Soul energy roared to life within Iago's body, swirling within his muscles, bones, and skin like a raging inferno. He felt it pulsate within himself, spilling out into the air and enveloping his body in a burning crimson aura. His mind began to race, the same message playing inside his head over and over again.
'I AM… A PALADIN,' he thought as he plummeted towards the ground, the energy within him burning more intensely by the second.
He finally hit the ground in a loud crash, splattering blood into the air around him, his body steaming and radiating a crimson energy. He let out a deep breath, his aura fading, as he looked up at the monster, katana clutched in his right hand. The monster, which was almost on top of the boy, swiveled its eye to look at Iago, its mouth closing slightly in confusion.
Iago used this hesitation to his advantage, his eyes flashing crimson as he pushed the soul energy into legs, feeling his calves bulge as he exploded forward with a burst of speed. The monster recoiled slightly, taken aback by the young boy's boldness.
However, instead of rushing the creature head on, he slid on the ground, scooping the boy up in his left arm. The monster realized what he was doing immediately and raised one of its pointed legs, slamming it into the ground with inhuman speed. The leg impaled the ground with enough force to pierce the concrete as though it were paper. Iago rolled, narrowly avoiding the attack and getting himself and the boy to the other side of the fountain. He got to his feet, dragging his hand along the blood soaked ground to come to a stop, looking the monster dead in its eye.
"I'm not gonna let you hurt anyone else," Iago said to the monster, his tone full of resolve. The monster opened its mouth as far as it could, letting out a booming roar that seemed to shake the building itself.
Iago's eyes flew around in their sockets, darting to every element in his surroundings, his rain processing these things extremely fast. It was as though his brain was processing everything his senses were throwing at him at inhuman speeds.
He could feel the blood on his skin, the blood on the ground, the slight trembling of the boy in his arm, the smell of the blood, the boy, and even the flesh from the monster's mouth. He could see every corpse almost simultaneously, taking in the state of the destroyed fountain and the dangerously rocking chandelier above them.
'What's happening?' he asked himself. However, as soon as he asked the question, it was as though an answer were right there.
'This must be my attunement,' he answered his own question, 'But how?' From what he knew of attunements they were dolled out spontaneously, along with the gained abilities also being random. They were typically also gained by prodigies more often than not. Iago wasn't a prodigy, far from it. So how was he able to gain an attunement? The answer to his question would have to wait however, as the monster had fully turned to face Iago and the boy, its eye glowering at them menacingly.
It charged forward, galloping on its three legs before rearing up and attempting to slam them into Iago. Iago jumped to the side, rolling and dragging his sword on the ground to slow his momentum. The creature's legs hit the ground with a loud boom, throwing up chunks of concrete and blood. The monster opened its mouth and fired several crystalline shards at Iago.
To Iago's surprise, however, the path that the shards were taking was revealed to him in the form of arrows, showing him the exact speed and path that the shards were taking toward him. He jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding the shards with the boy still in his arms. The monster then pulled one of its legs free from ground, the shard on the end of it lengthening into a sharp crystalline blade.
The monster swung the blade leg downward. The path was once again revealed to Iago and he dodged to the left, narrowly avoiding the blade as it slammed into the ground and shattered.
Iago pushed soul energy into his legs and launched himself at the monster, slashing his katana horizontally to the right, aiming right for the monster's neck.
However, his sword shattered on impact with its crystal body, sending a shock through Iago's body.
'Damnit,' he thought, gritting his teeth as the shock painfully rattled his body. The monster's body then began to glow, the crystals covering every inch of it loosening and rattling as the creature's mouth then stretched into a wide grin. Iago's eyes opened wide with horror and realization.
'It's gonna explode!' he thought. He hit the ground and dashed to the side, aiming to get behind the fountain to shield himself from the crystal explosion.
'I need to get behind that fountain or we're both dead!' he screamed inside his head. He managed to get himself and the boy behind the fountain just in time before the crystals exploded off the creature's body, turning the already destroyed atrium further into ruins. What was left of the fountain was shredded and the bodies littering the floor had their flesh turned into mincemeat. Because of the already held riddles state of the fountain, several crystals found their way through and hit Iago.
He clutched the boy tightly, turning his back to the onslaught to protect him. Pain shot through his body as he felt crystals tear through his right side, his left shoulder, and graze his left thigh. He gritted his teeth as he felt blood begin to ooze down his clothes from the injuries. As soon as it had begun, however, the onslaught ended. Iago put the boy down at the ground, looking down at him as his frightened face looked up at his savior.
"What are you doing mister?" the boy asked frantically. Iago smiled warmly at the boy before standing straight up, hiding his wince as his injuries protested his movement.
"I'm gonna go defeat that thing," Iago told him softly, "Go hide in one of the stores that are still standing until I tell you it's safe to come out, ok?" The boy nodded and then quickly ran off, tripping as he ran but regaining his balance and continuing. Iago watched him leave and then took a deep breath, clutching the handle of his sword. He turned and walked from behind the destroyed fountain, glaring at the monster. The creature's mouth opened slightly, Iago's survival clearly surprising it.
"Surprised I survived that?" Iago taunted, a smirk breaking out onto his face, "Of course I did, and there's a cooldown on the move isn't there?" The monster likely didn't understand what he was saying, but its eye flashed red as if recognizing Iago's attempt to taunt it.
'I managed to deduce that there's a cooldown to that move or that it can only use it a couple of times,' he thought, 'It didn't use it willy nilly when I first showed up and it only used it when it thought it was a guaranteed victory.' Iago eyed the crystals on the monster's body. They were smaller than before, a pulsating, ethereal mass glowed through the cracks left in its body.
'That means that it either needs to recharge between uses, or it only has a certain number of uses in total,' he concluded. The gaps between the crystals in its body told him what he needed to do. His eyes darted to the new paths created by the creature's last attack.
'It might be suicide, but this is my only chance,' he thought. Numbers danced in his vision, shifting, each one unstable as it changed into a different number almost faster that Iago could read them. They gathered together, forming a rough outline of the path he needed to take to ensure his victory.
However, he could feel himself getting exhausted. A slight throb in his head was growing in intensity, his lungs were burning, and his muscles felt like they were getting stiff and harder to use. He needed to hurry up and end this. The monster reared back, lengthening its left front leg into a blade and slashing it horizontally at Iago.
Iago pushed soul energy into his leg muscles again, feeling them burn in protest as he launched himself into the air, avoiding the monster's attack. It stopped the blade and slashed it in the other direction, forcing Iago to slide as he hit the ground to avoid the attack. His eyes burned crimson, with them beginning to sting from the strain of focusing on all of the details around him.
The monster reared onto its one back leg, lengthening the right leg this time and swinging both in tandem. It slashed the right blade diagonally down at Iago, forcing him to catch his foot on a piece of rubble and flip into the air over the attack. He landed on his right foot, being forced to dive over the incoming attack from the creature's left leg.
The monster then pulled both blades back before slashing them diagonally down simultaneously. Iago jumped into the air, leaping over the left blade as the two intersected right where he had been.
He hit the ground and broke out into a dead sprint, eyeing the monster as he passed by it. The creature's eye shuddered, bewildered at his actions. However, his intent soon became clear as he used the destroyed fountain as a stepping stone, propelling himself into the air and on top of the monster's body. The creature flailed wildly, trying to shake Iago off of its back.
Iago raised his broken sword. Gripping the handle tightly, he plunged it into the creature's neck, right between the crystals. The monster let out a shriek, rearing back with all its might and launching Iago into the air.
'The beast is only strong where those crystals are,' he thought, his eyes burning crimson, a crimson aura forming around his body. All of the numbers in his vision flickered as though they were flames, converging on the spot he had driven his sword into. He landed on the ceiling just past the chandelier. He then dropped down onto it and jumped back up, causing the light fixture to fall directly on top of the monster with a loud crash, sending shards of glass everywhere and pinning the monster down.
'It's time to finish this,' he thought. He pushed off of the ceiling, hurtling toward the monster with extreme speed. In his right hand, crimson flames began to form and gather. The burning numbers in his vision danced around until they formed a target right over the handle of his embedded katana.
He pulled back his fist and slammed it into the handle of his katana as he landed on the creature's back, driving it into the creature's body. Immediately, crimson flames exploded from every crack in the creature's outer shell, engulfing the monster in the crimson flames. The creature let out an inhuman shriek so loud that Iago could feel his ears throbbing.
He didn't care, however.
He raised his right hand again, the flames flickering and forming into a crimson zweihander, unstable and barely able to hold its form together. Iago grabbed the handle of the zweihander with both hands and drove the formless blade into the monster's back. More crimson flames exploded from the cracks in its armor, fully engulfing the creature.
It gave one last struggle to stand up, its legs gave up, the creature collapsing to the ground in a heap. Iago withdrew his zweihander from the creature's body, jumping off of its body. Despite the fact that it was engulfed in flames, he felt no heat.
'What kind of attunement is this?' he asked himself, looking down at the crimson blade he was wielding in awe.
'Wait, the kid,' he thought, smacking himself in the forehead with his free hand. He could experiment later, for now, he needed to go grab the kid he was protecting.