Of Ice, Death & Monsters

Chapter 113 : For A Wolf’s Wedding

15 Days Ago.

Vladimir flew down in front of me while I was trying so hard to know what to do. Perhaps it was time for a full frontal assault… Yes, I was the only one capable of even moving against him. I was the only one who could fight back.

“I wish to be covered in your blood!” I enhanced the speed that my normal Magick gave many times over. All of a sudden, the world simply moved in slow motion, so fast that everything else felt like it stopped… All except Vladimir who simply smiled at me as if I was playing around.

I rushed straight into his neck, trying to claw it out. But he grabbed my wrist without any problem whatsoever, throwing me to his side as if we were dancing.

His grip was insane. I couldn’t move my hand at all, not even a single budge! I tried to transmute my arm, but that was when he dug his claws into me, literally draining away my spirit. 

“Please, I do not wish to hurt you-“

I ripped off my own arm. Then, I used some of the dirt I stood on to rebuild it quickly. “And I wish to refuse you.”

Maybe I had to use his weaknesses? Yes, they were different from the others. But perhaps something of value could be gleaned!

Sunlight, the most exploitable of vampiric weaknesses, while the outside world was cloudy, I could try to make my own sunlight here with enhanced spirits of light. I waved my hands, manifesting several portable UV rays from Phorash as I activated them, filling them with the life-giving energies that the sun provided as I directed them straight towards Vladimir.

But… He only sparkled as if he were some kind of free way model, laughing at the light show given as the luminescence dimmed from him absorbing the light.

Rushing water was next. I placed my hand on the ground, gathering forth the natural water under the earth, shooting it out of the dirt like a spring, as it converged into a river that flowed into Vladimir.

Yet the water slowed down, swirling around him like a vortex instead as their momentum ceased, and he walked through it. “I appreciate the bath and the show, but it seems rather too much for the ceremony.”

He walked forward to me again, and I had to try something else. Perhaps I could make a territory? Some kind of domain that he wouldn’t be able to cross without permission? I carved the ground around me and focused, trying to manifest a territory of-

Several spears of blood emerged from Vladimir’s back, stabbing the territory I was making, and suddenly, it broke apart like a heavy weight on glass. “You’re still quite new to this, aren’t you. Don’t worry, I can teach you more once you become Tianna.” He unhinged his jaw as I tried to figure out what he meant by that.

Clearly, I was on to something there. He didn’t absorb it; he broke it, which means that this territory idea of mine was working. While I was trying to figure out how, Vladimir seemed to have regurgitated some of his blood, forming it into a… Ring? 

A single golden ring. It looked so simple, and so harmless, yet I could feel that out of everything I’ve sensed so far, it was the most dangerous. Vladimir poured out so much life energy into it that if it were to drop it onto the ground, it could revitalize the whole region at once. 

I had to act fast, focusing my power around me. I weaved my hands around, words were power, so were actions, symbols, and so on. Anything that could derive meaning was power, and that power was to show the Destiny and Spirit of all things.

That’s what Dela did, and that’s what the Chuma used as well. A way to amplify, or rather, even induce and emanate these new powers of mine.

Perhaps a poem… Yes, a poem that could work… Maybe something that Andrei would have liked. I took a deep breath and began to speak as fast as I could.

“The night has a thousand eyes.”

“And the day but one.”

“Yet the light of the bright world dies.”

“With the dying sun.”

A garden began to grow around me, one that matched the same patchwork lawn that Andrei used to garden in. He wasn’t very good at it, and neither was I. Half of the plants would wither away, and a quarter of them would be all around the place, scattered haphazardly. But every plant that grew, we cheered on…

I held it close to my heart, pouring the scene outwards from my mind, giving it life as the half-dead garden overlayed itself onto the earth. 

Vladimir, meanwhile, stared at me right outside of the radius of the garden itself, almost as if he was curious. He reached out, and his hand got through to the barrier to my shock, yet he recoiled almost instantly as he laughed. “Oh? What an interesting domain… You’re full of surprises.” 

He walked inside of it and… I didn’t feel his overwhelming force, his absorption. At once, it felt as if I was at peace. It didn’t bar him, but the territory somehow… Worked?

“Look at that, you do learn rather fast. Your own realm already? Although not as strong as it could be, it shall do for you.” He walked forward as I dashed towards him, using the whole territory as an extension of myself. I slashed at his neck again, and once more he caught my wrist with his hand, but that was only a distraction for at the same time, a massive wooden stake emerged from the ground to impale him-

It was immediately intercepted by several bloody spears that came out of his chest, piercing the stake and stopping it in its place. 

He pressed his claws against my wrist, once more trying to drain me, but it felt weaker, weak enough that I was able to transmute my arm into a tree branch, wrapping around his body as it grew thorns, literally shredding his skin with as much force as I could muster. However, any lacerations I could do were instantly healed away.

Vladimir tried to speak again before I delivered an uppercut to his chest. My arm fused with the earth itself as I punched him with the weight of a mountain, while my fist itself became a stake-like stalagmite, impaling him through his heart as he was sent flying up into the air, miles up, even beyond the clouds.

I snapped my fingers, causing the piece of me in him to explode and blossom violently into a tree, as he erupted in a shower of blood and viscera. 

But it seemed it was all for naught as the blood simply transformed into black butterflies… The same one I saw before, so that’s what he meant by he waited for this. He’s been watching me for a while now.

The black butterflies coalesced together, reforming back into Vladimir as he seemed completely unfazed by such an attack. I couldn’t kill him, I don’t think overloading him with energy could work… Perhaps I could seal him then? A massive coffin where I could deprive him of energy. 

He’s a vampir or well a pire for me. They fed off blood, off of life. He was the perfect counter for someone like me, but perhaps I could use that to my advantage.

I raised my hand up, commanding the earth by my feet to obey me as Saunne itself shook and shuddered at my strength. Suddenly, the entire mountain that made up the upper half of the Leshy corpse was lifted up into the sky itself, emerging as a floating island several hundred miles into the sky.

I recalled how Beda and Chuma’s presence caused it to be dead, and so while I couldn’t exactly create misery and plague as they could, I could try and move the spirits of life out, evacuating them away from the mountain island before I simply chucked it at Vladimir, slamming him into the ground-

A massive plume of blood sliced straight through the mountain before it exploded in a rain of blood that completely doused Saunne in crimson red.

I fell to my knees. I couldn’t really keep up the territory I had made for so long, and this man… He was unstoppable. Perhaps she could try to throw him far away? Or attach jet boosters to his body and fuel them up? No, they wouldn’t be fast or powerful enough to do anything at all.

My mind raced through the possibilities before I was lifted off the ground by tendrils of blood. Vladimir then gently grabbed my right hand and placed the gold ring on well… My ring finger, smiling as he spoke out. “Tianna… Please come back.”

His voice overwhelmed me, grief completely wrapped around my body as my memories began to dim, and another set of memories began to arise. 

I was living a happy life as a woman of great renown… Tianna. I had long brown hair and skin as fair as daisies. I lived with my husband, Vladimir, within the city of Arsen. It was wonderful, even when those from outside of Yavia came here. Those from Balthalem, as they called themselves, under the powers of the Speakers of the Aetree.

We were wary of them, but they soon showed themselves to be quite helpful. Many of the goods they brought in, we would have to pray for the gods to offer or show us. If we weren’t strong enough in their eyes, we were not fit for it. 

But now life has offered us more than simply living underneath those who were temperamental and unruly. Now we had new people, a new ally, those who could help expand for more… If only that were the case, for eventually, we had to fight them.

I do not recall why or how, but the city we once called home became an Abyssal hole. Monsters began to overrun the streets, and I had to help evacuate the people to anywhere. The monsters, and even those Monster-Kin, all came and ravaged anyone and everyone without care.

Even those from Balthalem, they too were whipped up into a frenzy. Some still had all of their branches on their tree, but some of them had already lost their minds and began to slaughter us.

It was so vivid, I could almost remember the spear going right through my heart. The pain as I felt everything ebb away from me, as I felt everything slowly fade away into nothing, a swirling void as my spirit left my body.

Then, I woke up and found myself in the darkness, staring at a woman with wolf ears staring back at me. Wait, no, there was some woman with brown hair wearing a white dress stained in blood staring at me-

We stared at each other as we realized that we were looking through a mirror. We were one and the same, or well, we were going to be, my memories and hers were starting to merge, and my own, my precious, were beginning to disappear.

I had to do something, anything at all! And looking at the woman in front of me, an idea slowly began to form.