Φ A smile appears on Orb's face, and he continues to dodge while building up spiral energy. Dragoste's anger rises at his inability to hit Orb, and he shouts, "If dodging is the only thing you can do, your death is all but assured, Or-."
A projectile smashes against the side of Dragoste's face, instantly shutting his mouth, and in the distance behind his bones, Orb, with his legacy activated on his right arm generate snow that begins to spiral.
Then tossing it, he says, "Helix battle arts; Spiral Imbuement!"
The pieces of snow move through the air, and then turn into ice as they spiral around, smashing through the bones over towards Dragoste. Orb aims them specifically at the thinnest of the bones, making sure not to be blocked by the thicker ones.
As the shots come at Dragoste, he uses the thickest of his bones as a shield to guard himself, while sending others directly into the ground beneath him. They move through the floor and appear beneath Orb, breaking the rhythm of his shots, then he sends the rest of his forest of bones directly towards Orb, pushing him back yet again.
He feels the area around his bones and gains an understanding of the position of Orb as he pushes him backwards away from his sight. His attacks are more aggressive and destructive, completely ignoring any sense of respect for the castle around him, and in the midst of it all, he says, "How embarrassing, Orb."
The shards of ice that Orb threw behind him, which have shattered and returned to being snow, group up into a mass behind Dragoste, and turn into large icicles to pierce him. Yet without even looking, Dragoste sent a bone to smash the mass dispeasing it.
"Did you expect me not to think you're planning a surprise attack! You're nothing more than a fool, Orb, and this is the end for yo-."
Dragoste's bones completely encase the area in front of himself, as they grew to constantly chase and hunt down Orb, branching out to push Orb straight away from Dragoste, yet from above, Orb falls through, throwing spiral imbued snow at Dragoste, landing on top of the mass.
Φ I swat away the projectiles and quickly feel the area around my bones in front. There is definitely a human-sized mass around them, yet Orb is right on top of my bones, rushing toward me. I push my bones forward rapidly to hit the mass, and there I feel a large body, yet no reaction from it being hit. I quickly use the bones in the room to take a check of my surroundings, and feel it all dawn on me.
It's one of the Blestadrac bodies. Orb must have moved it using his snow while I was angry at him. My bones can usually sense lots of information like height, weight, skin texture, sound, and so on, yet the further out they are, the worst that becomes. To the point where it can only tell basic information, like the size of the moving mass. He took advantage of this and used it to exploit an opening in my defences. All my bones are way too far out, I won't be able to pull them back in time, but I can't lose here, I need to fight! Bewitchment!
Φ Across the right side of Dragoste's body, the bones that lie over his hair grow rapidly until they completely cover the right side of his body in bone armour.
Within the mass of Dragoste bones that Orb runs on, he uses the bones at the bottom to create giant vertical bones that completely rip and shatter the mass disconnecting his body from it, then he steps back, and from all sides of his body, he generate a giant cage of bones to try and surround Orb, yet we no fear in his eyes, Orb says, "Red branch battle arts; Star Flower!" And lunges into the cage.
The bones quickly surround Orb as he moves, yet he is fast enough to bring himself in front of Dragoste first. And holding his fingers on his left arm together, he manifests ice over it, making a spear, and stabs towards Dragoste seven times.
But before he can pierce him, Dragoste manages to create a shield from the side of his body out of bones, and says, "You've lost."
Orb freezes, then kicks off the shield whilst flipping his body and manifests a platform of ice against his feet, preparing to jump off of it for a second attack, whilst the bones from the cage that surrounds them both accelerate to him at high speed from behind and below him, all poised to hit him before he jumps off.
Yet moment before they piece him, Orb activates his legacy on his red coat, and generates a large ice spikes, whilst saying, "Helix battle arts; Spiral Imbument!"
The spiral energy moves from his body to the spikes, along with spirit energy that completely shatters the bones coming against him, slowing their approach for a moment, and using that moment, Orb says, "Red branch battle arts; Sky Flower."
Then, with enough force to allow his body to kick off the air, into the sky, Orb smashes Dragoste's frozen shield, breaking it to pieces with his left foot, and continues on till he hits Dragoste's neck. Then with his right foot, he smashes Dragoste in his left kidney at full force, digging the sharp claws his legacy gives his foot into Dragoste's body before releasing a large amount of ice, freezing Dragoste's blood and forcing him to the floor as all the bones stop moving.
As they both fall, Orb grabs Dragoste back and rips the bones connected to the mass out of his body, whilst freezing the open wounds as Dragoste screams out all before freezing the cage solid and kicking Dragoste out of the back into the room.
Reeling in pain on the floor, Dragoste looks up at Orb, who slowly walks out of the cage, trying to catch his breath, then looks up at the sky in shock. Walking forward, Orb says, "I make sure not to freeze people inside across their main body, to make sure I don't permanently damage their limbs. But Nightmares' bodies are far more resilient, which extends to even their organs. I could risk almost killing you, and the only reason I knew to what extent was because of all your research earlier."
"What a long ramble, just to say you only won because of me."
Kneeling on top of Dragoste, I grab his throat with my right arm and say, "Please, tell me who and where the Nightmare that has restrained everyone is. If you do and cooperate, I am sure you might be able to ask for some amount of grace Dragoste. You're skilled, I am sure they won't give you the death sentence."
"The death sentence? What a joke Orb, because they have already given it to us all with their sheer incompetence. The Queen once told me that when one engages in violence on a mass scale, one must accept that innocents will die. No matter how righteous or moral you believe it to be, you will be killing innocents who wouldn't have died if you hadn't moved. Change is born through the blood of the innocent Orb, and I will bring that change to this country and onto our people. No more radonistas shall ever take place again!"
Orb starts to choke Dragoste and says, "The fight is over, go to sleep for now." Yet through his ears, a large sound rocks them both, causing him to raise his head and say, "No way, it can't be moving."
-Break-
Location: Prisons of Căderea-Dracului
Φ Underneath the city of Căderea-Dracului lies a giant cuboidal prison with cells embedded deep into the wall for meters on end. There are many different interconnect paths allowing people to walk from one end of the cuboid directly to the other, and across the top of these paths, the cursed armies face Blamator.
Φ With my hair formed into an axe, I dash forward with Marinescu behind me as we slaughter the members of Blamator who stand in our way, clearing up the path for soldiers to move in.
Stopping, I look around, and one soldier stands up and salutes me as he says, "I am a 7th seat of the Cursed Land Army, my name is Robert. I want to thank you for arrive 2nd seat. I was trying to hold the line with the soldiers we had, but they overwhelmed us. I apologise!!!"
Seeing the man in front of me shake, I place my hands on his shoulder and say, "You did a good job holding them back. Let us take it from here on out."
Relief moves across his face, and he collapses into my hair. Holding him, I say, "You were really tired, good job fighting."
Marinescu, touching my shoulder, says, "It seems they didn't send anyone too strong down here. It's strange."
"Yes. While there aren't many strong members of Blamator down here, you'd think they still try to free as many prisoners as possible. The chaos they would cause would easily drain our resources."
"Not only that, but why are they heading so low into the prison. The lower prisoners all have specially made restraints for their powerful curses. It would make no sense to continue going to low unless you have a warrior who can break them, and I don't know anyone who can rip through them with pure physical force outside of the 1st seats of the Cursed Heart Army."
"Do you think they have a trump card hidden somewhere?"
"Maybe, but this whole thing makes me feel ill. Like we are being played, like there is a next level to this. So we should be prepared and try to fight back in our own special way."
Turning, I say, "Hey, you there, do you have a list of people who are under review to be released early?"
The soldier behind me says, "There should be a list on the higher levels."
"Grab it. And report back to me."
As he runs off, Marinescu says, "What are you planning?"
"To try and increase our numbers."
Location: Hallway to the Queen's Chambers
Φ With the machine against his back, Avram rushes forward with Willow, trying to keep pace beside him. From different parts of the castle, Nightmares jump out to attack them.
Willow, spending spirit energy into a sword he picked up from the floor, tries to fight them off, but they are quickly repelled before Avram smashes them with one hit.
Stopping, he turns to Willow and says, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, sorry I made you do that."
"No issue, and don't worry. The average Nightmare of Blamator is rather strong, especially the ones raiding the castle."
Willow smashes the sword on the floor and shouts, "STOP BEING AN IDIOT! YOU DUMBASS WILLOW!!!"
He smashes his fist against his face and says with a smile, "Sorry for being a downer, it seems I am just too weak to help out today, but I will try my best to help out in any way by at least being bait."
Willow rushes forward, and Avram says, "Go for it."
They both continue to move forward, and Nightmare jumps out to attack Willow as they see him first, and Avram comes and smashes them away before they can even notice him. And both of them continue on until they reach the doors in front of the Queen's room.
Yet as they do, the three idiots try to rush out and are stopped by Orlok, who says, "Stop moving!"
Avram, rushing forward, says, "You guys aren't getting nervous and are trying to run away."
Ivana, crying, says, "NO. We need to get to him now."
Wadim says, "If he is left alone to face that, he will die."
Willow says, "What is going on?"
Gheorghe says, "Orb is going to die!"