It all happened very quickly.

Shinsou had managed to wound his wily opponent, but at a cost. The chaotic exchange of the spears of shadow and ice had inadvertently given the young Orlouge a window of opportunity; the calm and capable mage deflecting all but one of Shinsou’s opening salvo into various parts of the earthy clearing. In the time that it took the loamy shrapnel thrown up by each re-directed spear to cascade through the air and scatter over the fresh grass, the Telgradian realised all too late he had left himself open to counterattack.

Thunnnkkk!!

He felt the full force of Rehtul’s ice before he saw it. The impact made him stagger back a couple of feet and gasp coldly, before his brain registered the severe burning sensation setting in from just below his right collarbone a second later. For a brief moment, the air ahead of him glimmered an azure before fading suddenly; a jolt of sunlight bouncing from the protruding end of an icy lance that was now slick with crimson. The smell of electricity gave way to the metallic scent of blood.

Ugh...

Shinsou had felt this before, in Tylmerande. A botched assassination attempt led to the Telgradian being shot and nearly killed by an opportunistic gunman sent by Arius Mephisto. Though the pain was excrutiating, the difference was that the shooting was quick, the wound clean, and the bullet had passed straight through his body.

This, though, felt like raw hell.

As he pulled the ice shard from his flesh, the nerves in his muscles and skin shredded, forcing Shinsou to switch Enpera into his left hand through blinding pain as his right arm went into spasm. The damaged muscles convulsed and then the whole arm went entirely limp, the pull-down of the dead weight causing Shinsou to hiss in distress. The fiery pain from the wound suddenly began to manifest into something tangible, stretching out in white veins to Enpera’s outstretched blade. As the living weapon consumed the Telgradian’s agony, the silver hues within the sword’s blade swirled into a murky black at the center. The whole process probably took about three seconds.

For another few seconds after that, nothing happened. The Telgradian looked up to finally notice, through hazy eyes, that his counterpart had summoned an array of similar objects that now levitated around him. Apparently, they did so as obediently as those of his Enpera Kurohitsugi.

Shit… Shinsou cursed to himself through his teeth. He was already on borrowed time. He needed to clear some of those projectiles, lest he become a pin cushion for Orlouge.

As Enpera finished its meal of pain, Shinsou called forth the Three Fold Law.

The man raised his left hand up, outstretching the point of Enpera’s tip towards Orlouge. At the tip, an orb of marbled black and dark green the size of a fist formed, churning and rotating on its axis. With an electrical snap, the orb shattered and stretched into a pencil thin black beam, ripping through the air at terrifying speed. A scent of heavy metals filled the air as the dark column tore over the foliage, singeing and churning the earth beneath the hot sun. The frighteningly powerful Shinsou tried to gulp for air as the recoil further opened his wound, spewing forth crimson in torrents. As the fluid touched the ground, it instantly stained the soil with harsh red, accompanied by an audible hiss.