Tears stung her eyes as Ust turned to follow her. He snorted like a bull. His glowing diamond eyes flared in intensity. Their focused beam fell on her, blinding her. She kicked, struggling to stand as he advanced on her.
“Black-stained quim!” he bellowed and raised his fist to slam it down on her.
*
His shield is down, flashed through Ōbhin’s mind.
As Pharon crashed into the door frame and died, Ōbhin had a moment of clear thought. Ust had to dodge his attack after breaking free of the last binding. His shield and the binding were the same energy. Two identical musical notes that had canceled each other out.
It seemed there was a fraction of time where Ust couldn’t create another shield after that. A plan forming, Ōbhin swung the sloppiest, hardest blow he could at Ust’s arm cocking back to slam his fist down on Avena as she struggled to gain her feet.
The blade hummed. The buzzing rushed down at that arm. Ust twisted around in a blur. Amethyst light flared from his palms. A shield flared moments before his sword landed. Ōbhin struck the energy. Fury fueled Ōbhin’s stroke. He hated that the barrier lay between him and Ust.
“You Black-cursed monster!” howled Ōbhin, pressing on his sword. He strained to slice through the shield.
“It’s going to be so much fun as you watch her howl on my cock,” Ust said. “I almost lost my temper and killed her early.” He snorted like a bull, his diamond eyes flaring high. “But where’s the fun in that? You have to watch from on your belly. Helpless!”
Ōbhin spat in Ust’s face. “I won’t cower on the earth like you did.”
Avena stood, her face a mask of blood from her forehead wound.
“I won’t be a pathetic, whining child blubbering on the ground like you,” Ōbhin snarled.
Fury built in Ust’s expression. His eyes were almost blinding, like staring into the sun. Ōbhin didn’t look away. He pressed his sword harder into the shield. Avena lunged forward, thrusting her binding rod, but not at Ust’s back.
“You pissed yourself like a whipped dog,” Ōbhin growled. “It doesn’t matter how strong you’ve made yourself; you’ll always be that whining bitch cowering on the ground beneath me.”
Ust bellowed in rage and drew back his left fist to break Ōbhin’s head open.
Avena’s binder thrust past Ust and then swung sideways at him. It slammed into the shield. Ōbhin put his weight into his blade, the muscles in his left arm bulging. The shield sputtered and popped out of existence.
Ōbhin’s blade snapped forward. It sliced through Ust’s arm above the elbow.
The bandit leader’s next attack froze. His severed arm hit the floor with a thud. He stared down at it with a stupefied expression on his face. Then his left hand darted down and grabbed his severed limb. He jammed it against the spurting stump like he expected it to heal.
But Avena had shattered his topaz.
Ōbhin’s sword flicked, a sideways swipe. Ust looked up and fear crossed his expression before the resonance blade passed clean through his neck in a single swipe. Ust’s body remained standing for a heartbeat and then collapsed into a bleeding heap. The head spilled off and rolled towards where Fingers crouched, ready to strike.
For a moment, the only sound was Miguil’s sobs over Pharon’s body, then Ust’s head buzzed. Ōbhin winced, the noise driving rusty nails into his ears. Something beneath the skin of Ust’s head vibrated.
Fingers backed away from it, drawing a prism in the air before him. He retreated into the wall as the buzzing hit a certain tone. And then, to Ōbhin’s shuddering horror, the vibrating sound oscillated in pitch to form words.
“The corpse beetle might have scurried into the cracks tonight, but you have to poke out your head eventually.” Though distorted, the tone held Dje’awsa’s cold superiority. “I see such potential in you, Ōbhin. The things I can do with—”
Ōbhin’s resonance blade sliced Ust’s head in half, severing through the vibrating plates. As his skull fell apart, the gray matter of his brain spilling, thin plates of obsidian were revealed, inserted beneath the skin.
“Elohm’s Colours, we did it,” croaked Smiles.
Chapter Thirty
Ōbhin stared in shock to see Smiles alive and standing. Jilly clung to her husband, pressed into his coat of chainmail. Furrows of tears ran down her face, joy on her lips. Smiles cupped her chin and kissed his wife with tenderness.
“I thought you were dead,” Ōbhin blurted out. The impact into the wall had held such a finality to it.
Jilly broke the kiss and nodded. “I thought so, too.” She stepped back, staring at her husband. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” Smiles said. “Just got a knock on the back of my head. ‘Spect I’ll have a headache for ‘while, but I’m fine. Nothin’ seems broken.”
“Lucky,” groaned Ōbhin. He turned off his resonance sword and sagged beneath his armor’s weight.
“Ōbhin!” Avena gasped and grabbed his arm as he sank down to his knees. Blood still spilled down her face from the gash in her scalp.
“Just my ribs,” he groaned. “And wrist.” The pain grew with each moment as the battle thrill faded. He panted, struggling to find the energy to stand again. He cradled his right hand to his chest then winced when Avena took it. She probed at his wrist above the glove’s cuff.
“You’re swelling,” she said.
“Sprain,” he grunted. “You should look at your head.”
She frowned and then touched her forehead. She gasped when it came away wet with blood. “How bad is it?”
“You’ll have a scar,” he said. “But it’s at the hairline.”
The door to Dualayn’s lab opened, and the man stepped out
