"The... End."
As he spoke, Arthur leapt up from behind the Basilisk and cleanly severed its head with a single strike.
Landing smoothly, he rested his sword on his shoulder and said,
"That was quite the workout."
"Yeah, I seriously need a shower now," Layla replied, making her way toward the corpse and stopping a few feet from Arthur.
She was just about to speak again when a cold sweat suddenly broke out across her skin.
Turning to her left, she saw Arthur grinning mischievously and instinctively clicked her tongue in irritation.
"Tsk... Not now, Ar—"
She couldn't finish her sentence as Arthur abruptly slashed at her.
Layla backstepped and raised her gun to retaliate, only to remember that she had emptied the magazine during the earlier fight and hadn't reloaded.
Unfortunately, she didn't have the time to do so as Arthur's sword was already thundering down towards her head.
She raised the sword mounted atop her gun just in time to block his strike, then countered with a kick to his side.
He caught the kick with his hands and moved to grab her leg, but the few seconds it took him to do so were all she needed to pull out a pistol from the holsters strapped to her thighs.
**BANG! BANG!! BANG!!!
She fired three shots at point-blank range, leaving Arthur no time to evade.
He quickly conjured a single-layered aura barrier to block the incoming bullets and leapt backwards right away.
The barrier shattered after a few seconds, but by that time, he had already dodged to the side.
However, Layla had no intention of giving him any room to breathe.
She continued firing, emptying the magazine before discarding the gun and pulling another from its holster.
Arthur rolled across the ground to evade, but even then, he couldn't dodge everything. A bullet eventually grazed his shoulder, and another struck his forearm.
"Argh!"
He grunted, tossing his sword at Layla while using his now free hand to dig out the bullet embedded in his forearm, gritting his teeth as he endured the pain.
Layla, suddenly faced with a sword flying toward her, had no choice but to dodge to avoid getting hit.
"Return!"
The moment she heard that word, she instantly ducked, just as the sword Arthur had thrown came flying back toward him.
Naturally, her head was in its return path, so she had to duck to avoid ending up with a sword sticking out of it.
"Are you trying to kill me?!"
"Worry not, Lute is around. He'd heal you before you actually die."
"A sword to the head would kill me instantly, you know?!"
Layla shouted as she kicked off the ground and charged at Arthur, whose left hand was currently out of commission.
She detached the blade from her rifle and tossed the rifle aside. Gripping the blade tightly, she slashed at Arthur.
He caught his returning sword with his right hand and met her strike head-on, the two of them exchanging blows with their swords, occasionally interrupted by Layla attempting a gunshot to the head.
"Now you're actually trying to kill me!!"
"You were the one who started this!!"
They yelled at each other as Arthur forcefully reached out with his still-injured left arm, grabbing Layla's gun and yanking it from her grip.
"Take it. The magazine was empty anyway."
Layla replied as she sent a kick toward him, one he was forced to block with his wounded arm after dropping the gun.
"Tsk... what the hell did you put in that bullet? It's slowing down my healing."
He muttered, stepping back a few paces as he glanced at his arm, which still had a visible bullet wound.
[Sorry to interrupt,] came a new, magic-infused voice, [but I just wanted to inform Your Highness and Lady Layla that I can't heal you if you're already dead.]
Arthur, who had been about to dash towards Layla, suddenly stopped in his tracks and responded to the voice that had just spoken.
"Don't you have an Authority over life?"
[I do,] the voice replied, [however, it's not high-ranked enough to perform a complete resurrection.]
"I see."
Layla was glancing around, trying to locate the source of the voice, when she heard Arthur's next ominous words.
"Then I'll just avoid the head and heart. She won't die instantly that way.
Oh...my arm's all healed up.
Time for round two, then."
She turned just in time to see Arthur dashing toward her with a grin on his face.
"Tsk..."
Clicking her tongue, she pulled out her third gun and fired at him.
Arthur's left eye flashed blue for a split second as he moved his sword…to deflect her bullets.
"How the fuck do you keep doing that?!"
"Language, Layla! We're only in Chapter 4!"
"What the hell are you even talking about?!" Layla shouted back at Arthur, leaping to the side in a rush.
She knew exactly what kind of bullets she had just fired, and there was no way she was going to let herself get hit by them.
Arthur adjusted his path and charged toward her as she struggled to regain her balance.
She caught sight of him approaching from the corner of her eye and threw her sword toward him in an attempt to slow him down.
He was already too close, so he only just managed to dodge the blade that suddenly flew at him.
Layla quickly raised her gun to fire again, but Arthur wasn't about to give her the chance.
Even off-balance, he formed a small orb of pure, non-attributed magic and flung it, knocking the gun from her hand and sending it into the air.
She froze for a split second, surprised, but recovered instantly and lashed out with a whip-like high kick to his right hand, sending his sword flying upward as well.
With both of them disarmed, they wasted no time in switching to hand-to-hand combat.
'Lightning punch.'
Seven strikes, each as fast as a lightning bolt, tore through the air toward Layla's body.
She instantly moved out of their range, knowing all too well that even a single one of those hits could prove dangerous in her current condition.
Arthur, on the other hand, was visibly surprised as he hadn't expected all of his punches to miss.
Without hesitation, Layla charged in again, this time launching a flurry of her own punches.
They weren't as fast as Arthur's lightning strikes, but each one still carried deadly force.
**KAAABBBOOOMM!!!!
Arthur met her punches with his own, and the clash of their fists echoed with a thunderous roar that rattled the air itself.
Shockwaves burst out with every collision, and the ground beneath their feet cracked and shattered from the force.