The dark elf Mutant that was attacking Leor was a young male, or at least he had been once before falling to the defilement. The elf was a few inches shorter than Leor, and looked to have been around the same age. The elf still wore the nearly destroyed remnants of a leather trainee armor, proof that he had likely been working toward joining the Elven guard force of Draemyr back before his life had been stolen from him.
The sharp steel head of Leor's polearm cut through the air like a flash, moving so swiftly that it became a blur to the naked eye. But the mutant was faster. The defiled dark elf dodged by twisting backward at an unnatural angle, allowing the polearm to sail over its body harmlessly.
Leor stumbled forward a half step because of his overswing, and the mutant took full advantage of that mistake. Its body shot back up like a spring, delivering a devastating strike to Leor's undefended chest.
A sound like a great hammer striking steel spread through the air as the defiled fist connected with the draconic steel of Leor's enchanted breast plate.
The young man's vision went blurry as he felt the incredible force from the blunt strike ripple through his body, forcing him backwards a half dozen steps as he fought to stabilize his senses.
These defiled mutants were just too strong, that attack had been no less powerful than one a Feral Beast might deliver. If the strike had landed anywhere except his breastplate, with its enchanted damage reduction, he might have already been taken out of the fight.
Thankfully his blurred vision cleared in the time it took him to fill his lungs and swiftly regain his balance. As it did, he saw that the defiled mutant was already rushing to deliver another blow. Leor moved to dodge the attack, his mind racing as he tried to think of a way out of this deadly situation. He was not coming up with many possibilities.
With no time to ponder his situation deeply, Leor decided to take a gamble and try something he had been considering for a while now. Tightening his grip around his weapon, Leor swiftly condensed a portion of his Willpower into a small bead, imbuing it with the command to do nothing except defend itself from any defilement it might come into contact with.
It took him less than a second to complete that action, but the dark elven mutant was already upon him once again. Leor braced himself for the painful impact that was sure to come as he prepared to trade blows with the powerful defiled.
He brazenly lured the mutant into attacking his breastplate once again, by leaving a glaring hole in his defensive posture that would allow such a thing.
Luckily for him, lower tier defiled were far stronger than they were smart, so his plan worked perfectly. As the grey clawed fist connected with his chest for a second time, Leor stabbed his polearm forward. The tip of his weapon only sunk a few inches past his enemies dull grey skin, but it was enough to release the bead of defensive Willpower he had created.
His idea was simple. Leor knew he didn't have enough Willpower to outright cleanse most creatures, or even stun them for a moment if he wasn't given the perfect opportunity to send a wave of Willpower into their minds. So, he needed a way to use his own Willpower talent more effectively, especially when he was fighting alone, or against more powerful defiled.
He had gained the idea because of the high grade spirit crystals on the fortress doors that he helped Drelk fill every night. Those crystals had proven that his Willpower talent could have an effect on defilement even when he wasn't actively fighting to overcome and cleanse the creature. Just the very presence of his Willpower itself could act like a passive antibody, slowly eating away at the defiled power of his foe.
So, if he didn't have enough Willpower to directly overcome the enemy's will and cleanse it, what if he just sent his Willpower inside them like a tiny antibody capsule, to constantly eat away at their defiled power? It would work the same way as injecting a small amount of his Will into the crystals did, by acting like a constant aura that weakly suppressed the defilement at all times.
As Leor pressed his polearm into his enemies body, he also used the resistance to push himself backwards, counteracting some of the force of the blow to his armored chest. Even so, he still felt like someone had just used him like a gong, as painful vibrations spread through his entire body.
After he was knocked backward once again, Leor stared hopefully at the small wound on the mutant elf's stomach. The defiled elf itself seemed to notice that something was wrong, glancing down with a snarl as it clawed at the small wound a few times, before quickly realizing it could not stop the Willpower bead from taking effect. The mutant let out a low growl as it looked back up at Leor completely enraged.
Just as Leor was wondering what effect his desperate ploy would have, a rush of information suddenly entered his mind.
A heavy iron taste filled Alina's tongue as she spit the blood from her mouth, a Beastly rage rising up in her chest. The instincts inside her were going wild in response to the pain in her body and the sounds of battle around her. All she wanted to do was tear her enemies to shreds with her bare claws, then chew on their broken bones.
As she sidestepped a vicious overhead swipe from one of the mutant elves, Alina took a deep breath to control her emotions. She was not a brawler, she was not a Beast, she was Alina Brightward, a noble of the realm of light. Fully giving in to her instincts would only make things worse, not better. She needed to use every ounce of her power and cunning together to defeat these deadly foes.
Alina had faced multiple opponents before, but none as swift and powerful as the mutant defiled. She had gravely underestimated these enemies at the start of the fight, and that had almost led to her death. The mutants seemed to gain a sudden burst of speed a few moments after the fight began when the dark corruption began to fill the underground fortress, and Alina was an instant too slow in adapting to that change. At that time she had just raised her rapier up to block the rapidly approaching claws before her, when a second defiled nearly teleported to tackle her to the ground from behind.
If her body hadn't instinctively responded to the attack by clawing herself free and jumping to her feet like a cat, she would have been pinned to the ground and ripped apart by the mutants.
Now that she had narrowly escaped death, she didn't intend to allow such a mistake to happen a second time. The problem was, however, that these mutants were just too fast. Alina was fast herself, and she could have easily overpowered and outmaneuvered a single mutant by itself, but she was facing three of the bastards at the same time.
It was all she could manage to simply avoid losing her life right now. Powerful clawed blows were raining down on her from every direction, and it was only her ability to mildly sense incoming danger that was currently keeping her alive.
Alina had been slowly discovering the depths of her own prophetic powers ever since she had gained the body of the mysterious Sphinx. Some of her new abilities came easily to her, as naturally as moving her own hand, but she could feel that there was much more to be uncovered, she just hadn't been able to tap into yet.
But now, each time she narrowly avoided a deadly attack, Alina felt a trickle of something begging to come into awareness inside her mind. It felt almost like there was a whole new sense coming online that she had never used before, just waiting there for her to accept it. She just needed a bit more time to fully wrap her mind around how to do that.
The desperate game of cat and mouse continued. Alina's feet slamming and spinning across the hard cobblestone floor as she avoided the sharp clawed hands coming after her again and again. A heavy sheen of sweat filled her delicate face, her lungs burning from the constant exertion.
Then, as all six gleaming black-clawed mutant hands flew through the air toward her from three directions at once, Alina's eyes suddenly shot open in surprise, the desperate expression draining from her face as she rapidly twisted her body in an awkward pose.
Her jaw clenched tightly in nervous anticipation as she watched the three attackers sail past her harmlessly. A gleeful grin slowly filled her lips as she realized that it worked. Over the next thirty seconds, the same scene played out again and again. The mutants would throw themselves at the young girl, recklessly attacking her with brutal savagery, and the young girl's body would twist away from the attacks with the minimal effort necessary.
It was almost like she was dancing, like the whole scene had been carefully rehearsed. But in fact, she had simply foreseen exactly how and where they were going to strike.