The battle proved to be harder than Felix had thought it would be. Felix's clear aim wasn't to kill Aaron, but to stop him from interfering with their quest and objective, as Aaron had betrayed their trust and was now evicted from his own party.
Aaron, on the other hand, was out for Felix's head and didn't seem to be joking when he claimed that if he couldn't claim the head of Lady Morwen The Deathcaller to present to his father, then he would claim Felix's head instead as the pawn the underworld had placed within the Sage circle.
After observing that Felix could always block and counter his sword strikes and dodge and deflect his bullets, Aaron switched tactics from a frontal confrontation to teleporting distances, hiding behind structures where Felix couldn't see him.
Each time Aaron attacked and Felix thought he'd pinpoint his location, he was attacked in his blind spots, not just with magic bullets, but by a skill that enabled Aaron to shoot out sword beams and wind strikes that devastated everything in their path.
Aaron was now hardly seen, but Felix was bombarded with bullets and wind strikes that made it harder to dodge with every passing minute. At some point, Felix had to use his [Telekinesis] skill to manage his sword, as it wasn't really helping to parry the onslaught. He went all out with the [Elemental Dominion] skill, spamming flame balls, lightning strikes, and dark energy balls to counter Aaron and to swiftly attack at every location he'd pinpointed Aaron to be—only to discover he was long gone.
Felix couldn't fly and his movements were limited to the courtyard grounds, which made him like a sitting duck to Aaron, who was everywhere and yet nowhere. This only served to enrage Felix, and he soon felt the backlash of the [Overdeath] skill slowly sipping in. He realized that Aaron had been toying with him all this while and possibly knew Felix's "buff up" skill had a limited duration. Aaron was only wearing him out until the moment Felix dropped back to Level 2—as he could clearly see Felix was currently at Level 3—before he came down to finish him off easily.
One might call Aaron's tactics cowardly, but considering the nature of his marksman class system, he wasn't. He was only playing the role of a marksman. You wouldn't call a sniper a coward for hiding at a vantage point to take out their enemies, now would you?
Boom!
An entire hallway from the top of the palace suddenly broke apart with their windows shattering as if an explosive had been activated. This drew the attention of not just Felix and Aaron, but the rest of the Sage candidates all now within the city as they looked in the same direction.
From the cracked and broken walls on the blown-up floor, Athenae forced herself to her feet with a painful expression, leaning on her greatswords for support. And before her were the lich knights of Lady Morwen—the cause of the destruction.
Lucy was the most worried of the Sage candidates as she had the impulse to rush to Athenae's aid. But that would mean death in the city, as she couldn't keep the two skills on at the same time. If she were to deactivate her holy radiance now to heal Athenae, she wasn't confident she could reactivate it as it ate up so much of her magic power and could be fatal for her.
Athenae was clearly on her last leg and needed help. But that would mean abandoning the city for Lucy if she made any move. The other Sage candidates who could abandon their posts in the battle with the undead in the shadows were clearly shaken and dared not to make a move. If the lich knights alone could beat up the SS-Rank Athenae known for her strength, what were the chances that they wouldn't be one-shot on the spot if they got involved?
The majority of them all had the same thought: this was clearly not part of the plan.
Things had spiraled so much out of control that not only were they now against a stronger enemy that they should team up to put an end to, but instead, two of their strongest members were trying to kill each other all because one had wanted to solo the boss and the other was too greedy to let him even after getting the first boss kill count.
Chelsey couldn't help but frown as she shifted her gaze from Athena's shaky figure to Felix. She felt anger boiling in her chest just from watching him, who should've quickly rushed to assist Athenae, only spare her a glance and nod encouragingly in her direction before looking away in search of any traces of where Aaron's attack might come next, not letting the commotion distract him.
To her, at this point, Felix was clearly the villain in the way of Aaron from going after the boss, Lady Morwen The Deathcaller, and putting an end to this before the moon rises.
She knew her flames would be no match for the Lich Knights and would only be endangering her life and serving as a burden to Athenae if she decided to step in, but the one thing Chelsey was confident in was the ability to pin Felix down to free Aaron long enough till Lady Morwen was taken care of seeing how Aaron had been toying with him all this while.
It was nothing personal. It was just the right thing to do to ensure their own safety—as at this point, she didn't really care what would happen with Lumengarde. Felix had proven to be a bad leader and a troublesome kid right from the beginning and was clearly not used to teamwork, which they should've known from the moment Felix ditched them at the Sahuagin dungeon to go on a joy ride with just one Sahuagin.
Chelsey didn't think she could take Felix alone. She had allies who understood the state of the matter and knew what must be done. She thought as she glanced at Ballista and Michael who had hard expressions but nodded in understanding.
What Chelsey or any of the S-Ranks teaming up to stop Felix's madness and free Aaron to assist Athenae in the boss fight didn't know was that when Felix had 'encouragingly' nodded at Athenae, Athenae understood that Felix had pulled some strings and made her fight easier. She didn't know what it was yet, but she trusted him.
Felix, on the other hand, had used the [Witcher's Curse] skill on all of the Lich Knights in sight, deducting 25% of their already low health from Athenae's hits, and they were now only a slash or punch away from obliteration. All of them.
He also understood he needed to quickly end the fight with Aaron and assist Athenae. And for that, he had to fight with everything he had and only needed to spot Aaron just once to curse him as well with the [Witcher's Curse] skill to take away 25% of his health and reflect 25% of his damage back to him.
But unknown to Felix, the S-Ranks were already on the move.