August had long since known that his friend never fought with her full strength, none of his weapons could withstand the force. However, he never truly understood the magnitude of her inhuman strength.
August himself had become much stronger than the average human, able to jump nearly three full meters in the air and even catch his swords whilst they flew past so he could ride them.
But watching Alia send a tiger – a beast that could weigh well over three hundred pounds flying, he truly understood the difference between them.
It made sense, her abilities were purely physical, whilst his were meant for battling at range. Being stronger than him physically was a given.
'To this extent though, it's just unfair.'
It was no wonder all his weapons broke when she used them, he was giving her low quality artillery. If he wanted her to fight at full capacity, he needed to give her a weapon that could withstand the force.
August watched on as the tiger roared, flying through a tree, a large gash opening in its chest. Alia was already waiting for the beast behind its flight path.
She slashed horizontally, cutting into the black tiger's side before using a powerful kick to slam it into the ground.
The tiger must have realized how truly unfair the physical difference between it and the opponent truly was, because the creature attempted to flee back into the darkness of the forest.
The wall of swords and other weapons that rained from the sky did not let it. August would be damned if he let the thing escape, especially when he was doing what he was.
Alia appeared above the beast, brandishing the glowing blade above her head before bringing it down in a singular, powerful stab to the creature's spine.
A burst of blue flame erupted from the point of impact, forcing August to throw his hands up to defend his face. He was thrown back into a tree, knocking the air out of his lungs.
'Again? You crappy lion!' He thought.
The Stab had broken skin, but it was not deep enough to do long-standing damage to the beast. Even with her inhuman strength, Alia was still only on par with the great apex predators of the forest.
But that was why she never had to fight alone.
She threw the beast into the air, releasing the blade in her hands and jumping up after it. As she did, the blade disappeared, and slowly shimmered into existence higher up. Pointing upwards, before taking off with ludicrous speed.
August found out about his ability to control the speed of his fired weapons a bit after they had set out together. He was able to fire them so fast that they even broke the sound barrier, he wasn't able to abuse this ability as he wanted to. Every time he did it, he risked destroying the weapon he fired.
But the glowing sword could withstand it, after all, it had been forged with the soul of a beast capable of rivaling the armored rhinoceros.
As the sword flew past her, Alia grabbed the hilt. Twirling elegantly under the moonlight and not wasting more motion than necessary.
She swung the sword in a perfect horizontal strike, using the force to pull her along. Cleaving the black tiger in half as she twirled into a beautiful landing between the two falling halves of the beast.
In the moonlight, she looked like a valiant hero of old, an insurmountable force of nature. In some strange way, it felt as though August had seen her before, just like this.
She smiled brightly, releasing the glowing sword and giving him a thumbs up as she passed out.
Dashing over, August kneeled over her limp body. Then, inspecting her injuries. They were grave, but not fatal for her at least.
She had been fighting potentially long before he had gotten up, he originally had no idea what injuries she had sustained, now however, he had a proper chance to study them.
He first saw the gash on her chest when he woke up, but the injury was much more severe than he originally thought. He could see her ribs split open, and one of the bones was pressed into an inflating and deflating organ.
Her arms were littered with deep cuts, the same was happening with her legs.
He was not too worried about the injuries, her body would soon begin to heal them after all. So he simply sat down and harder get body whilst she did so.
But when the first hour passed, and her breaths only became shallower and more shaky, he started to become much more interested.
Then the second passed, and her body had not shown any signs of healing even the most basic cuts on her arms and legs.
The bleeding did not stop.
Blood rushed from her chest and cuts endlessly, never once clotting or slowing down.
August sat by her, doing everything he could to help. Applying pressure to all her cuts and gashes in an attempt to slow the bleeding. He did not move the rib that pierced her lung, knowing that would cause air to escape.
But he was not a doctor, and what he could do was limited to the few first aid videos his eighth grade class had watched.
It was when the sun began to rise that August realized what had happened.
The blade, it had stopped glowing brightly after Alia had discarded it, but the faint light it did provide was still quite helpful when it came to seeing anything in the night's darkness.
As soon as it was no longer needed August picked the blade up, but right before he returned it to storage, he paled.
August was well aware of his aura by now, it was the ocean of power he felt inside his body each time he used his abilities. So when he suddenly saw the sword once again light up profusely, and immediately that ocean suddenly depleted by a significant amount, he returned the blade to storage and grabbed his friend hurriedly.
He was careful to not further worsen any of her injuries, holding her as still as possible whilst his heart pounded and he began to sweat profusely.
He dashed towards the rising sun frantically.
August needed to escape the forest as fast as possible, he needed to escape this awful place as fast as he possibly could.
Alia's ability to heal was reliant on her aura, she could survive nearly any injury, so long as her aura was sufficient to heal from it. However, if the sword could consume that much of his aura in such a short time, and she had wielded it for that long…
August needed to find people, hopefully a lot of them, and as fast as humanly possible.
He jumped, calling upon a sword under himself, landing on the flat of the blade and positioning one foot on the bump of the hilt as it exploded off, a sonic boom echoing in the distance behind him.
He did not care about his aura usage at the moment, he did not care about running out or dying to reptilian birds. Right now, his friend required assistance, assistance he could not provide.
Her body was probably rationing what little aura she had to prolong her survival, and the moment it ran out.
Alia would die.