Chapter 344 - Hubris

The elf began with a lunge. He kicked off the ground and propelled his body across the tiny arena. Claire had expected the god to be fleet of foot, to close the distance and deliver a blow at a speed that far surpassed her father’s.

But there was no such life-threatening event.

He proceeded at an almost leisurely pace and swung his blade at a speed that even a child could match. The attack was as telegraphed as it was slow. He simply raised his weapon overhead and brought it down in a perfect line.

There was a spray of blood.

She didn’t know how it happened.

She was certainly capable of processing the moment his blade bit into her skin. She saw all the details clearly. And yet, she struggled to understand how it was that he had managed to reach her. Her parry was perfect. She had raised her sword just in time to block his attack, and she had correctly estimated the lacklustre force delivered by his lanky arms.

And yet, her guard was circumvented.

It wasn’t like he had overpowered her. Her arms had certainly been moved out of the way, but it was a faint pressure that displaced them—a faint pressure that left her wide open to attack.

The tip of his blade passed right through her armour. It didn’t cleave it in two. In fact, it bypassed the metal altogether. The sword slipped right between the joints and prodded at her flesh directly.

The wound was shallow, befitting the snail’s pace at which it had been delivered.

But that was only all the more reason for the lack of sense.

Another clash followed right after the first. She was more wary during their second encounter, entirely to no avail. Again, their blades met. And again, her defence was completely negated. His sword danced through her mysteriously broken guard and shot towards her foot. He would have drawn blood again had his speed been less modest; taking a step back to widen the distance, Claire escaped his range unharmed.

She went on the offensive as soon as she hit the ground. She flapped her wings and launched himself like an arrow. Her aim was his neck. She knew from his previous demonstration that his sword was too slow to catch her. She could slit his throat by the time he raised it into position.

Her assumption was not strictly incorrect.

He wasn’t fast enough to perform a traditional parry.

And that was why he matched her blade with his hilt.

He blocked the attack with seemingly no effort and nearly stabbed her in the tail as he whipped his body around. Again, it was only her superior speed that saved her from harm.

There wasn’t enough room in the ring for her to make much distance. Though he was only half her speed, he was upon her by the time she nulled her momentum and spun around. Again, they clashed. And again, she found her swordsmanship defeated.

Claire flicked her tongue as his first strike linked right into a second. She opened an extra thirty eyes as their blades flashed through the musty chamber. Two sat on her neck, while the rest lined the length of her tail and provided her a better view of the elf and his actions.

That was how she discovered his ploy. Her wrists had started to yield even before their weapons met. 

All thanks to the hand not wielding his weapon.

It was difficult to tell through her armour. Contact was brief, impossibly so. He only moved the limb when he swung his sword and dragged her attention towards its blade. While her focus was stolen, his filthy fingers slipped through a natural blind spot and gained free access to her joints. They lightly pushed down on her wrist as she swung and completely threw off the angle.

Without any extra eyes, it would have been impossible to detect.

She attacked his wrist during their next trade; she swiped with her tail, so she would at least displace it if she failed to break it outright. But the man's hand went completely untouched. Though she was the snake in the equation, his motions were far more serpentine; his hand slithered right past her defences and relocated her blade with ease again.

The caldriess could only groan as his weapon skittered up her metal skirt and hacked away at her legs. She was lucky. Unable to see through her armour, or his blindfold for that matter, he had struck a patch of scale that his blade was unable to pierce. Claire nearly transformed when the realization hit her. His physical abilities were, frankly, pathetic. His strength was maybe a fifth of her own, and he secured his advantage by exploiting the humanoid nature of her limbs and weapons. She could have easily defeated him by assuming her true form and crushing the supposed god underfoot.

But that would only have defeated the purpose.

Her goal was to steal his masterful technique, or at least the principle that drove it.

So she continued to meet him head-on. Each time, she tried something different with her tail and her hands. But each time, her defence would crumble. Never able to outmaneuver his fingers, she had to fall back to prevent any lasting damage to her body. Of course, she was not without her own deception. Her armour was a runecloak. She adjusted its structure whenever he found a weakness to keep him on his toes.

There were even a few moments where she thought well of her performance, a few moments where she forgot that she was fighting a god, even if one that was heavily restrained. And a few moments where she forgot that she was being tested.

It was then, when her guard was at its lowest, that he suddenly changed the pace.

Divinity poured from his body. A wild mass of raw power, a thousand times greater than he had shown in his prior state. He could have easily put it into his arms and cleaved her right in half. But the god did no such thing. He focused it on the chains instead, particularly, the bindings around his throat and mouth. It was a confusing choice. If anything, Claire would have thought that he would free his eyes, but his rationale was revealed as soon as he cleared his throat.

His voice was laced with magic. Blessed, holy magic.

A dry laugh escaped Claire's throat.

The sound bounced off the walls and filled the room with his presence, demonstrating that it was not his dexterity that had eaten the bulk of his ability scores. His skew was like her own. But sharper, even more heavily distorted towards the mystic arts.

The song's familiarity was its only saving grace. She recognized it vaguely as something Sylvia often sang, as a song that every Redleaf elf she had ever met was capable of reproducing. She recognized the way the world distorted, the way the wind picked up, and the way the once-missing trees wept beneath the blackened sky. There was one difference, however. The technique she encountered was not the derivative adapted for mortal hands, but the original score penned for the truly divine.

His body was the most apparent distinction. Rather than retaining his elven shape, the man had become one of the trees that littered the ancient forest. He was distinguishable only for the blade that hung from his branches and the ragged remains of the shirt atop his trunk. The man had become the willow his song embodied. And yet, even without a humanoid body, he still continued to sing. The wind was his voice. It flowed through his branches and formed a whistling tune, easily audible above the raging monsoon. If anything, the pitters and patters only served to enhance the performance. The raindrops were the drums that carried his thundering beat, the harmony that pushed his melody to the forefront and echoed it throughout her mind.

It was so powerful that she felt like she would lose herself within it. And in a sense, that was exactly what had happened. His domain had swallowed her whole. She had become another random object under his sphere of influence, another nameless speck forced to obey his rules.

She had no time to mull over the accompanying implications. The tree swung its bladed arm as soon as the realm was formed. The blade’s arc was easily predictable. It carved through the rain at the same slow pace that the elf had previously demonstrated. It should have been an easy parry, but she nearly missed the timing. Her body was sluggish, and incredibly so.

She was so slow that she couldn’t avoid the tree’s roots as they burst from the ground and grabbed her feet, nor could she stop another branch from reaching for her hands. She countered it with a vector; a magical push realigned her weapon with his own, but even then, she found that she was unable to drive him back.

It was not his newfound weight, nor a boost to his strength.

But rather the effect of his ability.

The heavy rain that fell upon her back completely neutered her speed. It was not a linear or even a percentage reduction. But rather, the inability to move any faster than the realm’s master.

The lightning that fell upon the battlefield drained her strength with every strike. All the power she had in excess of his own was simply sapped away.

The wind that played his whistling branches would surely have stolen her magic had it not fallen short of the absurd quantity that the deity possessed.

Every numerical advantage she held was completely and utterly suppressed.

Only her skills remained.

But they would do.

By stealing his health, she had already withered his roots and patched up her bleeding wounds.

The damage that he had suffered, on the other hand, remained exactly as it was.

It was a clear sign.

She would win a battle of endurance.

___

“What the heck did you do to Claire!?”

Virillius was greeted with an angry snarl immediately upon his return. The demon, his daughter’s transporter, was standing on top of her plate with her tail puffed up and her fangs exposed.

The hellspawn's raw fury sent a shiver up his spine. It had been years, decades since he had last been confronted with such raw power and animosity. He had almost forgotten the feeling of goosebumps and rising hairs. He could tell at a glance. He hadn't loosely surmised it when her guard was down, but observing her again, in her state of rage, confirmed that she was undoubtedly an aspect.

His skin was tight with goosebumps, and the hairs all over his body were raised. During their previous encounters, his race's inbuilt ability had only rated her to be a little more dangerous than Ferdinand and Ragnar. But it had been throwing up red flags ever since that morning. Something about her had changed. It was still unlikely that she would defeat him, but his instincts warned that it wasn't impossible if he didn't keep on his toes. Fortunately, she didn't attack immediately. She was still willing to talk in spite of the otherwise aggressive display.

"I took her to a proving ground," he answered, calmly.

The fox did something. It was impossible for him to determine exactly what it was; the accompanying magical pulse was so faint that he surely would have missed it had his horns been any less sensitive. From her reaction, it was likely some sort of detection magic. She must have either searched their vicinity or perhaps checked his words for truth through less primitive means than his own. But whatever the case, it only fueled the fox's flame.

"You sent her to die!" cried the vixen. The space between them cracked open like a fissure in the earth. It was the same type of temporal rift through which they often arrived. And its destination was clear. Somehow, even without a key, the demon had gained access to Vella's domain.

"Do not interrupt her.”

Virillius had no way of closing the portal. His dagger—his key—was incapable of manipulating spacetime. Its only functions were to warp the war goddess’ chosen and to answer her call. The only way he had to stop her was to place his body in front of the gate, even knowing the conflict that his actions had the potential to drive.

"It's for her own good," he said.

The demon shot him another glare. He didn't have much practice with reading the expressions of canines, but it didn't look like she believed him until her magic faintly pulsed again.

"Is it really?"

"Yes."

Another pulse, followed by another change in the demon's demeanour.

She slowly relaxed her body and unbristled her tail. She wasn't entirely off guard. Her eyes were still filled with suspicion, and her back was still somewhat arched, but she put her teeth away and cautiously returned to her seat. The tear vanished as well, with the room returning to its unfractured state.

"Given the length of your acquaintanceship, you must understand already," he said, "that this is the only method she would be willing to accept.”

The demon reluctantly nodded in agreement.

“I am at least fairly confident that she will not die,” said Virillius, “assuming that she’s only as incapable as I’ve come to believe.”

Sylvia scrutinized the man again as she slowly ate her way through a red bell pepper. “Why do you always act like you’re disappointed in her?”

“Because I am. She’s my daughter. She shouldn’t be so easily broken.” He paused as he raised a glass of wine and lightly swirled it around. “I do understand how she feels,” he chuckled, “most of the time, at least. I never expected her to grow a spine only after I gave up on her education. If I’d known, I would have acted earlier.”

“You’re horrible!” cried the hellspawn. “What the heck is wrong with you!?”

“The very same things that are wrong with her,” he said. “Surely you can see it, yes? She is my daughter through and through.”

Sylvia pursed her lips.

“If there’s anyone to criticize,” continued Virillius, “it’s you, for trying to make her out to be someone that she isn’t.”

Another magical pulse. With so much exposure, Virillius easily solved the problem. She was using some sort of spell that allowed her to read his mind. It was rather subtle, but every pulse was accompanied by a change in the colour of her eyes. They turned a slightly brighter shade for roughly one-hundredth of a second, presumably the amount of time she required to gather the information she needed.

But even knowing that, he didn’t bother concealing his thoughts.

It didn’t matter. He was already speaking his mind.

“But I suppose that’s only par for the course, for a demon.”

By strict definition, a demon was any creature that had ever consumed the soul of another. They could easily be identified by individuals with enough divinity; the exact requirement was unclear, but from his own experience Virillius suspected that the minimum was somewhere in the lower seven-digit range. Though extremely efficient for growing more powerful, the act of devouring another individual’s essence was considered to be minor blasphemy. There was no true penalty per se, only a certain goddess that apparently despised all demonic creatures. Her distaste melded through the system, changing the quality of a guilty individual’s mana.

Said goddess had no place in Cadria, but even then, there still was a reluctance to accept and trust their kind. It was a terrifying thought for many to consider true death. The system and its cycles, at least, had a chance of eventually fulfilling dreams undelivered in life.

“What exactly is a creature like you doing by my daughter’s side? Are you simply waiting for her to marinate, so you might consume her essence when it is ripe?”

Virillius shot her a cold, hostile glare, but Sylvia only tilted her head. “Uhhh… are you sure you’re not blind? I mean, I know her divinity kinda covers it up, but Claire’s eaten like ten times as many souls as me. She had like a whole city’s worth that one time.”

A tiny smile appeared on the moose’s face. “I was not aware that divinity is capable of masking the scent.”

Sylvia covered her mouth with her paws. “Oh crap.” She quickly looked around the room for a way to change the topic, but the only thing she happened to see was Rubia stuffing her face. “So uhmmm… moving on…”

“You have not answered my question,” said Virillius. “What is your goal? Why do you associate with my daughter?”

“Uhh… I don’t really have a goal, I think,” said the fox. “She’s just my best friend, so I’m just kinda following her around.”

Virillius frowned. “So then you will become the reason she follows in my wake.” Ignoring the pulse of magic, and the troubled frown that followed, the moose set down his glass and rose from his seat. “It will be three days before she is allowed to return. You are free to come and go as you please.” And then, shooting the fox one last glare, he stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him.