The light and flames of sorcery and incantations flashed incessantly through the forest clearing.
Rellana's swordsmanship was exquisite, but with the all-around enhancements granted by the Great Runes and his beastlike combat instincts, Horace Loux gradually gained the upper hand in their close-quarters struggle!
His attacks clung to her like a festering wound, always finding the imperceptible gaps between Rellana's moves, forcing her to keep changing her attacks and preventing her from stringing together powerful magic sword techniques to suppress him.
Their blades clashed again, and Horace Loux used the force to hop backward, briefly opening some distance.
He noticed a barely perceptible disruption in Rellana's breathing after her prolonged failure to overcome him, along with a momentary delay in her transitions between sorcery and incantations.
An opening!
Without hesitation, Horace Loux leaped up to unleash an incantation from Bayle.
Violent orange-red lightning began gathering in his palm and overhead, filling the air with scorching heat and an aura of destruction!
[Bayle's Tyranny]
Rellana's gaze suddenly sharpened behind her visor. "A Dragon Communion incantation?"
She murmured the words, clearly recognizing the source of this power, but showed no panic.
Just before Horace Loux could complete his incantation, she thrust the sword in her left hand forward!
It fired a streak of incredibly swift, azure Glintstone Magic.
The sorcery struck Horace Loux squarely in the right arm as he channeled the incantation!
"Ugh!" Horace Loux grunted. His arm jolted violently, and the gathered power of Flame Lightning instantly spiraled out of control!
The incantation was interrupted!
In that instant, with his previous strength spent and fresh strength yet to come, Rellana swept toward him like moonlight. The sword in her right hand, burning with incantatory flames, pierced straight toward his waist with a shrill whistle through the air!
Before the blade even reached him, its searing heat and destructive aura washed over him!
At that critical moment, Horace Loux forcibly twisted his body, barely parrying the lethal thrust with the short sword in his left hand. Still, the incantatory flames brushed his waist armor, instantly charring the leather and leaving his skin stinging with burning pain.
He seized the chance to retreat rapidly, inwardly sobered.
As expected, powerful incantations with such long windups were easily interrupted against evenly matched opponents or experts, becoming lethal openings instead.
I can't rely on this.
Seeing Horace Loux abandon his Dragon Communion incantation and seemingly plan to continue relying on close combat, Rellana changed her strategy as well.
She seemed to realize that in pure close-quarters swordsmanship, she was indeed slightly inferior to this barbarian warrior, who appeared crude but possessed astonishing combat instincts.
She no longer tried to close in.
Instead, she tilted her head up slightly and crossed her paired swords before her chest.
A surge of magic far more immense than before erupted from her!
"Look up..." Rellana's cool voice seemed to echo.
Her figure abruptly blurred, seeming to transform into the phantoms of two full moons-silvery white and radiant, profound and mysterious.
The two phantom moons swiftly rose into the air, illuminating each other and radiating a soul-shaking sense of majesty and oppression!
Alarm bells rang in Horace Loux's mind. This was Rellana's unique sorcery—Rellana's Twin Moons!
As the two phantom moons were about to merge and unleash a devastating torrent of moonlight, a trace of resolve flashed through Horace Loux's eyes.
He no longer attempted to dodge or defend. He raised his crossed swords high, their blades instantly engulfed in violent orange-red lightning that crackled with deafening bursts!
The ground cracked beneath his feet, and he shot skyward like a cannonball-not toward the merging twin moons, but higher into the air than the phantom moons themselves!
"Bayle's... Tyranny!!!"
An orange-red pillar of lightning, far thicker and more violent than the one he had tried to channel before, crashed down like falling dragon breath. With the force to destroy everything, it struck viciously toward the twin phantom moons below, just as they were about to finish merging!
Since Rellana had cast her sorcery first, her Twin Moons had already been released. Horace Loux, who had leaped into the air, had clearly not been struck by them.
But by then, she herself had already descended.
"What!" Rellana clearly had not expected her opponent to time it so precisely!
Boom.
The orange-red lightning of destruction struck the female knight.
Rellana grunted, chaotic orange-red arcs dancing across her silver-blue armor. She had clearly taken a considerable impact.
She staggered several steps upon landing, only steadying herself by planting her sword in the ground. Slightly hurried breaths sounded from beneath her visor.
The paired swords in her hands had dimmed, the powers of glintstone and incantation both dispersed.
Horace Loux also dropped from the air, landing on one knee. Compared to Rellana, who was clearly injured, he was in much better shape.
He slowly rose and looked at the silver-blue knight barely standing a short distance away.
Silence spread through the woods, broken only by their heavy breathing and the distant cries of a night owl.
Several seconds passed before Rellana seemed to finally catch her breath.
She slowly raised her head, looking at Horace Loux through her visor with a complicated gaze.
The initial cold wariness remained in her eyes, but something else, difficult to describe, seemed to have joined it-perhaps surprise, perhaps acknowledgment, or perhaps deeper confusion.
Then she did something that nearly made Horace Loux lose control of his expression.
She seemed to try to force herself upright to preserve her knightly dignity, but her internal injuries made her sway slightly.
She gave up. Instead, she lowered her head a little and spoke quietly, her tone one of resignation mixed with an odd stubbornness:
"...I lost. My skills were lacking. I have nothing to say." She paused, her voice sinking even lower, as though squeezed out between her teeth, with a peculiar awkwardness.
"...Kuh... just kill me."
Horace Loux: "...?"
He almost thought something was wrong with his ears, or that the lightning just now had rattled him into hearing things.
Kuh... just kill me?
What kind of ancient line was that?
That familiar phrasing... that awkward tone with its strange hint of invitation...
Horace Loux's expression instantly became quite a sight, and the corner of his mouth twitched uncontrollably.
He looked at the female knight of Caria before him, still upright and elegant despite her defeat, and simply could not connect her with the image of the "just kill me" female knights found only in certain special works.
Wait... girl, are you actually a respectable knight?
You're the future Twin Moon Knight, Rellana!
Didn't you get the wrong lines? I don't remember you having any weird CG scenes or dialogue options like this in the game!
For a moment, the atmosphere in the woods shifted from the grim tension following battle to something rather peculiar and awkward.
That sudden "just kill me" line left Horace Loux utterly floored, his mind briefly going blank.
Nighttime, a little grove, a battle just ended, a defeated female knight in damaged armor... plus a barbarian-Hesa himself.
I suddenly noticed a small detail: the leaves on the Altus Plateau are all golden yellow, closer to the Erdtree.
Meanwhile, the leaves in Crumbling Farum Azula are orange-red, very close to the Primeval Erdtree, fused with the Crucible.
Does this seem to indicate the evolution of life-forms?
If so, does red dragon lightning also indicate that the ancient dragons embody the power of the Crucible?
There is too little text about Rellana to get a handle on her personality.
I'll just write her the way I like, then.
Before you continue