The bikini warrior breathed in the humid air as she planted the tip of her greatsword into the mud, a silent challenge to Zarba and Xin. Her purple eyes swept the scene: the cloaked man's handsome face etched with calm composure, the smaller figure beside him smiling mischievously with her lavender lips as she held a short golden staff with two purple crystals on her side. The construct knights on top of the horses remained eerily still around the two, their arrows nocked and fully drawn, ready to release the volley of deadly magic enchanted arrows.
Amidst the tense seconds of standoff, Zarba moved first—a subtle jerk of his chin before the arrow volley unleashed with a unified cracking of the bowstrings, slicing through the air like bullets in a probing attack. The bikini warrior didn't flinch or panic. Her greatsword immediately became a silver blur, deflecting the arrows with deafening clangs that echoed across the marshes. Sparks showered onto the mud as shattered arrowheads and shafts spun away. Her stamina and reflection time still remain high.
During the defensive whirlwind, the bikini warrior's purple eyes remained locked onto Xin. Recognition flickered in her eyes, as she knew a staff-wielder usually meant magician. She has to be extra careful of the magician's tricks and can't just charge straight at her enemy like a dumbass.
Even if her greatsword has an anti-magic enchantment, it doesn't mean that her fleshy body is immune to all magic spells. Just a single mistake or one spell that makes her stop moving for even a second is enough to make her lose her life after all...
Seeing that the bikini warrior is being cautious makes Xin want to giggle like a villainess as her lips part in a whispered incantation, her hand rising the glowing Mystica Magica staff and pointing at the bikini warrior, who became more alert by Xin's action.
Then suddenly two glowing magic circles materialized on the muddy ground on both sides of the bikini warrior, causing her to tense her body as she readied to defend herself before the muddy earth surged upward like grasping hands towards her legs—but the bikini warrior was already airborne, her leap carrying her over the grasping earth as it solidified into human hands.
She landed with a spray of mud, greatsword cleaving sideways to bisect two charging Zar-Bros before they could close distance, as ten more charged forward while Zarba summoned more of them to put pressure on her.
'Let's begin our plan…' Zarba thought as he watched the bikini warrior deal with his summons with ease before Xin replied telepathically in his mind from their soul connection, 'Yes, yes, let's begin…'
"Hmph...!" After destroying more than half of the first wave of Zar-Bros, the bikini warrior planted her boot and pivoted into a powerful spin, her greatsword slicing horizontally through another four Zar-Bros who attempted to flank her. Their dissolving forms shimmered like dust in the wind, but she didn't pause to watch any of that—already ducking low as an arrow whistled past where her head had been. Her eyes trace back to where the arrow came from and see the nonchalant face of Zarba, who just shamelessly took a potshot at her with his white bow.
Doesn't want to remain passive forever and eventually tired herself out; the bikini warrior begins her offense as she surges forward, closing the gap toward the carriage with terrifying speed while dodging and smacking the arrows and Zar-Bros out of her path. She grins wildly as her purple eyes lock on to Zarba and Xin.
But then she sees Xin's lips move silently with her magic staff glowing as the air seems to ripple. The bikini warrior became wary but didn't slow down, as she was confident that she could dispel any quick, low-level spell that the magician might throw at her, but then, contrary to her expectation, a large magic circle suddenly materialized under her feet as gravity multiplied tenfold around her.
"Gghhk…?!" A grunt escaped from the bikini warrior's lips as her boots sank ankle-deep into the mud from the sudden gravity shift. Her body and eyeballs become so heavy from Xin's definitely not low-level spell, her spine straining like taut wire. Yet she didn't crumple. Purple eyes blazed defiance at Xin's taunting smirk.
'Using this kind of magic against me…?!' She thought with a guttural roar while she channeled her fury into her anti-magic enchanted greatsword, which didn't really make it stronger or anything, as she pushed her blade down at the pulsed purple magic circle on the ground—the anti-magic property of the greatsword acting fast as it interfered with the magic circle that immediately broke into a mote of light as the gravitation returned back to normal.
The bikini warrior now felt some relief that her eyes didn't threaten to fall out of their sockets anymore as she wrenched her legs free, mud sloughing off in heavy clumps.
"Hmm, how about a reverse then~?" Xin said with a cruel smile. The purple crystals on Mystica Magica pulsed brighter as she pointed her staff at the bikini warrior again as the bikini warrior's eyes widened in surprise and panic. 'She can cast another…?!'
Before the bikini warrior could even move, the magic circle had already materialized in the air above her as the gravity inverted instantly around the bikini warrior—not pulling her down this time, but sucking her upward towards the sky instead.
"Ahhh?!" The bikini warrior yelped as her body, mud, and puddles of water fell upward from the road, some even splattering against her scale bikini as her boots left the earth. Her greatsword also weighed more heavily, dragging her arms skyward while her body lifted violently. She gasped as her feet kicked empty air, muscles straining to maintain grip on her greatsword. To lose it is no different than death in this situation.
Then Xin, with a malicious intent, cast another magic circle, which materialized on the ground under the floating bikini warrior, causing the gravity pull from both the magic circles to suspend the Great Warrior in midair five meters above the ground like a balloon with invisible string. The magic circles flared overhead and under the bikini warrior, just beyond her blade's reach even at full extension.
"You fucking coward, fucking stick waver, fucking release me!!" She roared curses, thrashing wildly as she spun around uncontrollably in the air, trying to swing her greatsword toward the glowing magic circles. But physics law is absolute, and using her greatsword to stab at the magic circle meant forfeiting her only defense against the arrow storm.
"Fuck...!" Below, she could see a dozen Zar-Bros were already aiming at her, their bows drawn taut.
"Oh my, how lively of you..." Xin said with amusement as she dropped her hood to let her long raven hair and her long pointy ears free. Her lips curved as she waved her golden magic staff at the bikini warrior, making the magic circles spin around at a fast speed as well as the Great Warrior, who was also spinning along with the magic circles.
"H-Hey you! S-Stop…! Stop this…!" The bikini warrior cried out as she started to get dizzy; mud and water droplets flew out of her skin and armor like she was a dirty plushie inside the washing machine.
'Magic is really incredible…' Zarba could feel the sheer absurdity as he watched the bikini warrior spinning like crazy in the air, the Great Warrior who can fight a company of soldiers with ease now dangling helplessly like a puppet under Xin's strings from just a couple of spells.
"Well, it seems like you are now trapped." Zarba chuckled softly as he raised his white bow, drawing the arrow aimed at the spinning bikini warrior. The Zar-Bros that remained from the charge at the bikini warrior earlier also moved to surround her position, arrows aiming at her ready to be released if she tried anything unexpected.
But she can't really do anything, though, as Xin's gravity spell keeps her helplessly suspended in the air. No matter what she is trying to do, it's hopeless since she is just one person without any backup to help her out.
The bikini warrior's dizziness is getting worse as she feels lightheaded and short of breath for some reason. She hissed curses through clenched teeth, purple eyes desperately moving around in search of something that might help her out of this trap while still spinning in the air.
"Well, will you surrender obediently?" Zarba's voice cut through the bikini warrior's cursing noise; he wants to give her a chance to get off easy as his temporary slave or something since it's such a waste to just kill her; she's a very rare existence, after all.
Usually those that try to assault the prince of the empire are always punished with the infamous Unmaker's thirteen torture steps before death by hanging, but Zarba doesn't really want to do that over-the-top punishment, and having a Great Warrior alive in his service is far more valuable than having her dead body...
The bikini warrior's wild purple eyes still blazed defiance despite her vertigo-spinning status. Her lungs burned—each desperate gasp pulling in less air, more emptiness in her chest. She guesses that some kind of poison has been used on her somehow, and she is half correct since Xin's spinning gravity traps weren't just for trapping and disorienting the target; they quietly siphoned oxygen from the area of effect, turning the gravity prison into a suffocating chamber as well. Carbon monoxide poisoning while trapping the target in midair is the true purpose of this ingenious trap that Zarba and Xin had prepared for the bikini warrior.
"Never... fucking... surrender...! Never...!" The bikini warrior choked out, her voice ragged, her greatsword's tip trembling downward as dizziness blurred her vision. The air grew stiflingly thin; her gasps became shallow gulps that couldn't fill her straining lungs. Purple eyes darted in a dizzy haze—the muddy road below, the smirking elven magician, and the calm handsome man all spun in nauseating circles. She wouldn't yield. Not to a stick-waver's magic or poison. Not ever. Her warrior pride screamed louder than her suffocating flesh. Her knuckles whitened around the sword's hilt.
Eventually, her thrashing grew sluggish, strength leaching away faster than her pride. Her vision tunneled—darkness crowding the edges while her thoughts now swam in dizzying circles. Her mouth gaped, fighting for air that wasn't there, but only a desperate wheeze escaped. Her greatsword finally slipped from her numb fingers, tumbling downward into a magic circle on the ground and dispelling it.
The bikini warrior's purple eyes rolled back—defiance flickering out as consciousness tore loose. She hung limp as the magic circle above her pulled her up just a little before Xin dispelled it, and the unconscious body of the bikini warrior dropped heavily on the muddy ground with a wet thud near her greatsword.
"I suppose she prefers to be your slave warrior forever rather than temporarily, my husband." Xin giggles as she crosses her arm with Zarba's. The half-elf is quite pleased, as she managed to give something to her husband as compensation for her selfishness in bringing them both into a troublesome situation.
"Well, I won't complain if she chooses this." Zarba shrugged his shoulders. He already thought about what if the bikini warrior would stubbornly refuse to accept his "kindness" and surrender, which would lead her straight to being enslaved with the most restrictive method of enslavement possible with a magic tattoo just like Xin but with no soul connection stuff.
"At least I get something worthwhile for my trouble…" Zarba mumbles as he commands his Zar-Bros to bring the bikini warrior to him. It's better to tattoo her before she wakes up and becomes an annoying headache to them...