Theron gritted his teeth at the thought. He wanted to curse Leon, and curse the Fiend as well for being here, but in the end, he only cursed himself. And he cursed himself even more when he realized that he was distracted.
The Fiend teleported away from where she stood. Theron quickly glanced out of the village, thinking that she was running away again, but didn’t see her there. He turned back, trying to find where the Fiend ran off to, before he found her.
Contrary to what Theron thought, the Fiend did not try to escape. Not anymore. She did not teleport away from the village, but instead towards them— specifically, behind the rogue, Axel. Tina loosed an arrow from where she was, and Theron called out, but it was already too late. Axel was only halfway turned when the scythe cleaved right through his skull and he was dead. The arrow arrived a second later, but the Fiend simply twirled her scythe, blocking it with ease.
Mana began flowing through Theron’s veins as yellow lines streaked across his body. He was furious. Three of his teammates were already dead, and the Fiend was barely hurt. Four glowing yellow lances appeared around him, and launched straight at the Fiend. The Fiend lowered her hand onto the ground, and dozens of pillars of earth began to emerge from the ground around her. The pillars varied in shapes and sizes, with the largest towering over the houses around them, and the smallest barely the height of an average person.
The lances were intercepted by the pillars, and exploded on impact with each one, toppling several of the pillars at once. But there were still many left standing.
Arrows loosed into the jungle of earthen pillars, some exploding, some piercing, and some were just regular arrows. Despite her lowered mobility from being injured, the Fiend managed to avoid them all by dodging and weaving through her artificial stone forest.
Theron opened the palm of his hand to the sky, and felt the heat build up. The glowing yellow lines on his body from his previous miracle were still there. The heat eventually transformed into a ball of golden flames, to which he pointed at the Fiend. The Fiend kept moving, anticipating a ball of flames, but it never came.
A concentrated golden stream of fire flew from the Saint towards the Fiend, incinerating all the earth that stood between the two.. The Fiend kept moving away from the laser beam as it swept across the pillars, while carefully staying out of the line of sight of the archer.
The Fiend ran up to a pillar that was only slightly taller than her, and easily hopped on top of it Theron followed after her, his beam of light never once letting up. The Fiend continued moving from pillar to pillar, until she eventually reached the highest point, and had a view of the entire battlefield.
As soon as her feet touched the ground, she used one hand to throw her scythe towards the Saint, and the other to launch a Grand Fireball at the archer. The miniature sun exploded first, being shot out of the air by Tina, while Theron had to halt his miracles to dodge the ethereal scythe.
As soon as the weapon passed Theron, the Fiend appeared next to it, catching it midair. She swung for his head. It happened too fast. Theron had no time to react. But it did not matter. The mana crystal on his chest shone, and a translucent golden light shimmered across his body, protecting him from the attack. The Fiend’s scythe bounced harmlessly off around Theron, and a lightning arrow flew right past the Fiend, stopping her follow up swing and forcing her to take a step back.
Theron knew that if he gave her even half second to herself, the Fiend would just teleport away, so he pressed her. With a flourish of his saber, he put one foot forward and stabbed. The Fiend stepped aside, and was about to counter the attack, when she noticed the spear. But it was too late.
She tried to dodge to the side, but she was too slow. The spear struck her right shoulder, spilling more blood than it should have. The Fiend limply swung her scythe around, forcing both attackers back, as she made her retreat. It was cut short however, as the ground beneath her shook, causing her to stumble.
The ground shook again, as a man with a large wall shield struck the ground towards the Fiend. A mini earthquake erupted in a 15 foot cone in the direction the shield was pointed at, causing the ground to crack. The Fiend almost fell, barely managing to catch herself by planting the pole of her scythe on the ground, when an arrow struck her uninjured shoulder.
Theron could not resist smiling as he looked at the Fiend. They had her surrounded and injured. He knew that she could not escape and neither could she win, and he knew that she realized that too.
They were going to keep pressing her so that she couldn’t use any truly powerful spells to escape or fight back. They were going to keep whittling her down, bit by bit, and then they were going to kill her.
For Fria, for Leon, and for Axel. For all the people she had hurt and killed. For the world. For the Goddess. They were going to kill her.
He was going to kill her.
***
I ran as fast as I could.
My heart was pounding, my body aching, but still I ran. I wasn’t running that fast, considering that my body was that of a ten year
