With a motion born more of desperate will than coordinated strength, she swung her flail. The chain snaked out, not towards the dagger, but low, wrapping with brutal efficiency around the sorceress' now human ankles.
A sharp, powerful yank. The sorceress cried out, tumbling face-first onto the blood-soaked earth. The impact was violent enough to dislodge the engorged dagger from her back. It tore free with a wet, ripping sound, a torrent of black, viscous blood erupting from the wound, pooling thickly on the ground.
Demonic Dagger: "ACK! CEASE YOUR INSUFFERABLE MEDDLING!"
The bloated monstrosity convulsed, flailing blindly on the ground like a monstrous leech deprived of its host. Its grotesque mass made reattachment clumsy, pathetic, as it struggled to lever itself back towards the prone sorceress. Bazren used the momentum of her pull, dragging herself across the slick dirt, sliding past the downed sorceress and the writhing dagger.
Looming over the caster for a fleeting moment, Bazren stared down at her, an air of ragged superiority clinging to her battered form.
Bazren: "... Behave."
A single word. Rasped, exhausted... yet carrying an undeniable weight.
The sorceress craned her neck, looking up at Bazren from the mud and gore, her face a mask of disbelief and fury.
Sorceress (thinking): "'B-behave'?!"
The sheer audacity of it. That this... thing, this walking corpse, would dare demand anything of her. Humiliation burned hotter than any physical pain.
A raw wail tore from her throat as she clawed desperately across the ground, fingers scrabbling towards the worn leather cover of her spell tome, lying discarded nearby.
Sorceress (muttering): "CURSE YOU... CURSE YOU ALL TO THE VOID!"
Her hand closed on the book. Flipping it open with trembling fingers, ignoring the searing pain, she rapidly chanted, conjuring a flickering orb of fire. With a guttural cry, she hurled it at the struggling dagger.
The fireball impacted the bloated flesh with a dull thump and fizzled out, utterly absorbed by the stolen void magic within.
Its only effect, however, was to inadvertently nudge the dagger closer to her position.
Sorceress: "FUCK! FUCK!!"
With a surge of horrid speed, the dagger lunged, piercing her again, its point sinking deep into her weakened flesh. Her body convulsed, vitality draining away at an alarming rate, her form seeming to shrink, wither, as the parasite resumed its feast.
Sorceress: "J-just... kill me... end this... there's no stopping it now..."
Her fading plea was barely audible above the sickening sounds of the dagger feeding. Bazren heard it, but her focus was elsewhere. She had reached her grim destination: her own severed arm, lying discarded amidst the carnage, its hand still locked in a death grip around the shimmering pink shield.
Bazren: "... Uh-huh."
Ignoring the sorceress's dying whispers, she knelt, letting her flail dissolve into motes of fading light. With grim determination, she forced the stiff, cold fingers of the dismembered limb open, prying the heavy shield free, then clutching it tightly in her remaining hand.
Bazren: "Just keep your goddamn head down, witch bitch."
The shield immediately began to thrum in her grasp, vibrating with barely contained power. Intricate sigils flared to life across its surface, casting an ethereal pink glow on Bazren's ravaged face. The central light pulsed, faster and faster, a frantic heartbeat echoing the energy within it. Veins of pure pink light traced luminous paths from Bazren's own form into the artifact.
Bazren: "Hope I don't regret this."
Her eyes blazed, the rose-colored light within them intensifying until it seemed to physically manifest, tendrils of energy bleeding from her sockets, flowing down her neck, across her remaining shoulder and arm, converging on the shield. It felt like being hollowed out, every ounce of her unnatural vitality poured into this single, desperate act.
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The shield roared, unleashing a supermassive blast.
A blinding beam of incandescent pink energy erupted from its core, a solid column of destructive force releasing all the pent-up fury it had absorbed from the recent blows -- all in one cataclysmic discharge. If the sorceress's earlier beam had been a wildfire, this was the raw, untamed heart of a volcano laid bare.
Lying prone, the sorceress squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for annihilation, the sheer heat and pressure washing over her even before the beam struck its target.
The pink torrent slammed into the fattened demonic dagger. The force was unimaginable. It ripped the parasite free from the sorceress's body again, not gently this time, but violently, tearing through her flesh as it carried the dagger away in its incandescent embrace.
Demonic Dagger: "ACKKK...!"
The beam wasn't just pushing it; it was piercing it. A gaping wound tore open in the dagger's bloated hide. Black, tar-like void energy vomited forth, spraying outwards, dissipated by the sheer power of the blast.
The dagger, rapidly shrinking, became a projectile, crashing through the wall of a nearby ruined house, obliterating what remained, before slamming into the far inner wall, pinned there by the relentless beam. Though the initial catastrophic force had passed, the sustained pressure continued to scour the dagger, ripping it apart, draining it.
Bazren: "PERISH...!"
The recoil was immense. Even anchored by sheer will, Bazren slid backwards across the dirt, her boots carving grooves in the earth. Her vision swam, the world narrowing to a tunnel of agonizing effort. Her stamina was gone, replaced by a burning hollowness, yet the shield raged on, fuelled by the last dregs of her power.
Seconds stretched into an eternity. Then, the pink light flickered, sputtered. Faded.
The assault ended. The beam winked out of existence.
Silence crashed down, broken only by the distant crackle of flames.
Bazren collapsed, falling forward onto her knees, then sideways, unconscious before she hit the ground, the shield clattering beside her, now dull and inert.
The black tar, released from the dagger, seemed to possess a malevolent awareness. Slowly, sluggishly, tendrils of the dark energy seeped back towards the sorceress, flowing into her wounds, partially restoring her vitality, knitting flesh with unnatural speed.
Sorceress: "I-I'm alive...?!"
She pushed herself up, shaky, disoriented. Pain was a constant thrum, but the immediate threat of death had receded. Her eyes darted around, searching frantically for her spellbook...
Sorceress: "No... NO NO NO! C'MON, NOT MY TOME!!"
... but only charred, leathery remnants were left -- turned to pink embers, incinerated by Bazren's blast.
A faint, pathetic scraping sound drew her attention.
Demonic Dagger: "Hngh..."
Across the debris-strewn ground, the dagger stirred. Now shrunken, almost desiccated, it looked like a discarded piece of jerky, barely capable of movement. Yet, it moved. Driven by a primal instinct to feed, it began to inch its way towards the sorceress, its tiny, withered tendrils scrabbling weakly against the dirt.
It had lost its stolen power, its formidable strength, but not its hunger.
Demonic Dagger: "L-lost your precious spells, have you...?! Well... Isn't that too bad...!"
Her legs felt like lead, her newly restored energy barely enough to stumble backwards. The dagger, though enfeebled, still crawled with unnerving persistence, closing the distance faster than her shaky limbs could carry her away.
One questing tendril brushed against her ankle, then wrapped around it, sharp hooks trying to burrow into her skin.
Demonic Dagger: "M-mine... You're MINE!!"
Squelch.
Its movements ceased.
Xayn: "... No. You're done."
Xayn. His armor was mangled, his body a ruin of torn muscle and splintered bone. Ethereal blue flames guttered weakly around his form, barely sustaining his reanimated state. Crucially, his wounds weren't healing. Where bone pierced flesh, where metal had torn him open, a creeping blackness clung -- tendrils of the void magic, residues from the sorceress's attacks, slowly, inexorably consuming his undead tissues.
Yet, he had summoned his bow. The ethereal weapon wavered in his grasp, but one of its cruel spiky tips was driven directly through the center of the shrunken dagger, pinning it firmly to the earth beneath. The last vestiges of activity halted. The dagger went still, seemingly inert.
Xayn: "And here I thought I missed the world of the living..."
His voice was strained, laced with a profound weariness that went beyond mere physical exhaustion.
Ignoring the immobilized weapon for a moment, he turned his hollow gaze towards the terrified sorceress. His enso irises pulsed faintly, twin pools of cold blue light in the smoky haze.
Sorceress: "I-I wouldn't kill me if I were you! Your partner... she spared me for a reason...!"
Tch.
Xayn: "She did, didn't she...? Didn't see that coming, I must admit."
He glanced towards Bazren's still form, then down at the dark corruption spreading across his own grievous injuries. He grit his teeth, the sound sharp in the silence.
Xayn: "Do you believe us now? That we had nothing to do with this... this parasite?"
The sorceress hesitated, then shook her head, fear warring with ingrained hatred.
Sorceress: "... Not for a second."
Xayn's remaining fist clenched. With a flicker, the bow dissolved. He reached down and grabbed the demonic artifact.
Sorceress: "H-HEY! Careful with that!"
A flicker of avarice, or perhaps fear of what it still represented, crossed her face.
Xayn held the shriveled thing out towards her. His eyes were unreadable.
Xayn: "... Do you want it?"
Her eyes widened slightly, suspicion at odds with sudden, intense interest.
Xayn: "It's all yours... As long as you help us."