Chapter 31: Ellamir's Savagery
Bereft of her shadow armor, Ellamir prostrated before the scornful gorgon. As her head was close enough to hit the ground, her contempt manifested by biting her lower lip as hard as she could.
Ellamir would forgo her own dignity just to save Antani, but that doesn't mean she could easily ignore the massive blow it did on her pride as royalty.
How readily Ellamir bent to her threat greatly amused Zisha. The Gorgon will have a lot of fun tormenting the poor princess.
"Gahahaha! A royalty groveling without a second thought, you're a fucking riot! Now stay there where you belong unless you want your precious lover to get shattered into pieces."
Ellamir's right hand hit the ground. Her breathing was close to hyperventilating as her chest was filled with anger, her eye was moist and threatened to burst like a damn.
The Gorgon stood Antani's statue upright.
"What the hell are you doing!?" Ellamir's teary eye widened.
"What does it look like, you dumb fuck? I'm checking her out!" Zisha's hands traced the petrified Amazon's toned physique. Scrumptious arms, powerful thighs, and let's not forget those juicy abs. The gorgon likened it to a statue chiseled by a master artisan. "No wonder you made her your lover! Gahahaha!"
Zisha's perversion infuriated Ellamir to no end. Be it flesh or stone, she would not let anyone put their hands on Antani like that.
As soon as the dark elf moved, Zisha's entire tail coiled around the Amazon.
"I told you not to fucking move! Go ahead, try me!" Zisha's warning once again froze Ellamir in place.
Underneath her mask, the gorgon smiled with malice. Her tail still wrapped around the Amazon, keeping her hostage while her upper body leered forward to better face Ellamir.
Zisha's elation rose upon imagining the dark elf emotionally devastated. It was time she started the show.
"You want to come closer, right? Go ahead, approach me."
Doing as she was told, Ellamir approached the masked gorgon with caution.
With only inches away from Antani, Ellamir wracked her brain on how she could remove the snake coiled around her.
"I know what you're thinking, give it up. If you so much as manifest your shadow armor or raise your hand against me, I will crush your precious lover into rubble."
Ellamir glared at the snake woman, not bothering to hide that she wanted to skin her alive if she could.
"Now then, let us measure how much you can take for your beloved. Collapse and my coil will shatter her to pieces."
For Antani, there is nothing that Ellamir wouldn't endure, she would swallow a thousand needles if it meant that Antani would return to her alive.
"Do your…" *pak*
Ellamir's head swayed from the impact, she was unable to finish her sentence as Zisha's palm smacked Antani's left cheek.
"What was that?" Zisha questioned.
"I said, you can do your…" *pak*
This time it was Ellamir's right cheek.
"Come again?"
"I'll say it as many times as…" *pak*
Zisha slapped Ellamir's left cheek again.
After countless repeats, Zisha's palms started to sting. If it was that bad for her palms, she could only imagine how worse it was for Ellamir.
The Gorgon's hands balled to a fist. Zisha's right caved into Ellamir's stomach, bending the poor dark elf forward. Mercilessly, Zisha followed it up by a left hook to Ellamir's jaw.
Ellamir spit blood at the gorgon's face. Her teeth marred with blood, she smiles at her tormentor. "I've seen gnomes hit harder than you."
Ellamir's defiance had earned her a straight into her face, she staggered a bit backwards but she didn't dare fall.
Zisha's unrelenting beating continued until Ellamir was a bloody mess. Her vision red while her knees wobbled but she kept her gaze focused on the petrified Antani, it was the only thing preventing her collapse.
The Gorgon's bruised knuckles were an indicator that she already had enough fun.
"I lied, there is no way to bring her back."
"W-what?" Ellamir had difficulty making out what the gorgon was saying, her ears rung due to the vicious beating she had received.
"I said I lied, there is no way to bring your precious lover back. All of her had been turned into stone, even her beating heart."
Before the Gorgon's words could sink in, her tail constricted, shattering the Amazon's statue before Ellamir's hazy eye.
Zisha lingered for a bit, she wanted to view Ellamir drowning in the deepest depths of despair.
The Gorgon's blows were nothing compared to the sight of Antani crushed into rubble, instantly bringing Ellamir down on her knees.
Ellamir crawled towards broken pieces. Her brain was unable to process the loss, or rather it didn't want to. With desperation she tried to gather all of Antani's numerous pieces in her arms. It was futile since they were too many and would always slip. She didn't care, she would bring all of her back to the city.
Antani would be healed. She would smile at her again, she would make love to her again, she would tease her again.
Satisfied with what Zisha had put Ellamir through, the gorgon was ready to claim the rest of her reward now.
As a farewell gift, Zisha's tail slammed Ellamir's side. The dark elf rolled to the ground, the stone pieces she had desperately gathered were scattered around.
Zisha's slam brought some clarity back into Ellamir amidst her anguished stupor. Something that Zisha would soon gravely regret.
The dark elf's eye focused upon the back of the now leaving gorgon.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Zisha turned around to find Ellamir standing, her footing uneven, her left eye glared at her while tears trickled from it.
The gorgon grins, "Surely you're not planning on fighting me in such a pathetic state?
In the blink of an eye, Ellamir's shadow armor covered her.
"No, I'm not going to fight you…" A torrent of black mana erupted from Ellamir's armor alongside a howl filled with anguish.
The very air trembled from the killing intent exuded by the maelstrom of shadows. While inside, the sound of a thousand branches snapping could be heard as Ellamir's armor metamorphosed.
The shadows faded, revealing Ellamir's towering new form with eight legs. Part dark elf, part spider, all carnage. Its shade was that of bottomless dark, as if she was wearing the abyss herself. The Drider armor.
"... I'm going to fucking tear you apart, from limb to tail!"
Zisha cowered. How was this possible!? Ellamir was giving the same malevolent aura as her mother. The very same aura that made her reptilian instinct tremble with fear!
Power surged through Ellamir's bloodstream, her newfound strength was ten times more potent than before. Yet no matter how much she wanted to rejoice, she could not. The cost for obtaining the power was too great.
"What's the matter, spider got your tongue?"
As her shadow armor had evolved, its new ability immediately made itself apparent, the ability to sense fear.
The Gorgon slinked away as fast as she could, the trees she passed started to become a blur due to her speed, but no matter how fast she slithered Ellamir always loomed from behind. The indignity of a predator becoming hunted mattered little, for if the black mass of hatred ever caught up to her, she would surely be dead.
What trees the gorgon had to maneuver and evade, Ellamir simply had to trample over. Now that Ellamir had acclimated to her new form, it was now time to end the chase. After all, she hadn't sprinted yet.
Ellamir's eight legs burst forth with speed, with a single swipe she got a hold of Zisha's tail.
"Caught you!" Ellamir held the gorgon upside down in the air as her hand firmly grips her snake tail.
Now face to face with the towering monstrosity, Zisha quickly discarded her pride, "Please, don't kill me! Y-you want gold? I'll give you everything I have!"
Ellamir tilted her head, "Already begging? Wonderful, your spirit breaks easily! It fills me with joy knowing that you won't be able to withstand what I'm about to do to you."
With Antani gone Ellamir's black heart had once again resurfaced. By the time she's done with the Gorgon she's going to make the snake wish that she hadn't crossed her path.
Ellamir tightened her hold at Zisha's tail, she swung the gorgon and smacked Zisha's back on a nearby tree.
The booming thud was immediately followed by Zisha's guttural scream. Ellamir had broken her spine. The dark elf released her hold on Zisha's tail so she could watch her crawl on the ground like a worm.
Her lower half unmoving, Zisha did her best to ignore the pain and used her arms to crawl away from Ellamir.
Ellamir's hands were about to reach for Zisha when the gorgon turned around and used her petrify spell on Ellamir. The bright light originating from Zisha's unmasked face worked as if to repel the encroaching darkness.
Ellamir's entirety was turned into stone, her hand was petrified only inches away from grabbing Zisha's head.
The gorgon sighed in relief.
Zisha would surely face the queen's wrath but that was something she could prepare for, Ellamir's transformation was a catastrophe that nearly took her life.
How spread a God's blessing determines its potency. For the dark elves, to which Lolth only bequeathed to their royal bloodline, bordered on the cataclysmic.
Ellamir's stone prison shattered, her previously petrified hand resumed its action and reached for the Gorgon's snake hairs.
Suspended once again in the air, Zisha's screamed mixed with both terror and disbelief.
"Impossible! No one can withstand a gorgon's gaze!"
"I just did."
Ellamir would have shared the same fate as Antani had her armor remained at its second phase. Her current one had been transmogrified into one of unfathomable might and durability. Its magic resistance is now able to withstand even a spell bestowed by another deity.
Zisha tried to remove Ellamir's grip from hair but her strength worthy of a snake warrior amounted to nothing more than a newborn babe's when compared to Ellamir's.
"Please, forgive me! I was only doing it for my people!"
While it is true that she did act on her warijan guild's pride, Zisha's motivation was first and foremost money, she doubts that Ellamir would let her go for such base motives.
"Forgiveness!? Kyahahaha! You have long been sentenced dead the moment you…"
Ellamir's ominous cackle faded once she got reminded of the fate of her lover. Underneath her armor, her battered face was teeming with both wrath and vitriol.
The dark elf plowed Zisha's face into the ground with such force that her mask immediately shattered along with her nose.
Ellamir raised her up again.
"Let me show you how to properly prostrate before royalty! Gaaaah!"
Ellamir roared with fury as she kept banging Zisha's head over and over. With the gorgon about to pass out, Ellamir Elevated her close to her face once more.
"Don't pass out now, we've only just begun! Kyahahaha!"
+++
Zisha was beaten into a bloody pulp as she laid on the ground. Her bones were broken, her stomach punctured, and her intestines crushed. She could no longer see through the red veil that clouded her vision. In a few seconds she would succumb to her wounds.
Ellamir found no satisfaction, in torturing the snake woman anymore. She would gladly continue if it meant that it would bring Antani back, but it was all for naught.
As she watched the gorgon dying before her, her thoughts were now on how she would storm into her mother's palace and enact the same brutality that she had inflicted to the gorgon towards her very own mother.
But queen Zorla's plan would be denied, for the Gods have use for Antani yet. Had it not been for the enormous gravity of the role she and her party would play in the future, this should have been the moment that her and Ellamir's path diverged.
A divine glow was emitted in what used to be pieces of Antani's dragon tooth bracelet.
Like time had rewound itself, Antani's shattered pieces coalesced into one. Soon, she was freed from her petrification as the stone covering her entire body broke. She welcomed her second life with heavy gasps. She could not believe that she had just died, and resurrected both at the same day.
+++
"Ellamir, is that you?"
Ellamir was startled to hear a voice so familiar. Could it be?
The dark elf turned around.
There she was, standing before Ellamir. Her hand reached out softly but she was afraid, what if the one before her was just a phantasm? A delusion that would disappear with a single touch. And so, her hand extended but never made contact.
Antani dispelled her anxiety by touching Ellamir's palm with hers.
Even with her armor there is no mistaking it, it was the same touch that would set her heart aflutter everytime. She dispelled her shadow armor and immediately leapt into Antani's embrace.
Ellamir's knees already gave out but Antani acted as her pillar, supporting her both emotionally and physically. In return Ellamir wrapped her arms as tight as she could around Antani, hinting that never again would she let Antani leave her side.
Antani questioned Ellamir, "What happened to you? You look like shit."
Ellamir could only smile.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone