Bab 67: Will Domination III
Never did she expect that her world would have come to this scenario.
She still remembered her days where she was free to eat, stroll, and sleep whenever she wanted, the days where her mother would always come home and they would talk over dinner. They would usually eat meals bought from taverns and, once they were popular, restaurants or, if they had more time that night, simple home-cooked meals. They never were that picky over their food.
One of her fondest memories of her mother was when she had cast her first spell, earning her praise and words of wisdom. It was natural, of course, that she would surprise her mother again, though this time, with a much more powerful spell.
But every time she would show her work, her mother had not been that happy nor proud as she was on her first spell. It saddened her and urged her to work harder.
So hard, in fact, that she had bled tooth and nail just to cast without casting. To chant without chanting. A spell so potent that it would change their lives forever.
At the time, she did not know how important it was that she could manipulate shards of glass. All she knew was that her mother had abruptly changed her plans.
The smile on her face did not even falter as she destroyed every bit of warding in their home, eager to get out of the country and out of the yoke of its oppressive government.
She had asked why, of course, why did they need to remove themselves from their home?
She had a natural talent, her mother answered. A gift received only by one out of ten thousand witches. A gift that would invite the envy of all and the jealous wrath of the Grand Coven.
She could access the Natural Order.
They traveled to the new world, intent on finding a new home and a better life. Her mother had contacted a Witch Dealer, aiming to reduce a few lives on the eastern shores for entry into the underworld of this country.
They were so close, close enough that her mother would have planned to deal with the demon. Just one more soul and they would be free to do whatever they please, granted, of course, that they evade the eyes of the shadow rulers of the underworld.
But all those hopes and dreams and future had gone up in smoke with the help of a hunter.
Richard Greythorne.
A witch of meager but versatile powers who undermined every part of their plan, eventually felling her enormous beast of burden and defeating her with the help of his scrawny companion's sneak attack with a witchcatcher.
He had forced him to do his bidding, ordering her to kill her own mother, her own flesh and blood, when he had neither the capability nor culpability to do so.
She had wanted revenge. Pure anger flared in her mind as she sat in that car, staring at the back of his head as they traveled the highway road. She had planned to kill him, nay, to make him suffer as she did before flaying him alive.
The degree to which the details of her plan came to fruition was slow. She would alter such when she saw fragments of their daily lives, moments pieced together by the words coming from the maid who fed her when her captor was away in business.
She had finally begun her plan when she made a mistake when handling her food, forgetting to order her not to do anything with the dishes. Piece by piece, meal by meal, she made sure not even he could ascertain when and where she would strike.
The only problem there was being the slave collar on her neck, unbreakable even by her standards.
Unfortunately, she didn't have time to solve this dilemma, not when he had caught on to her trifling rifling of food scraps and room craps. Ordering her to reveal and surrender her hard work, unable to show a hint of defiance lest her fate be the same as her mother.
But his words soon after the raid brought forth life in her domain of depressive solitude. A plan soon formed in her mind, encapsulated in three words.
Save her energy.
Although she knew not when his plans would bear fruit, she persevered and turned her back away from the mortal world. As the days grew by, so too did her mind, for the traps and monsters she had created in her own little world would soon erupt in ferocity and bring forth the freedom she so duly wanted.
Her captor soon acted upon his promise, invading her mind and, quite literally, mentally abusing her.
Now he stands before her, being beaten to death by her undead manservant and necromantic beast of burden.
The man had grown more powerful in such a short time that she had thought him to be the bastard son of the Grand Witch. He weaved his magic with such precision that it awed her just by gazing from afar, enabling her to infer much of her own magik's shortcomings.
His flaming whip, moving forth as if alive and breathing, wrapped itself around her manservant's arm before pulling it towards him and beheading it for the second time in her life.
She willed forth her own magik, noticing that his own reserves were half that of hers. She had silently rejoiced at the sight of his broken armor, bleeding skin, and ragged breathing with little strength to stand up from his kneeling position.
"Have you any last words, pig?" She asked in a condescending tone, willfully expanding the reach of her magical energy to showcase that she had still had full control of her mental domain.
He snorted, shaking his head free of the sweat and blood that filled his whole head. With a heavy grunt, he stood up and threw away the sword - with it, the last remnants of his hope - as he spread his arms, calming his ragged breaths. "What would your mother think of you?"
Anger flared in her mind and, although cognizant of its detriment, it got the better of her as she dreamed forth hundred upon hundreds of glass shards hovering almost a hundred feet up in the air in a fan-like formation.
"YOU BASTARD!"
●●●●●
He knew how fucked he was when she yelled those words, but also because of the hundreds of crystal shards that were crashing down like a stack of skyscrapers with little to no regard for OSHA violations.
He waves his flaming whip atop his head to crush a few of the shards before it could reach him, raining down even sharper, yet smaller, crystals on him.
He soon found the flaming whip inadequate in dealing with the hail of the glimmering storm as his leather armor was torn apart by the sheer velocity of the shards.
Sprinting around the clearing, Irwin noticed that, although the shards were following him as if he had owed them much money, Charlotte's gaze returned to the lively tree and not to him.
Seeing as he was being slowly cut to death, Irwin twisted his left foot, stopping in his path and, with a breath of hot air, pushed his palms out as he silently activated the same skill she had used.
Krousurgy.
He let his magik divide up into dozens of thin strips of energy that burst out of every pore in his palms and drilled themselves into the crystalline shards that hounded him, continually eroding her control of the shards.
His control of the skill was meager at best, so he failed to connect to the first wave. The shards tore apart what remained of his clothing. He was lucky for some shards just grazed him, merely slicing a few inches into his skin; but more of than not, the shards ran through him like he was a dartboard.
As his leather armor had removed itself - being torn to seven pieces -, the shards embedded itselves to his torso, and he only hoped that his enhanced physique could at least stop a few from turning him into a pinhole.
He puffed up his chest, blood flowing down every hole like a runny nose on a clear summer day, and pushed through the pain, but soon found his plan to be more detrimental than just plain old running for his life.
As he ran for his life, Irwin agonizingly tried to pull out a shard sticking half-way deep into his abdomen using his skill. He figured that since they're already in him, might as well use them.
It was not as fun as he would have hoped to be running away from dangerous crystalline stalagmites, trying not to trip on a large root or get struck by a thick branch, all the while concentrating on taking full control of the shard whilst eroding Charlotte's will on it.
He twisted his foot once more, evading a whole slew of shards, some scraping the side of head as he ducked down for more maneuverability before jumping for protection on a large tree.
He figured that the shards were like heat-guided missiles, able to detect and follow him but with a few hitches on its autonomy.
His deduction proved correct as the shards figured out where he was and so curved their flight to redirect towards him. The shards could not cleanly follow him as he had jumped away at the last second, their momentum unable to be hastily readjusted as they struck the wide trunk of the dead tree.
He would be delighted with the information if not for the agonizing lacerations in his torso, but he gritted through it as he used the same duck and jump tactic on the other hundred shards.
Finally, after suffering for more than a dozen seconds, he figured out Charlotte's skill works on the piece of shards.
Her magical powers were greater than his and more potent, too, so all she had to do was coat the shard with her thin film of energy and set up an arcane receiver with a repeatable and changeable command.
She had set up herself as the major control center, able to simultaneously command all the shards as long as the receivers detected a magical energy.
All metaphorical and in layman's terms, of course, as he had no time to delve into the specifics.
If his guess was right, then all he had to do was to take control of the receiver and trick it into thinking it was still Charlotte that was ordering it.
Now, he, too, thought it would was a stupid idea and, frankly, it truly was, but if you were bleeding like a newly formed river after an earthquake and was on the verge of being domesticated like an overtly horny and rather large pigeon, one truly had no choice but to do stupid things.
"Sine detrimento est…"
A shimmering field of purple energy surrounded him like barely visible armor, eroding the material shards supplanted into his body.
"Sine detrimento est…"
Thin strips of magical energy came out of the pores of his palms as it tore apart the flimsy defensive structure of the receiver. He conducted a thorough supplication of his own magical power while he attempted to replicate Charlotte's magical energy, at least just enough to get by.
"Sine detrimento est…"
Having had practice with controlling precise rope-like movements with the Flaming Whip, it did not take long before the incorporeal aura coating the shard turned from her hue to a gentle purple.
He did not sigh in relief, knowing full well how dangerous it would be to lower his guard as he was still being barraged by a hail of crystalline structures held at bay by the Energy Shield.
"Sine detrimento est…"
It was like an unrelenting army of porcupines adept at poking at the weakest chain in his magical armor; he held on, mouth nearly foaming from the sheer speed at which he casted the spell, while his hands nearly crumpled as he changed the allegiance of the shards from hers to his.
By the next second his shards had gone up to three, the next was five, then nine, and, by the time his mouth had gone cracked and barren, he had converted enough shards to shield himself from the onslaught of her attacks.
"Sine detri-motherfuck you!"
As if given a new lease on life, Irwin canceled his current spell as he used the converted shard to parry the first wave of her attack before rolling to the side and evading the second wave.
Seeing that, although the consumption of his magical energy was less than that of continuous use of Flaming Whip, the skill also consumed his stamina, albeit incrementally slower, Irwin decided to end this charade.
He had to use wide arm movements at first, relying on his preternatural athleticism to deflect and defend against the shards while he used the last bits of his concentration to erode her control of the few that passed through his menial defense.
"I- fuck me-" He nearly stumbled on a low hanging root, steadying himself, but not before another shard, long and jagged like the other, embedded itself on his shoulder blade. "God! Yeah, I've gotten a hang of it."
He soon found a short-hand technique to quickly convert the shards, softening the number of projectiles haranguing him while quickly stockpiling his own retinue of crystalline shards.
He burst through the treelines and made his way to face Charlotte as she rescinded her attacks, quickly liquefying the shards that she still had control over.
There was a surprise look on her face, one that he was aware was due to his own set of projectiles.
"Didn't think it through, did ya?" He taunted, a smirk on his face.
"I see. You've made this a shared mental realm. You have as much authority as I…" She realized, anger quickly forming on her expression.
He had a gentle smile and disappointed look on his face as if he was a father softly admonishing an unruly child, willing forth his own set of shards around his form.
"Well, that's enough of the chit-chat. Here's what's gonna happen in the next minute. I'm going to attack you with the shards which you'll counter with your own. Now, once that happens, I'm going to use another spell, preferably one that'll keep you on-guard for a while, before punching the shit out of you."
She looked aghast at his words, waving her fingers in a manner unbefitting of a human being as a number of roots began to emerge from the ground like magical beanstalks.
His smirk turned wider as he said, "Are you ready?"
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone