Myths and Gargoyles by Jamie Hawke (interesting books to read in english txt) 📕

I took a step toward her, my staff with the Liahona very much at the ready. “Lack of judgment, character… honor—what does that all add up to?”

“None of that will matter to you when you’re dead.” She scoffed. “When you and your team are gone from this world, and nobody remembers the simpletons who tried to stop their goddess from ruling. All they will remember is me.”

“My bet, if all that came to be? All they’d remember is your inability to shut up.”

She laughed, held out a hand, and let her smile linger. “Come, boy. Let me show you what a real woman is capable of.”

“Gladly.” I thrust out with a Liahona-amplified version of my ice claw spell, so that hundreds of ice claws shot out at her, some going straight in, others spinning around like a blizzard before moving in for the attack.

Her smile faded as she worked her counter spell, throwing walls around herself and a flash of fire and lightning that cut through my spell and sent an attack of flames at me. My ice wall and stone skin came to mind, but then I had a better idea. I was here in Avalon, a land I was now fundamentally connected to. My transmutation powers, if they would work anywhere, should work there.

I simply had the ground raise between us, blocking her spell, and then I shifted the ground so that I moved to her rear, lashing out there with another spell. I had the air around her cut out, but she became a shadow that moved through to cut around back toward me from the other side. Again, I shifted the land and air, and again she was freed from my spell by the power of her magic.

Which made me realize something—magic, mine against hers… wasn’t going to cut it. However, I knew my runes well enough now, at least a good amount of them, and if there was a way to make a stable rune, that could maybe do the trick. So, instead of shifting the ground to my advantage in a fight, I had it give way, enveloping us until we were in the lower levels of the rock and sand, engulfed. At the same time, I shaped the surrounding land into the runes.

No magic, no other rune effects.

She fell to the ground in front of me, and I loomed over her.

“You’d do it like this?” she asked, brushing sand off her robes as she tried to stand up to face me. “Wouldn’t you rather go magic against magic? I mean, casting a spell is so much… easier to swallow than slamming a lady in the face with your fist, isn’t it?”

“How many innocents have you killed?”

She shrugged. “Immeasurable.”

I nodded. “In my book, that’s where the definition of lady stops applying.”

“Very well, then, do your worst.”

She tore her robes so that she was left in basically a skirt and half-top, turning to face me with hands up, legs spread in a fighting stance. I should have figured that with all of her years alive, she would have learned to fight physically as well as magically. I’d hoped not, but should have known better.

I, on the other hand, was still only in possession of fairly basic fighting skills.

But that didn’t mean shit when compared to her insane amount of magical power. So, I charged forward, sidestepped as she tried to take out my leg, and caught her with a haymaker punch to the forehead. Fuck, that hurt my fist, but at least it caused her to stumble back.

“Who the fuck punches someone in the forehead?” she asked, as she came at me again. This time, I wasn’t so lucky. Her first kick swept out one of my legs. Her next caught me in the side on my way down, so that I went flying a couple of paces away from her. Next, she followed me to the ground, slamming me in the solar plexus before going for the groin. First mistake—like any self-respecting man, I’d had years of practice and muscle memory in regard to blocking my balls from being hurt, so was ready in spite of my other pain. And, once I had her, I pulled her in and rolled with her, then head-butted her in the face. Only problem? I had no idea how to properly headbutt someone. It looks easy when they do it in the films but we both connected nose to nose, teeth hitting teeth, and fell away from each other covered in blood.

“Who the fuck taught you to fight?” she shouted, trying to push herself to her feet but losing balance and falling over.

“I don’t have to look cool doing it, as long as I win,” I countered, and had her in a choke hold. At least I had wrestled with friends growing up, so knew this one.

She was scratching, trying to hit me with the back of her head, and thrashing about. But in that moment, I saw the amulet that Fatiha had been wearing. It hit me then that there was only one way. To defeat her, I had to absorb her. The magic was off, but that didn’t matter. I snatched the amulet, tightened my grip around her neck, and then let the runes go so that magic returned.

She started laughing, shocks of electricity flowing out of her and racking my body with pain. But that didn’t bother me.

I pulled her close to me, making the final draw from her energy into myself. As she began to vanish, to crumble away and burst into light that flew around me before entering my body and filling me with incomprehensible power, I felt a tinge of sorrow. These legendary women all now in her, once immortal, were coming to an end.

All of the Nine but Mizoa and Glitonea, gone. Oh, and Morgen, whose presence we still had no clue about.

In a burst of energy, I fell to the ground, but instead of collapsing, knelt and roared with the