Bab 209: Against The Thalmor (4) : Horror of the Skull
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The cat raised her face up and glared with its eyes to the elves who forgot to breathe, with that glare, she faded into darkness as if she sank in her own shadow.
Silence took over the place despite the noise coming from the small battle between the Thalmor and the Dare Dragon Company. The elven officers tried to look around for the small cat-like beast that killed one of their comrades.
"Don't wander around, form a defensive formation, the enemy has spotted us and they are using demonic arts!"
Justiciar Lenwe couldn't help but shout at his officers, he needed them to be in full awareness, not to fall in panic.
'Damn it! How is that possible?'
Justiciar Lenwe inwardly wasn't believing that he got ambushed like that, these men must be using some cowardly tactic of some sort.
He kept scanning the area around with his magic and found some traces.
"To the east, a hundred meters, fire!"
With these short words, Justiciar Lenwe gave rapid orders and his officers followed immediately. A few lightning spells dashed from their staves and landed exactly where Lenwe pinpointed but no confirmation on a hit was received.
'Dammit!'
Justiciar Lenwe now sensed a real movement and it was opposite to where he thought it would be, a second later, the attackers showed themselves.
*Roar*
With a mighty beast roar, a large Snow Saber Cat emerged out from the snow and jumped at one of the large-bodied officers, in a mere second, the sabercat swooped another two officers and mowed down the large officer with its fangs. Trying to put on some resistant, the officer activated a close ranged magic on the Saber Cat but out of nowhere, a golden sword cut his hands off in a clean arc.
The wielder of the blade was riding on the Saber Cat, once he killed the large elf like nothing, he directed his attention to Justiciar Lenwe right away. Justiciar Lenwe coped on with the situation immediately and directed his staff at Jonrad trying to cast a spell as soon as possible.
"Humph!" Jonrad snorted in disdain and waved his sword once again towards Justiciar Lenwe, a whip of flame was released towards Lenwe at the same time he cast a lightning spell, the two magics collided resulting Jonrad's triumph.
Lenwe's staff flew away by the shock of the clash and he was sent a couple of meters to the back. Using that force, Lenwe managed to rotate himself in the air then grabbed a scroll from his robe, once he faced Jonrad again, he opened the scroll and a large scale Frost Magic in it was released at Jonrad.
"Tsk! Cheaters."
Jonrad clicked his tongue and inhaled as much air as he could, however, what he exhaled was a fiery breath resembled that of dragons.
"What… the King of Ash!"
Lenwe recognized the skill right away, this was something only written about in tales but this is with no doubt the 'Fire Breath' skill, something only Dragons and Dragon Knights can use. The only known Dragon Knight in these parts is an old nemesis of the Thalmor and a former Blade Agent, the King of Ash, Jonrad Firemane.
Lenwe's spell was broken and he retreated even more, once he could get a breather and face Jonrad once again, he noticed that one of his officers was sneaking behind Jonrad. Lenwe decided to make an opening for that officer and started spamming fast spells at Jonrad.
Jonrad didn't hesitate and started dueling Lenwe with his Flame Magic, the officer that was sneaking behind Jonrad caught the chance and jumped at Jonrad aiming his dagger at Jonrad's neck.
"Die, filthy human!"
Jonrad didn't even react, in a split of a second, a silver bolt came out of nowhere and hit the Thalmor officer in his forehead sending him away like a ragdoll. The officer's body landed on a nearby rock with the bolt in his head pinning him on it.
"Thanks, daughter." Jonrad said in a lazy tone.
"You welcome, father." A few tens of meters away, Jullanar was aiming her crossbow at the dead elf and nodded to herself with a grin.
"Let's not laze around, kill them all." Jon appeared beside Jull with his hand on the katana sword, Bolar's Oathblade.
With his order, Jull and Alina nodded. Behind them, a few figures emerged and followed Jon's lead. These were 'Team 0', Jon's personal guards.
The group was around twenty people who all charged out of the snow. As they were running, a small black figure joined them from the side. During the charge, Nefertiti started to enlarge turning into her Beast Form.
"Let's go, partner!" Jull ran and jumped on Nefertiti's back.
Nefertiti was not as large as Jonrad's Saber Cat but carrying someone as light as Jull was a piece of cake. Jull switched to her small spear and aimed it forward then threw it at the nearest Thalmor officer.
The spear hit splendidly and Jull jumped from Nefertiti performing a flying kick at the Thalmor officer then retrieved her spear. Just as she landed, she aimed the spear and threw it again. It wasn't over yet, she switched to a short sword and a buckler then joined the fight, the 'Crown of the Valkyrie' on her head shone in a silver gleam and her skin started changing color from ashen grey to shining silver. Jull dived into the enemies cutting through them left and right, her attacks were empowered by her Aura and the Crown on her head.
"I am not falling behind." Alina used her Wind Magic and stormed the other side of the Thalmor officers.
She unleashed a large Cyclone of Wind that threw the elves to the air, she entered to the eye of the cyclone and unsheathed her two Moon Sabers. In an artistic style, she drew arcs of blood with her swords, once she had enough slashing, she touched the 'Fire Keeper Mask' on her eyes with a finger and red veins started to form on its design. Pitiful screams and wails of help sounded from inside Alina's Cyclone but they died down in no time. Once her cyclone went out of Magicka, around ten elves could be seen in puddles of their blood that came out of their eyes, noses, ears and skin, some even killed themselves to rid themselves of the pain they suffered.
On another side, Nefertiti was advancing through the Thalmor with agile steps, she could use two styles of Shadow Magic now. The first is to travel through shadows by sinking into any shadow and moving from a shadow to another including hers and Jon's, the second is to form Claws, Fangs and Scales all made of shadows on her body.
Nefertiti formed two large fangs, extended her claws and made some sharp scales on her back and tail. One wave of her limbs could break armors and dent weapons but Nefertiti preferred keeping things simple and targetted the gaps of the armors. With the speed and agility she had, she jumped like a demon between the officers killing them one by one.
Jon and his team arrived last, he had no Wind Magic to fly with or could ride on the fast Nefertiti.
"Dammit! Leave some for me!"
Jon pushed out his green Aura of Madness and taunted all the remaining officers, they charged at him with mad expressions.
"Die, human!"
"Filthy Nord, we will eradicate your race!"
Jon smiled and put his hand on Bolar's Oathblade. This blade had an oath on it to kill the Thalmor and this was the perfect moment to avenge and honor its previous owner.
Jon drew the katana the right way and wielded it with two hands, once the first officer came close enough, Jon slashed horizontally.
*Slash*
A body and a head got separated and fell on the ground.
*Slash*
*Slash*
*Slash*
Each time Jon slashed, another body and head would go in separate ways. Just like that, Jon mindlessly killed over fifteen Thalmor officers on his own.
"Man! Katanas are really stupid, what kind of a sword can only slash and not stab."
Jon seemed to be dissatisfied with katanas, unlike how the media in his past life made the katanas appear like the sexiest weapons ever, Jon hated the shit out of that weapon, even Wulfur himself described them as defect products.
"Want to switch with one of my sabers." Alina came behind Jon and offered him a weapon.
"No, thanks. Even though I am a longsword kind of guy, I will go with magic for now."
Jon put Bolar's Oathblade back into his Haven Ring and took out the Skull of Corruption, the infamous staff of the Daedric Lord Vaermina.
Alina saw that staff and got some cold shivers in her spin, the staff looked like as if it was made of short straight bones attached up together the joints with bones spurs coming out from them, the top of the staff had a horned skull with demonic features that made it look like the most horrifying thing ever.
[A/N: https://ibb.co/dbdK37N here is a pic.]
Once Jon wielded the Skull of Corruption, its eyes glowed with a green light and made it look scarier than it already is.
"Retreat!"
With Jon's order, 'Team 0' along with Nefertiti, Alina, Jonrad and Jullanar all retreated behind Jon.
The Thalmor thought they were gaining an advantage but what met them was Jon aiming his staff at them.
"Now… let's see what this Skull can do."
The Skull had a few strange abilities that its wielder can use rather than using the staff to cast stronger spells, these abilities were 'Dreamsteal', 'Walking Nightmares', and 'Psychic Agony'. To use the latter two powers, the user needed to use the first one to charge the Skull by stealing the Dreams of the sleeping people and replacing them with Nightmares. Jon had the best source of dreams which was Winterhold's Prison, he went out every night and collected the dreams of the guilty to torment them without feeling bad about it, one of the reasons why Jon hunted many bandits lately. Now, with the staff charged, Jon can use the other two abilities.
Jon waved the staff at the Thalmor Agents and cast 'Walking Nightmares', what appeared was something unspeakable, as if the Thalmor Agents were cloned, another band of identical Thalmor Agents appeared on the side of Jon.
Even Jonrad and those who were around Jon retreated in a panic not understanding what happened just now, the Thalmor themselves were in a state of utter shock seeing mirror images of themselves on the side of the enemy.
"Attack!"
With Jon's command, the Clones on his side attacked their Originals in the most confusing scene ever. Each Clone picked its own Original and targeted it solely with equal power and equal skill.
Jon's lips curved up.
"This staff cost me a lot of nights to charge and its power isn't half bad, much better than the game."
[A/N: take note that I mixed the power of the staff from the lore with the effects from the game, check the UESPWiki.]
The fight kept going and going, Jon was fully focused on how was it going. If a Clone killed its Original, he would immediately send it away, if an Original killed a Clone then he would send a 'Lightning Strike' spell from the staff to take down that weakened Original.
Finally, the Clones killed all the enemies in front of Jon, not entirely all of them as the last mer standing was the injured Justiciar Lenwe who barely defeated his clone.
"Amazing, right? For this single artifact to create such a fascinating power."
Jon walked towards Justiciar Lenwe with a wide grin.
"D- Damn you!" Justiciar Lenwe cursed at Jon while kneeling on the ground in pain.
"Don't get me wrong, you are a good mage, I would have enjoyed fighting you but… let's just say that all is fair in love and war."
Jon aimed the Skull at Justiciar Lenwe and used its last power 'Psychic Agony'.
"Aaah! AAAAAH!"
Justiciar Lenwe fell on his back and started squirming on the ground while screaming more loudly than he ever screamed in his life, the pain was so all-consuming that he no longer cared about his so-called Elven Superiority and would actually beg Jon to stop if he could, it was as if a thousand hot knives cut through his flesh and skin.
Alina walked beside Jon and looked at Lenwe's state, it was the same thing she could cause with her eyes, a state of intense psychological torture to the point that its effect would appear on the Physical Body.
While channeling the spell to his heart's content, Jon noticed that the power of the staff started fading. It seems that the staff had run out on Dreams.
Now the Skull can only act as a powerful magical staff until it gets charged with Dreams once again.
Justiciar Lenwe woke up from his pain in a haggard state, his appearance was so miserable as he almost sank in his sweat and filth. Jon looking down on him caused him an unspeakable horror as if he saw a monster from the deepest of Oblivion.
In pitiful screams and horrified shrieks, Justiciar Lenwe started crawling on the snow trying to get away from Jon.
He would go insane if he ever met Jon once again, he can't take it anymore, his mind was clouded with all sorts of fear and survival was his sole purpose, in all his days he never was this scared.
Jon looked at him mocking the pitiful appearance of the elf, he flicked his fingers spoke.
"Bring him alive. Shackle his Magicka and gag his mouth."
In synced steps, the members of 'Team 0' moved like shadows towards Justiciar Lenwe dragging him back and beating him left and right.
Jon turned around and stored the Skull of Corruption in his Haven Ring. He looked at the direction of Wulfur's team to see that everything has ended on that side too.
"Let's clean up and go home."
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