Zelsys couldn’t have been more proud of how much Jorfr’s tactical sense had improved since she’d met him. Svend could clearly outpace him in hand-to-hand, there was no question about that, so Jorfr just didn’t fight him in hand-to-hand. He not only took steps to nullify the invisibility advantage, but even prepped the battleground to give himself an advantage if Svend did get into melee range.

She sat stone-still in her seat, grinning ear-to-ear, attention completely fixed on the battle.

Despite being riddled with shrapnel, Svend leapt to his feet as if he hadn’t been struck at all. If anything, the explosion seemed to have only made him angrier; he emitted a high-pitched, trilling scream, identical to those of real Manslayer Monkeys. His fur slightly lengthened, build became more bulky, and face shape took on subtly bestial traits, both it and his chest becoming entirely covered in a thin coat of white fur. It was nothing like Rikke’s own metamorphosis, taking place in a flash; Svend’s eyes burned with a murderous, golden-red glow, teeth turned to fangs. His eyebrows became as thick as fingers and spread down around the outer edges of his eyes, turning inward over his cheekbones before abruptly sweeping out to join his sideburns. Altogether, they mimicked the facial fur patterns of the Manslayer Ape. The shrapnel embedded in him melted, leaving his wounds to bleed freely and stain his fur.

He thereafter set upon Jorfr with a primal, yet controlled fury surpassing his attacks up until now by an order of magnitude. Had he respected the spoiled cunt even to the degree of a hair’s breadth, Jorfr might have wondered if all that until now had just been probing. Even if that were the case, however, it wouldn’t have helped Svend much; Jorfr hadn’t revealed all his tricks by a longshot.

Nonetheless, Svend’s redoubled assault pressed Jorfr onto the defensive, forcing him to reposition. Truly, his movements were now just as erratic as the strongest Manslayer Ape’s, his strikes just as explosive, each demanding Jorfr’s full attention, forcing him to conjure two full-body statues of Wide-wuth, in part as a defense and in part to conceal what he was really doing, whipping the Astral Hammer around them. This time it struck head-on, throwing the Ramdall once more across the arena, stripping the fur and skin from a swath of his chest, riddling his limbs and face with yet more shrapnel. It was a miracle that it didn’t take one of his eyes out. Runar’s ring burned around Jorfr’s finger, the hammer demanding more of him in spirit than he could consistently give; each time he puppeteered the astral construct, he could feel his soul straining; just like swinging a weapon too heavy or improperly balanced for oneself. It was not for lack of fortitude, but because he was getting to grips with it right here and now, in the middle of a potentially lethal battle. He simply didn’t know how to properly handle a weapon that was swung with one’s own soul as the muscle.

Svend struggled to his feet, partially closing his wounds by reconstructing the false flesh over them. He then made use of the state of the ground by stomping and throwing frozen hunks of earth at Jorfr, shimmering in place as two more of him split off. While he occupied the shields of both Wide-wuths with a deluge of projectiles, his copies closed in, being impaled upon their spears, only to rip themselves free… And for one of them to swap places with Svend in a burst of Fog.

“Fog-walking?!” alarm flashed through his head. The discipline functionally didn’t exist in Borea in any form. Combined with the other tricks, Jorfr was certain that just like himself, Svend too had learned things from foreign lands. He met Svend in a pure melee. Svend’s strikes managed to pierce through the gaps in his armor, but that was what Jorfr had counted on; freezing his own flesh he grabbed Svend’s arms, quickly uttering a chant before he could do whatever he needed to do to Fog-walk again. A Manslayer Ape’s strength was also its weakness; their anatomy was so optimized for explosive power, and thus they lacked sustained strength. In Svend’s case it was mitigated by his Crescent-tail side, but the flaw was still partially present.

It didn’t matter. He commanded the nearest Wide-wuth to stab right through Svend’s back, having taken note that both of his clones had stopped moving. Jorfr shifted masses of Gelum underneath them, watching out for whichever one would switch as he prepared.

Svend vanished from his arms in a burst of Fog, replaced by a mass of fake flesh that crumpled in his grasp. At that moment, Jorfr stomped and spent much of his remaining reserve, leaving enough for only one or maybe two substantial acts.

“RISE!”

A spear of purest glacierglass erupted from the ground where Svend stood. The minor delay left enough time for his vastly superhuman reaction speed to let him start a dodge, but nonetheless, it shot right through his left armpit and out just behind the left shoulder. Dislocated, the limb was briefly left hanging by tendons and meat, but Svend popped it back in before it could be severed. A split-second later the spear exploded into dust, while Svend screamed in pain and rage, filling the hole with construct-flesh.

ANCESTOR SIGN

REPRISING THE FEATS OF ONE’S FOREBEARS

SAGABORNE ARTS: WIDE-WUTH’S DRAGONPIERCER

His reserves were rapidly depleting, but he cared not; his tactics were working. He would push himself to total exhaustion if need be, just to see Svend slam his head into the ground at his feet.

“Did you think you could trick me?! I have seen arts the likes of which you cannot conceive, mongrel!” he taunted once more. The utter shock of receiving a legitimately serious wound had rendered Svend vulnerable to such a simple provocation, sending him into a screaming, direct charge.

The heart. The spine. The brain. One lung. Generally speaking, those were the only things that had to remain entirely intact for survival; such was the healing power of the druids, though only when it came to injuries sustained in holmgang.