Rise of the Living Forge-Chapter 398: Skill

The monk wasted no words bantering with Elias. He burst into motion, his entire body moving as one cohesive weapon as he sent a flurry of strikes screaming through the air. The man flowed from one attack to the next in a seamless river of attacks clearly practiced to overwhelm the defenses of just about anyone standing in their path.

Elias had yet to take a direct blow from the monk, but the sheer energy in the man’s movements told him that a single blow had a good chance of being strong enough to end the fight then and there. There was something off about the monks’ technique. The air his attacks passed through seemed to warp like a haze in the desert.

Elias retreated, the bandages whipping around his body obscuring his movements. They were probably the only reason that the monk hadn’t already managed to land a blow. His fists kept catching the bandages, which hardened and nudged the attacks just enough out of the way to prevent them from reaching their true target.

It wouldn’t last forever. Revealing this much of his ability was already a risk. The less bandages covered Elias, the more likely someone would get a glimpse at his body and realize he wasn’t a living human.

There was a certain amount he could let them free before his wrappings were completely undone, but it also meant that small or glancing blows were considerably more likely to damage his coverings and reveal his true nature.

And he had one more problem.

He was running out of time.

My power is limited. A dead body can’t hold magic the same way a human one does. Almost all of it needs to come from an external source. Namely, Maeve. But if Maeve is forced to do that, then it’ll become clear that she’s a Siren.

I can’t let that happen — which means this fight has to end fast, one way or another.

Elias dropped to the ground, ducking under a fist, and whipped his foot around in a blur. It slammed into the Monk’s legs.

Pain exploded through Elias’ body. A loud crack echoed out as his shin snapped, and the monk didn’t so much as budge. Elias may as well have struck a mountain. He snarled in pain and threw himself to the side a moment before the monk’s foot obliterated the ground where he’d been.

“The same trick isn’t going to work on me twice,” the monk said. He moved his palms through the air in a flowing pattern, and a wave of golden light shimmered in their wake like the tail of a shooting star. “And I knew I was right. You were holding back. That is a relief. I would have felt ill at soul if I had used my strength against an entirely inept opponent.”

Elias gritted his teeth. He grabbed his broken leg and jerked it to the side, snapping the bone back into place. “Don’t talk as if you’ve already won.”

“Your shin is shattered,” the monk said. “You cannot continue fighting. I would prefer not to beat a lame opponent. Be proud of the achievements you have claimed. There is no reason for me to make a spectacle of this. The fight is over.”

A flash of light and the booming crack of thunder split the stage. Elias’s teeth clenched even tighter.

Then he drove his weight down on his broken leg. A flicker of surprise passed through the monk’s features as Elias blurred forward, his leg holding his weight perfectly. But, surprised as he may have been, he didn’t so much as hesitate.

His knee blurred up toward Elias’ chin. Elias’s arms snapped close to his chest and his bandages followed the motion, swirling around him like angry whips. They bound around the monk’s leg and jerked it to the side.

Elias twirled past the man’s guard like a ballroom dancer. He drove his open palm up into the monk’s chin with all the force he could muster. Several loud crunches rang out.

Pain tore through Elias for the second time. The monks’ head hadn’t even twitched. His arm, however, had not been as lucky. Several bones within his wrist and arm had snapped from the force of his own blow. They dug into the flesh around them like jagged knives.

“I am sorry,” the monk said. “But you cannot defeat me with magic like this. I suspect your sword-wielding friend would have been a better match. Her blade has cut through much — but physical blows such as yours cannot penetrate my defenses. You are now down a leg and an arm. Please stop.”

The monk wasn’t bragging. There was no pride in his voice. He was simply stating a fact that he believed to be true. And, unfortunately for Elias, the man was right.

Elias staggered back several steps. He gritted his teeth and shook his arm off. Then he lowered his stance once again. The bandages covering his body unfurled just a little further. He could still hear the sounds of fighting from both Maeve and Olive’s sides of the arena.

They hadn’t given up yet. And, so long as they still fought, Elias refused to give up. If he lost, then he lost. He wouldn’t reveal his identity… but he wasn’t going to just take defeat lying down.

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I will honor everything they have given me. Up until the very limits of my undead form, I will fight. If I were still human… I think I could have taken this man. But I don’t have access to the magic I did then. Not as I am now.

It didn’t matter. Elias didn’t have much power to draw from, but he drew on it anyway. He only needed enough for one strike. If he was spent after it, then that was that. He’d just have to scrounge up enough to make that strike work.

Elias delved deep within himself, reaching for the mote of energy in his very core. It came to him, a droplet of water dribbling through a rusty pipe. He could practically hear it plink through the recesses of his mind as it made itself his to bear.

And then another one followed after it.

And another.

The droplets became a stream, and the stream became a rushing river. Icy claws carved at the insides of Elias’ throat. A freezing chill condensed around his heart and spiderwebbed out through the rest of his chest. It was a sensation he knew well — and one he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

It was magic. Pure, unfettered power, the likes of which a corpse like himself never could have hoped to gather on their own. It should have been impossible. And yet the power still came. It flooded Elias’ body and infused itself into the writhing bandages covering him.

A new chill settled over him. Not the freezing presence of magic, but of cold realization. This felt impossible because it was impossible. A corpse could not have this much magic without intervention from an external source. They had no way to generate it.

But there had been intervention.

Necrohammer.

What did Norman do to me?

“I take it that you aren’t surrendering,” the monk said with a wry smile. “I can respect that. If nothing else, you have my respect. I am going to end this, now. I can’t allow my performance to be seen as lackluster.”

Elias’ stance lowered. He drew in a deep breath and let it out through his mouth. Even through the bandages covering his face, chilly white mist coiled before his face.

Never mind. I can’t concern myself with that now. Whatever Necrohammer is planning… he gave me a chance to support my team. For that, I can only thank him. I will not waste it.

One attack. One attack like the ones I do when I still lived. It has been some time, I can manage that. I will not allow for anything less.

“Nor can I,” Elias said.

The monk blurred into motion.

Elias released every scrap of the magic he had gathered. The bandages covering his body exploded outward. They continued to unfurl far longer than they should have been able to as new material knitted itself into existence from sheer magic alone.

With a roar, Elias dashed to meet the monk’s charge. His broken foot and arm didn’t send so much as a twinge of pain into his body as he advanced in a whirling storm of white streamers. Despite the situation, a smile flickered across Elias’ features. He did have a trick or two that put him ahead of the average warrior. There were a few advantages to being dead, after all.

And then he was upon the monk. Elias dropped under a punch and twirled past a kick, his body moving faster than it had in a long time. The lengthened bandages thrashed, encircling the monk’s body as Elias danced around him.

In a flash, the two of them were completely surrounded within the writhing nest. Elias smiled. It had been so long since he’d felt this power.

The monk bore down on Elias, sending a hail of strikes crashing down on him. Power or not, each one of them still had the power to end the fight in a heartbeat. Elias spun past them. His hands moved in a complicated dance — a pattern he’d done many times before — as his the pounding roar of his heartbeat thundered in his ears.

Bandages twisted around them, swirling to intercept the monk’s strikes and helping reposition Elias whenever an attack got too close. They danced to the rhythm of his flitting hands as sweat trickled down Elias’ brow. Every single motion came down to the very wire. It was taking every scrap of all the focus he had to keep this going.

His motions were rusty. There wasn’t any nicer way to say it. This was not a skill that could be picked up where it was left off. It required technique and constant practice… but for the amount of time it had been since Elias had last used his true strength, he couldn’t complain too much.

The monk was right about one thing. I can’t win. Not like this. I’m barely holding things together. The fact I can use this much magic is a miracle, and I’m not passing it up. Getting greedy will just end up wasting all that.

“It’s been a good fight,” Elias said.

“It isn’t over,” the monk replied, pivoting on the ball of his foot to send a kick for Elias’ head.

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A bandage snapped down and caught the monk by the leg, yanking him into the air. He spun, twisting free of it and landing on the ground. The monk burst into motion once more. His elbow streaked out in a blur. It drove into a bundle of bandages just inches away from Elias’ chest, halted just before it could reach its target.

“Yes,” Elias replied. “It is.”

He yanked his hands back.

Every single bandage snapped taut. They tore out from the tornado around them as if pulled by invisible strings, binding around both Elias and the Monk in an instant.

“What do you think this is going to do?” the monk twisted and squirmed against his bindings. In the span of a second, he’d already managed to free a hand. It wouldn’t be long before he got out completely.

A second was all Elias needed to kill him.

It would have been a simple matter. A move he’d done so many times that it was second nature.

But taking the monk out without killing him… that would take skill.

And it was skill he didn’t have.

I wish he deserved to die… but he doesn’t.

I cannot take an innocent life just to give myself a shot at getting my own back.

But a fight like this… I don’t think anyone can complain.

I am content.

“This,” Elias replied.

In the chaos of their arrival, the monk hadn’t realized how far they had moved while they were fighting. He hadn’t… but Elias had. And, more specifically, it wasn’t how far they had moved. It was where they now stood.

Specifically, at the very edge of the arena.

The other man’s eyes widened as Elias threw his weight forward. It was too late. They pitched back.

For a moment, the monk managed to keep them upright through sheer core strength alone — but that moment was just that.

A moment.

The two of them pitched over the edge and fell to the ground a foot below the stage as the crowd exploded in roaring cheers.

Both of them were out of the fight.