Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

Morialus' body, splayed out lengthwise, became abruptly upright - though upside down - as soon as the man's other hand reached out and touched Desrium's chest. The sudden change in position accomplished two things: the former Justicar's kick connected with nothing but thin air, and the force of Morialus' advance was suddenly focused downward, as if it had been a dive from the start.

A moment after, the ground around Desrium's body was sundered with incredible force, pushing him - and, by extension, Morialus - into a crater that formed before their eyes.

[C S]

The armored being was no stranger to being knocked through things that one would rather be solid. He was no stranger to being at the bottom of craters.

The way he was put into this latest hole, however, was not something he could say he had any experience it, over the eight centuries he had lived. Going off of his fighting instinct, and a few memories of the hermit monk, Desrium brought a knee up and into the oriental warrior's forearm. The simple motion carried with it enormous force of its own, by the nature of Desrium's strength. If his opponent could redirect momentum in such "impossible" ways, then his best bet was to use that force against him, and offset his direction of travel.

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

The limbs collided, knocking away Morialus' hand in the process. The man moved with the motion, as if his body was incredibly light - almost aloft - allowing him to contort until he was completely upright, with his legs close to his chest. With a grunt, the ancient warrior struck out with a leg, hurling Desrium even deeper into the ground as the earth and rock around him collapsed without effort.

[C S]

To a point.

The hole was deeper than Morialus was tall at that point, but at a point all the same, the drive below ground came to an abrupt and punctuated halt. Unseen under Morialus' foot, Desrium had his sword crossed over his other arm, acting as a brace to the blade while his legs were tucked in under him, and were currently pressing into rock that hadn't been exposed to the bare air in ages. The stone strained and broke underneath Desrium and Morialus' combined weight and the energy their movements had behind them, but this was the solid base Desrium needed to push against.

With strength of a magnitude many times greater than the Stalwart's physical size, he threw Morialus back by the sole of his foot by simply lurching forwards. This, in turn, utterly obliterated the ground underneath him, a column of powder and pebbles erupting from the base of the crater right after.

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

Morialus soared backward, disappearing from sight as the plume of powderized earth engulfed the hole in its entirety. The last the man was seen, he appeared to be righting himself after a distance, before fading out of sight.

[C S]

The dust hung in the air, dawdling in an instant of time. Before the breeze could blow the debris away, the wake of Desrium's reappearance scattered the dust. The void he created by just leaping from the hole caused the particles to surge downwards into the vacuum before dispersing outwards in a shockwave. Shortly after, Desrium too, thudded onto the ground on the opposite side of the crater, legs spread apart and one hand pressed against the ground, while he held his sword off to one side.

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

A horrific sound followed Desrium's landing as a tree to his side was snapped in two. A moment later, Morialus was beside him, extending his leg and spinning like the wheel of a wagon, dropping the limb down toward Desrium like the downward motion of an axe.

[C S]

This time, Desrium was able to roll out of the way in time. He tucked into himself and scrambled sideways, coming out of the dodge in a kneel with both hands holding the Fang. The toothed blade, as before, was in position to literally parry the world-traveler's limb, which to him would have felt like he hit an immovable object. The ground beneath both armored beings heaved as a result.

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

A plume of loose earth was thrown up as Morialus' attack missed its mark, the blow seeming to shake the very ground they both stood on, but did not create another crater. Turning, Morialus launched into another attack, his fist aimed not at the former Justicar's body, but at the blade he was using to protect himself. What followed was as if a bolt of lightning had cascaded to the earth right beside them; the gauntlet clashed with the metal with a horrible sound, and, following the motion, Morialus angled himself back and thrust it onward.

With this motion, Desrium himself was thrown backward, blade and all, into the treeline with a sudden displacement of air.

[C S]

Several trees in the way of Desrium's flight were uprooted, and clumps of dirt and other small plants were made airborne as they fell. Each of these tumbling trees had a hole ripped through them roughly the same size and shape as the armored being. Leaves rained down, and timbers cried and snapped with a chaotic uproar of sound. A long ways down this range, Desrium brought himself to a stop, crouching.

Crouching directly on the side of a tree spared this fate, umbral wings spread from his shoulders and undulating gently on the ethereal currents.

Desrium kicked off from this tree and beat his wings. An explosion of wood trailed after him as he was launched back at Morialus like a ballista bolt, one made out of unbending, unbelievably heavy metal. Desrium struck Morialus in his armored gut with about the same effect.

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

Morialus' hands wrapped around the armored being's head as the two were pushed back, the man's feet tearing up the ground as they went. From the near-center of the clearing, the two were quickly nearing the opposite end of the treeline when Morialus lashed out with a fist, striking Desrium square in the back. The attack ceased their forward movement and Desrium bounced off the ground - beyond that, the armored being hung strangely in the air.

Taking a step back, Morialus cocked a fist and slammed it into Desrium's jaw. The effect was the same as before - the former Justicar moved slightly in the direction he should have, but still hung in the air, as if frozen. As Desrium's head shot up, his body rotated as if he were weightless, exposing his chest. Morialus delivered another punch to the former Justicar's abdomen, causing him to lurch forward and stop. Pulling back, Morialus pivoted on one foot and smashed the other into the side of Desrium's head, moving him slightly to the side in the process.

Then, all at once, the effect came. The armored being slammed into the ground with a force violent enough to splinter it, only to be forced upward, spinning head over heels before being stopped and crumpled on the spot. Finally, Desrium was sent soaring back across the clearing at an angle, skidding across the ground in the process.

The entire sequence - strike and effect both - took a matter of seconds.

[C S]

Desrium stopped short with the aid of his shadowy wings, his free hand and the tips of his boots, which dug into the ground and gouged deep ruts along his battered route. In the fraction of a second immediately proceeding, he was buffeted by the gale his passage across the arena had created, a howling rush that faded into the rest of the world at that same speed, taking with it any loose dirt and rubble and parting around Desrium's metal body. The armored being rose as the dust settled behind him, his sword held low, then raised high at the ready, as though Desrium were prepared to block an overhead strike. His wings trailed behind him as formless ribbons of dark, waving about like a split cape. Thus was the bane of many overwhelming foe: that which was physically impossible to beat into submission.

"You are quiet, for a demon," Desrium noted with his perpetual monotone, completely unfettered by this alien form of combat in body, while his mind raced to formulate strategies to bypass this style of fighting. Nevertheless, the lack of taunting or general displays of madness was something he could not overlook. The location of this battle was appropriate in that, for all appearances, this was just another spar between warriors.

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

"A battle's about the only time I shut my trap," Morialus retorted with a leisurely shrug. "You should enjoy it while it lasts."

The man suddenly stomped the ground, freeing two large shards of earth. In one fluid motion, he struck each shard with his foot and fist respectively, in an elaborate, dance-like movement. Each strike was punctuated by a thunderous noise, sending the shards hurtling at Desrium faster than a bolt fired from a crossbow. Despite the intensity of the attack that made them into projectiles, the hunks of earth remained bizarrely intact.

[C S]

Likewise, Desrium did not overlook this bizarre detail either. All for the best that his unnamed adversary was adverse to battle-banter: it allowed the Stalwart to hone his utmost of both mental and physical capacity. Granted, it did not take much contemplation to realize that the warrior from the frontier had the power to manipulate his impacts on the world around him. Redirecting momentum, and delaying the reciprocation of force itself, carried some interesting and somewhat unfortunate implications.

The mounds of earth were bearing down on Desrium while the impulse to react met empirical reason, and his ultimate decision came with the speed of a lightning strike. Desrium's actual transition into action was considerably less swift. Regardless, his metal body became a blur as he leaned forward, legs apart in a stride. One step sprung him forwards and upwards, blasting a pothole into the soil he was standing on. The dark gray, deep shade, and crimson streak struck the first of the shards and ricocheted off of it, deflecting it towards the ground as a consequence.

This sent Desrium into the second shard headlong, the angle of his hurtling approach too steep to have any drastic effect on the direction of the shard. That was to say nothing of his momentum, which transferred into the rock and dirt in sufficient quantities to cancel its velocity and then some. Really, the shard should have long since -- long in the relative span of seconds, that is -- exploded into dangerous shrapnel, tearing through the air over the clearing in all directions. The fact that it didn't was something Desrium was anticipating.

His wings drove with a powerful stroke while his palm was planted on the shard, and Desrium pivoted up and over the mound to plant his sabatons on the other side, facing Morialus. His wings of shadow were bent inwards, ready to make the most of this unorthodox boost.

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

Initially, the shard resisted Desrium as the armored being had anticipated. As he vaulted over the makeshift projectile, however, the energy of its momentum - or, more accurately, the true momentum of the strike Morialus had used to send it forward - abruptly transferred itself into Desrium's palm.

The result sent the former Justicar straight up, rather than forward, with incredible force. Just as he neared the apex of his ascent, Morialus appeared to his side and struck the armored being's midsection with his elbow. The response was that of the previous assault; Desrium moved downward, but only to a point. Morialus, on the other hand, shot straight down with a force that splintered the ruined ground he landed on even further.

Landing in a braced stance, the man pulled back his arm close to his chest, as if in pain. "The light of judgement burns!" Morialus shouted. The light around the clearing dimmed, as if morning had abruptly turned to dusk. Shadows, of the damage inflicted throughout the battle as well as the trees that surrounded them, danced and flickered wildly.

Morialus' armor was ablaze in white-gold light. The man seemed to be drawing the very light of dawn into himself; every crease in his armor looked as though a brilliant, uncontrollable power was trying desperately to escape. As the light reached a new intensity, transforming Morialus into a second sun, Desrium shot down toward him with a thunderous noise and a great displacement of air.

"DAWNSTAR!"

Morialus struck the armored being's back the moment he came within reach. The energy built up inside him transferred to Desrium's body and was simultaneously destroyed. Intense, blinding light bathed every inch of the clearing, followed by an unholy cacophony of noise. Every part of Desrium's body was assailed by incredible kinetic force from every conceivable angle.

This lasted for several seconds, as if the former Justicar had become the second sun in his opponent's place, only for the newly born star to annihilate itself a moment later.

[C S]

As with Evisa, guards at their battlements saw the lights streaming out of the forest. The distance between them and the fighting did not matter with the powers at work. It wasn't just a twinkling they viewed. To them, the colors over the battle, including the sky overhead, took on darker shades, while pillars of light extended through the treeline. What were they to make of this? Not long ago, their city benefactor had left with the discomforting foreigner, and now a sight that could be called divine was unfolding far off yonder. Given the one involved, the guards found themselves wondering if they should really have been surprised.


What was left of this transient star was its solid core. For a moment -- a moment, so great was the concussive forces -- Desrium remained in the air without lift from his umbral wings, or any other factor acting upon him. The blows striking from every vector had negated his immense weight and gravity's pull alltogether, for a moment.

What Morialus saw in that moment was Desrium glowing white-hot, sword and all. His temperature surpassed the melting point of all conventional metals. The Stalwart was not melting, however. His innate cold vented steam off of every inch of his figure, which engulfed and wafted around his larger opponent. "That was not hellfire," thought Desrium.

That was an ability more in line with the Justicar Order.

And Desrium himself looked startlingly like the avatar that freed Tyrbenetus. Pale, radiating light and heat. His red eyes were made to look a deep burgundy as a result, their glow diluted by the rest of the light emanating from the armored being. Wings of black stretched out from his shoulders.

The moment passed. Desrium began to fall the few feet to the forest floor. The stellar core averted this with a stroke of those umbral wings, soaring up to Morialus' helm in the blink of an eye. His empty hand gripped the side of the traveler's head and Desrium used this hold to swing around Morialus, gray wisps painting his motion in the air.

The Paladin spun on his own axis in preparation to retaliate, a couple feet over Morialus' shoulders. There, he began to draw out the Shadow of the Fang.

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

"Ahhh I should really stop using that," Morialus lamented, seemingly ignorant - or uncaring - about his opponent's impending attack. The man's armor was now a shade darker than it had been moments ago - a direct result of the power used. Judging by the ashen color of his armor even before the fight, it was clear this wasn't the first time he had used the technique.

"Pretty soon I'm gonna have a paint job that justifies the feeling I give off."

[C S]

Desrium's wings spread out in full, putting a stop to his wild spinning. Both of his gauntlets held a jagged edged sword, one exuding light, the other consuming it. Morialus' back was wide open to attack with his two blades.

The Stalwart Paladin did not act upon this opportunity.

In the way his mind worked, several trains of thought ran their course in fractions of a second. The consideration that the oriental warrior in the ashen armor was feinting crossed his mind. The time it would take Desrium to strike was more than enough time for the stranger to both evade and counterattack. However, that combat-focused side of him was not the reason he called off his assault.

Desrium let himself descend, and touched down lightly on the ravaged battleground. He made a note to himself to look into a restoration project, personally. Replant the destroyed trees, fill in the holes punched and kicked and blown into the surroundings...

To his unnamed foe, he simply said, "You are no demon. As one who has been falsely identified as a demon as well, I feel confident in this assertion."

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

Morialus turned to look at Desrium, nodding.

"Right you are. I may be a fool, but I am no demon."

The man looked around, surveying the damage. After a few moments, he nodded a second time.

"Alright, I think I'm satisfied for now," he stated, mostly to himself. Looking at the former Justicar, he added, "You are one durable *******, that's for sure. That last one would've reduced most creatures to dust. But I find it difficult to believe that having an incredibly hard arse enabled you to end the Eternal War."

[C S]

The Stalwart's wings shrunk towards his body until they were no more, as he simultaneously returned the shade sword to the Fang. Desrium then held the currently radiant sword up for the ashen traveler to inspect at his leisure. "This is not the Holy Lance," said the bright Paladin. He was sure that in some capacity, who he spoke to had some ties to Moria's army. The stranger was bound to know of that storied weapon. "It is not of this world any longer. In exchange for it, the demons were wiped from Tyrbenetus. I was once told that should any harm befall the Lance of the Justicar, I would be destroyed." Desrium looked up to the sky, humming. "I still ponder what it means, that the Steward did not punish me for this deed."