Scorio seized him by his corded neck and hurled him bodily at the tattooed man, causing both of them to slam into the wall.
A third man ran at him, his arms turning into steel blades. He pointed one at Scorio and it extended, growing thinner as it speared at him. Scorio swiveled, the blade traced a line of fire across his chest as it missed, only for Scorio to slash his talons through the living metal and shear it in half. He surged up the remaining length, Shroud blocking the second attack, and head butt the man full in the face with his curling horns.
The man’s head crunched.
Fireworks exploded across the ceiling, riotously loud and filling the air with smoke and sparking lights from which fragments of colored glass rained down, each wickedly sharp and aimed at Scorio.
Who swung his Shroud above him and charged the back pedaling woman before him. Swan-necked, her black hair pulled into a bun, she looked terrified as she raised both hands.
Immediately Scorio felt himself slow. The closer he came to her the slower he moved as if he’d fallen into a nightmare, his limbs locked in mud.
“Now,” someone shouted, “while Barras has him—”
Scorio hit Barras with his aura as someone blasted him from behind. The fireworks were still going off across the ceiling so he curved the Shroud down and around behind him, blocking most of the explosive bombardments even as he screamed point blank into Barras’s face.
STOP!
The command hit the woman like a bat and she momentarily relinquished her power. Scorio exploded back into full speed and hammered his elbow across her face, knocking her horizontal in the air, her feet lifting right up as he charged past her.
A tousle-haired young woman squared off against him, hair dyed pink and cut short, her face cast into a determined glare even as the air between them burst into a mass of spiderwebbing that stretched from floor to ceiling to walls.
Spiderwebbing that was razor sharp. Scorio’s forearm split into a mass of cuts as he tried to brush his way through. Hissing he skidded to a stop. Attacks were still coming from above and behind, preventing him from using his Shroud, so he slashed at the webbing with this talons and split it apart.
The pink-haired woman screamed and hurled herself forward, disregarding the filaments that cut through her, the sound of her cry stunning Scorio, causing the walls and floor to swim around him.
Dazed, shocked by the vehemence of her cry, he staggered back and concentrated his aura on her: SILENCE!
Her cry grew muted, enough that he stepped inside her guard and got to work hammering her apart, elbows and knees, pounding her so that she bent, fell to one knee, then fell back sprawling.
Scorio slashed his way forward, tearing at the webbing, Shroud still taking punishment, another six or seven Great Souls yet before him. One, a disaffected young man with a bulbous nose and floppy black hair had manifested a revolving crown of flame above whose tines spun small rocks. The first of these flew at Scorio, growing rapidly in size.
Instinct caused Scorio to bring the Shroud about and the rock hit and exploded with terrifying power, sending huge cracks running through its curvature.
The blasts from behind picked up in intensity; each now was rocking Scorio where he stood, shattering his scales, concussing him with each detonation. With a hiss, Scorio drew his chalk and spun down and around, sealing off the hallway behind him with one scrawl of the short white nub.
The razor webbing suddenly released the walls and wrapped around him like a thousand garottes.
Scorio snarled, raked his talons down his own length, severing the wires and flared his Gold mana, causing his Heart to burn twice as bright.
Raw power filled him.
For all his foe’s talents they were burning Copper and Iron.
Scorio roared and pounded forward, slashing the filaments as they reformed, his scales crisscrossed by the finest of lacerations, and slammed his fist into a young woman’s face, crumpling the architecture of her skull, then dove under another flung meteor to come up and tackle the crowned Great Soul and bear him to the ground, slashing his Shroud apart and palming his face to hammer his head into the flagstones.
A handsome woman with raven black hair and a singular eyepatch over her left eye reared up before him, a blade of living lightning in her fist. She brought it down with a cry and Scorio reached up to catch it in his fist, stopping it cold.
Her eye widened as he snarled up at her, waves of enervating energy washing down his arm.
It was a lethal weapon, but merely fueled by Copper.
Scorio flexed his wrist and the living lightning dispersed. He rose and head butted the woman. She dropped like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
Heaving for breath, Scorio rose and stalked toward the two remaining Great Souls. They looked terrified. Had a couple of their number fled?
Twin Shrouds appeared before him.
Scorio shattered them.
The fireworks had died. The blasts from behind were blocked by his chalk’s wall of force. One of the Great Souls gave a sharp cry and the ground beneath Scorio’s feet turned to sucking mud, thick as pitch and strong.
“Back up, back up,” he cried, his rough features distorted by fear. “That’ll hold him.”
The second, a doll of a woman with long black hair that flowed like a veil over her bony shoulders, had one palm raised. A pinprick of light was slowly growing there, endlessly consuming her Iron mana.
“Just hold him,” she shouted. “A few moments more!”
The entirety of the hallway between them liquefied into that dense tar. Crossing it would be impossible.
So Scorio leaped and willed his wings to burst forth. They tore free of his back with a snap, and to Scorio’s surprise their breadth was the width of the large hall, perhaps three yards aside instead of their previously majestic six.
It meant he had to beat them rapidly, burning up more of his remaining Gold mana as he flew forward.
“How the hell?!” demanded the guy even as the woman panicked and hurled her mote of light.
Again Scorio swung his Shroud before him, but this time it shattered when the mote struck it. The blast wrapped around Scorio, plucked him from the air and hurled him tumbling back to fall upon the ground and roll clear.
The pink-haired girl leaped upon him with a knife and began stabbing furiously at his neck, her every wound healed.
Scorio blinked, dazed, his forearms where he’d crossed them badly burned and devoid of scales.
But with a grunt he sat up and headbutted the pink-haired girl in the face, sending her sprawling.
Down the hall, the remaining Great Souls gaped.
“That’s…” The woman tried to find her voice. “He can’t…”
Scorio flipped up to this feet and leaped, wings extending with a powerful beat that sent him streaming down the hall. Both Hydra Great Souls yelled in alarm and turned to run.
Scorio clipped them each in the back of the head as he retracted his wings, falling into a run as they collapsed behind him.
Biting down a roar of fury he sprinted down the rest of the hall only to stagger to a stop before charging through the end doors into the cross hall.
Davelos was in his Gold form. That meant his intellect was formidable. He’d opted to flee and allow Scorio to wear himself down on a mass of Hydra Great Souls. That didn’t mean he’d continue his blind escape.
Scorio glanced back at the scattered bodies. Great Souls lay either completely still or were slowly picking themselves off the floor. Scorio eyed the door through which Davelos had fled, then jogged lightly back up the hall toward the council room.