Chapter 5: Eye of the storm
Although she seems a bit stronger than before she's at most in the 40s in the rankings. Now rid of any of his lingering worries that he might of had, Avantus lets lucious run off since he'll catch up to him in a couple minutes at most. He raises his hand to summon his spear back to him, not breaking eye contact with Samira. Even if he looks down on her she can still injure him with a lucky strike.
As she looks at one of the strongest beings in the whole empire Samira doesn't feel anything close to what she thought she'd feel. She always thought it would be either fear or maybe excitement or something along those lines but all she feels when looking at him now is mild annoyance. Maybe being a mother really does change you, she's much more mature now no longer just thinking about having a fun fight. She has everything that ever has and ever will matter to her right behind her, so there's no way she's letting this walking talking piece of garbage get past.
Staring each other down, she can tell that he really wants to talk, whether to talk down to her or do some scummy monologue she doesn't know. However he can't because she is making sure he feels the pressure of facing her, not giving him the slightest of leeway's to rant. She can tell he's feeling frustrated by that alone, it's strange.
Stepping forward at the same time, they both launch at each other. Avantus makes a simple thrust forward straight for Samira's heart. She leans and turns to the side but doesn't stop her advancement, making a X guard out of her blades she glides down the side of spear. With one blade still catching the spear shaft not letting him swing it towards her, she slides the other one up aiming for his neck. When her blade was close he leaned back and twisted his body, launching a kick into Samira's ribs. She was rocketed into a tree before she could dodge, half of the tree exploded launching splinters everywhere. Luckily she was able to lessen the blow by reinforcing her ribs with energy to and send herself flying with the kick using the wind under her control.
Even if she was able to get away without any breaks in her ribs it still sent a shock through her internals. Getting up and coughing out some blood, luckily the mask already has a function to remove any blood that gets on the internals. He now with even more confidence finally gets a chance to speak like he's been wanting "Come on Samira where's that fight you were showing earlier, where's all that vigor that you had. Did you think that just by dodging my spear and not letting my powers cut you that you would be safe? GET UP! Were not done yet"
Doing just that Samira readied her blades for round two but this time neither of them bothered holding back their powers to test one another out. Samira called down a storm into her surroundings and Avantus called down a rot to start appearing around him. Samira who has her powers boosted by the raging storm above them and from the lingering energy of the curse flowing through her calls upon a raging wind throwing debris everywhere making it harder for both of them to find their opponent. Without giving him time to adjust she summons down a bolt of lighting straight towards his head.
Avantus not bothering to dodge just stood there and swung his spear up slicing the lighting and causing it to rot and fizzle out before it could strike him. However in this time that he was doing that he failed to notice Samira moving from her spot and blending into the storm raging in their surroundings. Only a small radius around Avantus is free from disturbance as anything that comes in that range starts falling apart whether they be wind, rain, or dirt. Boosting her speed using the wind and her attack with lighting coating her blades she charges at him.
She glides past him only making small attacks, shifting her attacks constantly. Every second there's multiple strikes and she's only speeding up each time. Little by little he is being grazed by small cuts, they aren't much damage and he can stop the bleeding for most but they are still coming and they are only happening faster and faster. But this doesn't mean Avantus is just sitting there taking these strikes and doing nothing. No everytime she strikes and enters his area she is being covered in more and more of his rot, it's getting easier and easier to feel her locations. Although this is happening he's showing no signs of discovering this until she's covered enough.
After 30 seconds of an endless barrage of attacks something finally changed. Instead of reacting to her attacks he was already ready for her strike this time, swinging down his spear right on where her shoulder will be, however instead of the anticipated feeling of cutting flesh he was expecting to feel he instead felt a sudden cold on his neck. He saw that she stopped just before where the spear would strike, but more importantly there was only one blade in her hand? When did she throw her other blade? How come I didn't sense it? Why does it feel so cold on his neck instead of the electric shock he was expecting from her? Why is everything getting so dark? I'm meant to be special, I cant die here! NO No no.. n.
Those were the last thoughts of Avantus, ranked 11th of the Empires rankings and one of the strongest beings in the world. He fell to the ground, head separated from his body. Samira called back her blade that she threw, dragging it threw the storm that is now calming. She momentarily stared down at his body, in a daze about how much easier this was than she thought it would be. He was a monster that terrorized her for years, even if she didn't show it he still caused some fear to be planted in her mind.
He simply got unlucky, his mind a mess, underestimating how much energy she received from her daughter, and most importantly rot is just a subset of the path of death, how dare he try to sense her daughters path. No longer bothering with him, she turns and starts following after her family. They need to hurry up since they must've received news of his death by now. Some of the pillars are probably on their way by now hopefully it's not one of those two monsters.
