A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing-Chapter 802 - Up against Gabriel [1/2]
Boom
A thick white beam crashed down upon a wide, crackling, icy-white barrier of thundersnow.
The moon in the midnight domain sky above lost it’s glow for a moment after firing, and Erik was unperturbed.
He sprinted across the city centre, a wide, excited grin across his wolfish lips, exposing his sharp teeth.
His hammer rested easily on his armoured shoulder, kept there by a wrist across the shaft. His armoured feet crashed against the floor again and again as he raced forward.
His free hand was aimed at the sky, sustaining the large magic circle that conjured the barrier. Lethally dangerous, spinning midnight plates zoomed around, but found it extraordinarily hard to inflict any damage.
His target, Gabriel, became increasingly frustrated at his inability to hit him. He scowled at the approaching werewolf, waving his sword to direct the plates and beams.
But Erik possessed speed and agility that belied his large, armoured form. His body twisted like that of a snake, and his armour followed as if made of water.
Such was the power of his serpent bloodline, and such were the properties he’d smithed into his own creation. If that wasn’t enough, he’d also shift several inches in any direction randomly by calling upon his spatial ability.
"Stay still you damn mut!" Gabriel snarled from across the way. "How are you moving like that?!"
"Perhaps that bitch wasn’t exaggerating about this thing’s slippery movement..." he grumbled under his breath.
"Because fuck you, is how!" Erik laughed loudly as he stormed closer with every second. To an increasingly frustrated Gabriel, he looked like an unstoppable metal battering ram.
Finally, Erik reached him, and Gabriel appeared too prideful to try and avoid a close-quarters engagement.
Roaring, Erik surprisingly didn’t aim his hammer for Gabriel directly, but rather aimed to smash it down in front of his feet, crackling with icy-white sparks. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂
Boom
The thundersnow blast exploded in a shower of freezing sparks and dust, forcing Gabriel to snarl, avert his eyes, and flinch back.
In the same movement, Erik used his momentum to jump up and leap over Gabriel’s head, swinging his hammer at his opponent’s face from mid-air. Unsure about this man’s exact physical defences, Erik simply used as much force as he could, sure that this confessor’s head would be pulp if his attack only landed.
Unfortunately, victory wouldn’t be that easily won. Gabriel recovered in time, scowling in anger. Twisting his body out of the way just barely in time, Gabriel turned and punched the side of Erik’s hammer, mid-swing, with impressive force and speed.
Erik felt like a truck had impacted his hammer and quickly tightened his grip on the weapon. Still, his body jerked to the side. Growling, his perfect landing was ruined as he stumbled and skidded off a few steps away.
’Still don’t know how these Arcanists get so strong, but this guy’s definitely no weaker than Edda was,’ Erik immediately realised inwardly.
Gabriel didn’t let up the pressure, as midnight plates zoomed forward and white beams crashed down on his position immediately. Yet, Erik thrived under pressure, especially during battle.
Unable to avoid this barrage like he’d done before, his grin nevertheless only widened as he swung his hammer in a wide arc. He smashed three plates off-course, kicked another one away, and expertly dodged the last two.
Meanwhile, a storm of thundersnow grains started whirling around him, diffusing the beams of light until they harmlessly deflected off his armour. Some small patched of dark ice were left behind, but Erik didn’t even need to think about those, as Eira was quick to wipe them from her home with some of the many runes and sigils inscribed on it.
"Hmpf," Gabriel snorted sombrely, now a mere few steps in front of Erik, sword raised defensively. "A powerful armour and far more abilities than I, yet all you can do is barely match me. Pathetic."
Unbothered, Erik smirked at him and righted his back, using this brief pause to orient himself. "At least I don’t have a master requiring me to beg, grovel, and stain my soul with evil for scraps of power," he sneered derisively.
Fury flared in Gabriel’s eyes. "You don’t know what you’re talking about!" he snarled and sent his plates back towards Erik. This time, however, he charged right along with them, sword pointing forward, plunging straight into the storm of thundersnow grains.
Grinning, Erik prepared to meet him. Surprisingly, he ignored the plates zooming at him and focused fully on Gabriel, intending to meet the man’s flimsy sword with his massive hammer at the cost of taking the plates on his armour.
Or so it seemed at first.
Dark blue spatial runes flashed on his fur, but before he could do whatever he was planning, Gabriel conjured a magic circle with one hand waved it around. From his hand, a thick fog of icy black particles spewed forth, enveloping them both. The last thing Erik saw was Gabriel’s insane grin before his surroundings were swallowed up by cold and darkness.
Gabriel’s third spell revealed itself, and Erik immediately frowned sombrely. Suddenly, he could barely see a hand in front of his face through this dark, cold mist, and even his omnisense was suppressed. A storm still howled around his body, but it didn’t even make the mist move.
Rather than being actual particles in the air, the mist appeared closer to a mass of icy shadow flakes, unbothered by their surroundings and unaffected by the wind.
Combined with Gabriel’s other two spells, this was quite a dangerous combination.
Erik growled and halted the activation of his spatial skill. Instead, he opted for a spatial spell. He could hear Gabriel and his plates approach. Knowing they’d be upon him in less than a second, he didn’t feel like testing the durability of his armour against those attacks.
Dark blue power gathered in his transformed, armoured hand as he formed a magic circle in its palm with incredible speed.
Fwoom
After crushing the magic circle in his fist, a bubble of spatial powered exploded out of him, repulsing everything around him.
"Ack!"
He heard Gabriel stumble and curse as the plates veered off course. Still, this only bought him a few more seconds, but that was enough. Although the mist was unaffected by his repulse spell, he now had more time to prepare for the new situation.
First, he used a technique Elora once taught him by fusing some of his suppressed omnisense into the thundersnow grains raging in a storm around him. Although still suppressed, each grain now gave him a tiny area of vision around itself, which allowed him a distorted view of the world around him.
Second, he finished activating his new second-rank spatial ability...
