Lady of Curses

''That was lucky.'' Although Aella was sure her plan would have worked, she didn't think it would go this smoothly. 

But while she was appreciating the efficient strike that killed her enemy, she started to feel the weight on the end of her spear as the woman's lifeless body slumped down attracted by gravity. Aella didn't react much and let the body hit the floor, she just positioned herself and her hands so that when the spear's tip hit the floor she didn't lose her balance. 

After that, it took a little effort to get the spear out of the cold corpse but in the end, Aella got it out reasonably fast. When Aella pulled out the spear, she looked as the blood started to pool around the woman's dead body, her mouth still opened, her face still contracted in shock and confusion. Aella couldn't stop staring at the body, it wasn't from fear or disgust, but for some reason she just couldn't stop looking as if she was in a trans in the same way when you look at the flame. 

Suddenly a sound took her out of the trans. As her head shot up Aella saw the armored figure, that was with the woman, approaching her. Aella got ready to fight as the sound of armor cluttering got louder. 

''Ugh, this will not please the boss. We have a member that got killed, and some girl that somehow got in here.'' The man was talking to himself and not taking  Aella seriously. From Aella's point of view, it looked like the man was thinking of her like an annoying chore he has to do but doesn't want to. 

Aella looked all over him, to see where she should aim her spear, and the only spot she found she could hope to injure, was his joints and an opening in his barbute helmet, the opening wasn't too big but it was big enough for Aella to get her spear through it and injure the man. 

The man approached her nonchalantly and Aella decided to use it to her advantage. Aella got ready and when the man was close enough she decided to use the same trick she used on the woman. 

She used [Curse of weakness] on the man to confuse him, and when the smoke left her moth she stabbed her bloodied spear at the man's face. 

''This again?'' Unfortunately, her plan didn't go as planned, the only thing that landed was her curse, but the spear was now in one of the man's hands, griped strongly so that Aella couldn't move the spear even a little bit. And while this all was going down the man had a bored look to him, his blue eyes looked at Aella with indifference.

''UGH!'' Before Aella could even respond, she felt something hit her stomach, and the next moment she felt air rush from her back as she flew through the air. ''NGH!'' And it wasn't long before she crashed into one of the wooden boxes. With her speed Aella had broken the box and was now lying on its content and remains, trying to recover herself.  ''Cough, cough...'' when the box broke a bunch of flour went up in the air. 

While still in pain, Aella started to get up. Her vision was a little bit blurry from the pain, but while the pain prevailed her vision quickly recovered. 

Aella saw the armored man approach her, still in that leisurely stride, showing Aella that she isn't a threat to him. Aella started to look around to see if she could find anything useful, to maybe help her, but she didn't find anything, all she saw were just more boxes and chests, and some flour but nothing that looked like she could use. 

Unfortunately, she didn't have time to break open a box that had some useful stuff, after all, she didn't have the strength or tools for that plus she didn't have time for that. So it was time to think of a plan.

The first thing on her mind was to get away from that guy because she had no chance of winning against him in a straight-up fight. So that was what she did she started to move her body. Aella was still in pain but she beared with it and started to make a distance between herself and the armored man. 

While Aella was trying to run away from the man, he just watched with his blue eyes. He didn't fasten his pace, if anything he just slowed down, and if someone looked, they could see a smirk forming on the man's face. The armored man was amused that Aella was trying to escape, he saw it as a game, where Aella couldn't win, just prolong the inevitable. 

Aella didn't have time to look back, because she was more concerned about how to get out of this mess. Fortunately, she quickly thought of a way, and it involved using fire portions, unfortunately, she would need to run past the armored man. 

The somewhat round room was set up so that the middle was somewhat empty with the cage located more to the back right across the door, and the boxes, chest, and other stuff were put on the outer edge of the room, but although the layout looked messy, it still was somewhat organized so that you could access almost everything, and in result the layout made multiple walkways that transformed to smoothing like a simple labyrinth. 

Most boxes and chests were only up to Aella's hips, so Aella and the armored man could easily see each other. So technically Aella could run past him with distance between them, but she didn't know if the armored figure would let her. But looking at him she decided to risk it.

So Aella made some way closer to the wall and started to run in the opposite way. Her first thought was to run for the box full of fire potions, but that may alarm the man, and she couldn't risk it, so she ran for the potions she put down previously. 

The man saw this but, as Aella hoped he didn't do anything, he just watched her run past him and then just casually continued to follow her. 

It didn't take long for Aella to get where she needed to, and when she arrived at the box she crouched down and took the two potions. Next, she moved to the middle of the room, so that when she uses the potions the fire doesn't spread to the wooden boxes. When she got to the clear space she put the potions behind her back, and just waited for the armored man.

''Finally gave up?'' The man still had a smirk on his face, as he walked closer and gestured with his hands. ''Well if you're done running, I guess it's time to clean up.'' And as he said that he started to run.

It was still within Aella's expectations, but it still surprised her a little bit. When the man was close enough Aella threw one of the bottles right at the man. 

The bottle sailed through the air before hitting the man which resulted in the glass breaking and the red-orange shifting liquid spilling out. The man was ready for it, when he saw Aella throwing something he crossed his arms in front of him to give himself at least some kind of protection. So when the potion ignited it didn't do much as the only thing that lit on fire was the man's armored forearms. After this the man picked up his speed and put his hands down, to better see where he was running.

Aella didn't have time to do anything else before the man got close to her and grabbed her by the neck. ''Got you, hehehe...'' The man lifted Aella off the ground with a sadistic smile. The armor was still on fire so Aella could feel her neck getting some burns, while the man held her. 

''You know, at first I thought about letting you live, and have some fun, but that was before I discovered that you could use curses.'' As he spoke his hand got tighter around Aella's neck. ''I'm sure even with your curses you wouldn't be a big threat, but who knows what's up your sleeve, so it would be safer for you to die, hehehe...'' After he said that the force around Aella's neck dramatically increased and she wasn't able to breathe. 

Normally Aella would just stop breathing and allow mana to take over so that she doesn't need air to breathe. But she needed the man to lower his guard as low as possible and so she concluded that the closer to death she was the lower his guard would be. With that in mind, she didn't let the mana take over and let her face get discolored. 

Aella was still looking at the man even though her vision was starting to get blurry. Her peripheral by now was so blurry that she couldn't see anything there, but her center stayed clear, especially the man's face. 

As Aella got closer and closer to death, she saw a sudden glint in the man's blue eyes and his smile widening as if he were victorious, and that was when Aella made her move. 

In the next second Aella let the mana take care of her breathing problem, and as she regained her straight Aella smashed the fire position she was holding right where the opening of the man's helmet was.