192 Weapon dance

The specks of snow dust could barely touch either of them with the way the movement of their blades kept slicing everything that dared to get into range.

Anywhere they went, the ground, the rocks, the fog, even the air itself, everything would be cut by a swing from the two living weapons facing each other in a struggle between the two strongest swords.

[Lilith, how are you holding up?] Marcus asked while watching his partner parrying a couple of aggressive attacks from the memory of his father.

"So far so good... but my back is hurting a little bit again and I'm still getting used to your eyes... This is really hard to do without future sight..." Lilith replied.

Mia tried to leap into the air and switched her weapon into a crossbow, proceeded by unleashing a barrage of silver arrows at Lilith, who responded by changing Marcus into a silver shield to block it.

Lilith then created a spiked ball attached to a chain and threw it at the little girl, who in turn blocked it by switching Marceus into a gauntlet and punching the ball.

[Oh, wow!!] Marcus gasped.

"What!?" Lilith asked.

[Sorry, it's just... I never expected this kind of weapon from you... It feels kinda aggressive...]

"Yeah, well... I'm in a very aggressive mood right now..."

The weapon switching continued. A scythe getting blocked by a shield, a staff being parried by a pair of gauntlets, a wave of arrows being slashed by fast-moving daggers. The two women were famous for their abilities with the sword, but it was clear that they were no strangers to other forms of combat based around other types of armaments as well.

Every time one tried to surprise their opponent with a new kind of weaponry, the opponent would just return the surprise with a small switch of their own.

Lilith and Mia just continued their game of constantly changing their weapons to try and get an opening against each other while waiting for some small mistake to get the upper hand in the flow of the battle.

Lilith and Marcus felt that they were at a slight advantage since the two were fighting in a fused position, which meant they were moving with a much more synchronized state, whereas Mia was just using Marceus like a regular weapon.

Even though they didn't have access to future sight anymore, they could still react to Mia with precision and stand on equal grounds with her.

Lilith dodged another swing from Mia's sword and created a metal club to strike her opponent while trying to gain some distance. Mia saw through her plan and switched Marceus into a helmet to protect her head from the impact. The clash shocked her a bit but no serious damage was made.

[She keeps stopping our moves!!] Marcus complained.

"Yes..." Lilith agreed. The woman proceeded by changing her ax into a spear and tried to stab Mia with several fast movements, "but it seems like she's stuck... She keeps defending and not attacking... If we keep this up, we might find an opening!"

[So we need to be even more aggressive?]

"Way more aggressive!!"

Mia changed Marceus into a pair of arm shields and began to parry all the attempts from Lilith's spear to stab her. The girl kept being pushed back more and more until she found herself cornered against a large boulder.

[We got her!!] Marcus shouted.

Lilith tried to impale her with full force but at the very last second, Mia fused with Marceus as well and covered her entire body with silver armor.

Lilith was caught off guard and realized that Mia had completely covered all of her weak spots, and while she was distracted, the girl grabbed her spear and raised to the air with Lilith still holding onto it.

Mia then swung down the spear in an attempt to make Lilith crash against the ground, but the woman managed to copy her idea and covered her body with full silver armor as well.

She managed to lessen the force of the impact but still was at a disadvantage from having lost her balance. Mia used this window of opportunity wile Lilith was down and got on top of her, followed by trying to break her armor with a series of consecutive punches at incredible speed.

The two went from looking like a fight between swordsmen to a wrestling match between two knights in shining armor.

Lilith tried to use her arms to block Mia's continuous blows but now she realized that she was the one who was stuck, and it was only a matter of time before her armor started to break.

[Lilith!! We need a plan!!] Marcus yelled.

"No!! We need some help!! Where are East and Ellie??" Lilith corrected him.

And as if responding to her cry for help, a large piece of icicle appeared out of nowhere and knocked Mia away from Lilith.

She turned to the direction the ice came from and spotted Detra walking towards them with five giant icicles floating above her while holding a silver staff in one hand.

"Out of my way!" Detra shouted.

Lilith followed her command and right after that, all the frozen shards were launched at Mia's direction. Sadly, the girl just raised her arms and absorbed the ice magic completely.

"What are you doing?? You just gave her more energy!!" Lilith complained.

"Wrong..." Detra declared, followed by making even more shards to throw at their enemy, "I just showed you the secret to win this fight!"

Lilith observed while Detra continued to launch a rain of icicles at Lilith as if it was a Gatling gun while Mia just continued to absorb everything with her raised arms.

[Lilith!! This is our chance!!]

"What..?"

[Mia can't absorb and block our attacks at the same time!!]

Lilith realized what they were trying to say and understood what her job was. While Detra was keeping the girl occupied, it was her duty to take her down.

The woman created another sword, her favorite weapon of choice, and the one she was the most comfortable with, and while trying her best to channel more power from her fusion with Marcus, dashed towards Mia with full force.

The young girl covered in armor spotted Lilith approaching while still using her blessing to consume all the icicles Detra was launching and moved one arm to create a shield to block the attack.

"You may be wielding the living weapon just like me... But I'm the one who knows how to better use it!!" Lillith declared, proceeded by making her sword disappear in the last second, and instead, touching Mia's shield with her bare hand to absorb the girl's entire armor using Marcus' ability to consume metal into himself.

Mia gasped as she realized her armor was gone and before she could create more, one of the ice shards smacked her right in the face momentarily obscuring her vision, and the next time she opened her eyes, the only thing she witnessed was the sight of Lilith stabbing her with a heavy sword in the middle of her chest.

"Ugh!!!" cried the memory of Mia while realizing that this was the end for her, "damn it.... damn it, damn it, damn it... Damn it!!!"

The girl began to stumble while trying to walk away from Lilith and ended up falling into the ground.

"It's over, Forest... You have no more memory warriors to face us with..." Lilith declared while realizing how weird it sounded to just call someone 'Forest'.

"Over!!??" the forest repeated, "oh, no... This is far from over..."

The memory began to slowly vanish, but not without first parting with a couple of final words.

"You all think that you can just invade my territory, destroy my defenses, threaten to kill me, and I will just stay in a corner sucking my thumb while I watch you do that?? No, no, no, no... I'm not going to let you get the best of me... Not like this..."

Detra approached the vanishing image while Ellie turned back to her regular form.

"Just give up... there is no way you can defeat us the way you are now..." Ellie whispered.

The forest then began to grin, "wanna bet??"

The group began to exchange concerned looks with each other.

"What do you mean...?" Lilith asked.

"You may have gotten past my summons and my projections... But you still have a long way to go if you think you can defeat the actual me!!" the forest declared.

"Detra, what's she talking about...?" Ellie questioned while feeling slightly nervous.

"She's talking about her real body... The one that's hidden in the deepest part of this place..." Detra explained.

"Exactly!!" the forest admitted, "at first, I just wanted to scare you guys off, drive you away with your tails between your legs... But now? Now I want to see your bare-bones rotting on the ground after I finish consuming your flesh while listening to your screams of horror as I devour every single one of you while you still live!! I want to see your pain! Your agony!! Your suffering!!"

The forest then stood up and gave the last part of her speech before fading away while smiling at Ellie. 

"You want to get to my core? Let's see if you have the guts to actually challenge me for it!!" she whispered.

Her voice echoed throughout the air and became engraved into the minds of the four of them.

"Let's get out of here!" Detra stated while noticing the worried looks on Ellie and Lilith as if trying to take their minds away from it.

Ellie then turned into a silver staff for Detra again and while boosting her speed, alongside Lilith, rushed out of the ring of fear and moved onto the next area, the ring of time.