Flaw: [Pristine soul] Flaw Description: [You must suffer to use your power.]
Yet, now it was reversed.
There was no pain.
Or rather, there was, for only a brief moment of time before she unleashed her Aspect. After that...
She felt like she was in a dream. The bright light bloomed from her skin, from her eyes and from her silvery long sword. But instead of the familiar burning she had always associated with her powers, she felt next to nothing. There was some warmth, like she was standing in front of a hearthfire, but it was soft and mild, blanketing her like a mother's embrace. Like a warm wind flapping her hair on the deck of the Chainbreaker.
It felt wrong.
It's not the time to think about that, Nephis thought. In fact, she had already wasted entirely too much time, caught by slight surprise by the disappearance of her Flaw.
She dogded again, but something still struck her hard. She flew through air, her bones already mending themselves mid-flight, and landed rolling.
She could now see. The beacon-like illumination she released was in locked in a fierce battle with the encroaching darkness — one it would inevitably lose in the end — and it allowed her to take in the state of the hall. Like in the outskirts, the floor was littered with bodies, mostly in a bad condition. The monster had not bothered to eat most of them, or maybe it simply hadn't had enough time. There were handmaidens and members of the Host, hunters and guards and even a couple of artisans. The tables and benches in the room had been broken and thrown to the edges of the massive hall.
Nephis still couldn't see her aversary, though. Its main body was still nestled near the throne, where the darkness and coldness was absolute.
Nephis looked at the darkness and tilted her head. For once, her brilliant eyes seemed shrouded in deep shadows of the Weaver's Mask.
"If I am Weaver, then you have already lost", Nephis stated. "You should just kneel and allow me to finish you off."
She didn't get a clear response, but she felt the intense, dark gaze from the creature in front of her. It was filled with such malice that lesser person would have turned around and run, which of course would have spelled their demise.
Everyone hates Weaver... even nightmare creatures.
Nephis wasn't surprised. She hated Weaver, too.
A moment of doubt was seemingly over, because the dark creature in front of her suddenly surged again. The bright flames and deep pools of shadow danced on the floor and the walls in frenzy as the two fighters collided. The liquid darkness in front of Nephis seemed to come to life, solidifying into monstrous tentacles, spikes and maws made of inky steel. All of them flew towards her like a rain of death. There were many explosion-like booms and fractures on the floor.
Sharp shrapnels of stone flew past as Nephis danced away from death time and time again, relying on her instincts and experience. The opponent was clearly faster and stronger than she was, but its main body had yet to leave the platform. That gave Nephis some hope.
It doesn't have any thralls, so it's not a tyrant or a terror. It's a devil at most, probably a demon. And considering its preferred method of battle, it likely wasn't that strong physically... that was, in the corrupted-category.
In reality, the strength of the dark monster was simply devastating compared to most beings. Its claws and tentacles made craters onto the floor with every strike and burrowed into the walls like giant snakes, ready to burst through them at the critical moment. The air had turned into a hurricane of blade-like darkness, enough to kill her hundred times over — in fact, it had almost succeeded many times in a span of less than a minute. However, no matter how badly the creature of darkness maimed, mutilated or shredded her, she would not stop fighting.
Without her Flaw, Nephis could theoretically use her dormant ability forever as it took no essence. And that meant that she could, again theoretically, keep fighting forever.
She would have hated being her own opponent.
Of course there was an actual end to how long she could maintain this kind of battle style. Her strategy only worked as long as she could prevent herself from dying immediately — for example, being turned into a pulp of flesh by a perfect hit. And that meant she could realistically keep her current level up only for as long as she had soul essence to spare. When her essence exhausted itself, she would be far too weak to avoid a possible deadly hit.
Where is Sunny?
Their plan had been for Sunny to infiltrate the great hall through the backdoors — he'd climb into one of the rooms on the southern side of the castle and from there find his way to the great hall. Admittedly, they hadn't been sure how far the darkness inside the castle had spread and how that would affect his navigation. But Sunny had an excellent sense of direction as well as a great memory, and they had discussed four possible routes of attack ahead of the time.
Nephis could not help Sunny now, though. All she could do was to stall for time until he appeared to break the balance of the battle.
She continued her game of cat and mouse with the abomination. She felt that it was growing increasingly frustrated and in turn, less wary of her, seeing that she was indeed just an awakened devil. The attacks were becoming stronger and more rash, like the creature was involving more of itself to try and wound her.
Squelch. Her arm was severed, blood spattering on the ground. However, the arm grew back in only a moment.
Next, her left leg. She managed to hop on one leg until her Aspect knitted the member back onto her body.
Even though her Flaw was not in play, fighting like this was still quite painful. Her body was being sliced through again and again - the coldness that spread from inside the maw of darkness seemed to seep into her wounds, numbing her body and dulling her Will.
During all this time, the cold and insidious gaze from the darkness never left her, trying to crush her with its potency.
Suddenly, just as Nephis was beginning to be completely surrounded, a deafening screech rose from the left side of the hall. It was accompanied with a flapping of great wings. The sound was familiar to Nephis - it belonged to the spire messenger they had killed below the Hollow Mountains.
The creature of darkness reacted. The change was almost impercetible but Nephis sensed it immediately — for a fraction of a second the pressure on her was weakened as the enemy had to consider this second attacker. Even its gaze snapped momentarily to the left - but there was nothing.
Instead, on the right side of the hall, a small door had opened.
Two silhouettes came from behind the door.
First was Saint, holding her shield and a sword. She also had a third item draped on her back: Zenith Shard that Effie had given them on the eve of the battle. Nephis even noticed that Saint's trusted shield had also changed at some point.
Dusk Shard?
It seemed Effie had gone above and beyond to arm Doofus this time.
Swiftly, Saint reached for the Zenith Shard. In the next instant, the spear flew through the darkness in the direction of the throne. It seemed to disappear completely, and Nephis wasn't sure whether it did any real damage.
Behind Saint, there was Sunny. He had donned the Mantle of the Underworld and the Crown of Ice for this battle, looking like Nether's son that had crawled from the Underworld to seek revenge. If Kai had been there, he would have fainted.
The enemy soon recognized the intruders. Darkness erupted again, its violent wave reaching for Sunny and Saint. Nephis quickly used the occasion to activate her Awakened Ability again. She had used it quite sparingly thus far, not going on the offensive. Now she decided to let go of these reservations.
This was their chance. The enemy was confused and trying to deal with two additional threats. Right now it couldn't be sure how dangerous they were or what abilities they possessed, and so now was its most vulnerable moment thus far.
Here goes nothing...
Nephis took a step forward. At the same time she poured a wide river of essence outwards, her flames erupting forth like a sea. For a moment, they illuminated almost the entire hall — only the main body of their enemy remained shrouded in darkness.
But this was not only an explosion. Nephis controlled the flow of her essence, condensing it into a thin and sharp spear that shot towards the dark throne like a laserbeam. At the same time, she quickly spoke the Name of Fire as well as the Name of Destruction.
The ray of light was blindingly bright. Its pure whiteness was that of a star and its heat was enough for the remaining furniture and the bodies in the hall to catch fire. Nephis felt her essence reserves draining quickly — one core, two cores, were empty. Yet the dark blob in the seat of honor in front of her refused to disintegrate. It swallowed the fire like a giant maw, like a fracture in the world. In fact, it was almost like the fracture that had swallowed her before her return to the past, only much, much smaller.
Nephis was sweating underneath the Mask; the sweat was instantly evaporated. She gritted her teeth and started to not just use the essence inside her soul... but instead started to burn the very soul that the essence came from.
The pain was back.
This was the technique she had unlocked in the battle of Twilight inside her Third Nightmare. That time she had merely blown up most of her soul cores, resulting in a giant explosion. Later she had learnt to do the same thing in a more controlled manner, burning her soul away bit by bit. The resulting pain was simply torturous, but it was definitely worth it.
As the spear of light originating from her grew in intensity, her companions finally started taking action. They had been momentarily stunned by the explosion of light that had lasted for a second or two, but now they were again in motion. Saint brandished her sword, striking her shield before sprinting forward, Sunny following closely behind. When he was nearing the end of the hall and the start of the area of darkness, a current of fire separated from Nephis and flowed around him, ready heal any damage that might come.
Saint already had an affinity for the true darkness, so she strode into the dark tide unflinchingly. Sunny on the other hand followed warily. The shroud of fire around him gave him some vision in the darkness, but it didn't reach far at all.
Immediately after the two of them entered the enemy territory, Nephis felt the resistance on her end weaken. She gritted her teeth and detonated rest of her third soul core, aiming it with Blessing at the darkness ahead.
Boom!
The whole hall seemed to shake from the force. Some of the floor melted. A ball of lightning seemed to engulf the darkness, but it still refused to yield.
Boom!
There went half of her first soul core — the only one she had left now.
Boom!
A quarter.
The series of the lightning seemed to strike the dark throne in quick succession. Nephis herself was thrown from her feet by the backlash. She landed on her back in the middle of the hall, the impact slamming the air from her lungs.
A torturous scream rose from her throat. Her soul, mutilated beyond recognition, sent waves of white hot pain coursing through her entire being. Her vision went black and for a moment, she could only shake.
After what felt like an eternity, she weakly rose to her knees, by some miracle managing to hold on to the tiny spring of essence flowing from her soul, albeit much weaker than it was before. Her nose, ears and eyes bled, making it seem like Weaver's mask was crying bloody tears. The sight was terrifying.
In the hall, a blob of blackness the size of a human head persisted. It floated quietly where the throne of the Golden Serpent used to be. Around it, a ring of flames still sizzled, keeping the darkness at bay. Endless coldness and malice seemed to be contained within it... but it was severely weakened, to the point of being in the throes of death.
His legs shaking, Sunny rose to his feet. He had also been thrown back by Nephis's lightshow; not only that, his face, torso, feet and arms had all sustained some types of injuries. Some of them were because of the heat, others were the result of the impact he had suffered. Some of them felt deathly cold and could only be a result of the dark battle she had just participated in.
Spatting blood, Sunny turned to the platform of the throne. He noticed the blob of inky darkness that refused to yield and gestured Saint.
"This is for you, buddy."
His voice was raspy and tired, like he had fought for hours instead of only couple of minutes. He noticed that Nephis had retreated her flames from him, probably to mend her own, much more extensive injuries.
Saint was surprisingly faring worse than her master. There were deep ruptures on her stone armor with torrents of ruby blood flowing from underneath, and one of her arms had been ripped from its socket by some massive force. It seemed like the creature of darkness had, in its final moments, concentrated most of its attention on the enemy it recognized: another creature of the Underworld.
Still, Saint had landed sufficiently close to the throne. Unhurriedly, she walked the remaining distance and kneeled in front of the blob, looking at the dark ember she had mostly likely been familiar with in her past life. Something seemed to ignite behind the visor of her helmet.
Then, she crushed the darkness inside her fist.
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AN: I'm happy to have finally uploaded this chapter as it was one of the first ones in my mind at the time of starting this fic. Admittedly it's not perfect and might undergo another round of editing some time in the future. But now is time for the final stretch of this story...