Free Web NovelChapter 51: Multitask
"Hahahahahaha, come on now, Violet, do you really think that you can do something against me?
You might be the Witch of Flames, the seductress that’s feared by many, but before me, you are still the girl that was captured by the Blood Moon Cult."
Violet snapped the moment she heard that. Her eyes burned with rage as she hurled her hands forward. The marks glowed, and a massive surge of purple flames shot out.
"Shut up!" she screamed.
Robert smiled and moved. He pulled out his sword and cut through the flames in one go, then returned the sword to William’s neck.
"Come on, is that the strength you want to use to take me down and save your friend? There surely has to be better. There surely has to be more." As he said that, he leaped off the podium and landed on the ground, walking toward her. Every step was heavy on the ground.
Violet gritted her teeth. She drew a deep breath. The marks on her hands glowed even more, and then she opened her eyes.
"I’ll show you."
She moved her hands in a circular flow, and massive bolts of lightning began forming as a magical circle came to be. It spun slowly and began glowing even brighter. Robert tilted his head to the side, wanting to see what she would deliver.
Bolts of lightning tore from the magical circle and lanced toward Robert, fast and branching, each one aimed to strike a different angle so there was nowhere clean to step. He met them with his sword, cutting through two, sidestepping a third, the fourth grazing his shoulder and making him grunt for the first time since this began.
"There it is," he said, almost approvingly.
Violet did not stop. She pulled both hands wide, and a storm of smaller bolts followed the first wave, filling the air between them, the crackle of it loud enough to drown out the chanting crowd that had gone dead silent watching.
Robert moved through it.
He was calm. Unbothered. He had not drawn on his aura at all, simply using footwork and the sword, cutting lightning out of the air or letting it pass by him with margins that should not have existed for a normal man. Every step closed distance. Every step was heavy, deliberate, the sound of it carrying across the square.
"You fight like someone trying to prove something," he said, closing in. "Not like someone trying to win."
Violet snarled and threw herself sideways, putting space between them, her hands already weaving a new formation, the marks on her fingers blazing brighter than before. A wall of compressed lightning condensed in front of her and launched as a single concentrated beam.
Robert tilted his blade and let it slide off the flat of the sword, redirecting the entire beam into the ground beside him, cratering the stone.
He did not even slow down. ƒrēewebnovel.com
He closed the final distance, and Violet barely got her arm up in time to block the pommel strike aimed at her ribs, the impact still enough to throw her back several feet. She rolled, came up fast, and threw another lightning bolt point-blank.
He cut through it, and the follow-up strike caught her across the thigh, a shallow cut that still dropped her to one knee.
"Get up," Robert said, almost bored now. "I want to see more before this ends."
She got up. She always got up. That had been true since the night she ran through the cold forest, leaving her master behind, true every single time since. fгeewebnovёl.com
She threw everything she had left into one final formation, both hands raised, the marks burning so bright they lit her face from below, a massive concentration of lightning gathering above her in a column that crackled and screamed with stored power.
Robert watched her build it without moving.
When she released it, the column came down like a blade splitting the sky, and for one second, it looked like it might actually be enough.
Robert simply stepped to the side.
He closed the gap while she was still recovering from the output and drove his elbow into her stomach, doubling her over, then brought his knee up into her face. She hit the ground hard, sliding several feet, blood running freely from her nose and the cut on her leg.
She tried to push herself up.
Her arms gave out.
Robert walked toward her slowly, sheathing his sword as he came, the violence of it almost casual now that the outcome was settled.
"You fought well," he said, standing over her. "For someone who was always going to lose." He crouched down and grabbed her by the hair, lifting her head so she had to look at him. "I almost respect it. Almost."
Violet glared up at him through blood and matted hair, too drained to even speak.
"Now," he said, reaching for his sword again, "let’s finish what we—"
KABOOM!
An explosion ripped down from above and slammed directly into him, the force throwing him sideways off her and sending him skidding across the stone. He coughed, pushed himself up onto one knee, and looked up with genuine shock for the first time.
Violet felt hands gently lift her head.
She opened her eyes slowly and saw the goblin standing over her, light armor scuffed, sword at its side, the familiar presence behind those borrowed eyes unmistakable.
"Kael," she breathed.
"You good?" he asked.
She managed a weak, lopsided smile despite the blood on her lips, her eyes half-lidded as she looked up at him.
"Mm, my hero," she murmured, voice low and teasing even now. "Showing up looking like that, blowing things up to save me. Careful, Kael, a girl could really fall for someone who fights like that."
Kael blinked.
"You almost died, and you’re flirting with me."
"I multitask hehe," she said, and let her eyes close again, the smile still on her face
