LIGHTNOVELONLINE 213 – Severed Arms
Tsetse emitted a grunt of pain and frustration, but he was neither deterred nor thrown off-kilter. The fly-man twisted himself like a humanoid spring in order to deliver a kick from an utterly bewildering angle, sending Silberblut flying into the ceiling. Rather than smash into it, Silberblut tucked in his legs and outstretched his left arm past them. The eye upon it shone with a silver brilliance, and a strange force of the same shade flowed out of it, bracing against the stone. It vanished as quickly as it appeared, but nonetheless slowed his flight enough that he could comfortably bounce off the heretofore immaculate fresco. A face upon that fresco was turned to rocky gore once he used it as a jump-off point. Spinning through the air, the Mamon Knight stabilized himself in a flying-kick position, whilst Tsetse dug in his heels — literally. The Abara Morph’s feet and heels unfolded and anchored into the stone underfoot.
Pulling open his own chestplate, Tsetse revealed an immense array of sonic membranes, and in the same motion tucked his arms close to his body, even now concealing his left hand palm-blaster with his fingers and holding his right hand in the same gesture to not give it away. After all, even if the evoy was fairly sure Casus knew of the palm-blaster, he wasn’t sure that he knew which hand concealed it.
The ground shook, and soon the furniture followed. Glasses and bottles began resonating and cracking.
All sound cut out as it was overtaken by a thunderous bass louder than thunder. To whomever might have the eyes to see, the distortion wave would be plainly visible as it flowed through the air towards Casus. As he met it, the face upon his chest opened its eyes and mouth. His flight slowed for but an instant, as in the next moment, the entire shockwave vanished. In turn, the brightness of his halo grew, and his armor seemed to grow darker in turn — or was that a mere play of the light?
The true blow, of course, had yet to come, and it did come. Tsetse set loose a sonic kick as if the kick was the gotcha, nestling his killer strike within the motion’s end. It was awkward, and that was the point, to go against reasonable expectations, reducing the likelihood it would be noticed.
Silberblut slipped past the kick’s shockwave, holding his left hand out as a shield.
At the very next moment, Tsetse’s trump card struck… Only, the eye of his left hand came alive, locking not onto Tsetse, but onto the trajectory of his strike, all in a singular instant. Silberblut's halo turned clockwise by a 1/7 increment. A burst of light from the eye met Tsetse’s shockwave and dispersed it.
Immediately upon landing, Silberblut transitioned his momentum into an unnatural, zigzagging rush, tearing up the floor as he combined his raw physicality with his left arm’s even more monstrous strength and strange powers to forcibly change his trajectory time after time. Tsetse let off another barrage of kicks accompanied by shockwaves from his chest-mounted array, slipping in two precision strikes, but even those which would have struck had no effect. It was as if they were all devoured by the face on Eisenretter’s chest, or shot down by the eye on his left arm.
Before Tsetse knew it, his left arm had been severed from his body, and the blade which did it had trailed a half-moon of empyrean refulgence through the air. He stared Silberblut — Eisenretter — Casus Aristedes — in the eye, and felt that Silberblut’s left hand was pressed closely against his chest’s exposed sonic membranes… But so was his right hand against Silberblut’s side. And if he still held any advantage over the Mamon Knight, it was in how quickly his trump card came out.
The wave passed through the black-armored warrior, punching a hole in a table. It merely sent Silberblut stumbling to the side, of course — at this moment, putting him out of position mattered more than the cumulative damage. In that forced stumble, Silberblut’s clawed hand grasped with its monstrous strength, and Cabral found the entire front of his meatsuit all but torn off. The cold air met his real chitin, revealing a many-jointed, lanky form designed specifically to fit inside Abara Morph Tsetse.
If anything would undo Silberblut, it would not be Tsetse’s own combat power. It would be time. His incomplete Eisenretter form, though frighteningly powerful, could not last.
Still, Tsetse was cautious, and he strongly considered creating distance and turning this into a stalling game, even as Silberblut approached him.
“Unlucky. You have new defenses,” the Abara Morph remarked matter-of-factly. It was clear to him that the left hand had been devised specifically to counter his trump card. He was already considering how he might alter his form to counter Silberblut’s counters.
"The Visage of Judgment and the Left Hand of Anger,” the righteous warrior openly named two of his tools. “I would have been a fool to not forge a Mamon Armor that could counter your strength and more. And now, with the Right Hand of Courage, I shall excise your tumorous existence from the world!”
But at that moment, as Mamon Knight Silberblut held out his right hand and golden flame enveloped its curved blade once more, his arm, too, was severed from his body. A sudden flash of moon-azure light, leaving behind a fading blackness alien to the mundane world, ripped through the ballroom. Everything between its source and fading-out point was cleft in twain.
The hiss of frustration pointed to its origin: Semzar Hashem.
Moments earlier…
Semzar had not been idly cowering in place. He had spent the whole battle clutching a jambiya dagger which rested at his waist, for the dagger’s blade was a potent artifact for resolving tense negotiations. Its sheath, in turn, was an artifact of the same grade, capable of concealing the transfer and buildup of power within the blade. As Semzar poured his own Thauma into the weapon, it flowed through its handle and reacted with the thaumstone jewels set into it, creating an enormous buildup of arcane power within the blade. The efficiency was nearly miraculous, the only downside was how long it took to fully power the artifact.
But as he drew the blade, the sheath’s effect was lost, and the swing veered wildly off course — it was akin to trying to steer the force of a tsunami. Semzar did not have even a tenth of the strength required to control the blade properly. Nonetheless, he managed to strike his target.
In a flash of eldritch unlight, reams of of black runes came whirling from the dagger, and all before them was parted — even one of the mansion’s mighty barriers was split in twain, and it only shattered a second later.
BROKEN RELIC OF A FORGOTTEN LAND
FAINT REMEMBRANCE OF A GLORIOUS PAST
TAINTED BY THE HANDS OF A COWARD
