As limbs erupted all around the blade, it held its own, at least for a few seconds. Tentacles made of snake organs and claws made of its bones parted almost as easily as the weeds and roots that reached up from the dark mud to try to capture it. Some of those last ones, the blade didn't even have to cut. They were so thin that they simply ripped as the weapon's wielder moved.

That stalemate didn't last for long, though, for it would seem the Hag's words were not a simple figure of speech. Almost as soon as it switched stances so it could drive more power through its wielder's hips, a sinkhole developed beneath its feet. It didn't even have the chance to leap free because there was nothing solid to push off of.

Instead, it grabbed on to one of the snake's giant bones as it fell and threw itself skyward with its knight's offhand, bathing the onrushing wall of muddy flesh in hellfire that set the strange mouth to screaming again. It could have just as easily used bolt, but it was trying to save its more powerful abilities for later in the fight, should the need arise. Mud didn't burn well, but it did burn, as the wave of angry mud buried the ground that might have been its grave, the blade analyzed the situation while it hung in the air for a brief moment.

-20 Life Force.

Visually, its enemy barely existed anymore. There were only a few scattered body parts and a field of lumpy mud. It might have been the picked-over scene of slaughter that was days or weeks old. Etherically, though, things were far different.

The mud hid many things. It hid the bones of other older deaths that were slowly forming into something larger. More interestingly, though, it hid the reach of Princess Rizzeldah. She seemed unimpressive so far, but her powers seemed to have a reach that was at least as large as its Aura of Hunger. She was drawing power from all directions to this focal point, and while she might not have any minions, it wasn't entirely clear that she needed any.

They would only get in the way, the Ebon Blade decided as it fell to earth.

If she had minions she cared about, then she wouldn't be able to use as wide a reach, nor as heavy a hand. That hadn't saved the snake, but then it was possible that she planned to reconstitute it once this fight was done.

She might have been the snake for all I know, the blade said to itself as it landed and the semisolid earth erupted around it in all directions, leaving a creator behind.

The Hag hadn't had the chance to undermine that particular spot yet, but the blade could see the threads change as soon as it landed as she started to. She was reversing course, too, coming up and out of the depths with a massive new form.

This might have been the troll that the previous soul had spoken of. The Ebon Blade wasn't sure. It wasn't like any troll it had ever heard of. The thing was twenty-five feet tall and made of more earth than flesh. Worse, it got larger with every step as it sucked in more power from the swamp around it.

At such a height, it only needed the stride twice to reach the blade, but the weapon was ready for the monster. The earthen giant sought to kick its wielder into the distance like a ball with its first attack. The blade deftly side-stepped that, moving impossibly fast for a single instant, and removing the thing's foot with a single Amplified Blow.

-10 Life Force.

+84 Life Force.

Against a mortal creature that would have been the end of the fight as it fell onto its back, but even as its stump was making contact with the ground, it was already reforming into a new foot. Additionally, spines launched from the leg quite unnaturally, showering it with sharp projectiles that did nothing to its armor.

-2 Life Force.

The giant sought to pounce on the blade next, putting its entire bulk to work, but that fared little better. It was simply too fast for such a large foe and danced circles around the Hag's strikes, repeated punches, and kicks.

If not for the sucking mud working against it, the fight would have been won handily. As it was, though, the blade only barely stayed ahead of the faster attacks. Still, it whittled her down slowly but surely. Still, it didn't make real progress until it started lighting her gigantic form ablaze with ugly green hellfire. That didn't make the Hag any prettier, but it did make the muddy giant fall apart in minutes as she sought to escape the burning.

-20 Life Force.

Even that was not enough to kill her, apparently. After that gigantic form dissolved into the mud again, the fight took on a different character. The Hag knew what damage it could do, so she fought defensively, holding back her vitals at a depth that was well beyond the blade's reach unless it used lightning, but even that was largely ineffective.

-40 Life Force.

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+134 Life Force.

Still, even fighting defensively, she moved with the grace of an avalanche, with great sweeping walls of earth and stone. Only once in dozens of attacks did she manage to drag the blade and its wielder below, but when she did, it very nearly lost.

It wasn't the crushing strength she exhibited, either, or the titanic strength that made its metal wielder groan and creak as Life Force poured from it. It was all the little pieces of plant that had become attached to it in the previous fighting. Up until now, the weapon had shrugged off those light blows.

-1348 Life Force.

Now it could see that was a mistake. All at once, a thousand tiny weeds took root in the soil that surrounded it, sporting and blossoming as they started to wrap it up like a leafy cocoon. While those tiny bonds wrapped themselves around it tighter and tighter, the blade could hear its captor taunting or gloating, but it couldn't make out many of the guttural subsonic words.

-778 Life Force.

The blade had only one option, and that was to light itself ablaze with hellfire. That worked well enough, though the flames were hot enough to eat at the soulsteel itself when used in this way. It was a small price to pay to burn away the plants. Even then, it might not have gotten free had its captor not withdrawn from the painful blaze.

-510 Life Force.

That was when it used bolt to soar free of her trap and begin the fight anew. Since it was unable to dodge or parry all of her titanic blows, it used Eye for an Eye on several occasions, but this was largely counterproductive.

-922 Life Force.

While it did terrific damage and ripped whatever construct she was using apart, as it leveraged her own strength against her. However, every blow that landed still cost it hundreds of Life Force, and even that wasn't so much in the grand scheme of things; eventually, it would add up. In a tit for tat battle against someone who was the very earth upon which it stood, it knew that eventually it would come up short.

What would affect her, though, it wondered. Fire? Lighting? Ice? I've tried all of those, but even fire's impact seems limited, much as she hates it.

Hellfire was impossible to extinguish. So, it still burned here and there in pockets beneath the mud as she tried and failed to smother the blaze, but those smoldering wounds weren't slowing the Hag down too much.

With its options waning, the weapon flipped through its list of abilities, looking for something novel. None of its bleeding powers would do anything, so it skipped all of those.

After that, it tried to disrupt her, but that accomplished nothing. Then its eyes landed upon another option, and it tried an ability it had eschewed up until now, Poison Blade. Not only was poison dishonorable, but it was counterproductive for it in most cases. The blade didn't want to burn or poison Life Energy away whenever it could. It wanted to drink every last drop.

This time, though, it made an exception, and that exception produced almost immediate results. The Demon Princess muted her scream in an attempt to hide the damage, but the blade could see the way the muddy earth and the threads that composed that earth trampled at the touch of its toxic venom, and felt certain it had found a real weakness.

-140 Life Force.

+282 Life Force.

The Hag battered it with several waves of violent earth, but the difference this time was that she was not trying to drag it under to crush it. She was trying to push the knight that wielded it away from her. All she wanted was to be rid of it, but it was too late for that. She'd started this fight, and it would not end until she was dead.

The Ebon Blade didn't run. Instead, it met each attack with a poison slash of its own. Eventually, she retreated, but there was no point. Up until now, for this fight, the fact that she was everywhere and everything had been a huge advantage, but now that the blade knew how to leverage that against her, it was a millstone around her neck. Just like the snake had found out at the start of this, being unable to escape it was a serious disadvantage.

The blade plunged itself into the soil as deep as it would go, injecting more points again and again. It was using itself as a farmer might use a tool, but the only thing that it was seeding was death. Poison and acid poured out of it and into the mud, killing the woman who wielded it for several feet.

+331 Life Force

Each would was a stake pinning her to the earth, but slowly each wound became a bar in her cage. It wasn't clear what vital organs she had, but from the way she twisted and writhed, she was seeking to protect some core. Sometimes these defensive efforts would be trying to move suddenly in some unexpected way, but other times she would lash out weekly with an attack.

After a time, it didn't even attempt to dodge these. She lacked the strength to deliver it any serious blow at this point, and limbs of wood or bone that dared to rise to the surface were quickly pruned away. At that point, it became an endurance match, but it was impossible for it to lose an endurance match when you were feasting on your opponent's strength, and even without Red Haze, every blow returned more energy to it than it used.

Eventually, the wailing, the fighting, and even the squirming stopped. Still, the Ebon Blade didn't let up until it saw the notification that it had taken her soul. The battle had taken half a day, and the last hour felt like it was stabbing a long-dead corpse, but that final notification made it all worth it, and the weapon took a moment to study the soul. It was an ugly, amorphous thing that was so dark it couldn't make out any details. Unsure of what to do with it for now, though he let it rest in its soul stone with everyone else, it did take the opportunity to devour a few more succulent human souls of no importance.

+698 Life Force.

+1 Demon Princess Soul.

Part of it expected the world to vanish since, in a very real sense, Princess Rizzeldah was the earth, but even in death, the mud hadn't vanished. As it stood on the remains of the trunk, it watched the soil around it harden as the water drained toward the nearby lake that was its next destination. If it had a name, the weapon didn't know it, but distantly it could see an island through the fog, and on that island was its next goal.

It looked at the log of the giant toppled tree and tried to decide if it was possible to make a boat out of it. While it was theoretically possible to do so, it had no idea how, so reluctantly, it started walking to the water's edge.

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