So long as she kept the hunter from finishing the job.
The doll twitched her head ever so slightly in Eva’s direction. “This… human is a troublesome opponent. He doesn’t move like a human.”
“Fighting is taking its toll on him,” Eva said, swinging her head back around to face the hunter full-on.
He was just standing there, panting for breath. He gripped his dagger tight in his hand.
For all the similarities between wards and enchantments, Eva couldn’t actually tell if it was magical or not. His sword gave off a feeling of revulsion that made Eva want to avoid it. But his dagger looked utterly normal to her eyes.
The bones in his body were slightly misaligned. Especially down in his legs. Were he to take off his boots, he would probably need a cast for several weeks. There were a couple of spots that looked as if they had broken clean through. He was held up thanks only to the rigid armor he wore.
Of course, Eva fully intended to help him avoid such a dismal fate.
“I don’t think he was meant to be in such a prolonged battle. So long as we keep him from escaping, he will wear down until he makes a mistake.”
“I would prefer if this ended sooner. I do have other business I must attend.”
Like standing around, frozen in indecision?
Eva almost spoke her thoughts, but the doll had moved before she could open her mouth.
Rather than follow after only to find that the hunter had moved before she got there, Eva waited. There was almost no chance that he would attempt to engage with the doll using only the dagger. Either he would reveal some other trick from up his sleeve or he would be forced to move.
If he didn’t… well, no need for Eva to get involved in that case.
The second before the doll reached the hunter, he vanished. As Eva expected.
He was dashing back towards the web wall in a straight beeline.
Straight to his sword and Arachne.
Eva blinked towards him with a snarl. Three rapid blinks to disguise her intentions. One to his left, one to his right, and finally one right in his path. Eva kicked off some of the slowly freezing blood to dodge a downward slash of his knife. On her way, she raked the jagged tips of her claws across his armor.
It wasn’t the weak points. Her claws scraped across his chest and arms, shedding thousands of tiny shards into the air. A few even got caught in his armor.
She blinked just a short distance away before he could properly retaliate, clapping her hands together even before she had fully rematerialized. Eva made sure to target only the crystalline shards. Normally, when she clapped her hands, she obliterated any blood that wasn’t near her body. That usually covered any attacks she had thrown. A few special cases, such as when she amputated her legs, required more precise targeting.
In this case, such indiscretion could be bad. She had considered just detonating the entire battlefield. But who knew how much debris would fly around. Not to mention the problem of Arachne. The spider-demon was lying right in the middle of the deepest puddle. Theoretically, she could try only exploding the pooled blood around him.
Theoretically, she could accidentally explode it all.
Not to mention the fact that he froze the blood around him. That would give him enough of a buffer that his armor could probably take any residual impact from the still-liquid blood.
Loud snaps accompanied the clap of her hands. Pockmarks dotted his breastplate and arm guards. A few of the holes even started bleeding, especially those around his arms. Not much red liquid dripped out of the holes. But Eva could still see it. It dripped down his arms, pooling inside his armor.
More important were the holes. Openings for a second, deeper attack.
The hunter had to break off his charge for the sword. Eva’s interception bought time for the doll to close the distance. Again, the hunter chose to retreat rather than meet her blade. He moved quick enough that Eva couldn’t follow. Somewhere to the side.
Eva heard a soft groan just behind her. She started to turn.
Only to feel the cold edge of a blade against her throat.
“Stop her,” the hunter hissed with wet words. Though her back was to him, she could clearly see blood splatter against the inside of his helmet. “And you get to live,” he added after taking in a labor-filled lungful of air.
Her first thought was to simply blink away. She could. She had just before been blinking around him, so he didn’t have any sort of mobile anti-teleportation wards about him.
In front of Eva, the doll was approaching. Not with the speed that she normally used, but walking. The heels of her leather boots made slight ripples in the sea of black blood as she moved. Her sword was held downwards in a single hand with her arm stretched at a slight angle to keep the tip from touching the ground or the liquid.
Her eyes stared forwards with a certain coldness that Eva might have otherwise ascribed to only Ylva. Only, they lacked the dead milky grey of Ylva’s eyes, being a vibrant silver instead.
For some reason, staring into those eyes, Eva got the distinct impression that the doll wouldn’t hesitate to run her through to reach the hunter. It would probably resolve her indecision as well.
More to the point of the hunter’s request, Eva doubted she would be able to stop the doll. At least, not without fighting. Fighting the doll didn’t seem like it was the smartest idea.
So Eva just stood still. She spent a moment, listening to the heavy breathing of the hunter behind her. Each breath came in strained and sounded as if he were gargling blood with every exhale.
It was a wonder he was even standing.
“Tell her to stand down,” he hissed into Eva’s ear as he dug his blade deeper into her throat. It was still not quite cutting. He held it at just the right angle to where most of the pressure came from the flat of the blade rather than the edge.
Even if he did twist his arm, Eva doubted it would be that troublesome to deal with. Small cuts could be healed in an instant. Even deeper gouges could be repaired or at least contained with assistance from her dagger.
In contrast to his already fast heartbeats increasing in speed, Eva was the epitome of calm.
She had a plan.
She just needed a few more seconds.
It would be nice if the doll would hurry up.
To be fair to the doll, her languid approach might possibly be an attempt to give Eva the time to escape. Eva wasn’t sure if the doll would or even could think along those lines, but the only other option was that she was moving for intimidation purposes.
Smelling the rancid stink of sweat pouring out of the hunter’s armor, Eva doubted that he needed anything more to intimidate him.
Tapping her leg, Eva gave the slightest jerk of her head towards the hunter. Just moving her neck a fraction of a hair in the hopes that the doll might hurry up.
While she could escape, as she had already considered, doing so would just continue the chicken chase around the arena.
The doll apparently got the message or got tired of waiting. She kicked off the ground, sending a wave of black blood high into the air as she rocketed forwards.
Eva felt the hunter tense through his armor. She wasn’t sure if he tensed to run or to slice her throat.
Shedding the larger portion of her crystalline claws to avoid jabbing herself in the face, Eva snapped her regular claws up to the hunter’s arm. She clamped down, holding his arm, and the rest of him, in place.
The dagger he had half stuck into her neck didn’t even factor into her concerns.
She was too busy watching the doll.
Three more steps, Eva thought. Two.
Once the doll raised her sword to strike, Eva released the hunter and blinked away.
A clang of metal on metal echoed across the battlefield.