Page 45 of Imbalance
The fucker had ended the conversation by saying that we would still have no chance of winning against his best warriors. He was a cocky bastard, and I wanted to wipe the smirk off his face, which didn't lend to my emotions soothing my Hellhound at all. It only riled him further as my emotions bled into his.
I could see battles already raging around me out of my peripheral vision, but it looked like my opponent was sizing me up just as we were doing with him. He was a big bastard, and I was nervous as hell for what his magic would entail. His Hellhound was almost double my size. He had black runes on his forehead, and the rest of his thin fur was pure white. His purple eyes confirmed his parentage in conjunction with the runes.
He was clearly a Dark Elf mixed with a Hellhound, and I'd be an idiot if I didn't admit that I was a bit intimidated by the combo. Finias was a powerful dude, and he'd given me a healthy respect for how powerful the elves could be. Thankfully, I couldn't see any other runes besides the three on his forehead, which meant he didn't have unlimited tricks up his sleeve.
We just needed to expose those three, so we could form a strategic plan on how to attack and evade.
I was actually proud of my Hellhound for standing back and—
Wait!
It was like he lived to infuriate me. The second I’d tried to give him some credit for behaving so far, he had to go and rush towards our opponent with absolutely no plan that I knew of.
I'm ending this now. Quicker to being able to mark my mate.
We have no plan or idea of what his powers are!
I winced as a fireball of purple magic shot from the glowing flame rune in the middle of our opponent’s forehead, and he came barreling towards us. We were quick to sidestep it, but the fireballs kept coming in a nonstop display of power, following us as we zig-zagged a path towards him.
He let out a growl and bared his canines as we approached, and a new rune lit up, this time the one on the left. Purple flames surrounded him like armor as we leapt at him, and alarm bells rang in my head.
Stop! Those flames are going to hurt us!
No fire can hurt me.
This is different than hellfire, it's imbued with—
My words cut off as our front paws slashed into the barrier and a pained howl ripped from our mouth. We jumped back and tenderly walked a circle around our opponent, the throbbing pain from our front paws pulsating. Without looking, I knew they were bleeding.
You have to listen to me. We must work together.
Fine.
He resented the fact that he couldn't overpower this opponent with ease, and his tone was full of bitterness in our shared mind.
The rune flickered out, returning to its inactive state, and it jogged a memory in my mind of learning strategic battle moves in training growing up. The runes didn’t have an infinite amount of mana. It worked like energy reserves, in a way, and those reserves could be exhausted to the point where runes couldn’t be used anymore. Unless you were as powerful as Finias, who had a mana regeneration rune. Those took up a ton of energy and were one of the rarest runes out there. It essentially made the wearer incapable of tiring in battle, which was dangerous as hell.
Okay, we need to have him on the defensive long enough for him to keep his runes activated. That will exhaust him until he can't use them any longer, and we'll be able to fight like typical Hellhounds without fear of his extra powers.
Consider it done.
A cry of pain came from one of the hybrids in another duel, and it made everyone halt and look to see what had happened. Finias had his opponent, who appeared to be a Dark Elf and Fallen hybrid, pinned to the ground with a dagger to his throat and a vicious grin on his face.
One down, five more to go.
Our opponent let out a soft whine for his comrade, and we used the moment to lunge for him and rake our claws into his side before dashing away, escaping before magic could be used at close range.
Unfortunately, Hellhound fights were always going to get bloody in order to force submission. We didn't have magical powers to force submission out of people. It would have to get physical, but I'd try to prevent it from getting out of hand.
Our attack worked like a charm, and our opponent immediately constructed their flaming armor again and began to shoot purple fireballs at us once more. We expected it, though, and dodged to the best of our ability. Although, having our front paws wounded made us slower, and our hind leg was grazed by the fire, singing our fur and skin.
I'm going to kill him.
No! Stick to the plan, and we’ll ensure our victory and being able to mark our mate.
He growled in our mind but halted his advance towards our flaming opponent, thankfully.
How could I get him to show what his third rune—the one on the right side of his forehead—was? It was like he was purposefully trying to wait to play his ultimate attack. It made me uneasy.
