A cone of frigid air fanned out toward Lucian, the chill so biting that the ground beneath it instantly crystallized into jagged ice spines.
The frozen thorns shattered with a sharp crack, fragments exploding forward in a deadly spray. Lucian summoned a storm, the howling wind shielding him from frost and shards alike.
Yet even without a direct blow, the plummeting temperature clawed at his bones. Dispersing the storm, he steadied his blades as the Ancient Hero of Zamor charged once more. His left sword rose to parry, his right cutting along the foe's rushing path.
But this time, the Hero of Zamor did not swing her Zamor Curved Sword as before. Her toe tapped the ground, sending her gliding sideways. She twisted midair, her motion fluid, almost graceful—slipping past Lucian's slash and alighting at his right rear flank.
With the spin's momentum, her scything strike came for his shoulder, seizing the narrow window before his right hand could recover, and too far for his left to intercept. Had the blow landed, his arm might have been lost.
But Lucian was no longer the man he had been.
He mirrored her motion, turning counterclockwise while conjuring a roaring gale. Guided by the storm, his left sword caught the curved blade, steel ringing. His right followed instantly, its point lunging for her waist.
The wind screamed around them, tugging at the scale-strung plates girding her midsection, making them rattle like chimes. The same gales that could flay the flesh of demi-humans barely carved shallow cuts into her withered body.
Her kind had long dwelt in realms of ice and storm.
As her opponent's blade neared her waist, the Hero of Zamor's mind drifted. She realized how long it had been since she'd felt the snowstorms of her homeland—storms so fierce they could chill even her people to the marrow. And yet… she missed them.
Snapping back to the moment, her left hand swept outward. Frost erupted beside her, the blast striking Lucian and driving him back. The shockwave was not unlike the Rejection incantation of the Two Fingers—immense in force, yet laced with biting cold. His armor now bore a skin of white frost.
Two Cold affinity arts had already lowered the cramped prison's temperature. It was not yet enough to hamper movement, but it does not bode well.
Lucian shaped twin storms at his blades, sending a pair of invisible storm edges screaming toward her. Though nearly unseen, she evaded them with nimble footwork—only to find Lucian himself, riding the wind in their wake.
Crossing his blades, he struck. Though she leapt back, his swords carved an X-shaped wound across her abdomen. The flesh peeled back, blood trickling in fine lines. She pressed a frost-wreathed hand to it, sealing it instantly in ice.
It felt not like cutting flesh, but the rough, aged bark of some ancient tree. The blow had not pierced deep enough to harm her organs. It was no mortal wound, but it was blood drawn nonetheless.
Lucian prepared to harry her further, to layer injury upon injury until fatigue set in, and then finish her with one decisive strike. But instead of retreating, the Hero of Zamor surged forward.
Whether stirred by the taste of her own blood or awakened from long dormancy, her attacks grew frenzied. Sometimes she would dash in, strike, and spring away before a counter could land. Sometimes she spun into a whirlwind of slashes, lashing out with the chain of her left-hand shackle.
Frost-mist and ice fragments burst from her blade, clashing against the winds of Lucian's swords. Jagged icicles found the gaps in his armor, drawing warm blood that melted them as it flowed. Twice her strikes had cleaved into him, though not past his guard; the chain's lash to his ribs hurt more, a deep ache blooming beneath the plating.
Still, Lucian gave as good as he took, his winds biting shallow cuts into her with every clash. From time to time, a well-timed storm edge caught her mid-leap, dashing her to the ground.
But his Focus (FP) waned, his wounds beginning to hinder him. He longed to drink from his flask, yet the exchange was too relentless—any pause, and she would close the gap instantly.
Feeling the last embers of his strength, Lucian resolved to strike a grievous blow.
Raising both swords, he readied a technique he had long practiced but never perfected. Yet in this battle, he had studied her—her turns, her agile spins—and found what he lacked.
With a deep breath, he whirled his swords. The storm gathered tight about him, his body spinning with it. At half-turn, he dropped into a crouch, his back to her, the gale swelling to a furious crescendo.
The Hero of Zamor had never seen such a move, but she would not allow it to finish. She moved to intervene—
Too late. The storm hurled Lucian into a turning leap, his twin blades arcing upward into her chestplate, carving deep furrows. Before she could recover, he twisted in midair, reversing the strike into a downward slash. Her hurried block failed; her shoulder mail burst apart.
Landing, Lucian rolled forward into an aerial somersault, bringing both swords down in a crushing cross—his Twin blade Lion's Claw.
Though she sprang back, his strike still caught her, shearing into her right leg, bone bared in a great wound. Blood fountained—her first true injury of the fight.
She touched the rent flesh, almost disbelieving. When… was the last time?
Lucian did not press. Such a wound would halt her rush; this was his moment to drink deep of his flask.
In the distance, she planted her Curve Blade into the ground, as though in ritual. Rime spread over her broken armor, sealing her wounds in frost. An ancient, cutting wind swelled within the prison, the air now filled with falling snow.
Her homeland—the peak of the snowbound mountains—was reborn here in miniature.
Drawing her sword anew, now encased in thick ice, she spun and danced in the snow, her steps a warrior's grace.
When she stopped, she bowed deeply. Somewhere in that bow, she seemed to recall the honor she had lost in her long captivity—remembering, perhaps, what it meant to be called Hero.