Chapter 224

◈ Chapter 224:

With violet wings of flame, and Rain in her arms, Myra shot across the ornamental garden and hit the towering estate wall.

Rain's back connected first, and with such force that the wall cratered concave and then shattered, the layers of stonework coming apart under the sheer mass striking it and blowing out the other side in a cone that shredded the doors and windows of the building across the street.

In the same moment, the thousands upon thousands of entwined enchantments, laboriously chiselled and carved from the top to the bottom of the wall, went supernova, becoming brighter than the sun as a high-pitch whine underwrote the impact of Rain hitting the wall.

The sound peaked a fraction of a moment later and with a deafening screech the enchantments overloaded and dumped their charge, sheet lightning sloughing from the top in a guttering monsoon of electricity even as the wall collapsed around them. Countless branching thunderheads cut the air like blades as they lanced down toward the two tumbling and rolling through the falling rubble.

"AAAAAA—"

Myra was struck first, her voice rising in a momentary scream of agony before being cut off as she instinctively flashed her body to flame. The bolts were left to pass through her form, scattering it to the wind as they plunged into Rain beneath.

Rain arched his back and roared as he was repeatedly struck, electricity taking root and burning fractal lines under his fur, his vision flashing white as he was momentarily blinded. He thrashed and rolled amongst the rubble like a mad thing as ungodly amounts of magically generated lightning lashed and arced across his body, enough to kill a hundred people ten times over. Pain. So much pain!

And then… it was over, and he was left slumped on his front as smoke billowed from his smouldering fur, red embers twinkling across the black like constellations.

He wasn't dead… which was nice… but he sure felt like death…

Everything hurt, from the muscles torn as he thrashed, to the root-like pattern of burns under his fur, to his throbbing head.

Had he been much weaker, or much smaller, he had the vague impression that he would have simply died under such a barrage. The power stored in these kinds of enchanted walls was no joke, and it was only his sheer physical mass diffusing the electrical current, along with his inherent toughness, that had saved him from what felt like having an entire storm's worth of lightning dumped on his head in one go.

Rain's past streetrat self could begrudgingly appreciate the thought that had been behind the tactic, it was the kind of underhanded thing he definitely would have employed. Myra had utilised her own flame based invincibility to weaponize the estate's entire magical defence against him. She had spoken of the reasoning, of how difficult it would be for her to kill him, and she had come up with something to get around that, something that likely would have worked if he had been much weaker, if he hadn't devoured the Abattoir.

He eased open his aching jaw in a low groan as wisps of smoke curled from his teeth.

Unfortunately for her, he had survived. Even more unfortunately for her, he was exceptionally fucking angry about being put through a wall and massively electrocuted.

His body tensed, aching muscles returning to motion, paw sliding across the gritty debris and under to lever himself up as he rose, a smoking mass of muscle and fur, injured, but whole.

It had been a clever play, but it was a play that she could only make use of once, and in turning herself to flame, she would be momentarily disoriented once again.

Myra began to reform amongst the rubble strewn street, part of a naked female form becoming solid.

A step, and Rain's open paw lashed out as she clutched at her half-formed head. His digits closed like a vice around her forearm and with a grunt he whipped her around bodily to slam into the wall of the building behind even as her flesh was reforming.

In a moment of panic, the left eye of her half-formed head saw the solid stone she was about to be dashed upon and once more she transformed herself to flame to escape harm. Her forearm became a lick of formless fire in Rain's paw before the mass of flame that was Myra splashed up against the wall, spraying backwards, scattering into the air as countless floating flames.

The flames remained still and unmoving as they hung suspended, and Rain felt a jolt of worry. It would be a disaster if Myra somehow died in her flame form and remained that way permanently. He couldn't eat fire… probably…

But after a moment, the flames started to drift back together, floating through the air and rebuilding a rough bipedal shape.

A few seconds later and Myra's flesh reformed, the violet wings of flame now missing. Her expression was set mid-scream, which became an audible scream as her vocal cords became physical.

She staggered backwards, clawing at her face, the whites of her eyes showing as her irises danced madly.

"What's...  I…—thhh don't..." she stammered, her voice a garbled slur.

Rain furrowed his brow. She seemed genuinely confused despite his suspicion of a trick. It was like she was struggling to gather her fragmented mind… It was almost as if there were a problem with the transformation, the rebuilding of her flesh imperfect, or more specifically, the rebuilding of her brain. It wasn't just an extremely unpleasant experience that she abhorred then; it had consequences, very real consequences.

Consequences he could take advantage of. Overcoming his hesitation, he kicked out at the last possible moment before she could come to her senses, one giant foot coming up in a swift and brutal motion. His foot caught her in the midriff, and because she was so disorientated, this time, it fully connected.

The massive momentum from Rain's powerful blow was transferred to Myra through her solar plexus, the air blowing from her lungs as she folded around the foot before being catapulted horizontally down the street.

She smashed into the back of a parked cart and obliterated it, wooden shrapnel fountaining up around her as the thing shattered under the power of the impact and around a high leveler's toughened body.

Myra tore through the entire thing from end to end, wooden cart wheels blowing out to either side as she crashed into the horse harnessed at the front. A pained whinny came as Myra's hurtling body ripped the horse from its harness and knocked it to the cobble along with the elf in a mass of flailing limbs, hooves waving at the air as the horse rolled.

The elf managed to crawl away before the horse pinned her and staggered to her feet breathing hard, naked and covered in scratches and wooden splinters.

She awkwardly turned to find Rain coming around the shattered cart and took a stumbling step back, then another, alarm in her eyes.

"Whu— Whait, I— ssss-top!"

Rain sheathed his paw and forearm in predation, a wriggling writhing mass of teeth and claws, a massive club larger than her torso to turn any flesh to mulch. But then he paused, frowned, and the dark sunk back into his fur, instead his claws extended several inches becoming sheathed in black.

Similarly to if the elf died as flame, it would be a problem if he accidentally turned her into gore soup, not unless he wanted to drink her remains off the street… which he did not, so a little restraint with the predation was in order.

Myra drew her hands into fists at her sides.

"R-Rain, Really I— it was- an accident! I didn't see where I was carrying you is all!"

She seemed to be rapidly recovering. Not willing to give her a chance, Rain lunged, his claws thrust toward her exposed throat.

At the last possible moment he caught a flash of something bright out of the corner of his eye.

His other leg instantly kicked forward and stamped down, paw pads shattering cobble and crunching into the road as he arrested his heavy momentum with brute force.

Not a moment too soon as a pinprick of light was hurled from the ruin of the cart by a violet tendril of flame, an iron nail made molten and heated to an extreme.

For a moment Rain thought he had avoided the thing. But then a numbing sensation came from his muzzle as the pinprick of light shot away, having burned a small hole through his cheek, slicing across the top of his tongue, and out the other side, the thing so hot that it seared away any nerve endings.

The fresh scent of charred flesh filled his nose as blood filled his mouth, but he barely had time to register what had happened before a violet fist of fire hidden behind the barrel of the fallen horse shot out and crunched into his side. Off balance and taken by surprise he was knocked to the ground and sent rolling.

Even disorientated Myra had enough of her wits left to set a trap. Had she intentionally kept herself whole when she hit the cart?

Infuriated, Rain rolled to his feet even as a half dozen sets of wolf teeth exploded from his fur and shot toward the elf, he lunged after them with a snarl, only to be forced to dodge aside as a cone of orange fire obliterated half the teeth.

He skirted the flame, his foot digging into the cobble as he powered his mass forward, keeping himself low to the ground and bounding around, flinging out a long arm as he did so and launching a malformed tiger with a cluster of teeth for a head.

Myra hadn't intended it as an attack however, merely a distraction, and she thrust her own palm out, powering flame from her skin in two cones that blew apart the tiger.

One of the sets of wolf teeth slipped by and lunged for her head as she did so and she was forced to lift one hand to fend it off, accidently rocketing herself into the nearest building.

Her back hit the wall with a thump and she began sliding up its side, using one palm aimed down to keep her momentum going while she used the other to fend off the floating teeth trying to snap at her flesh, blasting them into black smoke one by one as she made her escape.

Rain leapt over the remains of the cart in hot pursuit. He reached up and grabbed hold of the second floor window sill of the next building along in one smooth motion. Then with a snarl he heaved himself up, the window sill crumbling beneath his grip even as his foot claws dug deep into the stone of the wall. Scrabbling, he drove himself upwards bit by bit, feet coming down on the sill as he climbed, and then thrusting up, reaching for the next window on the third floor.

Faster. Myra was getting away.

He hauled himself up onto the roof four stories up from street level just as Myra was disappearing over the top and without pause he launched himself forward. A torrent of shattered tiles washed down the roof behind him as he crested the apex of the roof, and nearly took a fiery violet fist to the head, barely ducking at the last moment.

The power behind those crudely shaped fists was nothing to be sniffed at, he'd almost been knocked unconscious by the damned things, which was saying a lot given his body. Whatever had happened to Myra, he was certain she had previously possessed nothing like the strength she currently did.

More sets of floating wolf teeth bubbled and boiled from his fur as he ducked and flung himself recklessly down the rooftop on the other side with a sense of rising alarm, his heart pounding in his chest.

Myra was quite capable of fleeing, and if she got away, well, it would mean his tenuous grasp on sapience was inevitably going to snap and he would be lost, which more than likely meant the death of both Lyra and Opal if they were anywhere nearby when it happened.

He slid down the roof, carving a gouge through the tiles with his feet until he hit the edge and peeked over, eyes darting, seeking the fiery elf.

He found her, crouching on a balcony just below the edge of the roof, waiting for him, with both palms pointed up.

Intense flame bloomed, dual cones of orange-red, the heat-wash already burning at his fur.

Without a second thought he folded his legs and dropped, his full weight thudding down onto the roof, which buckled but barely held as the flames roared overhead, shooting up into the sky for a dozen meters.

He rolled to the side, flinging his right arm over the edge and flicking dark from his paw.

Myra cried out, throwing herself from the balcony, just in time to avoid the beartrap like jaws of a pair of wolf teeth. They snapped shut mere inches from her pale face. Unthinkingly, she brought up her hands to protect herself, and the dual cones of fire roared into the wall, blasting her backwards off the balcony even as the stone crumpled inwards, turning the inteiror of the building into an incinerator.

Rain scrambled onto all fours to look over the edge… directly above the blown in wall… a wall no longer supporting a roof that was carrying his great weight.

The roof collapsed, and Rain was tipped over the edge, falling through the air just as Myra fell below, limbs flailing at the air.

The elf tumbled out of control, but with a desperate motion managed to right herself and slammed her palm down to arrest her momentum with a gout of fire.

Unfortunately for the crowd below they were directly in that fire's path. Half a hundred people became living pillars of flame as Myra saved herself, discharging into the street to keep herself aloft, setting light to clothes, hair, flesh. Screams filled the air as half the street became a sea of flame.

Rain grabbed for her as he dropped past, and by some fluke chance caught her leg, twisting in mid air and hurling her at the cobble below.

She tried to catch herself, the violet wings of fire reforming on her back, but she was moving far too fast. At the last possible moment Myra flickered herself to flame with a cry of frustration, her elven form scattering and splashing against the ground once more.

However before she hit she thrust out her hand producing a half dozen of the bludgeoning violet fists and hammering them into Rain so swiftly that instead of hitting the ground he was carried along until he hit the building across the street. The walls collapsed around him as the seemingly immutable violet fire relentlessly drove him back through the entire structure.

The back of the building collapsed as he hit and he was sent rolling across the street and through another crowd, those not fast enough to get out of the way sent flying.

He scrambled to his feet even as Myra stumbled drunkenly through the hole that had been driven through the building, one hand clutching at her head, her one visible eye alight with fury, clearly suffering the after effects of turning herself to flame once more.

Rain was happy to see that she was no longer running. Being scattered and reformed was something she clearly despised, angering her enough to come after him.

She steadied herself with a shudder.

"You… won't like it when I turn you to flame too Rain, so I suggest you stop forcing me to do that," she managed to get out.

Her eyes locked on to him and with a snarl she flung out her palms, spraying flames seemingly without a care for the crowded street.

The crowd panicked as it ignited, and Rain was forced to back up as the street became a wall of fire and burning figures. He darted to the side, putting a large caravan between himself and the elf, which of course also caught fire, the thing becoming a bonfire even as the horses harnessed to it screamed in pain.

The elf was clearly beyond furious, not caring even slightly for the leveler deaths she was causing.

Furious, but… also careless.

The wolf teeth Rain had planted in the building as he was carried through it stirred to life and lunged. He wasn't above taking a page out of Myra's book of tricks.

The flames cut off abruptly and Rain caught sight of the elf, a pair of wolf teeth biting down on her raised arm even as it flickered to flame, even as the other half dozen bit down on…

Rain blinked.

He had thought that the violet fists were shaped as crude gauntlets, with segmented armour atop the fingers. Admittedly it was difficult to make out their form amongst their roiling flaming form...

But two of the hands had opened to catch the wolf teeth, unfurling to snatch them out of the air and save their master.

They weren't gauntlets, they weren't even hands. Rain realised he was looking at something quite different, something that he recognised, something that he had seen recently, not here on the surface, but down, deep in Floren's dungeon.

Harpy talons.