Favonia was unharmed. She struck out with a fist that would have sent Krahe flying, just as before, had the woman not skimmed straight through her. A simple kick — a pivot of the body on one leg, barely engaging in proper generation of power — ought to have caught that evasion, but again, Krahe evaded, eruptions of scarlet flame from her left arm shifting her out of the path by a hair’s breadth. Another swing of the flaming sword followed, this time accompanied by an explosive-tipped tendril and another exhalation of smoke. Krahe was speeding up, and to match her pace, so did Favonia.
Soon enough, Favonia was punching with enough force to leave some lasting injuries. Krahe knew this, in no small part by the thunderclaps and gusts of wind that came about from the monstrous saint’s mere movements, but her mind didn’t register it as a problem. It was a fact, and she had to contend with it using the tools she had at her disposal.
At some point, they ceased talking altogether, and at some point, Krahe stopped registering much of anything outside the present moment. She wasn’t sure when, but the first couple punches that almost took her head off had served well enough to clear her head of any stray thoughts, and there was no time for new stray thoughts to take their place. There was only the fight. At some point, Krahe staged another jumping attack, only this time, she skimmed directly into the ground, and using the principle of inverted momentum, attempted to land a rising uppercut. Favonia didn’t budge, and simply threw her to the side.
This was enough for her to come to the conclusion that none of “her own” tools would suffice. She had known this already, but now she had thoroughly proven that fact both to herself and to Favonia.
“I think it’s pretty clear by now that nothing I am capable of doing under my own power will suffice to make you move from where you stand,” Krahe said, approaching even as she did, forming bursters in both hands. Both were smoke.
“And yet you do not yield. There is a reason,” Favonia said. She knew that reason. Krahe knew that she knew. It didn’t matter.
With Krahe’s exhalation, a beast of accursed smoke took shape to flood the surroundings once again, and the two bursters went flying when she summoned a pillar of smoky jade beneath her own feet to send herself into the air. Favonia simply punched it in half from twenty meters away as it rose, but having expected this, Krahe wrenched a large piece of the stone using several Tar tendrils, throwing it Favonia’s way. In the moment afterwards, she marshaled every iota of throughput at her disposal to turn her left arm into a booster, throwing herself through the air straight at Favonia. Before the banisher could punch her out of the air as she had done far too many times during this session, Krahe entered astro dive, emerged just before landing, and skimmed into the ground. As the force bounced her upward and her perception of time froze, for just a moment, she pushed her will into the Crimson Star Ring.
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There was nothing to be done after that.
No matter her strength, her attribute ratings, whatever techniques she had, within the format agreed upon, Favonia could not defend against this, because she couldn’t prevent the Crimson Star Ring from moving her from where she stood.
“Your sword, is it?” Favonia questioned with amusement in her voice as she sat up from the tomb of sand she had been pressed into.
“The sword made of my own bones is nothing more than the power I have accumulated. This ring became “my sword” the moment I pulled it- picked it up from the greasy stain that had once been Semzar Hashem. If it comes down to it, I’ll gladly drown the dragon in corpses and stolen treasures,” Krahe retorted, reaching out a hand. Favonia didn’t need the help, and Krahe was by far the more injured between the two of them, but she took it anyway, and damn near pulled Krahe’s shoulder out of its socket just by doing so.
“That sword analogy needs work,” Favonia said.
“It served its purpose, it can hang on the wall for all I care,” Krahe said. A new problem assailed her — that sword analogy. Somehow it irritated her now that the fight was over. She didn’t even use a sword.
“Regardless, I believe I now have a sufficient grasp to aid you in some small way. Come. Let us rest. We can speak on the matter of your unstable thauma-burning method once you don’t look like you’re half a step from death’s door. Your movement technique… I can’t help you there. It clearly requires a specific battle-trance, and based on what Casus has said you are already pursuing the solution to that problem.”
And rest, indeed, they did. Favonia readily parted with pills that, to Krahe, felt as if they had a similar potency to the Molting Tonic, at least in the way they seemed to just wash away the exhaustion and force her wounds to mend so quickly that her many cuts and bruises gave off steam and visibly shed dead tissue. Toxicity buildup wasn’t exactly a concern for her, given the fact she wouldn’t have access to these pills outside of what Favonia supplied to her.
As they rested — that is to say, as Krahe rested and as Favonia ate enough for three men — Krahe explained some things that she felt their bout might have failed to fully get across. The most important of these possibly-missing pieces was more or less everything Krahe knew about the Astral Implosion Furnace. Krahe went on to sleep for a full hour with the aid of adefron incense. She felt no reservations about doing this because, as far as she was concerned, awake or asleep would make no difference if Favonia were to decide to harm her. The nap helped, albeit not much. She was certain she would be feeling the consequences of their sparring match for the next several days.
Krahe found that Favonia was in exactly the same position she had been in when she fell asleep.
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