52nd chapter

Spending energy

There is a bond between a hunter and his animal companion.
It is strong, stronger than most can perceive, it is that bond that allows the hunter to imitate the moves of his companion, to see with its eyes and to hear with its ears.
It is stronger than partnership, friendship or love.
It is the knowledge that their lives are connected and the fact that they are responsible for each others lives.
It is the bond between the companion and the hunter.
And just now it had been ripped apart by an abomination of the flesh.
Ankthar did feel many things, at first he didn’t believe what he was seeing, dismissing it as a dream, a nightmare.
He quickly realized though that the mutilated body hanging from the gigantic twohander was truly the dying body of Hvenfifar.
And so his heart was filled with emotions of grief,panic,regret,doubt,and ultimately sorrow.
But none of it mattered for his thoughts were filled with one thought and one thought only; Kill Sworddevil.


And that was what he was going to do.
He felt his muscles tighten up with rage, his fingers ready for a kill, his senses sharpening around that one horrible creature that had just killed his dearest friend and life saviour.
Ankthar, hoisted his gun, activated its power and fired.
Sworddevil blocked the shot with his sword, threw Hvenfifar off it and charged against Ankthar.
But to his surprise Ankthar didn’t keep in range to keep firing at him but instead charged against Sworddevil with an axe in his right hand and the blunderbuss in his left.
The gap quickly closed, both contenders furious and mad, Sworddevil furious over the humiliation he had suffered at the paws of the panther, and Ankthar completely mad with rage over the fate of his companion.
And suddenly without warning, the fourth crypt fiend leapt out of the ground ready to help its master and avenge ankthar’s crime of touching a crypt fiends back.
Sworddevil however readied his swords and cut the crypt find in midair in three equally long bits, while ankthar shot the head clean off.
Nothing was going to interrupt this battle.
Ankthar spun around and came upon Ankthar with a slashing attack which Sworddevil quickly blocked.
In the blink of an eye with only one hand free Ankthar aimed his blunderbuss not more than a palms length away from Sworddevils head and shot.
The bullet went through Sworddevils eye and head making its way through the worthless gray matter and then breaking free out of the skull.
Sworddevil screamed, more out of shock of losing his eye than actual pain.
Ankthar did not relent however but kept on slashing his axe, both high and low changing from elf to dwarf at a furious rate.
“HOW THE NETHER DID YOU DO THAT GNOMESUCKER?”
Ankthar grinned; “my gun has a power “he said , while spinning around Sworddevil, rolling through his crotch, turning around and lodging his axe in his back,
“Ye see when activated”, he continued as he climbed up the back and dislodging his axe and jumping over Swordevils head.
He came down, blocking the sword trying to chop him, aimed at Sworddevils right shoulder and finished his explanation:” It reloads itself.”
Ankthar shot and Swordevils right arm flew right off.
The blast of the shot , and the fact that he was in mid air blasted him away into the sand.
He felt the sand embracing him softly as he skitted to a halt.
Ankthar spat blood and felt a large wound at his side, as he stood up, slowly aiming his blunderbuss with one hand at Sworddevil.
Sworddevil was a pitiful creature , majority of his head had been blown off, there were several large holes throughout his body and most of all his right arm was somewhere in the sand.
He was kneeling on all fours, well three, and seemed to be in extraordinary pain.
Ankthar cocked the goun readying for a final shot.
Sworddevil began laughing,
It was the laugh you hear in a dark corridor of a forgotten dungeon, the kind that flows with the wind bears a chill into the minds of mortals, a laughter of darkness and ultimately madness.
He laughed and laughed and laughed until Ankthar blew the right side off his face.

He looked up madness and cockie selfassurance beaming from that half of a smile he wore.
“You think this matters?” He screamed happily.
“You think any of this hurts? You think you’re doing the world a favour blowing the bad guy to tiny bits?”
As an answer, ankthar aimed and shot the left arm off him.
“You forget, little dwelf, I. AM. SWORDDEVIL!”
As he said those words, magic began to swirle around him, his arms , body parts and were picked off the ground by some kind of force and moved to his body,
Incredbly quikly he was being made anew, even better for the exoskeletons of the crypt fiends were picked up , broken into correct sizes and placed upon his body.
Meanwhile he continued.
“SEE? See! All your work for naught all your sweat and sacrifice but a stone in my road.”
“How can you hope against ME! How can you expect to win? How can there be victory over death?”
“See how futile your hope is, see how we shall always win, how we shall never die while the world shall wither!”
“I am Sworddevil the lightning before the storm, and you think you can win me?
You think you can kill me? By your weapon, ridiculously enhanced you hope to hurt me? How can you hope to win ME? “
Ankthar changed into his dwarfen form, spat out a bloody tooth and answered: “Ah can’t , but they can.”
Behind Sworddevil and the swirling sand arose two beings furious and powerful.
One with eyes of molten fire shining from her face and the other with eyes of blue energy as dreadful and dangerous as life itself.
They were both muttering their poems forcing life to reenter their muscles and wits.
Sworddevil slowly turned around,
How? was all he could utter before Mizra charged against him, ice blades ready.
Ankthar sat down peacefully watching his companion go to work against the devil of swords.
Ah figured out that yer mostly made out of energy, using flesh to keep that energy in shape to be able to affect the real world.ah also figured out that ye had somehow magnified yer powers to paralyze me friends here.
So ta make a long story short; ah shot off yer arms and vital bone structures te force ye to reconstruct and spend yer energy to release Mizra and Sira.
He took aim and shot Sworddevils calf off.
Sworddevil fell down on the sand, screaming in rage and surprise, YOU SHITHEADED BASTARDS.
Mizra was quick to respond and shot out five large ice bolts that pinned him down to the sand,
Sworddevil yelled at them, demanded to be set free, demanded that they would bow down to his unmistakably limitless power.
And he still screamed those words at hem while Sira’dreth burned him away leaving only a handful of ashes, soon to be scattered over the sands of Tanaris.
The team had already had more than enough of him, but all knew that this was not the last they would see of him.
And Hvenfifar took her last dying breaths in the shaking arms of Ankthar.