A Champions’s resolve

“What is happening?”, I shouted, utterly confused by the scene in front of me.

Didn’t Minerva already absorb Ithere?

This makes no sense!

“Empty thy mind o’ needless thoughts, oh battle maiden. ‘tis thee foe in front thou must focus.”

Right!

Supreme dance was still active, so I rushed into the shadows once more.

I arrived at Minerva, just as the Dark Lord started screaming.

This time, Minerva didn’t bother with teleporting away. Instead, a tight wall of shadow spears raised up all around her. No, rather then calling that a wall it was more fluid, almost like water. Using Nikkou, I cut through them with lightning fast speed, but more and more erupted from the ground far beyond the frequency from before.

“You fuckeeeeeeerrrrr!”, I heard Minerva growling. “Stop interfering!” Her screams were getting louder and the speed of the shadow spears was increased even further. Even with my boosted stats, all I could do was keep up with cutting them down. Was I doing damage? The Dark Lord was groaning and grunting, seemingly in great pain. But even so, the waterfall kept coming.

Eventually, the shadowy waterfall turned a dark red and took on a more solid form. It created a sort of cocoon around the Dark Lord that not even Nikkou was able to penetrate.

“Retreat.”

SHIT!

There was nothing to be done but to withdraw. What now? Should I just refresh the buff and go on the offensive again? Perhaps use two Supreme Dances this time?

“Nay, ‘tis a Blood Soul in its purest form. Not even mine power can break it.”

“T-then what should I do?”

“Make use o’ thee respite to gain thine composure”, Nikkou advised.

I took a deep breath and did just that or at least attempted to. It certainly wasn’t an easy feat with what was going on in front of my very eyes.

The cocoon or “Blood Soul” has gotten bigger now. It was twice as large as Minerva and the screaming had stopped.

“Is there anything you can tell me, Nikkou?”, I asked. “What am I up against?”

“Nay, oh battle maiden. If thy know, thy fear would only heighten.”

Oh Great. Very reassuring!

An eerie silence descended on the arena. There was no movement from the Blood Soul, save for some slow, ominous pulsating. Everyone was holding their collective breath.

Then time passed.

A very long time…

...

“Umm…” Ben cleared his throat after about ten minutes of nothing. “How much longer is this supposed to take?”

How the hell am I supposed to know that?

“’tis a Blood Egg”, Nikkou finally elaborated. “Thee gestation o’ thee fiend. Thou bore witness to something ne’er to be seen by human eyes.”

“Yesyesyes, very fascinating but we are having a match to run. Can’t you, I don’t know, climb on top of it and hatch it?”

DO I LOOK LIKE A TEBASAKI DO YOU?

But the little shit did have one point. While we were waiting for this egg to hatch, the shadows crept ever closer. By now the sunny part has been reduced to a quarter of the arena.

Time was not on our side.

…

I’m still not hatching it!

Meanwhile, Ben was talking to his ear, or rather to somebody backstage, presumably to find a solution to our egg problem.

“No, I don’t know how long this is supposed to take! Don’t we have some specialists on site? Oh, they don’t know either? Great...that’s just great…fantastic...we’re having a Dark Lord but no support. Don’t tell me to calm down! I’m extremely calm! I swear, you guys are just...oh! G-good day, Sir. Yes...yes, I understand the gravity of the situation but...YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT! W-Well...uh no...but...yes...no, Sir...yes!...I understand, Sir.”

Ben ended the call, then took a deep breath and faced the audience with the biggest fake smile I have ever seen.

“Alright, folks! I get it that this has been a rather boring ten minutes or so. But have no fear! I, your valiant, brave and super cute announcer will personally ascertain the state of Combatant Minerva!”

Yeah sure, knock yourself out.

Ben slowly(very slowly) walked towards the pulsating egg.

“hmm...yes, indeed...folks this is indeed an egg, of the blood variety….”

Once he was close enough, he shakily pushed a finger forward.

Boop.

Suddenly, the egg started cracking. And letting out a dark gas.

“EEEEEEEEKKKKK!!!!!”

Ben ran backwards with impressive speed and just barely managed to dive in the hole my Bunny Beam created.

And just in time too. The egg cracked even further, finally culminating in a massive explosion of darkness. The pressure was immense but thanks to Nikkou I managed to resist it.

It was difficult to see with all the shadowy smoke, but the silhouette of a lone, female figure slowly emerged.

This was no longer Minerva.

Or at least I hoped it was not.

The ethereal figure in front of me had long, wavy, blonde hair and perfect, immaculate white skin. A clear contrast to the rugged and sun drenched appearance of Minerva.

She had a certain innocence to her, only slightly marred by the wisps of shadows clinging to her body.

She was also completely naked.

“Uh….may I ask who you are?”

Ben peeked his head out from his burrow.

The female, instead of answering, looked at her new body and smiled faintly. Not perturbed in the slightest about her nakedness or new form and seemingly also in no rush to answer the question.

“Beautiful”, she finally spoke. “This form is divinity incarnate. Femininity given form in it’s most glorious incarnation.”

“Ehem...excuse me…hello?”

Once again Ben’s plea went ignored.

Instead the female figure addressed me. “You have freed me from the shackles of bondage. And for that you have my gratitude.”

I did?

“Hold on a moment here please! Timeout!” Ben, with some exertion, climbed back up again.. “I hate to interrupt this thrilling development but I think I speak for everyone present here when I say: Who are you! What are you? What are your three sizes? What the frick is going O...eeeeeeeeeeeekkk!!!!!”

Under Ben a dark shadow formed. It quickly traveled upwards before silencing his screams as the shadow crept over his mouth and face, leaving nothing in its wake but a dark statue.

Oh wait, his eyes are still frantically darting from place to place, so I guess he is still alive.

Good for him?

The female lifted a finger and the Ben statue slowly started floating upwards before spinning in place.

“I despise nothing more then loud, obnoxious, ugly males”, the Dark Lord calmly spoke with a soft, gentle voice, all the while toying with Ben. “The punishment for this crime...”

The statue rose higher, before reaching the top of the barrier. There, Ben remained for a bit before suddenly dropping to the ground.

There were no screams, I don’t think Ben was capable of that any more.

But just before impact with the sandy ground, the descend was suddenly stopped and the statue touched down unharmed.

“But I feel generous, so I shall enlighten you. You are in the presence of the Lord of Shadows, Dark Lord Ithere. My captor never became a proper Dark Lord. Instead she kept me inside her body and used my powers for her own ends.” The figure sneered, betraying her angelic visage for just a moment as she now turned her attention towards me. “Do not delude yourself. What you fought was nothing more then a fraud. A miserable human playing with powers above her station.”

“Thou speakest most bold for someone vanquished by thee miserable human.”, Nikkou put in. “’tis perhaps most fitting for a base wretch such as thou.”

“Nikkou…” Ithere was still smiling but there was now a rather hard edge in his or her words. “I am surprised to see you here and...relatively well.”

I looked between my blade and the Dark Lord. “You two...uhh...know each other?”

“Us were in a state o’ relation few centuries past. Then thee perfidious harlot left mine for another.”, Nikkou answered.

…

What?

Ithere frowned. “And does that come to a surprise to you, Nikkou? After all, how could a mere human ever compare to the radiant beauty of my divine Mistress!”

“Gele was a dim bitch, so ruttish she ne’er e’en realized Gi was stabbing her in the back. Most literally. Tell mine, how doth it feel, serving a king who slayeth thine own woman?”

“Silence!”, Ithere roared. “I need not suffer that from a vengeful paramour who turned herself into a sword just because she could not deal with rejection!”

“Insult mine not with thy bile, oh Lord o’ slugs. Thou arth nothing but an unfaithful trollop!”

I smiled nervously. “Uh..hey. I am sensing some tension here. But maybe, everyone can just uh..take a deep breath and...”

“Battle maiden, shut thy mouth lest mine shut it for thou.”

“My Mistress must be smiling down at me”, the reborn Dark Lord chuckled darkly. “For now, at last, the time to avenge her is at hand! I will have you scream, Nikkou!”

“Thou may found such difficult to achieve without manhood. But thou be assured, ‘twas no great loss.”

JUST GO TO COUPLES THERAPY!