Chapter 214: Epiloge
Arienne stared at High Arcanite Deena with calm eyes, the rise and fall of her chest beating a rhythmic beat as she prepared herself for another exchange.
After witnessing Bishop Maels’s horrendous actions earlier on in the afternoon, she had immediately known that lingering in his company for even a moment longer could have put her in an even more precarious position than she was currently in. To think that the famous bishop that had sent ripples throughout the continent with his recent achievements was actually a traitor to the church and the faith that they upheld. She still couldn’t believe what she had witnessed in that desolate little glade; a bishop of the church, taking the initiative to summon a demon?
She wasn’t so easily fooled as his other followers, who had seemed to believe that he was merely dispelling some sort of invisibility spell that the demon had been employing. No, if that were the case then it would have relied on its obscurity to attack them the moment that they closed in on its location, or otherwise would have fled under the cover of its spell. Arienne wasn’t a mage, but she...
...could easily discern that the medallion in the man’s hands had been some sort of magical tool that had served as a catalyst to summon the man; beast; demon—whatever it was.
And those children...
Arienne gritted her teeth and pushed the disturbing memory from her mind. Demons? Those were ordinary kids as far as she had been able to tell. And they had been intended sacrifices for whatever ritual the madman had designed, for why else would he gather so many Kets in one place and arrange them at strategic points along the magic circle that had been drawn out in the dirt?
"Is this all the great Arienne of Lahn is capable of?" came a mocking voice, though from where Arienne wasn’t sure. "And to think that I’d been preparing myself for a real fight."
Arienne had never battled a high arcanite before, but she had killed seven of their lesser counterparts. Normally, she would trick the battle mage with a few feints before closing the distance with aura-enhanced speed before delivering a decisive blow, always prepared to disrupt any offensive spells that the mage might cast in an attempt to slow her down. With Deena, however, it was virtually impossible to close the distance between the two of them.
"So withdrawn, this one. Do I frighten you, Arienne?"
There was no point in conversing with one’s opponent during a fight, so Arienne kept quiet and honed her senses on the surrounding area. Deena’s invisibility spell was a cut above most mages, but regardless of how well she could mask herself from sight, she couldn’t hide the sounds of snapping twigs beneath her feet or the stirring of air that her moving body might leave behind.
With her back to a particularly broad tree, Arienne was momentarily caught off guard when several branches suddenly slithered downward like agile snakes, though dashed away just in time to avoid being entwined in their fluid grips.