— Hikari's weapons —
[Great claymore] 3 meters long. 0.5 meters wide. Weighs ~300 kg. Ten flame runes. Ten Telekinetic runes. Mana +200.
[Short sword] 1.5 meters long. 0.2 meters wide. Weighs ~75 kg. Three flame runes. Three telekinetic runes.
Mana +60
[Throwing daggers] 0.6 meters long. 0.1 meters wide. Weighs ~10 kg. One flame rune. One telekinetic rune.
Mana +20
[Handcannon] A narrow chamber to compress Hikari's flames to unleash a deadly streak of fire. Big enough for a steel ball, allowing her to concentrate her telekinesis, releasing the ball at the speed of sound.
Weighs ~125 kg.
She sensed something.
Cavalry riding down the road towards the checkpoint from where she came.
Cultists.
She leapt into the air and crashed right into the pack.
The shockwave sent the horses crashing into the trees.
Riders were crushed under her boot.
A fan of throwing knives impaled the raiders.
There was one survivor.
He raised a musket and fired a flare just before he was impaled.
Noises up ahead.
She had hoped for a more stealthy approach.
The darkness still covered her.
Another trap.
Vines shot out from the ground all around her.
She released a wave of flame, incinerating the unnatural growth and igniting the whole area.
The blasts of cannon fire.
Hikari darted away into the dark forest.
Splinters flew as the cannonballs ripped through the trees.
Lantern light. Stone walls.
The cultist camp.
She was within the range of its cannons.
Another volley of cannons fired blindly into the forest.
Flares were shot into the forest, illuminating the darkness.
The cultists manning the walls aimed their cannons and muskets.
Nothing.
Confused, they held their fire.
They thought an entire army was attacking them.
A flash of purple flame igniting an entire area.
They turned their cannons in that direction and fired.
Silence.
They shot a flare in that direction, but could see no advancing army.
A sudden explosion.
One of their battlements was smashed.
Stone bricks sent flying.
The cannon on the battlement flipped through the air.
Stunned, they fired their cannons and flares.
It must have been an enemy battery.
The foreman gave orders.
The gates to the camp opened.
The calvary rode out to find the enemy cannons.
Another sudden explosion.
A cannonball pierced right through their wall, collapsing the stone structure.
It flew over the foreman's head and smashed into the opposite wall.
The sleeping cultists armed themselves and manned the walls.
The cavalry rode with burning torches.
Shouting. Musket fire. The splintering of wood.
Flares illuminate the area.
They catch a glimpse of a giant clad in pitch-black armour tearing through the horsemen.
The giant blends back into the darkness.
"Fire!"
The foreman orders.
The cannons fired another volley into the dark forest.
The cultists rolled out their mortars and fired.
Explosions in the forest.
Then silence.
A sudden explosion in their wall.
The cultists manning the wall above were thrown onto the ground.
The foreman shouted to the shaman.
They scrambled to take their positions around a golem.
A hulking beast of flesh, massive enough to charge right through their walls.
A siege weapon that smashes fortifications.
Its flesh was impervious to cannon fire.
They channeled mana from their staves into the golem.
The sleeping beast groaned as the cultists began to bring it back to life.
Shouts from above the wall.
Musket fire.
A telekinetic blast knocked the defenders off the wall, sending their cannons flying.
The defenders below raised their muskets.
Thud. Thud. Loud, booming footsteps.
A giant was right up against their walls.
A sword swung over the top of a battlement, dismembering the defenders.
Their body parts fell into the defenders below.
The foreman cracked a whip, pushing his troops to man the walls.
But they were cut to pieces.
The giant skirted the walls.
Section by section, the cultists were cut down.
The foreman ordered more and more troops forward.
When his troops started refusing, he drew his musket and fired right into them.
Frustrated, he approached the walls himself.
He looked up and saw the soles of the giantess's boot as it came into the torchlight.
Splat.
The giantess swept her claymore through the cultist line.
The foreman was ground to paste below her.
She cleaves through entire squads with a single cleave.
The cultists fired their muskets, but their shots bounced off the giantess's wyvern-skin armour.
They broke and ran, climbing through broken sections of the walls.
A cultist shaman channels his stave; an eerie flame gathers at its tip.
Before he could release it, a steel dagger flies through him with the force of a cannon and cuts him in two.
The giantess knight rampages through the camp unchecked.
Growl. The ritual circle below the flesh golem lights up.
Thud. It slams its fist.
The shaman pushes their remaining mana into the golem.
A pair of flying daggers cut them to pieces.
The golem was awakened.
Vines grew out of its orifices.
Bright pink flowers bloomed.
It faced an opponent matching its size.
The mindless flesh golem charges.
Hikari takes her stance.
Her claymore flared with RazenHeir flame.
As the golem raised its arms.
She gently sidestepped and swung her claymore into the beast's side.
The beast roared in pain as the RazenHeir flames burned its flesh.
Vines shot out from its body towards Hikari.
She kicked a box of bombs into the flood of vines and released a wave of flame.
The vines shrivelled as they burned.
The flames lit the fuses.
Hikari backstepped as the box of bombs exploded, ripping through the golem's flesh.
The golem staggered.
In that opening, Hikari thrust her sword into the golem's flesh, igniting its insides with RazenHeir flame.
She pulled back her claymore.
More vines shot out from the flesh golem's body, attempting to constrict her.
Hikari stepped back.
The vines chased her.
She changed course to dodge them.
The golem's body burned with RazenHeir flames.
Vines grew from its body, smothering the flames.
Pink flowers grew out of its body, gathering an eerie flame.
Bolts of aether fire fly towards Hikari.
She sidesteps it, gathering the bombs lying around.
She ignites the fuses and telekinetically pushes them to the golem.
Explosions stagger the golem and destroy the flowers.
But the golem kept regenerating.
"Stronger."
Hikari held her claymore upright.
The runes glowed with power.
The steel flared with RazenHeir flame.
She channeled more mana.
The sword flared even brighter.
The golem recovered and charged her.
Hikari stood her ground as the golem closed in.
Vines poured out of its orifices.
The golem swung its arm, slamming into the ground.
Hikari stepped back just enough to avoid it.
With the strength of both arms, she drags the claymore through the golem's flesh,
releasing her flames and engulfing the golem.
Vines rush out of the golem to smother the flames.
But the vines themselves become fuel to the flame.
Hikari channels more flames into her sword.
Vines rush at her.
Incinerate. A wave of flame sets the mass of vines alight.
The golem slams the ground in agony and lunges towards her.
Hikari knocks the golem's arm with the butt of her claymore, throwing it off balance.
Her sword flares with the brilliant purple flame of the RazenHeir house.
The vines rushed her, but she dives right into the mass, dragging her sword through the golem's flesh.
The golem thrashed around in pain.
The vines kept coming, but the flames kept burning them.
Hikari takes a thrusting stance.
She had seen enough of the growing vines.
She retrieves the residual flames on her sword.
Mana built up in her body.
Strength built up in her legs.
A second row of runes glowed on her sword.
The golem regains its balance, ready to charge her again.
A thrust of her legs.
She drives her claymore right through the golem's chest.
Her elbows crash into the golem.
The force of her thrust pushes the golem back.
She feels the top edge of her sword grind against something hard.
Push.
She pushes her claymore upwards through the golem's flesh.
The feeling of tendrils snapping.
A hard stone flies out of the golem's back as she drags her sword out in an upward swing.
The stone released a wave of mana as it hit the ground.
Her flames consumed the golem's dead flesh.