It was akin to a thunderclap, a thunderclap for each drop of rain that fell.

The rage intoxicated, the fury fuelled, and against raw might that turned the very weapon in her hands into scrap metal, the mountain of ice that the undead mage had created could not hold. But that was all. That was it. Ettamri’s violent onslaught could destroy and break all that the undead mage had called forth, but broken steel could not sunder the intangible spirits, and raw power could not end the curse of undeath. There was no end. Ettamri could smash through the ice and the earth, could pulverize the skeletal structure of the bisected mage, could do all that she wanted as her blood ate away her mind, but the magic never ended.

A large chunk of ice flew up, smashing into the side of Ettamri’s fallen steed, ribs snapping under its weight and puncturing the organs beneath.

A forceful blow broke Gwyn and Matteo’s bodies out of their icy prison, their bodies blue and black, frost still eating into them.

An echoing strike finally shattered her greatsword into bits, leaving nothing but a mangled crossguard and a broken blade.

But still, bolts of ice shot up at her, the mage’s spellcraft advancing and receding in waves. And to challenge it, Ettamri continued to answer in kind, breaking and smashing and raging and fighting, incapable of understanding that she could end this without the blessing of the God of Light.

It was meaningless, in the end. Nothing but the tantrum of a child. Perhaps even more meaningless than continuing a fight when the battle had already been decided.

Muu continued to clash blades with the undead warrior before her, so focused on her task that she had isolated herself from the rest of the world. In a battle that had not yet been concluded, it was a vulnerability that could easily end with a knife in her kidneys, a spear through her side, an arrow in her head, but the world responded to her stubborn desire to prove herself and granted her an opponent that persisted in hacking at her just as stubbornly. Rain and debris fell down upon both of them, Ettamri’s onslaught seeing no end against a deathless foe, but she was blind to it. Matteo and Gwyn have fallen, but she was blind to it. The ground beneath her feet, coated once in ice, had now fractured, and yet that too, she was blind to.

All that mattered was breaking the wrist. All that mattered was making those hairline fractures grow and grow with each blow, the nicked, dulled edge of her short sword getting closer and closer with each strike.

And then, there was the break.

The wrists of the axe-wielder finally broke as Muu parried a powerful chop, the axe flying up. She followed its arc in the air, her dark eyes widening.

There was a flash, and there was a boom.

Lightning had struck the axe, an impact so fierce that it sent her flying back, the afterimage seared into her eyeballs as her ears rang horribly. Nauseating. The heat, the noise, the impact, it had all been nauseating. The rain felt gross. No, that wasn’t rain, it was her own sweat. She could taste the salt of her body, could feel, suddenly, just how fatiguing it was on her own body to continuously strike at hard objects. The shock had returned onto her own arms, and now, they trembled violently. Off in the distance, the skeleton she had been fighting was also blown away, ankles shattered and wrists hacked off.

She had won. Did that count as a victory? She won.

The world widened around her.

And now, now, Muu could see the full extent of what had happened.

[i]Everything[/i] had happened.