The streak of darkness stretched along the forest as Thomas closed the distance between them.
The guard saw him coming, but had no time to get his sword up. He did the only thing left to him.
He let out the last of his essence and let it go loose in the surroundings. The wind elemental essence burst outward as his armor also amplified the output of the attack.
BOOM.
The gale burst outward, shearing the soil off the ground and snapping the trees.
Thomas crossed his forearms in front of his face, letting out his shadow essence as it hardened over him into a shield. But some air needles still sliced through his sleeves and opened long red lines down both arms.
The blast hit his shield as shock waves hitting him in his chest. He was pushed back. His boots dug into the mud as he held his stance.
He did not give himself time to recover as he quickly rushed forward again, and tore through the gale with both daggers raised. Blood from his head ran into his eye but he ignored it.
Inside the guard was on his ends and seeing this Thomas launched two crossing arcs of shadow essence towards him.
The attack landed on the guard’s chest as it tore through the cracked armor. The gale died in him and his leg gave out. He dropped to one knee as the sword slipped from his fingers.
The guard’s head lifted as he tried to reach for the hilt of his sword.
Thomas did not stop him. On the ground where the guard knelt, the shadow twitched as black spikes burst out of it all at once.
They went up through his thighs, his stomach, and his chest and lastly pierced his head.
The spikes lifted him off the ground and held him there, his hand falling open short of the hilt. The shadows let go of him, and the body hit the mud.
Thomas stood over him as he breathed through his teeth. His left arm was hanging low.
He wiped the blood off his daggers with a linen cloth and straightened out his coat or what was left of it. It was a habit of his.
He steadied himself, then looked across the other side of forest. "Commander Garret seems to be relying heavily on his brute strength again."
On the right side of the forest, Commander Garret stood with two royal guards on him, one at Harmonized stage, same as Garret, and other at tempered.
Both party were locked in a brutal close quarters combat.
The fire user guard, tempered one, slipped a thin blade of condensed flame through a gap inside the Garret’s armor . It touched Garret’s bicep, but the flame choked out against his skin that had already turned stone hard.
At the same time, the peak guard, an earth user, rammed his elemental shield directly into Garret’s side, attempting to pin him against a tree trunk.
"Die out here, you border guard!" At the back the fire user roared, drawing a short blade to thrust straight at Garret’s exposed throat.
Garret let his great sword drop on the ground, ignoring the incoming blade towards him.
It struck his throat, but it stopped there.
His whole body had already gone hard as the blade bent against it with a dull scrape. The fire user stared at it as he quickly retreated back.
Garret’s bare hand closed on the top edge of the shield pinning his ribs, looking at the shield, then at the way guard wielded the earth.
"You are at the same stage as me, same element," he said. "And this is all you understood of it?"
The guard did not reply as he tried to push harder. His boots dug into the mud.
"You stack it and shape it, but you hide behind it," He said as gray light flashed into Garret’s eyes. " Earth is not a thing you carry, boy. It is what carries you."
Garret looked at the guard in disappointment. He was angry at the fact that he had to battle these inexperienced guards when he had finally expected a
real battle after months of waiting.
He pressed the shield down with his right hand. The guard’s arms buckled under the weight as the shield pressed into the ground, exposing the guard’s front.
Then, Garret’s left hand closed over the helm of the guard and gripped it tightly.
Earth essence crawled up his right arm as his forearms transformed into one long, spike of gray crystal.
At the front of him, the other guard screamed and loosed a blast of flame towards them, aiming to burn both.
Seeing this, Garret stamped once as a slab of earth tore up out of the ground in front of him and shielded against them. The heat rolled around both sides of the wall and did not touch him.
Garret did not turn as he drove the spike through the chest plate and into the stomach. It came out through the back of the armor.
The guard’s whole body locked as he coughed out a mouthful of blood.
At the same time, Garret’s left hand tightened, thick with gray light as the essence in his grip bore down on the guard’s helm, folding inside.
The blood and brain burst from from the every gaps of the helm.
Then, he let go of the body as it dropped on the ground. He retracted the wall inside and also the spike hand back into a fist.
Garret flicked the blood off his knuckles and turned his head towards the last guard. "Now it’s just you."
The fire user’s hands shook around the bent blade. He tried to raise it and attack but fire in his palm went out. He was shaking as his legs gave out.
He dropped to his knees and let go of his blade. "Mercy." He cried as his voice cracked. "Please. I yield, Commander, I swear it, I’ll..."
Garret looked down at him as he let out a breath of disappointment. "I expected more from a man who wore that armor."
The guard’s mouth opened again but Garret’s right hand was already moving.
A short spike ran out from his knuckles and went through the breastplate and the heart behind it in one clean thrust.
The guard did not scream. His eyes went wide as the light in his eyes began to fade away. He slid off the spike into the mud.
The spike dissolved back into a fist as he flicked a single drop of blood from his knuckles.
The barrier dome fell silent. Four elite royal guards were dead in a matter of minutes.
Garret grunted as he walked towards his great sword. He pulled it out of the dirt and rested it on his shoulder as he made his way back toward the group.