Xayn: "All yours."
Dematerializing the bloody arrow in his hand, he watched as the crimson droplets that clung to it fell harmlessly to gravity, staining the dirt beneath.
Bazren, cradling her severed arm with her left hand, slammed the torn stump shoulder-first against her torso, right where it had been brutally torn away. For a few tense moments, she held it there, her face a mask of concentration.
Then, a faint, almost imperceptible shudder ran through her undead flesh. As if awakening from a long slumber, the rotten tissues recognized their severed counterpart. A slow, grotesque reattachment began, the flesh knitting itself back together at the point of rupture.
She stalked towards the sorceress, who remained slumped on the ground, a broken heap of robes and despair.
Bazren: "... What's the matter? Thought you were supposed to be 'way above our league'."
Xayn lowered his gaze, a frown creasing his skeletal features, his disapproval a silent weight in the air.
Xayn: "She's at the brink of death -- enough toying with her. Let's finish this already."
Bazren dematerialized her flail, the spiked weapon dissolving into motes of rose-colored light as she crouched down beside the dying caster.
Bazren: "Not so hasty, Xayn -- what do you know about this dagger? Speak..."
She pressed closer, her voice becoming a venomous purr.
Bazren: "... and I promise, your final moments won't be utterly excruciating."
The sorceress choked out a weak, gurgling laugh, before spitting a mouthful of blood directly into Bazren's face. The crimson spatter landed wetly on her pale cheek.
Sorceress (muttering): "F-fuck... you..."
Wiping the blood from her cheek with the back of her hand, a cruel, hungry grin spread across Bazren's face. She leaned in, eyes narrowed to slits, voice dangerously soft.
Bazren: "... Care to repeat that?"
Sorceress: "I SAID -- FUCK YOU!"
From deep within the caster's chest, an unseen force exploded outwards, a shockwave of pure, suffocating darkness. Bazren was thrown backwards by the invisible blast, tumbling through the air. Instinctively, she summoned her flail, the chain whistling into existence and anchoring itself to the ravaged earth, halting her violent trajectory just before she crashed into a pile of debris.
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The blast of dark energy tore away the hood that had shrouded the caster's face. Her eyes, deeply sunken, were now visible -- twin voids of absolute darkness. Black, pulsating veins spiderwebbed outwards from the empty sockets, creeping across her face like a spreading corruption.
Sorceress: "You two are... persistent. More so than I anticipated."
A heavy, palpable aura of darkness now enveloped the caster, as she struggled to regain her footing, slowly rising.
A thick, oily liquid, the color of midnight, oozed from the gaping wound in her chest, congealing and closing the injury.
Xayn: "That liquid... it seems like --"
Bazren: "Impossible..."
The sorceress tore off her left glove, revealing a hand wrapped in bloodstained bandages. The tips of several fingers were conspicuously missing, the wrappings soaked in old, dried blood.
Sorceress: "It seems your true threat extends far beyond that cursed dagger... If you are not stopped, countless more will suffer."
Bazren took a step forward, her rose-colored eyes blazing with defiance.
Bazren: "You obstinate sack of flesh! What will it take to get into your thick skull that we've got nothing to do with this dagger of yours...!?"
The sorceress let her spell tome slip from her grasp, falling to the ground with a dull thud.
Sorceress: "... Spare me your falsehoods."
Yet, even without her arcane grimoire, the oppressive, dark aura surrounding her persisted.
Sorceress: "Sorry, master. I know I promised I wouldn't..."
With a grimace of pain etched onto her face, she raised her right hand, the one with the bandaged, truncated fingers. She brought her pinky, one of the few digits still intact and unbound, to her lips...
... and clenched down.
With a sharp snap of bone and a suppressed whimper, she severed the finger. As she drew her hand back, the digit was completely separated.
Xayn: "Bazren, look sharp...!"
But Bazren was frozen, momentarily paralyzed by a horrified fascination at the gruesome spectacle unfolding before her.
The sorceress extended her right hand, a strangled scream of agony tearing from her throat as the tar-like liquid surged to the raw, bleeding stub of her severed finger, cauterizing the fresh wound with unnatural speed. In her open palm, a glyph of pure, pulsating darkness began to coalesce.
She spat the severed finger out, the small, bloodied digit arcing through the air. A bolt of pure darkness erupted from the newly formed runes in her palm, intercepting the finger mid-flight, suspending it in the air as if caught in an invisible vise.
As the finger was slowly disintegrated by the dark force holding it captive, the glyph swelled in size, spinning and pulsating wildly, as though some unholy, arcane engine had been triggered by her self-mutilation.
Xayn: "Damn this..."
Xayn lowered his center of gravity, ethereal blue sparks crackling to life beneath his armored boots.
The sorceress spread her arms wide, as the glyph, now enormous, drifted towards her, engulfing her entirely.
Its runes writhed across her body, embedding themselves in her skin like burning brands.
Her complexion became increasingly ashen.
Then, from beneath her robes, a seething mass of dark tendrils erupted, snaking outwards with terrifying speed, lashing towards Bazren.
Xayn: "Don't just stand there, you fool!"
A concussive boom erupted from Xayn's feet, launching him forward with blinding speed.
The dark tentacles lashed out, striving to wrap themselves around Bazren.
But Xayn, blurring into motion, seized her from behind, yanking her upwards into the air as the viscous appendages thrashed harmlessly beneath them.
Bazren: "Xayn... I-it's the void -- just like in Mortmundus! How can a human control it...!?"
Xayn: "Focus, Bazren -- we have to find a way to kill her, lest she'll kill us!"
From Xayn's boots, twin jets of ethereal blue flames had roared into existence, holding them aloft, suspended in the air above the ravaged battlefield as the sorceress herself began to float upwards, rising to meet them.
Sorceress: "How many dirty tricks do you have up your rotten sleeves...?!"
She was slowly but steadily gaining altitude, the slithering, shadowy mass beneath her propelling her upwards with unnatural grace, making it impossible to discern if anything human remained beneath the encroaching darkness.
Xayn: "She's one to talk -- that's dark magic, no mistaking it. Wizards are persecuted and killed for even attempting to learn it -- so how can she use it so proficiently...?"
Then, from behind them, a voice, chillingly familiar, whispered on the wind.
Sorceress: "Simple... I never reveal my whole hand."