His attempt to press the attack was cut short, his timing thrown off by that one evasive lunge. He was forced to break away instead, flipping into a cartwheel to exit her immediate range.
He came out of it in a low stance, the Flame Spear level and rock-steady, its tip unwavering as it tracked Karatena’s centerline.
She’s a pain to deal with, he thought. But not impossible. I can handle this… I have to.
Having lost her pickaxe, Karatena shifted tactics. If she wanted to kill Oakley, she would have to win on volume of attacks. She gave up standing fully supported by her jointed limbs and planted her own two feet on the platform instead.
Her insect legs remained extended behind her, but now only as auxiliary limbs, a network of living stabilizers to reinforce her offense and defense.
“Mmm. Yes,” she murmured. “My own two feet really are more reliable than these unfamiliar parasite limbs.”
Karatena hefted the buster sword onto her shoulder and tapped the platform a few times with the tip of her toe, like a fencer testing their stance.
Then she gave a light hop on the spot.
For all that ridiculous bulk of steel on her shoulder, her movement was absurdly nimble, like the weapon weighed nothing at all.
Her tone had been lazy a moment ago, almost bored, but in the next instant her body snapped into a straight, focused line.
She launched herself toward Oakley in a sharp, linear leap. Her approach telegraphed the angle plainly: a rising diagonal slash from below.
Seeing it coming, Oakley chose defense. No matter how much sacred flame he wrapped around his weapon, the destructive force of a long spear and that of a buster sword were worlds apart. If they traded direct blows, he would die.
Keeping both eyes locked on Karatena as she stepped deep into his range, he brought the shaft of the spear low, catching her bottom swing near the butt and redirecting it, then let the weapon swing like a pendulum, bringing the head up to catch the overhead follow-through on the tip.
She flowed right into her next attack, plugging the gap between weapon swings with a jab from the jointed limbs sprouting from her back, driving one straight at his face.
Oakley twisted his upper body so hard it felt like his spine might snap and forced the blazing spearhead into its path.
“Tch!” Karatena hissed.
A harsh sizzle rang through the air as the sacred fire responded to the defiled soul in that limb and swallowed the warped appendage whole.
Karatena was forced to sever it herself again, the charred stump tearing away and spinning through the air before disintegrating to nothing.
Those jointed limbs were powerful weapons, but they were still part of her body, and that was betraying her now.
Unable to press the attack the way she wanted, a prickling frustration grew beneath her skin.
Oakley wasn’t exactly experienced in fighting insect-hybrids.
If anything, in pure movement and adaptability, Karatena still had the upper hand.
But she couldn’t turn that edge into a decisive onslaught, because the holy flame burning at the tip of his spear smothered her every advance.
If I break that weapon, the flow will turn my way, she thought. Without that, he’s nothing. Borrowing insect power, I will never lose!
The spear’s reach and the sacred fire at its end were an absolute menace. The sheer despair radiating from that flame stabbed straight into the instincts of any heretic, and the fact that Oakley could wield it unflinchingly made him feel wrong, monstrous.
Karatena spat to the side. She just had to make him block a full-power downward strike with the spear shaft and snap it in half.
No matter how well-forged the weapon was, if the shock hit dead-center on the handle, it wouldn’t survive.
She sent her brood forward.
Silk shot out across Oakley’s ankles, forcing him to adjust his footing, and the moment one foot left the ground to evade, she came down from on high.
Just before their weapons collided, a rapier-like stab from one of Karatena’s jointed limbs hit Oakley square in the torso.
It came at a timing no ordinary human could ever pull off.
His eyes flew wide, and the foot that should’ve carried him clear froze for a split second.
Snarling, Oakley swung the Flame Spear up to meet the descending blade.
Karatena poured every ounce of the brute strength she’d gained from fusing with the parasite into her sword.
A heartbeat later, the world detonated.
The impact sounded like the air itself had exploded. The spearhead of the Flame Spear shattered into glittering fragments. And a deep, ugly crack split the thick blade of the buster sword.
“Ngh!?”
Neither of them had expected this. She hadn’t simply smashed his weapon one-sidedly; both of their weapons had broken.
He hadn’t stopped her strike on the center of the shaft; he’d driven the very tip of the spear into her sword at maximum speed.
A point-blank, pinpoint thrust into the buster sword’s face had been enough to damage it.
And the sheer velocity of Karatena’s downswing had only made the clash more catastrophic.
“Ugh!”
The recoil blasted them both backward.
Sacred flame scattered from the ruined spearhead, drifting upward, away from the falling platform, before winking out one ember at a time.
The only light vanished. And the space above the sinking elevator was swallowed in pitch-black, a darkness so thick that even a single step ahead was lost to sight.
The accelerating descent of the lift whipped air up from below in violent gusts, turning their footing treacherous. It was hard to even stay upright.
The enemy who’d been right in front of her was gone, devoured by the dark. The battle froze.
But once it came down to bare hands and bodies, the advantage clearly shifted. As an insect-hybrid, Karatena outclassed Oakley by an overwhelming margin.
She opened her sleeves and let her brood spill forth.
With six of her jointed limbs still intact, she wouldn’t be at a disadvantage even in close combat.
In the roaring updraft, Karatena felt, rather than heard, the squelch of her own familiars being crushed underfoot.
Too small to do it alone, then, she judged. Still, if this keeps up, they’ll land a real hit eventually.
Instead of charging in, she rooted herself in place, fully committed to defense as she continued to spawn more and more parasites.
Somewhere ahead of her, a presence flickered across her senses at an angle.
“He’s here!” she snapped.
Of course, he’d come from the direction her brood had last approached from.
Karatena caught the onrushing front kick on both forearms, arms jolting with the impact, then drove her jointed limbs forward in a vicious counter.
The blow landed—she felt it cleanly through the exoskeletal limb.