The air in the theater was so thin it felt like breathing shards of glass. The rifts to the outside universes remained open, bleeding violet and indigo light into the reddish-black gloom of the dimension. Eufrien, standing amidst the glowing obsidian dust, looked at his hands, which were still humming from the vibration of the reality-cutting swing. The 100-fold mana compression had taken a visible toll, but the battle was far from over.
He closed his eyes, and a deep, resonant hum began to vibrate from the very marrow of his bones. The emerald light that had been flickering around him didn't just brighten—it coalesced. It formed a pillar of pure, liquid light that shot upward toward the cracked ceiling, momentarily drowning out the static of the rifts. From within that pillar, a cry echoed that sounded like a thousand harps being struck at once, a sound so pure it made the demonic mist of the theater recoil in pain.
Eufrien summoned his spirit.
The light shattered like a crystalline shell, and suddenly a green majestic looking bird appeared. It was massive, its wingspan nearly wide enough to bridge the craters we had carved into the floor. Its feathers weren't just green; they were made of living emerald, each one glowing with a soft, pulsing warmth that seemed to push back the encroaching death magic of the Demonking. The bird circled Eufrien once, its long, trailing tail feathers leaving streaks of healing light in the air, before it settled into the space behind him, its presence amplifying the divine aura of the First Hero.
Eufrien smiled at me. The exhaustion that had been etched into the lines of his face—the deep shadows under his eyes and the tension in his jaw—seemed to vanish in an instant. The sweat on his brow was gone, replaced by a calm, radiant glow that made him look like he had just stepped onto the battlefield for the first time.
He said, "My spirit can heal most injuries and it gives me enhanced mana."
The bird let out another melodic cry, and a wave of soothing energy washed over all of us. I felt the "Body Enhanced State" stabilize, the erratic pulse of my mana smoothing out into a powerful, steady flow. The small cuts on my arms from the flying obsidian shards closed instantly, the skin knitting back together without a scar. Even the deep, aching fatigue in my muscles evaporated, replaced by a surge of raw, unadulterated power.
Suddenly he dashed forward.
Eufrien was no longer just fast; he was a blur of emerald and white-gold light that defied the optics of the "Body Enhanced State." He crossed the distance to Zaltraf before the sound of his movement could even travel. He swung his sword at Zaltraf, the white-gold blade humming with the spirit's resonance.
Slash. Rip. Tear.
Zaltraf kept getting sliced. The blade carved through the new obsidian-crystalline skin the Demonking had developed during the previous exchange. Each strike left a glowing trail of divine energy that hissed against Zaltraf's dark blood. Eufrien moved in a continuous, flowing dance, his sword hitting the Demonking's shoulders, chest, and limbs with a precision that was terrifying to behold.
But the Demonking's power was a bottomless well of malice.
He's adapting and regenerating.
Every time Eufrien's blade cut through the obsidian hide, the wound would glow for a second before the dark blood surged and hardened. The skin was becoming even denser, turning into a dull, matte black that seemed to absorb the light of the white-gold sword. Zaltraf's regeneration was accelerating; the limbs were knitting back together before the severed pieces even hit the ground. He was evolving in real-time, his body learning the rhythm of Eufrien's assault and developing a counter-frequency.
Zaltraf snarled, his voice a distorted roar that shook the very foundations of the theater. He realized that the healing spirit was keeping us in the fight, and he responded with a level of violence that turned the arena into a graveyard of entropic energy.
Zaltraf spammed his death magic and his skull spirits.
He didn't just release a wave; he turned the entire dimension into a storm. The grey, life-swallowing void erupted from his feet, spreading across the shattered floor like a fast-moving tide of nothingness. Simultaneously, the sky—already cracked and weeping static—vomited thousands of burning skull spirits. They didn't come in a swarm this time; they came in a solid, shrieking wall of black fire and bone that closed in on us from every direction.
And we all barely dodged it.
The "Body Enhanced State" was the only reason I survived the first microsecond. I launched myself into the air, the emerald light of my boots leaving a trail of sparks as I narrowly avoided a cluster of skulls that detonated exactly where my head had been. To my right, Euphyne was a golden blur, his axe parrying the spirits with desperate, heavy swings that sent black fire spraying across the void. Celdrich and Tokine were forced into a frantic, high-speed evasion, their forms vanishing and reappearing as they used shadow and time to find the microscopic gaps in the wall of death magic.
The grey void of the death magic passed beneath us, deleting the remaining obsidian floor and leaving only a hollow, screaming vacuum. If any of us had been a fraction of a second slower, we would have been erased from existence.
Zaltraf didn't stop the barrage. He stood in the center of the vacuum, his wings made of dark, viscous fire spreading wide as he conducted the symphony of destruction. He looked up at the green majestic bird, his violet eyes flashing with a predatory hunger. He thrust his hands upward, and a group of skull spirits—larger and more distorted than the rest—shot toward Eufrien's spirit.
"Not today!" I growled, my "Body Enhanced State" pushing me forward.
I used my creation magic to summon a cage of emerald-glass spikes around the incoming skulls. They detonated against the barrier, sending a shower of green and black sparks raining down on the battlefield. The bird looked down at me, its emerald eyes shimmering with what looked like gratitude, before it beat its wings once.
The gust of wind from the spirit's wings carried a concentrated burst of mana. It hit Eufrien, and his white-gold aura expanded until it filled the entire center of the theater. He reset his stance, the sword held horizontally in front of his face, the metal glowing with a light that challenged the stars in the rifts.
"Sogha! Euphyne! Celdrich! Tokine!" Eufrien's voice cut through the shrieking of the spirits. "Keep him occupied! Don't let his focus settle!"
We didn't need to be told twice.
I hit the ground—or the floating shards that remained of it—and charged. The healing light of the spirit was still pulsing through me, making my movements feel light and effortless despite the crushing gravity of the spatial rifts. I swung my blade at Zaltraf's flank, the emerald light of my creation magic clashing against his matte-black armor.
CLANG.
The impact felt like hitting a solid wall of diamond. Zaltraf didn't even flinch. He backhanded me with a clawed hand, and I was sent skidding across the void. But before I could even register the pain, the green bird let out a soft cry. A beam of emerald light hit me mid-air, and the bruising on my ribs vanished instantly. I flipped in the air and landed on a floating piece of obsidian, ready to go again.
Euphyne was right behind me. He brought his axe down on Zaltraf's head with a roar that drowned out the spirits. The golden flames of his ego aura were so hot they turned the black mist into steam. Zaltraf raised an arm to block, and the axe bit deep into the obsidian hide, drawing a spray of black ichor.
"Get back!" Celdrich's voice rang out.
Euphyne retreated just as Celdrich and Tokine appeared in the space he had occupied. They were a blur of silver and black. Celdrich's katana sought the wound Euphyne had opened, while Tokine's scythe carved a horizontal line across Zaltraf's waist. They were moving so fast that their afterimages were still visible when they had already moved to the next position.
Zaltraf was being pelted from all sides. He was getting sliced, burned, and stabbed. He was losing chunks of his armor and gallons of his dark blood. But as we fought, we could see the adaptation taking hold.
His movements were becoming more efficient. He was no longer swinging wildly; he was parrying our strikes with his bare claws, the obsidian hide on his hands having hardened to the point where it could resist Celdrich's black steel. He was learning our patterns. He anticipated my next dash, his tail whipping around to intercept me. He sensed Tokine's time-shifts, his dark aura flaring to disrupt the temporal flow whenever she got too close.
He was sweating—the dark, heavy droplets were flying off him as he fought—but he wasn't slowing down. If anything, he was getting stronger. The death magic around his feet was growing more dense, turning into a pool of liquid shadow that sought to entangle our feet.
Eufrien was still charging, the green bird perched metaphorically on his shoulders as it poured an endless stream of enhanced mana into his frame. The white-gold light around his sword was no longer just a glow; it was becoming a solid, physical mass that distorted the air around it.
"The bird..." Zaltraf rasped, his voice echoing through the rifts. "It's the only thing... keeping you alive."
He threw his head back and let out a piercing scream. The skull spirits responded by merging. Hundreds of them began to fuse together, forming a massive, skeletal dragon made of black fire and bone. The dragon's eyes burned with the same violet light as Zaltraf's, and it opened its maw to release a breath of pure, concentrated death magic.
"Watch out!" I screamed, launching a wave of emerald meteorites to intercept the dragon's breath.
The collision was catastrophic. The emerald fire and the black death magic cancelled each other out in a blinding explosion of grey light. The shockwave sent us all tumbling back,
We scrambled to our feet, our eyes fixed on the monster in the center. Zaltraf stood amidst the ruins, his obsidian skin now glowing with a faint, violet light—a sign that he had successfully adapted to the spirit's healing frequency. He was no longer just regenerating; he was absorbing the residual mana from our attacks.
Eufrien stepped forward, his boots clicking on the floating debris. The green bird let out one final, majestic cry before it dissolved into a cloud of emerald feathers that spiraled into Eufrien's blade, turning the white-gold metal into a vibrant, pulsing green.
"It's not over," Eufrien said, his dual-colored eyes burning with an intensity that made the theater tremble.
We gathered around him—Euphyne, Celdrich, and Tokine. We were tired, the world was falling apart above us. But the healing light of the spirit was still warm in our veins, and the Demonking was still standing. We tightened our grips on our weapons, our breathing synchronized in the hollow silence of the rift.
And the fight continued.