Erend's body falling from the sky. His spear of lightning and water spiraling with power. The moment he reached the apex of his leap, he hurled the weapon downward with all his force right as Orzhal-Kur tried to steady herself from the stone attack.
The spear struck her chest point-blank.
A thunderous shockwave cracked the air. The combined elemental energies erupted upon impact. The water surged into her like flooding torrents seeking every weak point, while lightning laced the fluid in a chain reaction of devastation. The result wasn't just an explosion, it was a collapse.
The forest demon shrieked as the spear tore through her mutated armor of bark and vine.
Steam and blue electricity danced across her body, cooking through flesh and wood alike.
Molten cracks split open along her torso. Fire howled outward in chaos. The vines shriveled under the intensity of Erend's attack.
The ground cratered beneath her feet. Smoke surged up in thick clouds. Debris rained like ash from a volcano.
From the smoke, something shot upward.
A cluster of thick vines burst out of the shattered earth, coiling like tendrils of muscle and dragging Orzhal-Kur's broken form into the sky. She hovered there, just above the battlefield. Her own Magic holding her together.
Her right arm was gone from the shoulder down, torn away in the blast. Her abdomen was split open, the charred remains of what once might have been human organs visible between the jagged bark and molten tissue.
Part of her face had cracked, revealing a glimpse of pale skin beneath that looks frighteningly human. One of her eyes burned with orange fire. The other looks like human eyes and its bleeding.
She trembled while held in the air only by her vines that supported her from the ground which pulsed erratically like muscles in spasm.
Erend and Eccar stood below her. Smoke drifted from their armor. Their bodies shook with exhaustion but they still stood with stable stance.
Eccar spat a glob of blood to the side and grunted, "She's not going to last more if we hit her again."
Erend's gaze didn't leave the sky. His breathing was heavy, but his hand still crackled with lightning.
"Yeah. She's dying," he said not with triumph. "One more hit and she's gone."
Eccar stepped beside him. "And what then? That thing up there said that her master's returning. What you want to do?"
"We need her alive," Erend replied. "If we kill her now, we'll never know what was the truth about our kind."
Orzhal-Kur twitched in the sky, her single burning eye fixing on them, lips parting to speak but only a broken gasp came out.
Eccar wiped the soot from his brow. "So you want to stop her without killing her."
Erend gave a small nod. "Yes."
He raised his hands again. "Let's bring her down alive."
The wind howled across the scorched battlefield, stirring ash and smoke into the bruised sky. The forest had been reduced to a charred ring of ruin around them, a broken monument to the power that had just been unleashed. And yet, the two Dragonborns didn't move.
Erend lowered his hands slowly, the flickers of lightning and water dimming around his arms. His breath came steady now, though his body ached and the burns beneath his scales throbbed with pain.
Eccar did the same, the cracked stone around his fist falling. He crossed his arms and stared at the floating figure above them.
"Hold back for now," Erend said quietly. "Let's see what she does."
"You sure?" Eccar asked, eyeing the wreck that was Orzhal-Kur's body. "She's bleeding out and hanging on those vines like a puppet. She's not gonna be a threat right away."
"That's exactly why," Erend answered. "She might start healing so that we won't accidentally killing her."
They stood side by side, watching the forest demon struggle to stay aloft.
"All that talk about her beating Dragonborns before? I'm starting to think that was just a lie. Or the ones she fought weren't like us," Erend said.
Eccar nodded slowly. "Yeah."
Above them, Orzhal-Kur twitched once more, her eye fixed downward in confusion.
"Why aren't they attacking?" she thought bitterly. Her broken body trembled as she struggled to draw breath, the pain slicing through every inch of her mutated form.
She didn't understand. She had faced Dragonborns before. They were strong but their strength was predictable. They only wielded one element.
She looked down again at the one who wield Fire, lightning, and water. All from one vessel. That was impossible. No Dragonborn she had faced or heard ever possessed that power. And the other one's strength wasn't weak either.
The vines holding her pulsed and trembled. She was running out of strength. Her molten bark cracked further and the organs within her twisted and burned.
Then she did the only thing she could.
Her mind reached out past the veil of this world. Beyond the black sky and into the root of her world where her master slumbered. She whispered, with a bloodied voice from deep within her mind.
"Master… I have failed. But I am not done. Grant me your strength. Let me rise again. Let me finish this for you."
The air around her shifted. The clouds above darkened suddenly with presence from another world.
Searing orange threads ignited along her chest and neck. Her broken limbs twitched violently. The gaps in her flesh hissed with power. The bark and wood and muscle reformed in a disturbing mix and the fire in her eye burned brighter.
Her wounds were healing fast.
"There you go," Erend muttered. His eyes looking sharp again and his intent to fight came back.
Eccar also waiting for this.
Orzhal-Kur let out a terrifying scream that shook the forest. Airwave blowing from her and pushing the ashes around them to the air.
She descended toward Erend and Eccar with terrifying speed.