The sound of glass shattering resounded across the tall trees of Sorrow.
A hand had been severed.
"Damn, I missed his throat."
Seris had waited. Patience was a virtue after all. In this case, it wasn't exactly what she had wished for.
But it would suffice.
The Lion, as Seris called him, wailed in pain— dropping the young girl onto the hard synthro plastid flooring. He grasped at his now detached extremity, a look of sheer anger rippled across his already unsightly face.
A violent bloom of tiny mirror fragments poured from his wound like raindrops. Each was coated by the relentless downpour of blood that came with them.
Seris looked around at the other prisoners, some cowered in their cages— seeming to be broken, their minds already tormented beyond their limits. Others were cheering and chanting, mocking their captor as he lay bleeding on the floor.
Seris had thrown the spare fragment that had been planted on her at the man. Due to the inherent qualities of the mirrors, they were near indestructible, also unnaturally sharp, being able to dice through the skin of even the enlightened if used properly.
The captives that already had their cages opened began to pour out in droves. Some fell to their knees, still too afraid to run away not knowing what dangers awaited them. Others went off in random directions, more willing to take the chance with a Shard Beast than staying here.
Seris looked down at her hands. They were calloused, bruised and beaten.
A sight that would have once garnered her a firm reprimanding from her father.
Now it meant something much more, it was a sign of her resolve, a living embodiment of her determination.
She grabbed the original fragment of mirror that was kept in the pocket of her jacket, holding it tightly between the palms of her hands.
'This is a gamble but… what other option do I have?'
Seris chanted:
Reflect
Mirror
Parallel
A flash of azure light shone from Seris. Her skin turning reflective.
She looked like a life sized glass doll.
Grabbing the iron bars, Seris easily pulled them apart, casually discarding them aside. Stepping out of the iron cage, she turned to face the lion once more, he was already back on his feet— bloody cleaver in hand.
Suddenly he erupted into an array of golden light, taking on a form similar to Seris. His cleaver also gaining a mirrored appearance.
During this exchange, the school girl had managed to scuttle off somewhere.
That was good.
Great even.
Seris didn't want any un-needed collateral during this exchange.
Mainly because she wasn't too sure of her own abilities currently…
The man had regained his composure now, he lifted his only good hand left, which also held the cleaver into the sky.
Holding his breath for a moment, he chanted:
Cleave
Mark
Dice
The mirrored axe began to glow even brighter,
its distorted surface cracking— seeping out more radiant light.
It looked on the verge of shattering.
But it didn't.
Instead it felt as if it gained its own presence.
A mind of its own.
"Ah, I see… so you're a beast tamer! Quite fitting for a slave trader, no?"
Wasting time on that useless remark, Seris gripped the jagged portruding edge of her Shard. It felt almost like a hilt, putting her mind into a falsehood of ease.
A morbid smile found itself on the lion's terrible lips. He wailed like a banshee, his mirrored transformation clearly taking a toll on his broken body.
But his form showed a different story.
"You know what? Fuck the mission! Rian can scrape your charred remains off the floor!"
The lion rushed, putting a considerable amount of strenght behind his leap.
He had jumped more than a hundred feet in the air, his incadescant axe looking like a miniature sun when wielded that high.
All of the prisoners near Seris that understood what happened, cowered in fear. Even those that ran deep into the forest stopped in their tracks, looking into the sky through the treeline.
It looked like a nuclear bomb was set off.
"Well shit… Just my luck to run into a high level beast tamer too."
Seris stared upwards at her opponent, a half hearted grin on her transparent face.
Seris lifted her arms above her head, and crossed them. She then willed her mirror shard to float right above where her hands met, taking a defensive stance.
She was bracing for impact.