Chapter 4185  Bottomless Vessel (Part 2)

"That said, I don't think these two cursed objects have any hidden powerful card left. From what I've seen, they went all out to kill you, and without Jorl's Life Maelstrom, you would have had the upper hand."

"Thank you. I've learned a lot." Ryman joined his palms and gave her a deep bow. "Your explanation gave me the time to recover fully. I'm ready to resume our training."

"Excellent. Magic again?" She asked.

"No, I need time to fix my bad habits." Protector scratched his head in embarrassment. "If I tried to follow your advice now, I'd use a hybrid style I'm unfamiliar with and be an even less challenging opponent than before.

"I want to put my specialty to the test against you. Close-quarter combat."

"Fine." Dawn moved forward until she was within reach of the Skoll's maces. "I won't weave spells until you start the fight. After that, however, everything is fair game."

"I know." Protector assumed a combat stance with a mace in front of him and the other on his side. "No enemy will make me the courtesy of sticking close to me unless I force them to. Now!"

He bolted forward, covering the distance that separated him from Dawn in the blink of an eye. The forward mace came down on her in an arc, ready to squash her. The side mace, instead, was ready to block a potential counter or cut off Dawn's retreat path.

Yet the Horseman stood her ground, raising her sword to meet the incoming blow.

'This is idiotic!' Protector felt the fur on his body bristle. 'A Horseman's crystals are nowhere as sturdy as Adamant. Even if they were, a sword that thin would crack under such an impact.

'Dawn knows all this, and she's not an idiot. What am I missing?'

The answer came in the form of a soft light coating the crystal blade and expanding from its surface. Dawn didn't have time to solidify her construct, so she didn't even try.

She conjured a significant mass but kept it fluid, so that when Protector struck with Boros, he felt as if his mace had entered a barrel of tar. The soft-light construct dispersed the brunt of the kinetic energy, allowing the crystal sword to deflect the mace with ease.

To make matters worse, the tar-like light wrapped around Boros. Mace and sword were now glued together, and Protector knew his raw strength wasn't Dawn's match.

He refused to let go of Boros and struck with the other mace. Alas, the crystal shield was also encased in soft-light and much better suited to withstand a blow than the sword.

Once Dawn seized control of both maces, she opened her arms wide and pulled them back, drawing Protector close as her right foot struck his chest with the strength of a speeding truck.

The impact cracked his ribs and sent him crashing against the wall. He had no air in his lungs, and Boros was trapped in a thick hard-light barrier beside the Horseman.

"One second." She shook her head. "Are you sure this is your specialty?"

"I'm sure." Ryman growled, shapeshifting into his full Emperor Beast form and digging his claws deep into the ground. "Be ready. I'm going all out!"

He bolted forward again, but this time he circled around Dawn while under the effects of Wild Hunt. Protector's bloodline ability sharpened his senses and instincts to the point that the world around him seemed to stop.

His eyes could now see which muscles Dawn tensed or relaxed. His ears could listen to her heartbeat and the noise her feet made as she shifted her weight.

His nose could pick up the scent of any element the moment she conjured them.

The problem was that Dawn had just let go of her weapons, and her body was fully relaxed. Her heartbeat was clockwork, and her feet didn't move. Protector's nose picked nothing because whatever spell she had prepared, she kept it at the ready.

"If you don't have weapons, it's only fair I don't use them either." She said while turning around on her spot to follow Ryman's movements. "I really can't give any more advantage than this unless I put on a blindfold."

Protector snarled, but didn't take the bait. After fighting alongside Lith for so long, he knew how dangerous taunts were and how predictable angry people would become.

'I don't like this.' He thought. 'I can't predict what she'll do.'

Under Wild Hunt, Dawn appeared everywhere at the same time within her range. Her relaxed stance allowed her to attack or defend based on the circumstances, and she managed to keep up with Protector's speed by spinning on her front foot like a top.

To his eyes, she looked like a monster with hundreds of heads and twice as many legs and arms that neutralized every attack he came up with.

'Yet if I give her time to cast her spells, I'll be back to square one. I need to make the first move.' He sprang off a wall, trying to hit her blind spot two heartbeats after the fight began.

In his Skoll form, Protector stood over 3 meters (10') tall at the withers, and his long forelegs gave him the reach advantage over the lithe arms of a woman 1,78 (5'10") meters tall.

Dawn knew it as well and reacted by releasing a golden dome from the crystal shining in her chest. She had conjured her spell within her body, using it as a framework for the construct.

'Fuck!' Protector inwardly cursed. 'She doesn't have the prisms anymore, but she still has her crystal. How could I forget about that?'

The construct pushed the Skoll's massive paws aside as she stepped inside his wide-open guard. Wild Hunt showed Protector everything that was about to happen, but there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

Jets of light burst out of Dawn's back, feet, and elbows, turning her into a living rocket too fast even for Protector to stop her. She hit his chest with a palm strike strong enough to stop his charge in its tracks.

The Adamant of the Ouro armor blocked the blow, but the shockwave released by the palm strike reverberated throughout the Skoll's body. Even with darkness fusion stopping Protector from feeling pain, his bones and organs vibrated from air magic, preventing his limbs from moving.

'Oh, shit!' As gravity brought Ryman down to the ground, Dawn closed her open hand into a fist and struck again.

'Bruce Lee almighty!' Lith was flabbergasted. 'A palm strike into a one-inch punch?'

With no more momentum to stop, the second impact sent the Skoll crashing against the wall, opening a meter-deep crater.

Ouro saved Protector's chest from caving in, but Dawn used air magic again to produce a second shockwave that perfectly overlapped with the first.

The constructive interference broke Ryman's bones and punctured his organs, making him cough up blood.

"Three seconds. I told you that fighting me during the day was suicidal." Dawn lifted the Emperor Beast from the scruff of his neck as if he weighed no more than a puppy.

"You're not a bad fighter, but you clearly have no idea what an Awakened Light Master can do."