Fate dodged the claws instinctively, thrusting his sword toward the beast's belly as he did so. The momentum of the beast snatched the sword, now lodged in Griffith's stomach, out of Fate's hand. The bear landed twenty away, growling in pain as the landing drove the sword deeper into his stomach. Fate felt his shoulder, feeling a gouge in the armor and the wetness of blood.
'Great, he can hurt me while intangible. Nothing new from a Personification, I guess.'
Griffith's attack carried a small amount of Divine Energy within it, which allowed Fate's Manifest Power to perform rudimentary first aid and scab the wound over. He rolled his shoulder gently, testing how much range of motion he had without breaking the scabs open. It wasn't much. He couldn't lift it higher than his waist.
Good thing he wasn't a lefty.
Cait threw a telekinetic shove at the bear, which pushed him against the ground and carved shallow trenches where his claws passed, but the creature was too heavy for her to pick up.
Considering she could lift over eleven thousand pounds, that meant the creature was as heavy as a slightly overweight elephant. Griffith lunged, this time at her, and she tried again, this time using her Manifest Power to artificially increase the strength of her Divine Hold.
The bear stopped, hovering in the air as he tried futilely to swipe at Cait with his claws. He let out a roar, the faces on his back screaming in symphony as the soundwaves traveled from his mouth. Fate could tell instantly that those soundwaves held divine power, which the bear used to shatter Cait's hold on him, allowing Griffith to drop to the ground.
The bear's eyes narrowed, a guttering chuckle emanating from him as he stepped closer, swiping with his clawed left foreleg. A wave of telekinesis rushed towards them, blocked mostly by a quick barrier thrown up by Cait, but not entirely.
She acted too quickly to enhance her TK with her Manifest Power, and the result was her being sent flying back, her flight stopped by a catch with Fate's Divine Grasp. He placed her gently on the floor, grunting and taking a step back as the bear sent another wave toward him.
Most of it passed through him since he was still intangible, but some of the energy dug into him, eating away at his life force. He felt his Manifest Power stir, working to convert this foreign energy into one of healing, but the bear's energy refused to be devoured. It tore apart any Divine Energy he sent its way, using it to grow stronger and wreak more havoc within him.
Another push slammed him back, and he fell on his ass, this new hostile energy teaming up with that already inside his body and tearing apart his cells. He grimaced and clutched at his chest, feeling several veins pop and his cells die one at a time. He yelled in pain as he rolled to the side, dodging another rush of energy from the bear, who was stalking forward with glee in its eyes.
Cait rushed forward, occupying the bear with a fight of psychics, each throwing shove after shove at the other. Amazingly, neither one was winning out. The bear seemed to have Divine Reach with a corrosive quality similar to Fate's own, although he could tell with a prod of his aura that it wasn't the same.
This aspect allowed the bear to go toe-to-toe with Cait, whose Manifest Power allowed her to exhibit Divine Reach capable of moving twenty-two thousand pounds.
But even with that, along with the rapid uses of her desire domain to reduce the power of her opponent's Divine Reach, they were still stuck in a stalemate. This draw only applied to their psychic fight, as both were still perfectly capable of moving, as evidenced by the bear's continued advances, slowly padding its way toward Cait without a care in the world.
Fate, meanwhile, was busy fighting Griffith's Divine Energy, which had just corroded the partial mending of one of his bones from the fall from the palace. He didn't take enough Divine Energy from Cait to fully heal, wanting her to save as much of her strength as possible, which he didn't regret.
His lack of remorse didn't help the fact that his right arm was now useless, though. The almost imperceivable fracture that was left was widened by Griffith's energy as it sunk into the bone, tearing open the fracture and destroying the marrow within.
It was an extremely painful experience.
'How the fuck am I supposed to stop this stuff?' Fate thought angrily to himself. 'Any Divine Energy I throw at it just makes it stronger, but if I leave it alone it'll just eat me from the inside out. Unless…' He frowned, an idea popping into his head. One that was as risky as it would be painful.
'It goes after my Divine Energy first, so maybe…' He gritted his teeth, sending a tendril of Divine Energy into the center of his stomach. Instantly, all of Griffith's energy converged on his, greedily biting chunks out of it, eating away at his cells as they did. He made sure to put his energy where there were no important organs, although a lot of the foreign energy took bites out of some of his organs on its way.
He raised his arm to his mouth and bit down on his gauntleted hand, trying not to scream as he slowly moved his ball of energy through his body. He took extra care to avoid as many veins and organs as possible, but a few times he had no choice but to go through one. Griffith's energy followed like a loyal dog, leaving a trail of dead flesh in its wake as it hounded his Divine Energy.
He led the foreign influence up through his torso, down his left arm, and into his pinky finger. The path he took was marked by the decayed cloth of his shirt and the inert black flesh of his chest and hand. He grinned in triumph as the energy was corralled into his pinky finger, his sense of victory marred only by the visible rate at which his pinky was disintegrating.