“Uh no…it didn’t,” Omurai was sad to inform, pointing down at the already rising commander.
“How in the-- this guy isn’t human!” Asher shouted in disbelief.
With burns all across his body, along with several deep cuts, and his gauntlet melted together in several places, Jowl rose. Though the mobility in his gauntlet was now restricted, that hardly deterred him. He picked up his broadsword and pointed it at Asher with a hateful glare.
Asher looked up to Omurai for support only to find his friend moving in a familiar position. Omurai held his left hand back in a tightened open palm position while his other was in a chopping position and placed near the palm of his other hand. His left hand began to glow with blue and green energy while the tips of his chopping hand did the same.
Asher loosened his shoulders by shrugging a few times and then clamped both hands together. As he separated both his hands a red bolt of lightning formed between them. In a flash the lightning turned into a small ball of fire glowing intensely.
“Shocking Falcon Palm!” Omurai suddenly shouted, punching his left hand downward. He instantly bolted down at Jowl looking like striking lightning.
“Cannon Fire!” Asher shouted right after, grasping the fireball in his right hand and punching forward. He became enveloped in flames and flew towards Jowl like a meteor.
Jowl let out a growl of defiance and blocked Omurai’s attack with the back of his gauntlet, at the same time blocking Asher’s attack with the flat side of his sword. He held the two still on opposite sides of him and grinned. Both adventurers gave out a quick smirk.
“Fire walk,” Asher said swiftly, turning into a small flame that darted to the front side of Jowl.
As Jowl turned to see where Omurai went, a small gust of wind signified that he, too, had moved.
Omurai appeared behind Jowl in the same position he was in before.
“Cannon Fire Number 2!” Asher cried out, holding back his left hand, which also had a fireball in it, and punched forward.
“Shocking Falcon Palm Repeat!” Omurai screamed, diving forward.
Both struck Jowl at the same time, Asher searing through the commander’s chest with his fist while Omurai plunged through Jowl’s spine with his hand. Jowl let out a horrific scream of pain as Asher’s fist met up with Omurai’s open palm.
“Dragon’s Tornado!” Omurai and Asher both shouted as Jowl howled in pain. In a flash of fire, a tornado of flames erupted from Jowl and spun around the two adventurers, but didn’t harm them, and disappeared just as fast as it appeared.
What remained of Jowl quickly turned to dust and was blow away by the wind. Both friends fell to the ground and let out a sigh of relief.
“Finally…good job!” Omurai said happily.
“Indeed,” Asher said between breaths.
“We certainly deserved that victory,” Omurai stated.
“Are you presuming we don’t deserve all of our victories?” Asher asked.
“Of course not! I’m just saying we deserved that one more!” Omurai replied with a laugh.
“Yeah, true to it,” Asher said, forcing himself to his feet and moving to retrieve his full blade.
“I still can’t believe he broke my katana…” Omurai said sadly.
“It isn’t exactly broken yet, just cracked. As long as the magic is still in it, it still is more durable than any generic katana,” Asher informed.
“I suppose you’re right. I’ll just have to get it fixed once this is all said and done with. Shall we make our way into the castle now?” Omurai asked, getting to his feet.
“Alright,” Asher quickly replied, moving towards the eastern gate of Tier Bastion.
**********
Ezekiel found himself staring up at two behemoths, both larger than any giant he had ever seen before. Many of the Cloud City soldiers, as well as Kara and Faux, also turned in awestruck horror the two giants brought.
Both were heavily armored, having a random look to each piece of armor and different helm/masks on. One held a massive hammer in both hands while the other had a flail with spikes larger than an average man. Yellow eyes with beady pupils stared down at all the soldiers below.
The Bladenheart soldiers were unsure whether to cheer or cringe in terror. Many slowly started to back away while others stood quite still.
“T-these things…impossible. They defy nature itself…” Ezekiel stammered to himself, slowly collecting himself to make a move.
Mourn, the giant with the hammer and closest to Ezekiel gave out grunt and slammed his hammer down. Ezekiel dove forward to avoid the attack, and as he came to his feet he slammed his scythe into Mourn’s right heel. The blade sank in about a foot, but he could tell it hadn’t hit flesh yet. As he tried to pull free his blade, Mourn swung a hand back at the earth adept to swat him away. Ezekiel fell to the ground to avoid the hand, then leaped to his feet and gave a mighty tug but to no avail. Mourn began to turn, lifting his foot to stomp on Ezekiel. Quick to react, Ezekiel grabbed the handle of his scythe as the giant lifted it’s foot and used the momentum of the pull to throw himself atop the giant’s foot. Instead of being stomped on, Ezekiel landed with a thud on the giant’s foot and proceeded to pull at his scythe. Finally he wiggled it free and began to climb up the giant’s greaves, using the uneven armor as foot and hand holds whenever he could. As he reached the knee, he swung around with his scythe going wide to hamstring the giant, but Mourn was quicker, grabbing Ezekiel and tossing him into a crowd of soldiers. Mourn pursued his pray as Lament made his way towards Garis, Kara , and Faux.
Faux spun away from the two to help the singled out Ezekiel. With his blades drawn and making marks in sensitive, unprotected parts of any Bladenheart soldier around, Faux made quick progression to his friend.
Mourn stomped through the Bladenheart and Cloud City soldiers as if they were all nothing and held his hammer high with both hands above Ezekiel. The earth adept made the ground under Mourn’s right foot spike upward and then collapse in on itself, causing the giant to stumble a bit, giving Ezekiel enough time to get to his feet and move aside from the now off-balanced swing of Mourn’s hammer. The hammer hit the ground with a thunderous roar that caused a miniature earthquake.