D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

Kat's mind blitzed through her options as fast as she could, but Seralina was no slouch and was rapidly approaching for the 'final' blow to finish Kat off. Kat quickly considered and dismissed all her abilities until, she remembered her most recently acquired and least used ability so far.

*Dream walking.* As soon as Kat focused on the idea, she exploded into mist and engulfed Seralina's face. Kat found herself in a black void, but before she could get her bearings a sharp pain lanced through her mind stopping any rational thought.

Then suddenly, Kat was back, and being flung away from Seralina's head, with an uncountable number of Kat's all leaking black blood as she flew. From the outside, starting when Kat went up in smoke, it looked like she simply disappeared into Seralina, for all of three seconds.

Seralina's eyes sharpened, and when she shook her head to clear it, Kat was ejected during one of the shakes sending her flying. Her form was rapidly rebuilding itself, but purple smoke trailed behind her as she slammed into the wall.

Kat grimaced, as she got to her feet, tearing open a few of her recently gained wounds that she hadn't quite gotten to heal yet and looked up at Seralina. She saw the Lamia's eyes were still rather dazed and she was continuing to shake her head in an effort to regain her focus.

Kat took the time to take stock and let herself heal. Her cuts were disappearing quickly but so was her energy. Despite not using any of her demonic flames she was already down to just under a half of her energy. *Shit. I guess that dream walking trick is probably what cost me so much energy. Something clearly went wrong, and it's probably because Seralina was still awake.

I wonder if it was the ability itself or the fact that I was kicked out that cost me so much. Not to mention my wounds are still burning through more to heal them up… actually now that I'm concentrating I'm seeing them take a bit more than normal I think? Perhaps I also damaged my energy channels a bit with that stunt. Oof, that might have been more dangerous than I thought…*

Before Kat could really consider the issue any further Seralina managed to regain her mind. Spotting Kat standing, 'fully healed' but in a pile of blood she said. "That isss sssuch bullsshit. You have teleportation?"

Seeing that Seralina was actually giving her the chance to answer, Kat pulled herself to her feet and shook her head while saying. "No, I don't, I have poor survival instincts and a dream walking ability"

Seralina opened her large mouth. Closed it. Opened it once more, before closing it again and switching her head back to her humanoid form just to shrug, before changing back and lunging at Kat. It wasn't very serious though, Kat could tell, and it was less than half the speed of all previous attacks.

Taking the opening for what it was, Kat easily dodged the strike and made it away from the wall... Only to be forced to raise her hands up into a crude guard to take Seralina's tail strike. *Of course. She was being nice, but not THAT nice. I suppose this is a spar so it's all fine but I mean… rude!*

Kat forced her energy to the limit causing her arms to leak purple mist and slammed said arms into Seralina's tail to try and counter the force. A loud boom rang out as the limbs made contact with each other. Kat felt her muscles straining against the much greater weight of Seralina's body. Kat's bones shook under the blow as well… but Kat gave a second push, and managed to throw off the tail.

Seralina hissed, and twisted her way around to try and block her tail from view, but Kat noticed the sharp movement, and realised that despite not knocking Seralina's tail back all that far, it had been rather drastically damaged, and most of the back of Seralina's tail now had broken and bent scales to show for it.

*So, her scales are good, but not quite that good. In a direct contest of strength, she might just edge me out a bit, but my more focused attacks can break and damage her scales. I don't know how far I want to take this though… do I really want to just go and break all her scales?*

Kat then remembered that Seralina was a giant snake, with very little else she could attack other then her ribs and spine. So, unless she wanted to try and knock the other demon out, she was actually rather lacking in ways to subdue.

Seralina charged Kat again, not even taking the time to coil up. She was slithering as fast as she could, but Kat noticed that while it was faster than the previous charge, Seralina did seem to be slowing down over all. Kat watched closely, waiting till Seralina was just about to reach her while building up as much energy as possible in her legs.

Just as Seralina reached Kat, Kat sidestepped the attack. Seralina, seeing this started to turn her head to make use of the short distance Kat moved to keep up the attack. Kat though, had other plans. Turning on her heel, Kat kicked out with all her force, burning demonic energy like it was going out of style and leaving a trail of purple in its wake to slam into the side of Seralina's head.

Seralina reacted purely on instinct, and snapped her jaw open allowing for Kat's leg to soar between her teeth instead of impacting her jaw. Seralina tried to capitalise on this opening by slamming down on Kat's leg, but she wasn't fast enough.

Kat too, had good instincts and let herself be carried by the force of her kick and continued the moment, slamming her tail into Seralina's now closed mouth. A sound like shattering glass rang out as Seralina's jaw was knocked around, and a quick, snap, signalled the breaking of that as well as the scales.

Seralina, seeing this swapped back to her human form, revealing a broken arm and an already huge bruise developing on her side. Before Kat could do any more damage, she said. "Er sururnder" which Kat took as the signal to stop, considering the broken jaw Seralina had.

Still, Kat hadn't exactly stopped spinning so, to make sure she wasn't going to do any more damage to the Lamia, Kat jumped and flared her wings allowing herself to slow down carefully and completely avoid accidentally hitting Seralina again.

"A great match!" shouted Uncle from the side. "Come over here and I'll heal you up Seralina."

Seralina first bowed to Kat, looking up at her descending form with… well it wasn't quite as smile but it was clear she was trying with what she had. "It was a good match" said Kat, not really knowing what else to say, or if she needed to do anything else.

*It really was.* Thought Kat as she watched Seralina slithering over to Uncle. *She nearly got me there. I only have a little bit of energy left. I mean sure… I could have maybe contested her strength a bit more but for a rank 1 she is STRONG. Even if a lot of that energy was from misusing my dream walking… I didn't exactly have any other ways of getting out so I was forced into it anyway.

Even that old man from Xiang's world didn't give me the same run for my money… though he did also use fire so he was kinda screwed from the beginning… and I was much more willing to just take damage to score a hit instead which… well Seralina's size means that a 'small hit' isn't anything to scoff at when you think about it.

I wonder if I could have done anything better? Well, I could have probably if I knew more about my dream walking. I'm… I'm not exactly clear on what happened between trying to enter Seralina's mind and getting thrown away. It did get me out of her coils, but how much time passed? Was it a few seconds or a bit longer?

I also wonder if she was more prepared for that if I'd have been more screwed. She seemed really stunned after that and maybe it was because of the skill, or maybe I was just abusing my higher rank to force myself into her mind. I'm not sure that will work again…

On the other hand, it did in fact work, and I did win even if it wasn't by that much. I know I'm not proficient in fighting, and Seralina seems to know her way around the block. I wonder how well the others will do.*

Kat decided she'd had enough thinking for now and followed Seralina back over to the raised platform the others were on. She could think on it more later on.