The Enchanter took a deep breath of hot smoke and burning ash into his lungs, embracing the unbearable pain as he felt the wound across his scalp to cauterize from the heat. The lacerated flesh immediately burned and melted, sealing the blood dripping from his head and exposing a patch of stark bone from his skull beneath. The stump of his arm twisted and shriveled like a worm exposed to sunlight as it burned and blackened, ending in a sickening knot at the end of his elbow. Blood continued to drip forth at a somewhat slower rate, only to be evaporated instantly upon contact with the air. Too much had been lost in the short time his arm was separated. Lightheadedness was already seizing his sense of balance, and fatigue was quick to follow it.
But the Fallen refused to fall again. No, he would see this to its end.
As the floorboards burned and the songs of the ashen toys continued to resound through his ears, Emonalach watched the white flames rise ever higher. What a beautiful phenomenon it was to witness his enemy’s inner rage become corporeal and literally burn him to death, leaving the Enchanter unharmed. With another deep inhalation of fiery dust, he felt his mind settle and relax from its previous state, reassuming his calm and calculating demeanor. No longer was he possessed with a thirst for bloodshed, yet he desired the lizard man’s death all the same.
Therefore, when it still had the strength to rise and attack the Fallen once again, Emonalach was surprised, but mildly disappointed. Such a powerfully-fueled enchantment would have slaughtered either of his previous opponents, and yet this one still stood. Even as it stumbled towards the Enchanter, he noticed the flames lowering, little by little. They still burned with the effigy of the reptilian’s previous rage, but no longer were they kindled by its troubled mind. Somehow, in some way, it had managed to control the ceaseless fury of the demon’s possession, and, in an unpredictable turn of events, even calmed itself. The act of pure willpower was almost admirable in the Enchanter’s condemning eyes.
So the snake still has fight left in him, then.
When the enormous blade came once again, Emonalach raised his eyebrow in a mocking frown, as if questioning the reptilian’s commitment to their battle. When the blade came within an inch of his neck, he once again vanished from the lizard’s sight, disappearing from the space beneath the floorboards. He reappeared directly above the wood in the pink room where their battle had begun, which was almost untouched by their encounter below. An Enchanter-sized hole remained in the wood from when the reptilian had pulled him below, and fire now crept through and singed the nearby carpet. Emonalach could see between the planks where the fire continued to ravage at a slower pace beneath, and he could feel the immense heat burning through the wood under his feet.
And how conveniently weak the wood had become.
Taking a few hazy steps towards the immense dresser next to him, Emonalach eyed its proportions to the best of his ability. Yes, this will do perfectly well instead. He had initially planned to use the bed, but it was far too wide for his intentions. With two wonderfully close pillars of support on the dresser, the Fallen readjusted his positioning to stand alongside it. The wonderful splintering of burning wood tickled his ears as he smiled, running his remaining hand over his partially smoldered skull with a shudder of weakness. He brought his hand before his eyes, and it shook with an unforgiving weakness.
"May you find peace in your tomb of embers, serpent."
The Enchanter’s foot slammed upon the burning wooden planks beneath the dresser’s front leg, which fractured and snapped immediately. As the dresser tilted forward and slightly to the left with one of its front legs stuck in a hole, Emonalach stepped back and stomped upon the plank again, this time near the back leg. It cracked slightly under his foot, and he stumbled to the side, grasping onto the wall. Using the wall as support, he delivered one last stomp to the fiery board, which shattered by way of the added force of the dresser. The back leg fell through, setting the dresser completely off balance as it started to tip. Prying his fingers behind it and gritting his teeth in focus, Emonalach pulled with what little might remained, and the dresser lurched forward.
Wooden planks burned by white fires crunched under its weight, and it broke not-so-cleanly through the floorboards with a thunderous thoom and a buzzing cloud of white sparks and smoke. Emonalach’s squinted eyes widened as he gazed upon the splintered wreckage, for the dresser did not look the part so much anymore. A pile of burning wood was a more appropriate title than that of furniture, for the broken dresser and floorboards had caused quite a commotion to their structural integrity. The singing of the despicable toys had finally halted, and all that the Enchanter could hear was the natural shifting of wood ash below.
With a gasp, Emonalach set his left arm upon the back of the fallen dresser next to him, keeping to his feet but only just. The reptilian couldn’t possibly have lived through such a cataclysm, but…what if it did? His eyes narrowed as his vision swam, and he knew with great dismay that he was out of options. His spells were all but finished, and he was far too weak to put up any sort of physical fight. Never in his effected memory could he recall any entity, living or dead, reducing him to such a sorry state.
Not even the Fallen's indomitable willpower could keep his legs from buckling, sending him to his knees in fragility and humiliation. Blood continued to trickle from his charred and severed arm, flowing as a liquid instead of dissipating into the air. Crimson tides spread across the drawer and into his steadily darkening vision. This wasn't a matter of pain.
He was dying.
Perhaps it is not my fate to learn of my past…
...perhaps instead...
...I should close my eyes and...
rest.
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