The witch’s grin widened as she noticed Dee applying spells to herself. “I’m so glad you chose to go this route. Much more interesting.”

The witch made a small gesture and the lower ranked witches dashed at Dee, eager to prove themselves and let out some steam. The Crimson Witches were always hungry for battle. They were hoping Dee could provide them with a good one, though found the possibility somewhat unlikely. They were part of the Crimson Path after all. Every single one of them was stronger than a normal being at their rank, especially physically. Their techniques greatly increased the basic foundations of a warrior, strength and speed. Additionally, almost all of them came from physically gifted races in the first place.

Dee knew the enemy was underestimating her, but that would not last. She knew she had to cut down the number of enemies as soon as possible. It would be especially beneficial if she managed to get one of the ninth ranked witches out of the combat. She was somewhat able to hold her own against a single rank ninth warrior, but if two of them joined hands she would be in deep trouble. She also had a quick decision to make. Was she planning on striking to kill?

If she killed some or all of the witches, that might antagonize the Crimson Path against her or even strain the relations between them and the Radiant Sun. Or it might do nothing. She had even helped them with the rift, so the two acts would make the whole thing something like a net zero. On the other hand she would not be winning this fight if she tried to hold back. Defeating someone without killing them was much harder than just killing them, and she was already in trouble.

The decision was somewhat taken out of her hands as the four lower strength witches rushed her. Even when underestimating her, they didn’t completely throw caution to the wind, as the four approached her quickly in a basic formation. The two with the heaviest armor approached her roughly from the front, while one with the least armor started to circle around, planning to strike her from the back. The three were going to pincer her between them. The fourth one stayed a bit back, ready to deliver a decisive blow when the opportunity presented itself. All four were covered by a membrane of blood red energy protecting their bodies.

‘Judging by the strength behind their attacks, they certainly are aiming to kill. I might as well return the favor.’ Dee thought calmly, waiting for the three to close on her, as she was aiming for a close quarters fight where they would get in each other’s way and prevent the stronger witches from attacking. The world around her seemed to slow down as the trio closed in, and the nearby stronger witches assumed Dee had just given up on seeing the trouble she was in.

Then she sprung into action. The dark gauntlets materialized on her hands as she dived for the first witch closest to her. She deflected her strike right into the path of the second witch’s strike, and slipped under the arm that was now horribly out of position, at the same time moving out of range of the third witch approaching from behind. She grabbed a hold of the overextended wrist with one of her hands, while two of her hands struck at the exposed side protected only by the armor and the crimson membrane.

Her dark claws cleaved right through the protection, the armor offering no resistance against the dark energy surrounding her gauntlets. The strike tore a hand sized chunk out of the first witch’s side. Her other hand had struck the unprotected area in the witch’s armpit, completely severing the major artery located there, as well as injecting the corrupting power of her weapons straight into the hapless witch’s bloodstream.

The fourth witch had reacted quickly and had jumped up to deliver a decisive overhead strike at Dee emerging from under her companions arm. The large sword gleamed heavy with the red power, showing the seriousness of the strike. Only problem was that Dee had seen the strike coming. The same two arms that had just wounded the first witch now grabbed at the back armor, crumbling it under her claws, and she tossed the already wounded witch straight at the approaching strike.

The fourth witch was unable to stop her full power strike as it landed on her companion, splitting the already wounded witch in two. The shock of what just happened stunned the fourth witch for a short moment, and for a good reason. Even for battle hardened warriors like them, it was shocking to see their friend die by their own hands. Dee utilized this chance, as she spun away from the thrusting blow of the third witch that was now back in range, she tossed a throwing dagger at the stunned fourth witch.

The throw was hasty, and the stunned witch had enough presence of mind to try and dodge. The dagger missed her head, instead lodging into her shoulder. The fourth witch could feel the corruption spreading from the apparently superficial wound and knew she had to retreat to try and use her own power to suppress the corruption. Their powers were focused on improving their bodies and could be used to resist such invasions, though not completely counter them if the invasion was deadly enough.

While one of her hands threw the dagger, Dee had to use two of her gauntlets to block attacks from the second witch. One of the hands deflected the large sword while another resisted the strike from a floating blade made of red energy that the witch had materialized. Although the witches were proud of their strength, these had nowhere near the strength of Dee, so she could easily force the strikes aside as she used her last hand to deliver a heavy blow on to the chest of the second witch. The power of the blow cracked her sternum and several ribs.

Both of the remaining witches hastily pulled some distance from Dee as they knew they were not her match. They also sensed the incoming blow from one of the two rank nine witches. A large red blade struck at Dee who was unable to avoid it in time. The strike didn’t really damage her though, as the spell ‘Fateguard’ absorbed the blow, losing a layer. The blow did send her flying as she crashed through the wall of a nearby building. That crash and the debris took away several more layers of the spell, showing the weakness of the powerful protective spell.

This situation suited Dee just fine though, as it allowed her to take some distance. The four weaker witches were effectively out of the battle, leaving the two rank nines and the one Dee guessed to be at rank eight, just like herself. The trio was no longer looking down on her and would take things much more seriously. They still didn’t realize the full extent of the danger though, and this would be Dee’s opportunity to try and remove one of them.

She unleashed the draconic power in her body once again, trying to put as much strength into it as she dared without suffering a backlash. Luckily her increased power came with an increased ability to control that part of her, and she had just feasted on quite a bit of power in the elemental planes. Not the equivalent of feasting on souls, but it helped keep the dragon satiated. She’d go hungry after this again.

The ethereal form of a dragon’s head appeared above the three witches chomping down at the witch who had instigated this whole thing. The dragon looked a lot more solid than before, and you could see the power glowing between the scales and in the empty eye-sockets, but it was still clearly more ethereal than solid. The witch created a powerful dome shield of blood red energy around herself, as the dragon’s head tried closing its jaws on the witch. The other rank nine witch used her own power to strike at the apparition with her full power, trying to disperse the attack.

The three powers collided, sending anyone not smart enough to evacuate the surroundings flying. Dee noted idly that the elven paladin and the thieves had run away as soon as the trouble started. If she ever found that elven paladin again, she would skin her alive! Dee pumped more power into the dragon’s head as it started to show signs of dissipating. This might come back to haunt her again.

The first one to notice the protective shield of the rank nine witch cracking was the rank eight witch. She knew the terrible penetrative power of dragon’s fangs, and even if this apparition was only ethereal, it was still a dragon and of the worst possible type at that. She dashed at the rank nine witches. At the same time the other rank nine witch finally managed to force the apparition into dissolving. As it dissolved though, it still managed to bite at its target, though the rank eight witch managed to push her out of the way. The teeth of the dragon rent the rank eight witch’s back, but she was still alive. Out of the combat but alive.

Dee made a small ‘tch’ sound with her tongue. She had missed her chance at taking out her target. She could already feel the burden from using the dragon’s power, and certainly wouldn’t be able to use that power again. Besides, she had caught the witches by surprise, and now they would be aware of the danger and would choose to dodge instead of trying to resist the draconic power directly. They only did so this time because they were unaware of the danger. And now they were mad.

Dee stepped out from the rubble. She had managed to reduce the number of enemies to just two, as the other witches were forced into retreating by the collision of forces beyond them. Most of them were injured anyway. The problem was that the two remaining ones were the exact wrong two. The two remaining witches grimly gathered their powers for a joint attack. A large red globe of red energy appeared above the original instigator of this fight, while the other one materialized an enormous palm that started to strike towards Dee.

The strike from the red palm would be enough to level several blocks of the city, and damage more beyond. It was a strike that was better suited against small armies. Yet, what gave Dee the creeps wasn’t the enormous palm falling towards her, but the red globe above the other witch. It seemed much more ominous. She got the feeling that if she tried to dodge the enormous palm falling towards her, the globe would make it impossible. Her ability to read ki attacks was not equal to her ability to read mana, but she could manage to decipher that much at least.

‘So no dodging the palm. I’ll have to face it directly.’ She only had a second to think about her response, but luckily she had seen a battle between the Spider Cult and the Crimson Path earlier. She knew of a way to fight against the crimson power effectively. It was weak against the power of death. She wasn’t a mage that could use death mana, but holy spells had some attacks of that element as well and she was especially proficient with them. She would have to be, as she was going directly against the power of a rank nine warrior.

The two witches were slightly confused as their enemy raised one of her palm to meet the incoming crimson attack, as if planning on slapping her own hand against the huge palm attack. They were even more confused as a wispy grey palm of equal size to the enemy’s hand rose to meet the falling giant red one. Their confusion soon disappeared as the crimson palm seemed to start decaying rapidly in front of their eyes. They could recognize the effect of death energy on their own power. “You engage her close, I’ll provide support.” The stronger witch with the red globe above her head ordered. This way they would not get in the other’s way.

Dee was a little surprised about how well her spell had worked. The ‘Hand of Death’ was not a flashy death spell, but its effect was rather clear. It was also obvious that her affinity with such spells had grown, as the goddess had said it would. Her short moment of jubilation was cut short as one of the rank nine witches dashed at her. Dee crossed her four arms above her head and met the attack directly. The two clashed in a pure contest of strength, the surroundings getting damaged once again by the pressure wave released from the clash of the two forces. Dee was gaining a small advantage to the surprise of the two witches. They were supposed to be the more powerful ones, right? However, the margin was small enough to not really matter aside from Dee being able to stop the blow, and she had to use all four of her hands to do so.

Unlike the previous ones, this witch did not overcommit to her strikes, and managed to constantly keep just the right distance. Dee could not dash closer without getting hit, but the witch could attack her at the best possible range. The warrior was also skilled enough to match Dee blow for blow, and neither was able to get an upper hand. Dee would normally have been able to use her control style to lead her opponent into a situation where she could deliver a decisive blow, except the fight wasn’t truly a one-on-one.

Every time Dee tried something, the other witch standing at the side would use the globe of crimson energy to strike at her. Sometimes these attacks were like heavy whips strikes extending from the globe, sometimes they were crimson spears of blood launched at her, and sometimes they were like tentacles coming in to distract and trip Dee. And it’s not like the other witch Dee was fighting didn’t use her own abilities. Several crimson energy blades attacked Dee at the most inopportune moments, keeping her off balance. Those attacks also shaved away the last charges on her ‘Fateguard’.

The worst part was that her enemy was slowly gaining in strength. The witch was slowly releasing the darker energy inside her, her visage turning more and more demonic as time passed. The veins in her body bulged out, her face took on a more bestial and snarling appearance, and slowly a pair of horns was growing on her head. At the same time her speed and strength were increasing. Dee assumed that the only reason her enemy didn’t release all that power at once was because it was hard to control. Maybe there would be a severe backlash if the power went out of control?

In any case, her situation was becoming more and more dangerous. The two were slowly wearing her down on purpose. They planned to use this method because the result was pretty much guaranteed. With enough time, Dee would lose. Instead of trying something risky that allowed Dee another chance to surprise them, this was method was more effective. Dee had already shown them that she could pull out surprises when given the chance.

Dee was forced to sigh in her mind. She had hoped that she could force her enemy into a hasty mistake that she could then take an advantage of. It was already good enough that she was holding on as it was and that was not going to last for long. She would have to pay a price to use another surprise attack, which she had been saving just for the chance that her enemies made a mistake. She had not used her psionic powers in an obvious way so far. Not that there had been a good chance to do so before this anyway. She used the power to strengthen herself, but the enemy would just assume that she was using holy power for that. She was supposed to be a member of the Radiant Sun after all.

Dee made her resolve and made a sudden mad dash at her enemy. That came with a price. She was unable to completely prevent the counter-attack of her enemy, and the crimson clad sword cleaved away two of her arms on her left side. She used her invisible hands to pick those arms up and store them inside Croestia. It would be easier to reattach them than regenerate completely new ones. The other enemy struck at Dee several times as well, causing several rather deep wounds, albeit in unimportant places for now. Those would regenerate.

The surprised witch tried to pull back, but didn’t manage it in time. She was also rather secure in the knowledge that her protective layer of crimson energy would stop any lone strikes from Dee. She was rank nine after all, so Dee would have to attack her several times, or with something really special to break the protection. She also used her energy to attack Dee from behind, as the crimson blade would sink into Dee’s unprotected back in just a second.

Dee´s gauntleted hand closed around the enemy witch’s head, but instead of trying to break the protective membrane, she used her mind to attack the enemy. Physical contact was not necessary for such a thing, but it did help. Especially when you did what Dee decided to do, which was to crush the enemy’s mental protections with pure power. She didn’t want to give the witch the chance to resist, which would inevitably happen with slow tunneling through her defenses, and the witch was caught completely by surprise. The two witches had no idea Dee was a psion.

Both the witch and the crimson blade closing in on Dee’s back completely froze in place, the crimson blade suspended in the air. Dee slipped away from the witch, using a bit of healing magic to supplement her regeneration in stopping the bleeding from her missing arms. The witch had put up a fight against the mental invasion despite the surprise attack. She had been right in her judgement that physical contact was necessary against an enemy stronger than her, even with the advantage of surprise.

“What did you do to her?” The last witch asked grimly. She now realized of course that Dee was a psion and had her own defenses up.

“She’s taking a little pause.” Dee replied simply.

“No matter, she will soon shake of your little mind control.” The witch assured herself. While the witches didn’t meet psions often, they did train to resist them. It would be foolish to not have anything prepared just because the enemy was extremely rare, otherwise any psion could just walk in and defeat them. Breaking their control was difficult, but could be done with a bit of time and effort.

“I doubt that very much.” Dee replied confidently. “Do you know what’s the best kind of prison? The type you don’t know you are inside of. To her, time has stopped completely. She won’t be able to struggle, because she doesn’t even know there is something to struggle against.”

“We will see.” The crimson witch replied self-assured. Even if her friend was unable to get free, the higher ups would be able to break the hold. All she had to do was take care of this annoying enemy.

“So, has the fight met your expectations so far?” Dee asked with a slight grimace due to the pain, her tone still mocking.

“I have to say you’ve exceeded my expectations. That’s why I’m going to take you seriously. You can be assured that the one whose death you caused will be avenged against your little order.” The witch let go of her sword, which now hovered beside her, controlled and surrounded by the crimson power. The witch then took a stance similar to a boxer, with her hands raised in front of her face, while the globe of power still hovered above her head.

Dee was slightly confused by this. How was this taking her seriously? Well, she didn’t have much choice. She doubted she could win a shooting match with the witch, even in her angel form. The witch had way more power left anyway, and she was higher ranked than Dee. She would have to face the enemy another way.

She shifted into her kitsune form, the bestial form increasing her strength many times over. In her usual form she was strong enough to match a rank nine, even when they also specialized in strength like the witches. That was thanks to the work done by Zabaniya and her own heritage. Now in this form she should be much stronger than her opponent. The problem was that she was still missing the forelegs on her left side. Her wings materialized as well, hopefully protecting her from some attacks, and several psionic weapons materialized around her. They weren’t nearly as strong as in her angel form, but they would still help.

“You aren’t the only one with floating weapons.” Dee taunted, mostly in bluff.

“Well then, we’ll see whose are stronger.” The witch refused to take the bait. “I suspected you were a monster, I just didn’t realize how right I was.” She shot back clearly referring to Dee’s form.

Dee knew her time was running out, as the missing legs and numerous wounds were sapping at her strength. She dashed at her enemy, her claws striking at full strength. The plan was to continue with an attack with the black wing while the psionic weapons misdirected the enemy’s sword and any attacks from the globe of energy still hovering above the woman. The plan was wrecked immediately though.

As Dee struck at the witch, the witch surprisingly crossed her arms in front of her, with her arm protectors gaining a weird gleam. As soon as Dee’s claws struck the crossed arms, it was as if the world around them froze for a second. A golden brown ripple ran from the point of impact, as if a drop of water hitting the surface of a puddle. Then Dee was blasted back by an explosion of the same golden brown power. Pain lanced through her in several places, as she crashed into the ground, plowing a deep groove into the stone street that was already devastated from the earlier fight.

Dee barely managed to lift her head as she looked at herself. The foreleg that had struck at the witch had been completely destroyed, turning into a mush of flesh and blood splattered around the place. The shoulder was gone as well, and most of her ribs were broken. The final remaining foreleg was mangled as well. Her large body was pierced in several places by crimson spears launched from the globe, and the witch’s sword was now running through her waist, pinning her to the ground. The shock and pain that she didn’t manage to block finally overwhelmed her, as she lost consciousness.

-----

The witch gave a small sigh. They had grossly underestimated their enemy, and had paid dearly for it. Nadja was dead, worse yet accidentally killed by Marina. Valentina and Kristina were heavily wounded, god only knows if they were even still alive. Lena was a statue, and judging by the words of the monster the woman might be hard to wake up. She should have personally taken action sooner. Then again there had been no indication that their enemy was this powerful before things went to shit. They had played around like this several times before without running into trouble. Most enemies gave up before fighting, rather choosing the humiliation over death.

She looked at her arm guards. Authorities really were a cheat. Hers was a half hero-half item Authority inherited from a legend that told of a defensive female mercenary that defeated her enemies by reflecting their own attacks back at them. That mercenary had gained her legend by protecting several important people, even from the attacks of dragons. The Authority was something she had gained before even becoming part of the Crimson Path. Too bad the Authority required a bit of a preparation to use properly, otherwise she would’ve used the arm guards against the ghostly dragon earlier.

The arm guards could reflect almost any attack back at the attacker while multiplying the power several times. It would never work more than once in a battle as it took time to recharge and the enemy would know to expect it anyway, but once was enough when used at the right time. She had crippled many of her enemies just by using the Authority once, and finishing them off afterwards was usually a simple task. She had once even killed an immortal using this tactic, though it would not work on those with the ability to recover from such damage.

It had worked once again against the fox-creature in front of her. Just for a good measure she had also struck the monster with her sword and ki. The creature was now unconscious and dying. The blow the creature had used had been a powerful one, surprising her even after all the earlier tricks, but the creature had paid for that.The witch walked closer, but was surprised when she noticed a symbol hover above the fox monster.

She ignored the symbol completely. She had seen several holy symbols before, though not in quite this situation. A final request from the deity to spare the creature perhaps? She would not oblige. Not with an enemy this dangerous. The gods usually didn’t care that much anyway. As she walked closer, the symbol suddenly pulsed, and released an enormous amount of power.

‘Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.’ The witch thought, as the power flowed into the body of the almost dead creature.

The size of the already large creature suddenly grew to completely outrageous proportions. The fox creature had become the size of an entire city block. Everyone within several kilomels of the city would be able to see it towering over the city, even with the creature lying down. The fur of the creature suddenly turned black, and the previously closed eyes opened. The witch idly noted that the eyes seemed to be completely empty of all emotion and consciousness. The creature spread its tails in a fan shape, causing the witch to choke.

“That’s a lot of fucking tails.” She mumbled numbly. The creature was suddenly covered in fire

‘I’ve never seen black fire before.’ The witch gave her final thought, as the fire consumed the entire city and its surroundings.