Chapter 225 - Persevere, Donatien

Sliding his glasses back in place, he watched as the argonaut lumbered out from the cloud of frost, still holding his wicked smile as blood seeped out from all over his flesh armor. 

"My turn...My turn…!"

Suddenly, the grin belonging to Fleisch bent itself into a trembling frown as he unleashed himself forward with agility unbecoming of his large form, taking Donatien by complete surprise as he wasn't able to so much as raise his arms. 

The enormous fist clad by strands of muscle overtook his entire vision before crashing against him, bulldozing its way against his face as all he could focus on was the crunching of his glasses, being thrown back violently. 

Even now...I'm not worried. I'm not mad that I've been had or fearful. I'm just a slight bit relieved that this won't be so boring. 

The body of a tree broke his tumble, landing harshly against it with his back before attempting to adjust his glasses, only for them to split in half, crumbling away onto the ground beneath him. Letting out a quiet sigh, he wiped the flowing stream of crimson from his nose before watching the lumbering flesh-clad man with his lensless, hazel eyes. 

"It would seem you're quite impatient to meet your end. I don't have many spares of these."

As the eyes of the frost-wielding Outlander locked onto the form of the approaching Fleisch, the man wrapped in layers of protective flesh began to move at a snail's pace, slowly but surely coming to a complete halt. 

"What's this?...Eyes--your eyes."

"I'll let you in on a bit of a secret: the moment I arrived in this world, my problematic eyesight was fixed. There is a different reason I keep lenses in front of my eyes." 

In place of his rather standard hazel irises that once sat behind his glasses now were diamond-shaped irises that held a white and azure frost to them. 

"Don't care! I don't care! Fight me!"

"As expected, you aren't much for conversation after all, are you? All you want is a good fight." 

Interrupting his words, Fleisch dashed towards the man of a much smaller build than himself, his flesh-clad feet stomping through the ground beneath as he tunneled towards Donatien like a cannonball. 

A flurry of heavy-handed swings came from the Argonaut's fists that resembled more so clubs at this point, narrowly missing the body of his target as he seemed to grow more and more angered by the elusiveness of the man. 

"Stay...still!"

Almost complete...Just a bit more, Donatien thought. 

Throughout this game of cat and mouse, he never allowed his eyes to leave Fleisch's abhorrent form while using the ice manifested beneath his step to slip around the battlefield while at the same time disrupting the movements of the lumbering juggernaut. 

"Annoying!...So...annoying…!"

Venting his frustrations through his maw, the simple-minded Argonaut released a swarm of pressurized blood from his lips, carving away at the surrounding trees as the beam chased after the man sliding about on the new field of ice. 

Complete...Laplace's Demon is now in full effect. What a damn headache it is. 

All the requirements had been met for his innate ability to be activated, and what came with it was a fit of inner frustration as his own sight was altered temporarily. He could see it all; every potential movement that his opponent could take. 

As a wild whip of a flesh tendril swung towards Donatien, he put little effort into his dodge, seamlessly avoiding the attack as he gently leaned back. 

"I hate to break it to you, but you won't be able to hit me anymore." 

Another flurry of muscle-formed whips came at the frost-wielding man, who smoothly guided his body out of harm's way of the strikes, avoiding the dozen tendrils that violently swung at him, shattering the ground beneath with each miss. 

"Nnghh…!"

Fleisch gritted his teeth with such fervor that they chattered violently under the burning frustration he seemed to fall under, finally stopping his rampage as he withdrew the extended ropes of flesh back into his forearms. 

"Would you like an explanation? I don't mind giving the details away, it won't really change the outcome of this battle. Oh, I forgot you aren't really one partial to calm exchanges, are you?"

"Shut up!...Playtime is over!"

Spitting out his angered words, Fleisch's rage seemed to manifest itself physically as the layers upon layers of flesh around his body began to bubble up and vibrate. 

Just what on Earth does this accursed ability have up its sleeve now? Donatien thought. 

"I may have given you the wrong impression; I won't sit around and let you power yourself up. At the end of the day, this is a fight to the death."

His words fell upon deaf ears as he raised his hands to the air, bringing with his pale palms a coalescence of potent frost. 

"Skadi: Coffin of Zugspitze."

Clapping his hands together to meld the formed winds of frost, Donatien invoked a spell that formed itself around the convulsing Argonaut, generating a ring of ice that surrounded the goliath. 

"I think it's time you rest your wicked self." 

Extending his hand forward, the clench of his fist caused the formed ring of ice to shoot itself up, walling in Fleisch by a barrier of jagged frost. 

Before he could finish weaving the spell into its full form, one of the walls containing the twisted man was shattered by an abrupt impact from within. There was a change to the now laughing man's form, but there wasn't much time to gawk at the ravenous sight of the Argonaut as Donatien was forced to evade the incoming tackle. 

Without any elegance or even control over his movements, Fleisch continued to stampede forward before crashing through a tree, finally coming to a stop as he left a tunnel through the soil in his wake. 

"I see...What a disgusting evolution you've taken on." 

Looking upon the growth that Fleisch had taken on, he felt repulsed by this new adaptation; a material unmistakably formed of bone had protruded from beneath the bountiful flesh, wrapping it around his form as a new layer of further armor. Running down both of his club-like arms, the ivory substance ended in a series of claws. 

"The itch...It's starting to fade away...Just a bit." 

"Itch?"

Before he could receive any further explanation, the flesh, and bone goliath was in front of his face with speed that had blown away the surrounding debris of ice and twigs, bringing with him a powerful thrust of his fist that was just barely countered by a pillar of ice risen by a whisper, "Eis: Arm!"

It was hardly enough to halt the incoming blow as thick as it was; as tough as steel itself, the pillar of ice also presented a similar thickness to a tree trunk. Still, the bone-claws running down Fleisch's arm pierced through it as if it was nothing but paper. 

"Close! You saw it, right? Right? The threshold of death!"

"Silence, you!"

Not allowing the attempted piercing to go unpunished, Donatien swiped his hand to shift the form of the pillar that held the bone-claws in place, causing it to imprison the man's hand entirely. 

I've learned my lesson; this freak of nature won't stay held in anything for very long. At the very least, I can return the favor with my own malice!

Listening to the battles between the others spark forth in the distance, he felt a surge of urgency press him further as he accepted the stakes of this battle with his all. 

Jumping up and using the summit of his own pillar of ice as a foothold, he launched himself just above the erratic, twisted individual. 

"Skadi: Saber--!"

Generating a blade formed of his reinforced ice directly into his cold, pale fingers, he plummeted down atop the beastly man of flesh, digging the frost-formed sword directly into the chest of Fleisch, feeling the length of the blade pierce through multiple layers of the muscle-armor. 

An attempt at a retaliatory strike found nothing as Donatien was quick to put distance between himself and the pierced goliath. 

"Your only chance at victory is my own negligence. My "Laplace's Demon" allows me to see every possible move you'll make and my optimal approach. Simply put; nothing you can do will ever reach me."

Once again, he found himself questioning why he ever bothered trying to part any words to the mindless manic, watching Fleisch flail. The blade of ice lodged into his torso had spread through his body with roots of frost, further compromising his movements. 

"Hurts…hurts…hurts…"

It looks like he's finally settling down. Not surprising, I felt the blade reach his deepest parts, Donatien thought. 

Reaching to his face to adjust his glasses, he remembered that they were gone, letting out a sigh before something caught his eye once more from Fleisch. 

Out of all the possibilities the maddened Argonaut could take, one suddenly cemented itself as his chosen move—something seen too late by the French mage. 

Fleisch's chest puffed out as did his cheeks, boiling blood beginning to pour out from all over his body. 

Reaching out to try and manipulate the ice that surrounded the beastly man, he was unable to take control of so much as a shard as the boiling blood melted away the surrounding frost. 

"Braaaah—-!"

Pointing his maw towards the sky, a massive stream of this acidic crimson propelled directly into the nightly sky. 

It was an action that simply seemed illogical to Donatien as he watched it be performed. 

I should've learned by now…there's no merit in trying to find logic in the actions of a mad man. 

"Like I said—only my negligence will be your light at the end of the temple. Skadi: Court of The Mountains!"

Shouting it with utmost fervor, the birthed magecraft immediately took hold of the fountain of burning blood by the merit of a shock wave of frost, freezing it over easily as Donatien put his all into lowering the temperature of the ice. 

Spreading quickly, the explosion of ice shifted the geyser of blood into a frosted statue resembling an overbearing tree, reaching down as the ice froze that which was still inside Fleisch's body. 

Not leaving any room for failure, he brought himself before the being, standing atop his shoulders as he shoved his own hand down his freezing throat. 

"Return to silence, fiend."

There was little sympathy in the words that left in a cold breath as Donatien allowed the unstoppable ice to freeze the Argonaut from the inside out. 

It was hard to believe at first that the unstoppable juggernaut finally accepted his mortality, but he confirmed by his own frost that the man had been shifted into the cold substance down to the molecular level. 

"I doubt anything can recover from a fate such as yours. You were strong, I'll give you that. But strong is all you were."