Chapter 45 Coming To Me?

  Lenna eyed her opponent carefully. She noticed him favoring his right hip where she had hit him with a left hook capable of knocking out a pack animal. The fact that he was still able to put weight on it at all was a tribute to his obscene resilience. She noticed his right shoulder was not quite as tense as the rest of his body and she knew that there were only two reasons for it. The first reason was that he was resting it for a future assault of lighter and faster attacks. The second reason was that he had slightly injured it from the impact with the brick wall that was crumbling next to him. Lenna also noticed the blackened, hole filled, cut up, and torn up inside of his left gauntlet. The leather glove that the armor was mounted to was utterly destroyed and even the tips of the metal fingers were scorched black. All of that damage was just from the brief contact with her sword while he yanked it out of her hand and into the far wall.

  The mountain of a man eyed Lenna warily but without a hint of fear. He still thought that he had a decent chance at winning now that Lenna was disarmed. He was still quite wary of the Armor of Ire that she had cast on herself though. Her blazing aura covered hardened but translucent shadow armor, that covered burning flecks of embers, that then coated her legendary armor, made it clear that she was not going to go down easily or painlessly. The chant that she had used to summon it was also quite ominous. The chant for the spell specifically mentioned that her wrath was ‘sword and armor’. Because the shadowy armor showed no weapons, it was easy enough to extrapolate that the armor would still have some way to either augment her damage or hit back on its own.

  Lenna took a sliding step towards him as she tried to shift in closer to her melee engagement range. He had much more reach than her so there was no way that she would get the first attack off but she would prefer if she was as close to him as possible when she needed to make her counter attack. “You’re coming to me?” Her monstrous opponent questioned with a slight smirk.

  “Can’t knock your teeth out without getting closer.” Lenna shot back.

  “Closer huh?” He asked with a raised hairless eyebrow and then shot towards her at speed only possible because of his incredible strength and solid footing.

  Lenna parried his left thrust that was aimed for her head with the back of her right hand. She ended up moving herself out of the way of the attack more than actually changing its direction. She had gotten a pretty good feel for his strength at that point and realized that she could match it if she used everything she had. Even then, she would still be utterly out classed in speed. The man moved at least as fast as Edward but hit twice as hard.

  A shadowy whip snapped out from Lenna’s armor and cracked against the man’s chest while his right hook came up towards Lenna’s breastplate with enough force to throw her into the ceiling. Lenna leaned back away from the hook and brought her left arm in close to her chest to blunt the bow. His left fist, that had barely missed her face, opened as it was retracted. His right fist impacted her left arm and pushed her backwards. Lenna felt the bones in her left arm creek under the strain as her head suddenly stopped moving backwards. Her eyes went wide as a massive paw latched onto the back and side of her head.

  The monstrous man grinned as he pulled his right arm back again and started throwing punch after punch at Lenna’s forcibly stationary head. Every time he came into contact with Lenna’s armor another shadowy whip would snap out and hit his chest. The first two weren’t noticeable, but as time went on, his chainmail would start to glow orange and then melt off of him. Lenna’s arms shot up in a block that took blow after blow that her face otherwise would have. She was caught between an anvil and a blacksmith’s hammer. His attacks were coming in so hard and fast and she was kept at such a distance from his body that there was no way for her to counter attack.

  Lenna’s aura continued to get hotter and hotter as time went on. Every hit she took while pinned in place brought on a thicker and heavier amount of indignant fury. Some man, some mortal man, someone that she didn’t even know the name of, some brainless fool had her entirely suppressed and it infuriated her. It didn’t just infuriate her, it also infuriated her ancestors. For the first time in a long time, Lenna and her ancestors shared the same emotion at the same target. Her aura simmered and burned like a pressure cooker that wouldn’t let any of the heat escape. As she heated up she started to smell burning flesh, and between the nearly endless rapid blows going at her face, she could see her opponent’s snarling face. She knew that his left hand, that had her by the back of the head, was actively being cooked. She also noticed his clothes under his chainmail light on fire from the repetitive hits from her armor.

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  Lenna’s right fist began burning even hotter than the rest of her as she poured mana into it and the arm it was connected to. She forcefully turned her torso back into a fight stance despite the vice grip that was locked onto the back of her head. She took his next attack solely with her left arm and cocked her right arm back to throw a punch. He saw it coming but had no idea what she was going to do, because there was no way that her shorter arms could reach his body, so he continued pounding on her. Lenna’s right fist shot out with all of the power she could muster. Her aura, that blazed hotter than it ever had before, reinforced her natural and mana enhanced strength to a level she had only hit with Isaac’s help. Her fist collided with his as she aimed not for the man but for the weapon that kept slamming into her. Lenna didn’t realize it at the time but her eyes had been glowing so brightly that one of the onlooking prisoners could see two blazing orange pupils through her lenses. According to the prisoner, she was also growling like a territorial lioness right before their fists met.

  A wave of orange flames with black undertones bathed the man’s arm the entire way up to his shoulder as he was stopped cold by Lenna’s punch. Both fists were locked together as Lenna’s smaller one had embedded itself half an inch into the adamantine reinforced fingers of her opponent. There was a moment of silence before he cried out in pain and dropped to a knee as his strength gave out.

  The skin of his left palm and the inside of his fingers sloughed off onto the ground as he pulled his hand away from Lenna’s head. It was so thoroughly burned that nothing short of extensive healing magic would let his hand ever be usable again. There was a circle of melted chainmail rings around his core and his clothes there were still actively on fire. His right arm had broken in who knew how many places from the massive impact with an object that not only didn’t move but also managed to push him back slightly. His fingers were shattered from his gauntlet caving in and on top of all of that, Lenna’s punch had carried with it a desire to burn him alive. His entire right arm was burning. Not just the clothing but the chainmail and his skin as well were actively on fire as if they were logs in a hearth. His blood curdling screaming growl of agony washed and echoed through the tunnels.

  “I was afraid you’d dodge this, or catch and break one of my fingers.” Lenna commented as she took a step back from him. The words fell on deaf ears as he continued to burn alive with a fire that would not go out for who knew how long. Lenna stretched her right hand out palm up. “Hellflame Strike.” She spoke and gestured towards the heavens. A ring of blazing orange and black opened up beneath him but was instantly drowned out by a geyser of black and orange flames reaching from the hells to the heavens with her target in between.

  By the time Lenna’s spell was finished, there was barely anything left of the man that she had fought. All of his clothes and his chainmail were nothing but smoldering metal and ash. His blackened bones crumbled as the last remnants of damage of the black flames killed even the slightest amount of integrity that they had maintained through the fires. His flesh had been entirely turned to char and ash in a rather large pile in the middle of the floor. Nestled in two piles of still liquid steel there were strips of glowing hot adamantine waiting to be claimed.

  Lenna’s next move elicited a gasp from one of those that managed to see her through the bars in the next room. She reached down and plucked each sliver, slice, and plate of adamantine out of the molten steel and gold and tossed them onto the floor a few feet away from her to cool down. At one point, she had to flick her wrist to get some still molten steel off of her gauntlet’s fingers before it dried in place. Towards the end, she was forced to yank and pry some of the adamantine away as the steel was starting to solidify again but she managed to get all of it.

  Lenna straightened and walked over to her sword that was embedded halfway into the wall and easily yanked it out before she returned it to its scabbard. She had let her Armor of Ire fall and calmed down by then so she was only a torch in the night instead of a dark sun of calamity as she walked into the hallway that her opponent had come from. Lenna’s gaze panned over the prisoners and slaves. Most wore little but few were truly exposed. She did notice two girls in particular that looked like they had the unfortunate displeasure of being the massive man’s favorites. Another three, one woman and two men, were covered in cuts and gashes from a bullwhip but at least the rest seemed fine.

  “A-are you here to save us?” A young man that couldn’t have been older than Chris asked from beside her. His hands were clinging to the bars that separated them and there was hope twinkling in his large eyes, or maybe that was just the reflection of her aura.

  Lenna nodded. “Yes.” She told him and then looked towards the end of the hall. “Get away from the bars! Help each other! No one left behind!” She called out with a voice that resonated power and control. Those that hadn’t seen her fight only knew that she had come out of a fight with their largest and most formidable tormentor entirely unscathed. Those that had, knew that she was an unstoppable and immovable force that could not be denied. A benevolent force but an unassailable one nonetheless.

  Amaranth Serentia V'Nova Wexler