91: The Butcher And The Blight (Patreon)

NOTE: As promised, here's the missing battle from arc 3 between Riyan and Mina. I'll see if I can reorder the patreon chapters. Sorry for the confusion!

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Thunder cracked as Princess Mina Hiranya’s C Grade Arc spell lanced out, its finger seeking a target that was no longer there.

“Tell me, Riyan. Were you surprised to learn that I’d killed your contact and taken his place?”

Riyan ignored her, Blinking around the princess, evading her magic. Since water magic was useless against a fast-moving opponent, Mina only had Lightning to work with.

“I suppose you never knew of my skills with deception. You knew I liked to sneak out of the castle, but you’d never seen me do it. If you had, you’d have realized my skills were easily as good as your own. Your mistake got your man killed, Riyan. Yet another useless death for your pointless cause.”

She’d hoped to upset Riyan’s rhythm, giving her an opening. But the man’s relentless determination hadn’t changed after all these years; he continued to attack, unfazed.

Despite her calm outward demeanor, Mina seethed. A mejai’s worst enemy was a skilled Talent wielder, especially one who specialized in mobility. Even her Arc spells missed their mark against such an agile foe, and without her magic, she had only one or two options to threaten him with. When Riyan wasn’t Blinking around, he moved with superhuman speed, augmented by Haste. Against such an opponent, Mina was a sitting duck.

But this was true of every mejai, and so Mina had long ago taken precautions.

Riyan’s talwar slashed across her face once again, opening a small gash on her cheek, drawing blood. Mina’s mind spun and spun, attempting to decipher her enemy’s secret.

“Even Blade Projection shouldn’t be able to touch me,” she commented calmly. Mina was intimately familiar with all of Riyan’s Talents. The man had been infusing every attack with prana, but she knew from experience that this Talent couldn’t penetrate her Artifact’s defenses.

The pendant she wore under her clothes hailed from the Age of Gods, and not only prevented injury but also healed wounds near-instantly as well. Already, the line on her cheek clotted and closed. It was the ultimate healing art. One that she’d never had to rely on in the past.

Because even with Daha’s limited prana, it had always rendered her invulnerable.

The princess wore it at all times without fail. A fact Riyan knew well.

“You know, I feel a little bad playing with your agent. You never even told him about my Artifact, did you?”

“Who in their right mind would undertake an assassination mission against an unkillable opponent? I never intended the boy to die. Unlike you, I value those who’ve done right by me.”

Vir’s mission was doomed to fail from the start. But had given Riyan Mina, alone and vulnerable. And as a bonus, he’d even killed Head Priest Harak, and had sewn chaos in the capital.

“Curious,” Mina said, appraising Riyan like a lab specimen. “I know not your secret, but that you managed to harm me is intriguing. This has never happened before. But even so, that is all it is—a curiosity. Is this all? They do say that one can die from a thousand cuts, but I fear you’ve miscalculated again, my dear general. What did you hope to accomplish here? Soon, my elite knights will be here, and you’ll die in vain.”

Riyan said nothing as he flitted around her, blurring as his speed left afterimages in Mina’s eyes. Relentlessly, consistently, Mina’s arms, legs, and cheeks took damage.

Again and again, he’d wound her, only for her flesh to mend right back up.

But Riyan wasn’t done. For a brief moment, he stopped, attacking Mina not once or twice, but thrice in quick succession. All at the exact same spot. Each strike gouged deeper into Mina’s forearms as she blocked her face, each drawing more and more blood.

General Riyan Savar knew better than most that to stop on a battlefield meant death. A stationary target was an easy target, and Mina capitalized on the opportunity. The instant Riyan’s attacks stopped, she fired a C Grade Arc spell.

At this distance, Riyan wouldn’t evade. He took the attack head-on… and grinned, launching a flurry of follow-up strikes on the hapless princess.

Mina laughed wryly. “Aegis? Now now, it’s not polite to keep secrets, Riyan. Have you kept it hidden this whole time? Or is this some new ability, perhaps?”

Despite her situation, the princess sounded genuinely happy.

Ignoring her again, he struck the same wound in rapid succession—a feat made possible only by a warrior of Riyan’s caliber. As much as Talents augmented strikes, if the technique and footwork lagged, the results would only go so far. It was why he’d trained Vir so relentlessly in the Kalari arts.

The Talent Aegis defended its wielder against incoming magical damage, and while his was still a work in progress, it was more than enough to dissipate the energy of Mina’s Lightning strikes into the ground.

“How?” Mina shouted as her curiosity got the better of her.

“You don’t even have the faintest clue of how your Artifact works, do you? You inherit such a priceless treasure from your father, and yet, even with your intellect, you never tested it. Never researched it.”

“Oh? You sound quite confident about this. How do you know I—”

Mina suddenly fell silent. “You’ve found an exploit.”

Riyan cracked a grin.

For the first time in their encounter, doubt flickered through Mina’s eyes. It was a passing thing, but Riyan didn’t fail to notice.

Though his attacks hadn’t done appreciable damage—indeed, every cut he’d inflicted had already closed—he trusted his plan.

After years of research, scouring libraries from all over the Known World, Riyan had gained a morsel of insight into the workings of Mina’s pendant. Most records covering the Gods and their magic bordered on useless—opting to revere and extol the subject of their study rather than understand it.

But after pouring over a dozen tomes, patterns emerged. Riyan had learned that most Artifacts functioned by drawing prana from its surroundings to charge their spells, much like orbs did. In Mina’s case, her pendant used the prana to protect her.

“So you learned about how my Artifact uses prana, did you? So what? Yes, prana is scarce hare, but even then, your attacks should not be able to touch me. You’re doing something else. Something you’re not telling me.”

“If only you put that mind toward the betterment of this country. Hiranya would rival even the Kin’jals. Instead, you play your sick games, plotting to bring about your brothers’ downfall.”

In regions of sufficient prana density, Riyan would never have been able to graze the princess. But now he knew. The Artifact was struggling. Struggling to block his attacks and heal Mina’s wounds.

What’s more, his gamble had worked. He’d hidden the Life orb slotted into his talwar by moving too fast for Mina’s eyes to track.

By infusing Life affinity prana and mixing healing into his attacks, he’d stunted the Artifact, tricking it. Should it heal? Or would it impede the healing? He’d no basis for this theory, only instinct. But instinct had served him well through his long career, and it did not fail him now.

It seems even the Gods’ workings have their limits.

That said, it wasn’t as if the Artifact sat back and did nothing. It did heal Mina’s wounds, but only to a degree. And critically, thanks to the Life prana in Riyan’s attacks, it did not nullify his strikes. Healing consumed far more prana than mere damage deflection, a fact he’d exploited thoroughly.

And soon…

Riyan continued his onslaught, unrelenting. All Mina could do was to stand and bear the myriad of small wounds that opened up on her body. Her only other option was to flee, and were it anyone else—anyone sane—they’d have done so. But not Mina.

The Princess grinned maniacally, ecstatic to have her old general back in the palms of her hands as rivulets of red flowed down her face and body.

Rivulets from the wounds on her body that hadn’t yet healed.

With each successive strike, Riyan became more and more sure of his strategy. If the Artifact consumed prana, it stood to reason that, in Daha’s prana-deprived lands, that very prana would soon run out.

Slowly but surely, Mina’s wounds took longer and longer to heal, while the gashes themselves grew deeper and deeper.

Several more Lightning strikes pummeled Riyan. He dodged most, but those he couldn’t evade, he dissipated with Aegis.

Almost there…

But Fate waited for no one.

A half-dozen knights rounded a bend and rushed to protect their princess. If they succeeded, his chance would slip away. Against one or two Balar 100 warriors, Riyan would win. But against six, all augmented by mejai support? Even he wasn’t confident about those odds.

“I’m afraid this game has gone on long enough,” Mina whispered. “Know your place, Riyan. Know that it is beneath me. Know that you will never kill me!”

The princess hadn’t seemed to notice her reinforcements. Or, if she had, simply didn’t care.

“You think yourself clever, having researched my Artifact. You assume I trusted it blindly, thinking it infallible. But tell me, Riyan. Would you ever put all of your faith in one tool? Would you not build contingency plans?”

Riyan’s eyes narrowed. Was she bluffing? Or did she mean what she said?

At that moment, something changed. Mina neither attacked nor did she order her troops. She instead stood calmly, gloating, as if she’d just turned the tide of this battle.

“Princess! Are you unhurt—Gaaaah!?”

The knights adopted a defensive perimeter around Mina, but those closest to her immediately recoiled in pain. Their flesh sizzled and decayed, as if consumed by an invisible monster.

“Retreat, if you do not wish to die an agonizing death,” Mina said coldly, as if speaking to lower life forms. “I will personally execute those who interfere.”

Turning to Riyan, she bowed her head. “I apologize for the intrusion. To think they nearly ruined my fun. Now, my dear general, please die for me.”

“What is this magic?” Riyan asked, putting several paces between him and Mina. It wasn’t just her knights who’d taken damage. The weeds penetrating the cobblestone wilted and died, as did bushes at the edge of the street. It was as if Death itself surrounded Mina, cloaking her in its bony embrace.

“And now we come to the climax of this little show,” Mina said, firing off her Lightning again.

It wasn't just her Arc spell that hit him. The mejai among the knights hurled fire, wind, and water spells at him.

But if Mina's Lightning couldn't him, they stood no chance at all.

Riyan Blinked closer to understand this new unseen foe. But the moment he came within three paces of her, blinding pain assaulted him. It was as if his arm had been placed in forge fire. He’d experienced nothing like this.

With a grunt, Riyan aborted his attack.

“Did you know, my dear general? No, I suppose you wouldn’t. We keep too many secrets, really.”

“Either use that mouth to say something, or stay silent,” Riyan barked.

Mina smiled gleefully, as if her enemy had just said a funny joke. She then crouched and touched the cobblestone. “There is a monster. One that lurks deep beneath this city. A being of myth and legend. Trapped there after passing through an unstable Ash Tear. Too small to allow it to return, but just enough to feed it enough prana to survive. With the Altani’s help, we’ve managed to control it. A superweapon, of sorts.”

Riyan frowned. He’d never known of such a thing. Once again, he wondered whether Mina was bluffing, but the invisible cloud of death that surrounded her told a different story.

“Prana Swarm, they call it. I’ve seen it myself. I’ve seen what it does. Honestly, it’s less of a weapon and more of a calamity that would destroy this entire city if set loose. But what if you took just a bit of that calamity? What if you stored it in a jar and fed it only enough prana to keep it alive? What then, my dear general?”

Riyan blanched at her words. He’d heard of Prana Swarms, but only in myths. Fables and legends. This wasn’t the sort of monster one ever expected to actually encounter. But what he knew made him sick.

Beings of pure prana that consumed all dense prana sources, adding that power to their cloud.

The cloud surrounding Mina expanded outward.

To confront one was to die. And yet… there was still a glimmer of hope. All was not yet lost.

Riyan set his face and Blinked in, gritting himself for the searing pain. He activated Haste. He activated Blade Projection. He powered his Life Affinity orb. And he slashed with all the strength he had, right at Mina’s exposed neck.

This was it. His final attack.

But the debilitating pain of the Prana Swarm eating away at his body consumed him. His legs refused to move the way he wanted. He knew his aim wouldn’t be true.

So instead, at the very last moment, he willed his muscles to change course. Just slightly. Just enough to cleave through another target.

The Artifact warred with the weight of Riyan’s strike, but this attack was different. Because not only did Mina’s pendant have to counter Riyan’s enhanced blade, but it had to negate the damage the Prana Swarm dealt to Mina.

Because, as Mina had said, they resembled forces of nature more than any living organism. And one did not control mother nature.

The Artifact buckled, and Mina’s arm went sailing into the distance. Crimson painted the ground as the princess blinked in shock.

But his attack had not been without cost. Riyan’s skin burned and his flesh melted.

He ignored it and touched the ground, Blinking back at the girl for another strike.

Healing magic worked wonders. It could restart pierced hearts, and bring those back who were thought dead. To kill Mina, he’d have to decapitate her. Because, for all its power, not even the highest grade Life orb could regrow a limb.

His next Blade Projected strike removed her of her left leg, just above the knee.

Each foray into the Prana Swarm cost Riyan, and by the time he left the cloud, the skin on his face had sheared off entirely, leaving his visage hideous and ruined.

The princess’ guards had not been idle. Despite the danger, and despite the debilitating pain, they formed a ring around their liege, protecting her even at the cost of their own lives.

“Fools!” Riyan roared. “You protect a monster. But a crippled one.”

With a genuine smile on his face, Riyan Blinked to Mina’s severed limbs and scooped them up.

He’d come here knowing full well he might not end the princess’ life. He was more than willing to sacrifice his own to do so. For Arya. For Meera. His dead wife and daughter. For Hiranya.

“You once broke me. Consider that karma you sowed so long ago returned.“

But if he couldn’t kill her, he could at least maim her. And without her limbs to reattach, Mina would live as a cripple for the rest of her days.

“Now, you will never be Queen,” Riyan shouted, gloating through his pain. “You will not bring this country to ruin.”

“Kill him!” Mina screamed.

But her troops remained frozen, as if captured by Riyan's overwhelming aura.

“You will wander this world crippled, maimed, and broken. Let them know.  Let the world know. Here walks Mina, the blight who thought herself untouchable!"

Despite their poverty and corruption, Hiranyans valued a stately and strong ruler. Both in demeanor and appearance. They would never accept a cripple as their monarch.

A fact Mina understood all too well.

By robbing Mina of her arm and leg, Riyan had ensured she’d never ascend the throne. And in so doing, had reduced the odds that Mina killed off her siblings.

“KiLL hIM!“

Her knights gave chase, but Riyan was untouchable, even nearly blinded as he was. He Blinked away, seeking only to escape. To live. To fight another day.

But as he fled, he risked one look back. At his mortal enemy. At Mina.

And when he saw her tragic state… For the first time in years, he found peace.

It was a small satisfaction, but it was one he would have to live with. Until he returned to finish the job.