99 AC / 54 HA
Hermione
"Father!" I cried aloud when I saw dark blood dripping from his mouth as he emerged from the settling dust. This escalating battle had already taken considerably more from him than his duel against Akua. It was entirely to be expected; the cursed mist was a brutal and suffocating environment to wage war within.
"I am fine, Hermione," he assured me, his voice tight with strain. "The fight is taking considerably more out of me than I initially presumed. Are you done with the containment runes?" he asked, swiftly wiping the blood away from his jaw.
"I am just laying the fourth rune now. Please hold on a while longer," I pleaded, desperately attempting to hide my own mounting fears.
"Be prepared to start the array as soon as he lands within its boundary. Do not care for anything else. Channel mana into the array as soon as I send him in." he warned me.
"I will" I answered resolutely.
He offered a curt nod before violently launching himself back into the roaring fray to intercept the ancient deity. I firmly inserted the fourth carved runestone into the damp earth. Seeing Father's battered condition had forcibly relegated the worries and the haunting intrusion of the mist from the forefront of my mind. That brief, desperate moment of focus was exactly enough for me to fortify my Occlumency shields, locking the wailing woman safely away behind thick walls of black marble.
I scrambled upward, my heavy boots finding precarious purchase in the slick mud. I needed to establish three more anchor points to fully seal the magical perimeter around the temple. The sheer volume of the infected horde had been drastically thinned by Father's meteoric impact, leaving only a scattered few stragglers wandering through the lingering smoke.
Two infected stonemen spotted my movement, their milky eyes locking onto my form as they lunged forward. The searing, molten agony radiating from the scratch on my cheek threatened to blind me, but I forced my burning muscles to obey my commands. I tightened my grip on the feather weighted gladius and stepped directly into their frantic charge.
The first Stone Man swung a heavy, petrified fist in a wild, sweeping arc. I smoothly ducked beneath the clumsy blow, bringing my glowing blade up in a vicious diagonal slash that cleanly severed its arm at the shoulder. As the screaming creature stumbled past me, I spun firmly on my heel and drove the steel straight through the crusted ribcage of the second attacker. Black ichor splattered against my boots as I kicked the dying monster off my blade. I dropped to my knees, rapidly channelling my internal mana to sear the jagged lines into the fifth river stone before slamming it deep into the soil.
I did not pause to catch my ragged breath. I sprinted several paces further along the invisible boundary line, my lungs burning fiercely from the intense exertion.
A singular, massive Stone Man hauled itself over a fallen marble pillar, its near rotten jaws snapping hungrily as it scrambled toward me on all fours like a feral hound. Relying entirely upon my rigorous martial drills, I deliberately feinted a low strike, baiting the creature into lunging directly at my legs. As the monster committed to the downward dive, I swiftly reversed my grip and brought the heavy pommel of my sword crashing down upon the back of its petrified skull. The grey bone shattered with a sickening, hollow crunch, dropping the creature instantly into the mud. My hands shook violently from adrenaline as I carved the sixth glowing rune, shoving the warded stone into the earth without a second thought.
Only one final anchor point remained to effectively close the magical prison. I sprinted toward the last designated spot, located just near the shattered entrance of the temple steps.
Three snarling stragglers blocked my immediate path, dragging their diseased bodies through the ruined underbrush. I absolutely refused to let them slow me down. I charged them with relentless momentum, parrying a jagged claw before thrusting my gladius directly into the closest creature's throat. Ripping the steel free, I used the falling corpse as a physical shield against the second ghoul, ramming my shoulder into the dead weight to knock the attacker completely off balance. Before the final monster could even raise its rocky arms, I stepped inside its wide guard and cleanly decapitated it with a single, devastating strike. The heavy, petrified head hit the dirt with a dull thud.
I collapsed onto my knees exactly at the final boundary point. My arms were trembling with severe muscular exhaustion, and the burning venom surging through my cheek felt absolutely agonizing. Pushing through the blinding pain, I grabbed the final smooth river stone and carefully carved the concluding containment rune into its surface.
With a definitive thrust, I plunged the seventh stone into the damp earth, finally completing the massive perimeter.
"Father, it is done!" I yelled, my voice tearing through the smoke-filled clearing.
In the distance, I saw Father furiously hacking away at the massive roots and vines that continued to smack or cut at his armoured form. The corrupted flora was now moving at terrifying speeds, blurring into vicious whips of motion. Father was just as impossibly fast, intercepting and cleanly cutting the thick vines before they could deal any severe damage. I finally saw clearly how entirely Hazkar had changed from what he had looked like before. Where there had once been an aged man with half his face and body covered in greyscale, there now stood a towering entity covered entirely in shimmering green, scaly skin, with thick, shell-like armour surrounding his terrifying visage.
Father heard my shout, briefly looking in my direction and offering a single, firm nod. The Old Man of the River heard me as well. He snapped his scaled head toward my position, his gaze darting rapidly toward the ground. His expression grew profoundly grim as he stared at the freshly turned mud, finally realizing the trap we had laid. His shock swiftly twisted into unadulterated rage. He turned violently back towards Father, exponentially increasing the speed and ferocity with which the corrupted vines and roots attacked him.
Father gracefully dodged the incoming onslaught, his Goblin steel broadsword cleaving smoothly through the flora. But suddenly, a massive vine that Father was just about to cut violently sprouted a cluster of enormous, jagged black thorns. Father saw the lethal protrusions in the very nick of time. He twisted his body backward in a desperate attempt to dodge, but the razor-sharp thorns grazed across his sword arm, slicing cleanly through the gaps in his armour.
________________________________________________
An extra chapter for every 5 reviews upto 50 and another extra chap for every 150 powerstones.