Child of Aidon
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SS [3] Instant Death Magic
🕑 Added 2025-05-25 18:35:02 +0000 UTCThe sparring area was just a clear spot they chose in the middle of the Thunder Vault lit up with cool white light, casting sharp-edged shadows on the rune-inscribed floor. Tanisha bounced on the balls of her feet, daggers in hand, while Aurelius rolled his shoulders and raised his crystalline blade. His shield in his other hand as they prepared for the fight. They both decided that they would wear their full armor as it is what they would be fighting in during real battles.
“Begin,” Fuyumi said, stepping back.
Tanisha exploded forward, aiming to close the distance before Aurelius could get into rhythm. She knew he was fast with magic but she didn’t know how fast he was without it. She feinted left and darted right, her daggers slicing the air as she aimed a rapid flurry toward his unshielded flank.
Aurelius moved like water, his blade angled with precision, deflecting her first dagger, while his shield turned aside the second. He didn’t counter strike yet, she could tell he was still trying to read her. His eyes were sharp and calculating.
Tanisha stepped back, reassessing her strategy. He was fast. Faster than she expected. She darted in again, using a low crouch to slide beneath his guard and slash at his legs.
Aurelius hopped back a step, shield dropping low just in time to catch the blade. He twisted, driving forward in the same motion and forcing her back with a powerful push. His blade came down in a sweeping arc, and Tanisha barely sidestepped, feeling the wind of it graze her shoulder.
“Too slow,” he muttered.
Tanisha growled and spun into another attack, using both daggers in relentless jabs and slashes. If anything she knew she could keep up the pressure after her training with Joha. She'd used this technique against Isi swordsmen in sparring matches, it kept them reactive and hesitant to push out.
Aurelius didn’t hesitate. He parried with blade and shield, footwork crisp, until he timed a quick bash with his shield that caught her across the forearm and nearly disarmed her.
She gritted her teeth and stepped back, daggers raised again.
“Keep your rhythm tighter,” Fuyumi called from the sideline.
Tanisha nodded once, her brow beneath her helm furrowed. She dashed in again, more cautious this time, using misdirection and tight footwork to keep her angles unpredictable. But Aurelius had already adjusted. He mirrored her pivots, read her shoulder lines, and anticipated her timing. When she lunged high, he intercepted her with the flat of his blade. When she dipped low, his shield blocked her off.
Every inch of ground she gained, he reclaimed in two. It wasn’t time to back down; she needed an opening. In a straight fight she was out matched but she had tenacity to push through anything he threw at her. Even when he landed a clean hit against her ribs, or knocked one of her daggers from her grip with a disarming twist. Tanisha retrieved it in a roll, breathing heavily, still circling. She was looking for that one moment she needed.
“Stubborn,” Aurelius muttered.
“I am just focused, Speedy,” Tanisha shot back.
The fight carried on in a brutal rhythm of blade on blade, dagger scraping against shield. He was better. He was faster. But she kept coming. Aurelius closed the distance in a blink, his movements economical but swift. Tanisha reacted just in time, twisting away from the initial swing and narrowly avoiding the follow-up thrust of his blade. She countered with a slash aimed for his ribs, but his shield intercepted with a sharp clang. Sparks flew.
He advanced again, pressing the offensive. His speed forced her into constant motion now dodging, deflecting, and retreating in tight arcs. Her daggers flicked and slashed, but his reach and timing kept her on the defensive.
Tanisha gritted her teeth.Every mistake she made, he seemed to learn from instantly. He wasn’t just reacting anymore he was anticipating.
A glancing blow from his shield struck her shoulder, forcing her to roll backward to avoid being pinned. She landed in a crouch, heart racing.
He’s faster than me but he can’t keep this up.
She tightened her grip on her daggers. Aurelius didn’t press immediately. He watched her, calculating his next move. That’s when she saw him hesitate. He was thinking of what to do next. Tanisha didn’t hesitate; she shifted her stance using her superior balance, baiting a flank. He took it.
Tanisha feinted, stepped in instead of back, and twisted sharply inside his guard. His blade nearly caught her side, but she hooked the edge of her dagger under the lip of his shield strap and yanked.
With a clatter, the shield dropped to the floor.
Aurelius’s eyes flicked in surprise, but not fear. He flowed into a new stance almost instantly, now wielding his sword with both hands.
Tanisha hesitated, he pivoted too quickly and she didn’t know if she could capitalize. Press forward or back up which would be better? She had the moment, the opening. With her shorter weapons, this was her chance to press close. Yet she fell back dodging a strike only to be kicked in the side.
Aurelius punished the lapse immediately. He regained control of the distance, and getting her off balance. She tried to re-engage, but now he was fully in rhythm another shield bash might not be coming, but his sword alone was overwhelming. She blocked a strike with both daggers but the blade stopped at her neck.
“Enough,” Fuyumi said.
Both fighters froze. Aurelius stepped back respectfully, breathing a little heavier. Tanisha exhaled slowly.
Fuyumi nodded. “That’s good. I’ve seen what I need.”
Tanisha's helmet vanished into her inventory. “You’re good, Aurelius.”
“So are you,” he replied. “You nearly took it when I overcommitted.”
Fuyumi crossed her arms. “Aurelius, you overthink. It costs you initiative. The same thing happened when you fought the Shard. Both times you lost your shield. Tanisha, your reach disadvantage meant you should be closing distance, not giving it away. Don’t let someone like him control the spacing. He will do what he can to keep you at a distance. All it takes is one dagger slipping through the right spot to turn a fight around.”
They both nodded.
“Now that I’ve seen what you can do without magic, let's get a good feeling of your real capabilities.” Fuyumi said. “Aurelius it will be you and me. Use everything you have, any weapon or technique. Tanisha figure out your armor while we have our match.”
“No problem.” Tanisha said as she walked back to a safe distance.
Tanisha activated her Chain Breaker’s Mantle, the spell was a natural part of her and not something she needed to say a spell to activate. Her helmet snapped into place from her inventory, locking around her head with a mechanical hiss. Instantly, she felt the armor sync with her seiðr, drawing in the alloy’s aether aspects like a starving flame catching dry leaves.
The weight vanished. Not lightened, gone. It was like wearing nothing at all.
Text shimmered at the edges of her vision.
[Armor Status: GREEN]
[Enemy Detection: INACTIVE]
[Area Scan: STANDBY]
She blinked as a translucent map bloomed into view with a faint pulse, hovering like a heads-up display. She tilted her head slightly and the small arrow, her presumably, turned with her. It was intuitive, but… she still didn’t really know how to read maps. Not well enough for it to be useful now.
It disappeared with a thought and she instead focused on enemy detection which didn’t come up with anything. She then looked at Fuyumi and wondered. She focused on her and thought of her as an enemy.
“Enemy detected.” A voice said.
The voice sounded a lot like Laxy but in a monotone.
“What in the… you can talk?” Tanisha questioned.
There was no response but as she looked at Fuyumi there was a thin red outline around her. Tanisha turned her head away from the ghostborn and still somehow she could tell exactly where she was, almost like the connection she had to Bjorn.
Guess it can only say a couple of things? But this is an amazing armor.
Switching to Armor Status, she watched a green silhouette of herself appear. It took her a second to recall the color coding.
“Right—green is good. More red means more damage,” she reminded herself.
She boosted the armor to the Third Activation which meant that it was now burning twenty per minute. She definitely felt the draw on her seiðr manageable but not something she could keep up long term at her current Seiðr Regeneration while also using Chain Breakers Mantle and the many other spells she normally cast.
No immediate changes announced themselves, but when she did a casual hop to test the difference, she launched upward like an arrow loosed from a bow. The ground blurred away beneath her. At the apex, heart lurching from the sudden height, she instinctively used Arcane Shift to teleport back to the ground instead of risking a messy landing.
The moment she landed, she scaled the armor back to First Activation, just five aether per minute. A perfect balance. At this level, she could keep it running indefinitely alongside Chain Breaker’s Mantle, her natural regeneration covering the cost.
The fight between Aurelius and Fuyumi started with a loud crash that instantly caught Tanisha’s attention. The two fighters were a blur of motion. Even so, thanks to the armor Tanisha could track Fuyumi easily. She focused on Aurelius and the same red border surrounded him. She could now not only see both of them clearly but also feel them through her magic.
“Warning low temperature detected. Temperature manipulation magic detected.” The armor voice said.
“Seriously, can you talk or not?” Tanisha questioned but there was no response.
Tanisha didn’t feel a drop in temperature but she trusted her armor. The fight between Aurelius and Fuyumi was just getting started and Fuyumi’s ice magic was terrifying on its own.
Aurelius lunged, shield up, crystalline blade flashing in a sharp arc. Fuyumi Blinked, her form flickered, vanishing in a swirl of frost and reappearing a few yards to the left, sliding effortlessly across the rapidly frosting floor.
A uchigatana gleamed into existence in her hand, drawn from thin air with no more effort than a thought. She met Aurelius’s follow-up strike with a parry so fluid it looked like she had rehearsed his every motion.
Tanisha even with her enhanced vision doing its best to track the flurry found it hard to keep them in sight. Aurelius was a blur, faster than she’d ever seen him but Fuyumi was something else. She was utterly composed and moving into position in slow motion in comparison yet somehow always in the right place with her weapons.
Every time Aurelius closed the distance, she adapted. The uchigatana fell away to be replaced with a naginata then dual tantō in smooth transitions. Each weapon sang through the air, complementing the rhythm of her movements. She was one step ahead but she held back from strikes she could have taken allowing, Aurelius to show everything he had.
“She’s not even going all out,” Tanisha muttered, awed.
Tanisha could feel the primana around Aurelius as his blade glowed with power. Streaks of multicolored light arced from a slash of his blade. Fuyumi deflected the attack with a single strike of her own. The chill deepened. Frost crept along the floor and walls, delicate fractals forming with every movement of Fuyumi’s feet. Her breath misted in the air, though she showed no sign of strain.
Aurelius wasn’t backing down. He ducked under a horizontal swipe of the naginata, rolled in, and slammed his shield forward. It connected, or at least it should have, but instead of impact it only hit mist. Fuyumi had become intangible, the blow passing harmlessly through her.
She reformed behind him with a kama in one hand, slashing at his exposed flank. He barely turned in time to block, sparks spraying from the contact of metal and crystal.
“He’s learning,” Tanisha said aloud. “But he’s not fast enough for her.”
More than that, he was overthinking. Tanisha could see it in the way he hesitated after each exchange. He was trying to adjust and calculate his next attack. That pause, that instinct to analyze, gave Fuyumi all the room she needed.
Aurelius tried to bait her with a feint, stepping right then twisting left with a sudden slash aimed high. Fuyumi tilted her head slightly, effortlessly ducked, and vanished again. This time she reappeared mid-air, a tachi in both hands. She came down like a falling star.
He stepped aside but Tanisha could see it: he was calculating again. Pausing, trying to predict what would come next. Again Fuyumi punished his hesitation.
A sai flashed into her hand. She struck low, behind his shield, a move most would never attempt. Aurelius blocked with his sword, but she twisted and disarmed him in one smooth motion. The blade spun out of his grip and clattered across the training floor.
Before he could retrieve it, the cold whisper of steel kissed the side of his neck. A yuri, long and curved, shimmered in her hand. Her expression was calm.
“You think too much,” she said softly. “It is good to try to analyze your opponent especially when there is a gap in strength but hesitation in the middle of combat will get you killed. I can tell that you are good at hunting monsters, they wont capitalize like a thinking opponent. But the golems here do think and react kind of like people. Trust in your abilities, think on your feet.”
Tanisha exhaled. She hadn’t even realized she’d been holding her breath.
Fuyumi lowered the blade and stepped back, letting the yuri dissolve into shards of pale blue light. The ice in the air was thicker now, frost creeping up the floor in delicate spiderweb patterns. Still, Tanisha’s armor kept her insulated.
Aurelius bowed once, chest heaving. “Understood.”
“You’re fast enough to outrun me,” Fuyumi said, circling him slowly. “But speed doesn’t matter if your mind trips over every choice. You were trying to find the right answer instead of just moving. You have talent,” she added. “And you learn quickly. But stop thinking like a student. In a fight like this, hesitation is permission.”
She turned toward Tanisha and gestured. “Get ready. You’re next. I hope you practiced a little with the new armor.”
“With all the stuff Laxy talked about it I am also curious.” Aurelius said.
“Same rules as Aurelius, you can use any spell or weapon.” Fuyumi paused for a moment. “Unless it’s instant death magic or poison obviously.”
“Instant death magic? I don’t think that is real.” Tanisha said.
“Good, your familiar is a Divine, so I don’t really know what unnatural magics you know.” Fuyumi said.
“Fair enough. As far as I know instant death magic doesn’t exist.” Tanisha said.
“Start when you are ready.” Fuyumi said.
