Thinning the metal armor on her legs gave her plenty to work with. She set to covering the disturbing little idol with metal. After a few moments, she had a shiny smooth tube. It looked like something that would be launched out of the main guns of a battleship. Except much smaller.
With that done, she tried nudging it with her foot.
Nothing happened.
She picked up the encased idol. Just in time for a small portion of the roof to crack and fall into the rest of the building.
Trousers
Eva dropped out of the sky, seething with her fists clenched tight as she grit her teeth together. Her final blink had carried her over the makeshift wall of the Brakket dormitory plaza.
The first thing she noticed were the arachnid legs scattered about. Arachne’s dismembered legs. Perhaps the source of the disturbing feeling.
Or so Eva thought until she spotted the rest of the demon, the hunter, and the doll.
The hunter’s curved sword was buried in Arachne’s stomach.
Blood boiled the moment Eva saw Arachne’s state. Time stood perfectly still as Eva’s brain screeched to a halt.
Arachne’s eyes were wide. As wide as they could be with the way her facial carapace worked. Her body was half twisted, as if she had tried to avoid the blade only to miss it by just a few inches.
Her carapace was cracked. Black liquid oozed from the wound. It dripped along the length of the sword, staining the edge black. When it hit the emerald encrusted hand guard, the blood flowed over the gemstones until it reached the very lowest point.
From where it dropped down onto the ground, creating tiny splashes as it pooled on the glassed-over surface.
The pool expanded slowly. Blood seeped from the ground, filling the area around the fighters’ feet. It spread outwards, the circle growing to cover more of the plaza with blood. More than could possibly have seeped from Arachne’s wounds. Even with her severed legs, her body simply couldn’t hold so much blood.
Arachne had her mouth open in apparent shock.
But only for a moment.
As Eva watched, Arachne’s mouth curled into a vicious grin.
Time snapped back into place, reality resettling as Eva let out a short breath.
Arachne was still alive. For the moment, at least. No portal had opened to ferry her back to Hell.
Hands snapping forward, Arachne clamped down on the hilt of the sword, locking it in place and preventing the hunter from pulling it out.
He only tried for a moment longer before releasing the sword.
The doll forced him into a retreat. With his sword stuck in Arachne, there was nothing aside from his armor to protect him from the doll’s blade. He was obviously not willing to take the chance his armor could handle the blow.
He slid backwards, just barely ducking his head under the doll’s sword. His head came back up.
And he caught sight of Eva.
She couldn’t see his eyes. The visor of his helmet was nothing more than a thin slit. Even were she closer, she would have trouble seeing what lay behind it. Yet him noticing Eva was plain to see.
He stilled ever so slightly, angling his helmet further towards her.
Eva broke into a run. She could have blinked across the battlefield, but she was still forming a plan in her mind. Without his sword, the hunter would be far less deadly. Though, given how prepared he and his partner were, Eva couldn’t discount the possibility of traps or secondary weapons.
She was half hoping that he would pull out something else before she got to him. Preferably with enough time for her to react.
One thing was certain, this hunter was not leaving alive.
The other hunter had escaped, barring the suicide theory. It didn’t bother Eva that much. She had been able to confirm that the hunter was crippled. More importantly, they had gotten a hold of the idol. So long as it wasn’t a trap, Eva likely had Juliana to thank for that acquisition. She had been the one to knock over the hunter’s chair, putting her farther away from the idol and making sure she couldn’t teleport away with it.
Without the idol, creating a large ritual circle would be significantly easier.
But seeing what this hunter had done to Arachne… for that alone, he would pay.
Eva did note the blood around the hunter was freezing. White frost started close to him. It spread out in an almost perfect circle up to a few feet away from him.
At first, she considered the notion that the other hunter had come back. While a possibility, there was a far more likely explanation.
His armor had been enchanted to freeze liquids that came too close. The other hunter had never been actively protecting him. She had merely been watching from a distance, perhaps looking for another opportunity to crack the sky.
