on instinct to survive brought a second wind to them both. They were starting to flag, and the effects were noticeable, Elias's eye shot wide as one of the links shot forward, the trajectory arcing close enough to shave, until an errant gust of wind blew it just a little wider as he heard the call he had been waiting for, Shot out.

Elias rolled to the left, dodging the coiling links as they shot past in a clatter, glancing up to just barely catch a streak of emerald and cobalt flickering by overhead, as a loud PANG sound filled their corner of the courtyard. The small javelin had struck true, the otherworldly durability of the beast of man showed its worth as the small metal spike barely pierced the skin, despite striking with enough force to deform into a small round lump of metal.

Unenriched metals have their limits, but the strike was still a success as drawing blood had never been the point, they were after raw momentum. The massive man shuddered, and as his left shoulder went limp he turned, redirecting the force to whip the chain out once more, expecting the duo to dance backwards yet again.

This time however instead of leaping clear, Astra stepped forward a crimson sheen tinged with gold covering her form as she braced, bodily blocking the chain as it shot forward, deflecting the weight upwards with the fuller of her blade, the force causing her to skid backwards across the stones even with her heavy plate weighing her down.

Before the man could recover Eli flashed forward, the razor sharp pane of [Veilrend] coating the point of his weapon as he plunged it deep into the crook of the left elbow, giving the blow a savage twist before darting back once more, to join Astra as she cleared the other limb. They both frowned slightly as the man failed to drop the warpick, but turned to share a quick glance as their frowns turned into slight smiles as they noticed the wound was not sealing.

Their motions shifted as the steps they wove changed, no longer were they purely on the defensive, the pattern of their movements those of prey seeking to elude a predator. The new pattern was one they were far more comfortable with, one that settled upon them like the comforting warmth of a thick cloak in winter. They moved to the dance of death, the hunter instead of the hunted, a pair of wolfhounds harrying their prey with the knowledge that the end was inevitable.

The pair traded off calling shots through the tether where they saw openings, as they struck again and again, the man's prodigious health pool had finally been exhausted, the cuts were no longer sealing behind the blows. As the Siegebreaker lunged forward to swing the chain once more, Elias's eyes widened slightly as he spotted their next opening, maybe the opening they were looking for. Wide angle, ball shot, inside right knee.

Eli sent Astra a series of images, and grinned as he waited, biding his time as they wove through the series of intervening blows. A streak of emerald scales blurred across his vision once more, this time low, no more than a foot or two off the ground, and right as he sent a flash of reproach coupled with a short, dangerous, careful, her shot careened in behind her.

A small metallic ball rocketed just across the flagstones, moving with all force the young wyvern could impart, crashing dead center into the right knee. The Siegebreaker's knee crumpled and the pair darted forward, already in motion before the blow even arrived, as Eli buried his distortion coated blade in right shoulder simultaneously with Astra burying a plasma coated blade in the previously savaged left elbow.

A spike of joy shot through the tether coupled with a crashing sound, and Eli whirled to find the warpick lodged in the ground below, a limp arm slumped behind it, as Astra leapt backwards out of the fray. A surge of fury and loathing shot through his heart, and Eli instinctively lashed out at the object of his anger.

He booted the hated thing that threatened his partner's life with all his might, a joyous laugh bubbling from his throat to join the roar of satisfaction from the song in his chest as the weapon shot across the corner of the yard to lodge into the stone wall pick, first with a clanging sound. His moment of joy was short-lived as a heavy blow struck him from behind, and the sky spun in his vision before everything went dark with a sudden crash.

Astra's POV The heavy, open handed slap that sent Elias careening across the courtyard shocked Astra from her battle trance and shot an icy spike of fear through heart as she froze. The moment swiftly passed as a wildfire of white hot anger roared in its wake. The song nearly consumed Astra's mind as a thousand wordless voices cried out in fury as she spun, her blade finishing the wound that Eli had started on the other shoulder.

As her wounded and crippled foe knelt before her, both arms maimed and one knee shattered, Astra cried out, screaming wordlessly in fury. The plasma coating of her blade shifted from a deep crimson, into an orange yellow, and then into a brilliant scintillating white as it roared with a high pitched whine.

Astra lunged forward, the hymns in her chest keening in indignation as she leveraged all of her prodigious strength to punch her blade nearly hilt deep into the marble flesh of the siegebreaker with the sound of shattering stone. As his rocky flesh cracked and bubbled, she roared once more, ripping the blade sideways sending a gout of foul, blackened blood across the flagstones. Ding [Congratulations! Your party has defeated a Dread Siegebreaker (Earth, Lv 31)] Her eyes flickered down to the catch a glimpse of the notification with a grimace, but her heart had no room contingencies or strategy, no matter the desires of her mind. Exhausted, her breath coming in heavy deep gusts like a pumping bellows, she turned in the direction that Eli had flown.

With every step her exhaustion faded slightly, the lingering effects of [Combat Trance] slowly refilling her depleted stamina, and now that she was no longer running [Knight's Physique] a small trickle of mana joined it. Skills were no help with the mental exhaustion, and the last battle had been ruinously grueling.

As a lone defender charged her, she cut him down without thought, the hymns in her heart allowed no less, the lingering fury of the song brooked no quarter for those who would ally against their own countrymen. Her steps grew firmer, and soon she stalked across the yard, the anxiety in her heart easing slightly as she caught sight of Elias slightly shifting in an impact crater of his own making.

A ripple of anger ratcheted the tension back up, as another lone defender loomed over her prostrate counterpoint, as he sat up dazed and clearly woozy. With a single flick of her blade Astra decapitated the man, his head and body falling in a crumpled pile at the edge of the crater. Concern filled her mind as he looked up at her, eyes distant and slightly confused, but as his gaze firmed the worries washed away, and a wild grin spread across her face as joy and affection bloomed in her heart.

The battle with the Siegebreaker had been the kind of fodder from which legends were born, and as he looked up at her with his signature roguish grin that she was coming to know very well, a surge of pride and affection overwhelmed the previous wave of emotion. That is my absurd counterpoint, but damn me to the Abyss if we don't make an amazing team.

Astra flashed him a cocky grin of her own as she reached down to haul him to his feet, a playful tone in her voice as she needled him, "Come on Eli, no time for napping, there's plenty of these bastards left, we're not done yet!"