POP!
Bone Tempering was... well, still Bone Tempering!
Even as Damian’s spear struck out with deadly speed, Lukaku’s body twisted in unnatural ways. His bones crackled with stored Mana, allowing his skeleton to bend and contort beyond what mere flesh should permit. He barely dodged the killing blow meant for his throat.
But he did not escape unscathed.
Instead of his neck, his chin was cleaved off.
The lower portion of his jaw separated from his face in a spray of crimson, flesh torn away by the stone spearhead as the bone only had scratches as it glistened with a sheen of white blue!
Blood flew and spattered over Damian’s face, warm and copper-scented, joining the dried blood of the twelve Warriors already painting his skin.
Lukaku screamed, though the sound came out wrong, garbled and wet without a jaw to shape it.
But Damian continued regardless.
His mind went through many possibilities of how to quickly end this battle in this heavy night. A Bone Tempering Warrior was not a Flesh Awakening Warrior. The reinforced skeleton, the stored Mana, the enhanced reflexes, all of it made Lukaku a far more dangerous opponent than any enemy Damian had faced apart from Uncle Adam’s spar.
He found the most reliable solution that he had already used before.
Its result would be bloody.
So before he carried it out, he at least wanted to make it worth it. It would end with him utilizing that glorious letter of the Primordial Tongue, and if he was going to strain that invisible muscle again, he wanted to gain as much as possible from the healing that would follow.
So he began drawing in nearby Mana nonsensically.
He opened himself to the ambient power that filled this region, pulling it in through his flesh, his breath, his very pores. He flooded it to enter his flesh, his bones, his blood, his marrow, his organs, forcing it into every system simultaneously.
He began to practice Vakochev’s Doctrines of Stone right here, in the middle of battle, surrounded by corpses and illuminated by ancestral light!
Oh!
Which naturally meant his power began rising in real time.
The phenomenon of Mana surging around him was visible even in the darkness. Tendrils of blue energy streamed toward him from the Ancestor Pillars, from the Spirit Stones, from the very air itself. They converged on his body like rivers flowing to the sea, disappearing into his flesh as quickly as they arrived.
The sight caused the feral Lukaku to become terrified.
What was this creature?
What power was this?!
He struck forward with everything he had, desperation and terror driving his Mana-enhanced muscles and bones to their absolute limit. His remaining spear thrust toward Damian’s chest with force that could pierce stone, with speed that should have been impossible to counter!
SQUELCH!
...!
Lukaku’s spear pierced into Damian’s chest.
The stone tip punched through flesh and bone, emerging from his back in a spray of blood. The weapon had found its mark perfectly, driven by the full power of a Bone Tempering Warrior.
"...!"
Lukaku was astonished.
He almost asked aloud: What the hell?!
He had struck a killing blow???
He had pierced this monster’s chest, probably hit the heart or the lungs or both!
Haha!
The fight should be over. The Tokoloshe should be falling! Dying. Dead!
So...why was the creature still standing and he couldn’t pull his spear out?
Why were those Mana-lit eyes still looking at him with such cold calm?
In the distance, the imprisoned women cried out fearfully.
"No!"
"Please, no!"
Their voices overlapped in terror and despair. This stranger had appeared from nowhere and slaughtered their captors, had given them hope that they might survive this nightmare. And now he stood with a spear through his chest, blood pouring from the wound, and it looked like hope was dying with him.
Even the Chieftain and the other Warriors of the Purple Stone Tribe seemed horrified. Ayala’s one functional eye went wide despite the swelling that nearly sealed it shut. The two Warriors beside him made sounds of dismay through broken lips.
Only Grandmother Essun remained calm.
She continued applying Bloodmoss Paste to the Chieftain’s wounds as if nothing extraordinary were happening behind her. Her ancient hands did not tremble. Her ancient eyes did not turn to look!
Because when she looked at Damian, she saw a calm gaze even as a spear pierced into his chest and emerged from his back.
She saw what others could not.
She saw that the marker of death still did not touch him.
Because at this same time that Lukaku stabbed into him and stared in a stupor...
WHOOSH!
A blue arc of a spear glinting with faint tendrils of Mana swiped horizontally.
The burning and booming power within Damian’s body was released in a single, devastating burst. The strike was too fast. Too precise!
Too impossible to block when Lukaku’s weapon was still buried in his enemy’s chest.
The blue arc cut cleanly across the neck of Lukaku.
...!
Lukaku felt the land and sky shift around him.
He did not understand why the world was spinning. He did not realize that his head had been cleanly separated from his neck, that his body still stood while his consciousness tumbled through empty air.
His dimming eyes spun with his falling head, catching glimpses of the stars above, the fire below, and the cold eyes of the Tokoloshe whom he had stabbed.
Those eyes showed no pain.
Those eyes showed no fear!
Those eyes simply watched him die with the calm patience of someone who had known exactly how this would end.
Lukaku wanted to ask so many things.
Bro, what the fuck?
I stabbed you though???
Maybe even pierced your heart or lungs.
Why are you still standing?!
Why am I the one falling?
Why...
Why!
This was the last word in Lukaku’s mind as the flicker of Mana from his cleaved spine and head dissipated. The power that had sustained him, that had made him more than ordinary, that had given him the arrogance to look down on others as Dross, faded away like morning mist.
His head smashed onto the stone below with a wet, final sound.
....!
"..."