Slayer of the Rot vs. Cyrus the Virus

[Ther]

This match-up will last until 8 P.M. E.S.T. on 2/16/07. Remember, if you finish your battle early, I can score you early - and finishing early is a good, good thing.

Best of luck!

[Cyrus the virus]

((Let's play this as if we're in the Citadel... Because one of us might die! BELIEVE THE HYPE! *flexes for an hour*))

The thunder was tremendous, echoing in Luc's chest like a knock from his heart as it struggled to escape. It shook his whole being, straight down to his soul, but he swallowed the fear that was welling up inside, and bolstered his resolve.

It was always like this when Dan was coming. Rather, it had been this way on the two occasions when they'd met in the Citadel. Luc recalled the first time vaguely, for it was uneventful in his mind. His powers were only manifesting then, and the end result was the mighty Rotslayer through the mage's chest. He could still remember the feel of it, cutting through him so cleanly, so evenly, that the two-ton blade had kept him on his feet as he died.

Was that the first time I kissed death? Luc wondered, somewhat amused with the grim thought. He'd died so many times it was past him, now. Fear of death was below such a powerful man, he knew.

The second encounter was one Luc would never, could never forget. The two had met in the Citadel once more, among a war between two armies. The ground was a sea of mud, the sky a black storm of pissing rain, and all around them the trumpets of war echoed. He recalled the way those warriors were oblivious to him and Dan, the way they seemed to move mystically away from them, providing room.

When the ground collapsed into a cave, Luc thought himself dead. But once he escaped, not even the mighty Dan Wilmhearst--for Luc did not know his true last name--could survive the tons upon tons of mud that sweeped in and buried him.

Now the mage stood atop a plateau in the clouds. A place for a God, he imagined. The air was crisp and cold, the sky grey with the promise of rain. The plateau itself was actually a tower that reached these heavens, constructed of some ancient metal he did not recognize.

The fall could be eternal, he knew, but Luc also knew that he could fly.

He drew his sword, the flaming, angry blade of Slykrit. The demon was imprisoned inside it, and the thought made Luc smile.

"One for one, Daniel. Let us settle it, here among the Gods."

The lightning began.

[Slayer of the Rot]

"Gods? What a silly concept for such a stupid man," the slayer growled, his once implacable accent wiped clean, his voice now a broad rumble, akin to gravel rolling down a stone face. The last vestiges of the burst of ivory light the monks had sent him here in vanished, leaving him to narrow his eyes as he stared down his contracted opponent. His back was hunched, so that his torso and shoulders stooped low, his face, for once, on level with Luc's. Luc Kraus, the ineffably strong geomancer, his brother in war, who'd been the only man yet to best him in combat. The leather of his plated gloves creaked as he slowly closed his hands into a fist.

A storm brewed overhead, the restless winds tugging at the tails of his long tan coat, ruffling his hair that rose only slightly above a high, static collar, where only his eyes peered out at Luc, the rest of his features lost in a mask of bandages that wound all the way down his chest and arms, though left his fingers naked in their gloves, which were crackling with tiny arches of azure sparks as his fingers shuffled with agitation. "I suppose I was forced to believe in the Thayne, Hromagh, but only marginally. As far as I'm considered the gods are dead, so let this day itself, as well as our own eyes, bear witness to your death here." The slayer stooped lower as he pushed his feet farther apart, soles of his boots grinding across the weather worn metal. Posture had never been a concern for him; he'd naturally had developed something to wince at back when he was weaker, and Rotslayer was almost unbearably heavy, but now it was terribly pronounced, his knuckles almost scraping against the floor.

Their first two encounters had been nothing but chance, the second bonding them with the mixing of their blood. However, this conflict was not molded by chance. Dan Lagh'ratham had actively sought out the geomancer in boredom. These days, not many warriors stood a chance against the edge of his sword, or the brunt of his fists. Retiring to Fallien had perhaps been a stupid idea, but it was where few had looked for him. However, he found the sands boring, ever since the seal had been broken and altered everything he was. Raiding a caravan and killing everyone in it for supplies did raise an occasional laugh, but those that bore sword or spear or even bow in Fallien were ill prepared to fight him, even the famed Calerians. He'd stained his hands with blood so many times lately just for the sake of finding something memorable.

Something worth bleeding for.

He could recall in their second battle, the warriors all around them, fighting for life, and so powerful they'd looked in their simplicity, he'd imagined they were some sorts of gods...maybe just fragments of one, in recollection. But if they'd been gods, or the splinters of the shell cast off by one to grow greater, Dan had reached, if not surpassed, their abilities there in the battlefield strewn with mud and blood. And, with luck, Luc had too, which would make shattering his skull in hand all the more satisfying. A grin spread beneath his mask as he stretched his fingers, touching them lightly to the metal, knuckles popping, and shivered, not from the air, cold at this elevation, but with impatience with his own hesitance.

No weapons were immediately visible on his person, but anyone who had fought him before, and either lived to tell the tale, or was resurrected to use their tongue once more, knew that meant little. No, the concept of weapons was all but lost to a man who who could snatch up a fully plated knight and rip him in two.

First...a test. He wanted to know exactly how great Kraus' powers had grown, so he refrained from utilizing his full strength for a killing blow. Twisting his body to the left, so that his right fist shot up to the sky, Dan paused, relishing in the fact that he was finally going to do something worth living for. Finally, the storm clouds, heavy like the shadows under the eyes of a sleepless, condemned man broke, their stomach ripped open with a great jagged spear of blinding lightning. The heavy smell of rust and ozone rose in the air as Dan reacted to what was well enough the starting signal, slamming his fist into the ground and propelling himself into the air. He arced downward, sharply, cocking his fist back again, and brought it down with strength enough only so that the blow would crush bone if Luc would attempt to instinctively guard his face with his forearms.

[Cyrus the virus]

Dan appeared in a blaze of white light, stepping onto the metal surface of the plateau with heavy steps. The echoes were louder than the thunder.

"Dan," Luc said, letting the man's biting comment roll off of him like the first drops of rain. "Your letter hardly does a good job of showing how much you've changed."

And he had changed. The last time Luc had laid eyes on the juggernaut, he was standing upright and looking rather normal. As normal as a man Dan's size could, anyway. The bandages were the strangest addition, mostly because Luc couldn't imagine something that could permanently scar such a behemoth. To the mage, Dan's stance looked almost lazy; if it was, Luc would be the one to straighten it, at least for the duration of their fight.

The wind gusted suddenly, blowing the stray brown hairs that had drifted into Luc's face. It caught his cape and tugged hard, as if trying to pull him off of the plateau entirely, but with a thought he negated the wind.

The Gods, dead? he mused to himself. He didn't know it, but the thought was just a tidbit of foreshadowing on his life. Fate could be so very accurate.

Luc had indeed learned new tricks since last he locked horns with Dan, and as much as he wanted to keep these tricks secret until they'd be most useful, the mage knew that a single punch from the man was in itself like dying. He casted Stoneskin on himself before Dan leapt, the green aura lighting up his eyes as he gazed upward at the suddenly airborn beast.

The enchantment had endured sword slashes, boulders and magic, but Luc knew not its limits. If anything could break it, Luc figured it'd be something fueled by Dan's strength.

Despite this, he didn't move, didn't flinch even when the heavy fist of the man crashed into his face and bounced harmlessly back, as if it had met a block of adamantine. Luc wasted that layer of the enchantment, but thought the mental victory would be worth it.

"Teach me some more, Daniel!" he spat with a grin. Already his adrenaline was rising. Luc's sword erupted violently into licking flames that bathed his face in orange light, and the mage swung violently, foolishly.

[Slayer of the Rot]

He was vividly shocked as Luc stood, unyielding, under a blow that could have put an end to any other warrior's career. Electricity from his glove's enchantment sizzled and splashed brightly over the man's face, but dissipated a second later. His arm, which had destroyed entire troops of soldiers with little trouble in the past, crumpled up against the side of his body as his boots thumped hollowly on the metal platform, the elbow folding. A wordless, base grunt peeled from his lips, legs arcing up to slam Luc square in the ribs, intending to break them like the time before.

But something was off. Luc had just about as much muscle on him as a schoolgirl, there was so conceivable way that he could have physically stood up to a blow of such average strength from the slayer. Therefore, he had to be using his magical prowess to augment his own physical endurance -- but how many blows could it withstand? That was the greatest question in his mind; not precisely how much force it could withstand, but how many times it could withstand that force. If he'd been thinking correctly, or well at all, he'd have plugged those two factors into an equations to discover the answer, but as it was, rage that the geomancer could take a blow from him without flinching was overriding reason.

Not bothering to register the impact or lack thereof, as well as the feel of Luc's ribs possibly giving way, he brought that foot back down with unrelented force, refusing to hold back anymore as per the display Luc had shown a moment ago. He was thankful that it wasn't raining yet, or he may have slipped; the metal buckled instantly under his stomp, steel mesh squealing and creaking an inch below what was serving as their platform of the ages. Two beams of metal protested loudly at the stress, bolts ripping loose, throwing off his balance and, hopefully Luc's too, of the sheet they stood on.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Luc's hand fall to his waist, to the hilt of some blade that the slayer hadn't seen on his person before. 'Playing at warrior, eh?' Anticipating the common horizontal slash one makes when drawing a sword this close, Dan's arm lashed out to the side, intercepting the stroke. The blade was enveloped, awash in a blaze of flames that might have been impressive in the hands of someone who couldn't manipulate them like the mage. The fire scorched the tan cloth of his coat, ate through it, but was stopped by the titanium plates adorning the forearm of his glove. Without a second's hesitation, stomping the unbalanced, crumpled sheet of metal to keep Luc wobbling, Dan wrapped his arm around the length of the blade, closing his fingers around the root of the metal, where it connected to the hilt. The ring he'd bought months ago at the bazaar, the curious little trinket from the mouth of the fire demon, Ifrit, preventing the fire from injuring him to a point where he may have noticed it --

And snapped the sword in two, so that all Luc was left holding was the useless hilt. The flames of Slykrit's epee died like a bucket of water had been dumped on them, leaving a steaming length of metal to fall to the ground that still shook violently.

His right hand, leather blackened a bit by Luc's ruined sword, slapped instantly against his face, leaving his other to hang, alone, past his knees. His finger worked roughly beneath the hold of cloth wound about the lower half of his face, and tugged it down to reveal his teeth, the lips peeled back from them like a threatened hound. It was evident now, at least, why he had been hiding his face; not only were his cuspids too long to ever be mistaken for a human again, but many of his other teeth were beginning to shape into sharp peaks. He lunged forward, the force of his jump causing the ruined metal sheet to buck again, arms spread in an attempt to clamp his legs around the geomancer's waist and tackle him to the ground, and drive those sharp carnivore's teeth into his skin.

((Bunnying of Luc's sword pre-negotiated in IM. Now, to make you eat it, bitch.))

[Cyrus the virus]

Dan's legs hit the mage while he was in mid-swing, but did not stop his attack. Stoneskin was down to a final strike, but Luc knew it'd be worth the loss when the Flame Sword of Slykrit bit hard into the man's side.

The wind blew about him to perfectly counter any imbalance brought on by Dan, but no gust could prevent what happened to his sword. The juggernaut's fist seemed to wrap about it and snap the metal like a toy, extinguishing the flames as easily as Luc himself could have done. He wondered with a morbid curiousity what would happen to Slykrit, who'd been trapped within.

"What a waste," he mumbled as Dan came in again, diving at the mage like a rapid dog. Luc jumped and the air caught him, pulling him high into the air and out of the dynamo's reach. He soared like a free bird, cape fluttering like a paper in the wind.

He's not even human anymore, Luc thought. He never considered Dan to be anything like him in the first place. He was thankful to be at least twelve feet above and beyond the man. His teeth are like an animal's, like he's gone feral.

The sky screamed and cracked, and a bolt of lightning lit the grey clouds. A moment later, thunder echoed and boomed, shaking the two men and their plateau. The sound was all around them, rather than just above, for they were in the heavens now. Then the rain began to fall, heavy and thick. Each drop that struck Luc's head rang in his skull.

He cast aside the worthless hilt of the blade and threw both hands to the air. Dan was fortunate the Citadel could repair the sword easily, but Luc still wouldn't let the breaking of his prized sword go unpunished.

By sheer force of will, the rain dropping from the sky and onto Dan was rapidly changing to ice. Luc was not foolish enough to think that hail, regardless of how large each pellet was, could harm Dan Wilmhearst. It only took a moment for a large amount of ice to gather on the surface of the platform, and that's when he made his move.

Each pellet morphed itself into a spike, a jagged, pointed icicle as strong as steel. With all his focus, he willed the hundreds of tiny projectiles up and, hopefully, into a few hundred new orifices all about Dan's muscular form.

[Slayer of the Rot]

The slayer's teeth snapped painfully shut on nothing at all, his arm swooping in to catch the mage in a death grip succeeding in only wrapping about himself. The soles of his boots pounded hared against the the top of the humongous wrought metal plateau he sought to paint red with Luc's blood, slipping and skidding with the moisture of the rain sprinkling down as a herald to the deluge oncoming. Curses sprang from his mouth as his momentum threw him towards and over the edge of the tower. His hands thrashed wildly as he toppled over, and only with great luck bought purchase on metal, still just as slink as the rest, save for now four holes were punched deep into the sheet's surface. The teeth of sharp broken mesh cut into his fingers painfully, just as he had wanted to do to Luc's shoulders, face....heart.

Silently vowing to toss the mage, broken into bits, off this tower as he'd done to himself, he dangled there for a moment, sucking in deep breaths, tasting the metallic tang of the air itself as glaring bolts of lightning crashed down sporadically all around them. He dangled there, the muscles in his back groaning and creaking as they were stretched as they hadn't been in quite some time, knees banging against the side of the rusting monolith in cadency with the buffeting winds.

Then, the rain broke.

It was odd, how heavy the fat drops came, in huge gushing sheets, as though born on the arms of some righteous rage. Growling lowly in the back of his throat, Dan vaulted up over the ledge and back onto the plateau with a single pull of his arm, covering his mouth again, with one thought in his mind -- Luc was finally bringing to bear his new capabilities, bending the elements that rampages all about him to his will. The slayer turned his eyes skyward, squinting through the pummeling rain, catching the vague form of the geomancer hovering twelve or so feet in the air above him. 'Exactly what does he hope to accomplish bringing down a simple rainstorm? Water alone will not stop me from ripping his heart from his chest.'

The expression that worked it's way over his face as he waited was nothing more than simple confusion. Nothing else carried with it, be it rage, joy, or sorrow; his eyes only held puzzlement. The slayer brought a hand to his face, the same with which he'd broken Luc's sword, and lightning flared, close to the tower, revealing what few burn wounds had been dealt to his flesh through the sooty cloth was all but healed, mere memory of a scar, the brief light giving the raw flesh a sheen. In addition, the small flesh wounds that the broken mesh had dug into him were beginning to close, ceasing to bleed a few moments after he'd settled again on the tower. And then, as he stood there, he began to feel it; a cold, arctic wind, cutting through the cloth of his coat, and hard hail began to smack into his head.

Without hesitation, Dan summoned up his only means of protection. A persona could theorize that they'd simply blinked, and missed him slipping into it, but the sudden groan of protestation from the metal at his feet told better at the weight of the heavy delyn. A step turned into a loud, clanging stomp; any lesser man would have been turned into a crumpled immobile mess. His field of vision was drastically reduced through the slits in the helm that now masked his face, but it was a precaution he was ready to take.

Moments later, as he brought his forearms up to hide the visor of his helm, a veritable maelstrom of razor sharp icicles came down upon him in an evil rain, pounding mercilessly against the delyn of his armor, and either glancing off from it, or shattering on impact of crystalline slivers and cold, white powder. He stood there for some time, the blades making a terrible racket as they sought to bring down the titan of a man, but soon, as the din of it began to die, and the ice returned to heavy rain, Dan dropped his arms to reveal himself virtually unharmed. What few of the small projectiles that had peirced his flesh through the joints of the armor failed to warrant his attention, and after a short time, fell to the ground with the rest, forced out as torn flesh and muscle was reknitted.

He returned to his terrible posture as the armor vanished, leaving no true trace that it ever had been, though now, his stance was different; muscles in his legs powerful enough to bat around boulders like mere playthings coiled and tighten, then released in one powerful thrust upwards. Her wondered briefly, and he reached his arms out, fingers anticipating the feel of Luc's ankles in their grips, if the geomancer had really though he couldn't jump a trivial twelve feet into the air. Progression should have told him otherwise, but his musings were pushed aside for the more simple functions of the body. How to crush, how to rip, and how to bite, until all that was left was his blind fury and the beating of his own heart as he struggled to lock his hands around Luc's legs, climb up his frail body, and start hammering his teeth away with his fists.

[Cyrus the virus]

The armor seemed to form from the air, not unlike a makeshift suit that Luc himself could craft on his person. Luc's grimace was obvious as he heard the machinegun rapping of ice on delyn, the mage's intense emerald eyes watching for any sign of pain on Dan's bandaged face. He saw none.

And as quickly as the full plate had appeared on Dan's upper body, it faded into nothing, sent back to whatever plane it'd been summoned from. Luc cursed the man. As if he wasn't enough of a hassle to deal with, Dan could call a heavy protective armor from sheer nothingness. The mage suddenly didn't like his chances.

But Luc Kraus would never admit that he was outmatched, not so early in the fight. He thought to summon a typhoon of the highest tier he could, but Dan leapt fast. The wind was strong already, up on their perch, so it was a simple matter of redirecting it to lift him high and beyond the beast's reach. Not only that, but the glowing green mage allowed it to carry him beyond the edge of the plateau and over the seemingly eternal drop to the ground.

"How much do you weigh, Daniel?" he asked, his voice some kind of balance between mocking and lighthearted. Already his hands were dancing before his eyes, pulling a strande of stray wind here and another there, weaving them about each other to create his desired effect. It would take a moment, but he had time.

He was soaked now, but didn't care, didn't even seem to notice. Fighting Dan was like some magnificent drug or dream, soon he would run on instinct alone, every sense of magic he had would flow freely in his mind. Choosing attacks and strategies would be like picking the most beautiful woman to taste at a bar.

Finally he was ready, and Luc threw his hands forward. Before him the wind picked up and turned on itself, in a spinning vortex, a tornado. It took every bit of Luc's concentration to do it, but it picked up speed and careened through the sky toward Dan. The winds were as powerful as any he'd ever conjured, and the tornado took them and made them stronger.

The mage could envision the whirlwind swallowing Dan whole and ripping him apart, but somehow Luc knew he had to be ready for anything.

[Slayer of the Rot]

The storm seemed to intensify as the fight between the two highly destructive beings began to race towards it's sudden climax. The rain was incredibly heavy, the fat engorged drops pounding his form almost like bullets, pasting his coat tails fast to the back of his legs, matting his scraggly, unkempt hair, turned almost wavy with Fallien's dry heat, to the top and sides of his head. The rain poured from the tip of his nose and the bottom of his chin like the mouth of broken faucets just pool in the creases folded into the leather of his boots. Still, despite how much the storm sought to obstruct him from the mage who drew fuel from the raging elements, Dan's half lidded, unimpressed glower cut through the curtains pulled to try and end the show, and locked onto Luc's floating form, hands fiddling around with the unseen.

He could imagine that the geomancer had sent many a nervous young soldier running with his theatrics, but Dan had seen numerous magical displays, and thus far, he was far from worrying, much less being moved. In fact, when Luc called out to him, Dan did little more than roll his eyes and shake his head. This was going to slow; one of them should be dead and broken on the rocks beneath this tower by now. 'He talks too damn much,' the slayer thought, shifting his feet under his hunched body, considering his options on what to do to make Luc die faster, because, at this pace, he'd see his birthday come round again. 'Maybe if I just knock him out of the air?' Dan growled wordlessly as his simple mind worked to solve this new consideration.

However, that shoddy train of thought was derailed as a monstrous roar ripped through the mournful, moaning gale of the storm's wind. His eyes sprang open as he saw what Luc had been playing at; A nearly invisible vortex of wind, violently ripping through the heavy rain, barreling right towards him. However, it was nothing more than surprise, and something of a smirk formed under his mask of cloth. 'A whirlwind? Is he kidding?' Raising his long arms overhead, he brought them down again with a heavy thud, sinking his fingers deep into a metal beam beneath.

And then, Luc's hand made storm was upon him, whipping around him brutally, tugging him this way and that, but it's attempts to pull him up and fling him about like a scarecrow was all for naught. Though the wind moved so fast that it cut at him like knife blades, slashing superficial wounds across his face, arms, and hands, bringing red to the thus colorless storm, by the time it had passed over him, the rain returning too wash away the blood that trickled down his face, Dan's fingers still lay curled in the metal beam. He chuckled briefly as he pulled up, shoulders briefly buckling before he pulled the beam loose with a shriek of tearing steel, and threw the makeshift projectile at Luc.

Snatching up the sheet of steel he'd smashed only moments before in an an attempt to keep the geomancer off balance, he threw that too, barely noticing as both were turned aside with a powerful gust of wind. In his mind, he'd solved his problem, and two more thick peices of metal were flung at Luc, and as he batted aside the fourth with a turn of his hand, it was perhaps already too late to avoid it. Or perhaps it was just shock, seeing the feral slayer airborne, having lunged off the tower moments ago.

Dan felt the air rush out of Luc's chest as he shoulder impacted against his stomach, spearing the geomancer right out of the air, and from the grip of his precious wind. "Too much ha-ha equals a lot of boo-hoo," Dan spat a second before he tore aside the bandages wound around his head and darted forward to rip a huge chunk of flesh free from Luc's shoulder with his predator's teeth.

[Cyrus the virus]

((That bunny was approved.))

Luc urged the whirlwind to rage on, to tear Dan’s arms out of their sockets if need be, but he grew exhausted quickly and the winds moved on. It was all he could do to keep himself afloat for the time being. At least he was out of range of that unstoppable physical beast.

A feral growl escaped him as Dan began to throw the plateau at him, one beam or sheet of metal at a time. They were like miniscule flies to the powerful mage, bat aside with movements of his hand that directed the wind. An especially large sheet of metal came last, and it took a bit more effort than the others to direct aside, but it was easily done.

What is he trying to do? he wondered, but the answer came all too quickly.

Behind the blinding metal sheet came Dan, a projectile more frightening than any arrow or bolt of lightning. Luc thought to move, but couldn’t do it quickly enough. Stoneskin gave way to his shoulder, and the mage felt the energy fly out through his gaping mouth, coughed free with all of his oxygen. He began to plummet, unable to support himself and Dan at once.

Razorsharp teeth drove into his shoulder, ripping tendons and muscle. Luc gasped and screamed, trying to writhe himself free. Dan’s grip was like iron, however, like titanium, and the mage couldn’t hope to break it with his feeble strength. Rather than continue to let himself be chewed on, Luc cast Windwalk and was out of Dan’s grip, spiraling upward.

He came back into solidarity a few feet above Dan, looking in horror at the gash in his flesh. The impact of the rising air pushed hard against him, making it hard for Luc to keep his eyes open. His cape flapped and was choking him, so he undid the cord and let it fly upward. They, like the rain, were falling alongside the tower, and he couldn’t even see the ground below them.

Luc mouthed an insult but it was lost to the furious air. The sting of it against his wound was tremendous, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it.

A lengthy sword spawned in each of his hands, each as long as he was tall. He released them and they soared down like pikes, thirsting for Dan’s blood.

[Slayer of the Rot]

Blood.

The sticky thick liquid gushed into his mouth as his warped teeth punched through the geomancer's flesh. With a grunt, the slayer yanked his head back, ripping free a mouthful of the mage's meat, snapping his teeth wildly as he struggled to chew the large chunk, spittle mixing with blood to make a macabre, thinner concoction than what he'd so eagerly swallowed to ooze down his chin. Luc, wriggling pitifully in his grasp,let a scream burst from his lungs a moment before he vanished in a burst of wind that pushed the slayer closer to the tower.

His prey had escaped with that damnable magic of his, but the slayer was satisfied, for the moment, that he left him with a wound that would probably scar terribly, even after the monks worked their magic on it. That the tower was now rushing past him in a rapid blur, and he could not feel the comfort of something solid to any side of himself did not register in his mind at the moment. Only that he'd marked the powerful mage as his kill reigned high in his rustic mind...until he noticed that Luc had re-emerged above him, and noticed the violent motions of his cloak.

With a grunt, Dan twisted to the right as best he could -- and stared down at a rapidly encroaching blanket of soft clouds. That he was falling jarred him, shocked him much as a fatal blow on his person would. Throwing his body weight into the effort, he pulled himself back to glare at Luc, and ground his teeth as he watched the man yell something that fell mute on his ears, and formed a pair of obscenely long swords in hand, and cast them forward. Forgetting that his full plate was a mere thought away, Dan covered his face as be st he could, and threw his shoulder to the left, trying to make himself as small a target as possible.

The first sword spun past harmlessly, but the second caught him across the side, slicing easily through the thick cloth of his coat and biting painfully through both flesh and meat. Blood swirled through the formed blade like a vacuum, then faded away, the air passing by biting agonizingly into the wound , stinging with cold as he was sure that the wound in Luc's shoulder was. His jaw clenched even tighter as he pressed a hand against the gash, though his other fished into the folds of his coat, producing a throwing blade between each knuckle. Leaning into the throw, Dan's arm lashed forward, flinging the blades with incredible force up at Luc's form.

[Ther]

Cyrus the Virus

Story
Continuity – 8 (Good work recalling your previous battles with Slayer.
Setting – 6 (The tower in the clouds is a great, classical setting.
Pacing – 9 (Reads briskly)
Writing Style
Mechanics - 9
Technique – 6 (“Kissing death” is an interesting image – “pissing rain” sounds forced and is ineffective.)
Clarity - 9
Character
Dialogue - 6
Action - 5
Persona - 5
Misc.
Wild Card - 4

Total – 67

Slayer of the Rot

Story
Continuity - 8
Setting - 6
Pacing – 9 (Paragraphs are just the right size)
Writing Style
Mechanics - 9
Technique – 5 (Lines like “enough only so that the blow would crush bone if Luc would attempt to instinctively guard his face with his forearms” tend to sound they came out of some martial arts defense manual.” Avoid them. I do like this line, though – “It was odd, how heavy the fat drops came, in huge gushing sheets, as though born on the arms of some righteous rage.”)
Clarity - 9
Character
Dialogue - 6
Action - 5
Persona - 5
Misc.
Wild Card - 2

Total – 64

Cyrus wins and advances to Round 2. Both participants get a 500 EXP bonus.

[Ther]

Cyrus gets 2800 EXP and 200 GP.
Slayer gets 1100 EXP and 100 GP.