"You have slain much too many, woman" Alisart appeared garbed in his full suit of armour, carrying his greatsword, his firm gaze clearly transpiring even through the helm.
"Your Majesty…" Aramap somehow was still conscious, his face and hair severely reddened by a thick layer of blood. Find adventures at My Virtual Library Empire
"You did well, lead the others to the outside, fare as long as you can, this place is probably going to collapse" not daring to question the orders, Aramap stood up and ran off.
Meanwhile, Cleavster looked around, as far as the eye could see, there were horribly mangled bodies, agonising knights and soldiers who had had the misfortune of brushing up with The Death Dealer, his blood was boiling.
The pristine white cloaks of his valiant warriors had been tainted red, their durable armours slashed to pieces, their honour tarnished from having to even interact with such a vile, filthy creature.
"I don't believe I was made aware of your name" he said, his sheath falling to the ground as he pulled out the sword within, the assassin's image reflected against its wide surface, a ferocious smile appearing upon her as she saw herself.
"Maliah, The Death Dealer- I was told that you were weaker than this, I can't imagine you struggling against that Fre- Fra-? That undead whose name starts with an F, it's hard to think that you had any problem with him" beginning to circle the warking like a predator would its prey.
"I doubt you know much about fighting, how many times have you faced an opponent that could even hurt you?" he followed her with his eyes, expecting an unannounced attack to come any moment from now.
"Heh… More than you seem to think, you all fight the same way here, of course you wouldn't manage to cut me… But that does not answer my interrogation, how did you get stronger in such a short span of time?" bringing both hands out from the cover of her enormous cloak, pulling out two small crossbows, each firing many bolts in quick succession.
Striking them out of the air, Alisart blocked a blade strike from the side, sparks flying into the air as he was forced to step back as a result of this blow.
Throwing daggers flew through the air, a spear lunged for his chest, a dagger for his throat, an axe for his leg, a halberd for his shoulder, khopesh, katana, flail, mace… The southern warking had to defend against different sorts of weapons every single times, many of which he had never even laid eyes upon, their shape, weight and purposes all differing from one another, all were put to use by The Death Dealer, from the typical sorts that had proven their might by showing production in many different places independently from one another, to more niche and least efficient weapons, without doubt, she knew how to use each with frightening intent.
Coupling this with all sorts of projectiles, and traps she had somehow laid around whilst seemingly never ceasing her assault, she eventually stopped, landing upon the frail branch of a nearby tree, exaggeratingly tilting her head to one side, and then the other.
"Mmh… Can you get any stronger than this? You know, I am not supposed to kill you, and I definitely can't claim any accident if you can't do better than what you've shown so far…" dropping down silently, shrugging in the direction of Alisart.
Revealing a dagger, this time, bearing a novel design compared to what she had already shown, far from her favourite design for this sort of arm, some sort of mechanism caused the blade to split off into three different blades, a central one that just stayed in place and two others that made for much space separating each of them.
"What is this contraption?" unbothered by the provocations, Cleavster questioned her on the nature of this dagger.
"Uh… I had forgotten that most people were absolute philistines! This is a very specific type of parrying dagger, a trident dagger it's called, for obvious reasons" showing it off, it did definitely fit the description.
If there was one thing that she liked besides causing suffering and misery through violence, be it physical or mental, it was weapons and all associated, after all, one needed to have some appreciation for the tool they used, Maliah was an expert at smithing, since she couldn't trust any schmuck with properly balancing her beloved weapons, especially when the materials used was her own body.
It was of great importance, otherwise she would need to constantly reforge everything whenever she got stronger, which was basically every second, instead, she had her tools grow alongside her, since that way, they would always be capable of handling her maximum power and also to acclimate her mana as they were technically a part of the assassin's body.
Her battle style was much about the handling of countless weapon types, so she never said no to new designs and a bit of insight, this was another reason why Loimos was her best buddy, he was the only other person that could claim to be a master of all weapons he knew, in fact, Maliah's combat style shared a few things with Loimos's Harbinger's Harvest.
Although, hers was only made of martial arts, as she was nearly a purely physical fighter.
"Similar to a swordbreaker, it's aim is to trap an opponent's blade- So I will have you swing at me, I'll activate the mechanism and trap your sword, wrench it out of your hands and then we'll have a nice, body-to-body conversation" licking her lips with a quick motion of the tongue.
"You little thing isn't even long enough to grab it whole…"
"It will still work- Oh, ah! That was a good one, you're funnier than you look, heh? In that aspect, it is probable indeed, the way has yet to be explored after all"
'It feels like I am losing intelligence trying to converse with her…' with a grunt, the warlord kicked the ground.
A blast of dirt and stone was launched forward, engulfing an unmoving Maliah, Cleavster focusing on the newfound power coursing through his body, he did not know what it was all about exactly, but the warking felt like the source of this strength was not foreign to his knowledge.
It was his people, his land, his entire kingdom that funnelled great force into him, enhancing might, senses, speed, everything.
The only question left was…
'Will it be enough-?!' narrowly managing to block a kick from Maliah, sending him flying until he ended his course against a tree.
From the sound of it, the assassin was holding back on him, which was bullcrap, first of all, but also a boon, if he could just get one good occasion whilst she was not going in for the kill…
But even if that was the case, Maliah still decided to demonstrate what a serious Death Dealer looked like, her every movements hovering between perfectly visible and easy to follow and instantaneous movements, the former being especially tricky as she spun and twirled at greatly varying speeds, the oversized cloaks bending and twisting into an unreadable mess, impossible to tell where the head and feet were, various projectiles emerging.
Telling what was just a decoy and what was an actual attempt to wound him was pretty much impossible, so Alisart just had to see and react to them all.
All the while his opponent could zoom away in mid-air directly behind his back, with such disorienting swiftness that her form did not vanish from its previous position for a solid second.
He had to be careful not to have his weapon snatched by that trident dagger, but eventually, it had to happen, the firm sound of iron striking iron resounding as the dagger trapped his greatsword.
"Mmh?" Maliah blinked as Alisart managed to keep hold of it even as she tried to take it out of his hands.
Bringing his head down on the much smaller assassin's, Cleavster broke the dagger, stumbling back, breathing heavily.
"...My dagger…" picking up the broken portion, putting it all way beneath her cloak.
"...It's not the toughest thing by a long shot, but that's pretty impressive- You're getting pretty interesting~"
"Of course I can break your little gadget… I am Alisart Cleavster, the Southern Shores is the strongest region of Belliste, so it is only logical- That I am the strongest of the warlords"
Maliah just smiled, countless presences disappeared from the underground.
"Oh… We don't have much more time together, so make it count, alright?"
The warking steeled his posture.