The reddish-black air in front of me began to warp and twist, condensing into a physical form as I pulled the energy from within. I summoned my demon girl spirit. She materialized in the center of the void, a fierce, sudden presence against the oppressive, heavy atmosphere of the Masked Man's realm. Her aura flared, aggressive and immediate, casting sharp, jagged shadows across the invisible floor beneath our boots. Without a single moment of hesitation or a backward glance, she launched herself forward. She attacks Zarha.
As she closed the distance in a blur of motion, engaging the white-masked assassin in a flurry of close-quarters combat, I planted my feet firmly against the nothingness of the dimension. I drew my arms back, gripping the hilt of my white gold sword with both hands, and I charged my sword for a powerful attack.
The energy began to pool around the blade, an intense, blinding accumulation of raw power that hummed with a violent frequency. The air around me grew dense, the reddish-black mist swirling violently as it was pulled into the gravitational gravity of the charging weapon. For an entire minute, the battlefield was split into two distinct realities. On one side, my demon girl spirit was a relentless storm, throwing strike after strike at Zarha, keeping him entirely occupied. The sounds of their clashes—sharp, percussive cracks of spiritual energy meeting metal—echoed through the infinite expanse. On my side, the sword grew brighter and heavier with every passing second. The light radiating from the metal became so absolute that it washed out the crimson hues of the surrounding dimension, turning the immediate area into a blinding sanctuary of pure, destructive potential. I focused entirely on the weapon, pouring every ounce of available strength into the core of the blade, holding the stance as the sixty seconds ticked by in agonizing, drawn-out tension.
After 1 minute, the pressure reached its absolute peak. The sword was no longer just a weapon; it was a contained star trembling in my grasp. The timing had to be perfect.
My spirit moved out of the way. She darted to the side with sudden, terrifying speed, clearing the direct line of sight between myself and the assassin. The path was entirely open. Zarha stood there, his white mask reflecting the blinding light of my weapon.
I swung my sword.
The motion was explosive, a singular release of all the pent-up energy I had gathered over the last sixty seconds. The arc of the white gold blade carved a crescent of absolute destruction through the air, moving faster than the eye could follow. The sheer physical force behind the swing created a vacuum, a roaring gale of displaced air that screamed as the blade descended toward the assassin.
He tried to block it with his dual daggers. Zarha brought both of his dark, runic blades up in a crossed guard, bracing his stance against the invisible floor to absorb the catastrophic impact of the glowing weapon.
But it cleanly cuts it. The blinding edge of my white gold sword met the crossed metal of his dual daggers and passed through them as if they were made of nothing more than smoke and shadows. There was no resistance, no grinding of steel against steel. The divine energy of the swing sheared through the dark metal perfectly, severing the upper halves of both daggers and sending the broken pieces spinning silently into the reddish-black void.
Yet, even as his weapons were destroyed, the assassin's reflexes defied logic. And he dodged it. In the microscopic fraction of a second after his daggers were sliced in half, Zarha threw his body backward, twisting his torso with an unnatural, fluid grace. The edge of my descending sword missed his chest by mere millimeters, the blinding light washing over his white mask as the blade continued its downward trajectory.
The momentum of the charged attack could not be stopped. My sword cuts through the dimension making a big hole. The sheer concentration of energy did not just strike the empty air; it caught on the very fabric of the Masked Man's realm. With a sound like a massive sheet of thick canvas being ripped violently in two, reality itself was split open. A massive, jagged hole appeared in the reddish-black void, revealing a terrifying, absolute emptiness beyond the boundaries of the dimension. The edges of the tear crackled with violent, unstable sparks of energy, the hole hanging in the air like a catastrophic wound in the universe itself.
High above us, overlooking the battlefield, the masked man sitting in his throne just waved his hands. He did not stand up. He did not shout. He merely rested back against the bone and obsidian structure of his seat, raising one hand with a gesture of profound, bored casualness.
And the hole got fixed. The massive tear in the dimension abruptly stopped expanding. The unstable edges of the rift reversed their trajectory, the torn fabric of reality knitting back together in the blink of an eye. The terrifying void beyond was sealed away instantly, leaving the reddish-black mist to swirl calmly as if the devastating, dimension-shattering strike had never occurred.
A few yards away, Zarha just fixed his dual daggers. The assassin looked down at the severed hilts in his hands. Without a word, a dark, pulsing energy coated the broken ends. The missing metal simply flowed back into existence, the sharp, lethal points of his dual daggers regenerating perfectly in a matter of seconds. He gripped the restored weapons, shifting his weight.
And we continued fighting.
The brief pause evaporated, replaced instantly by the chaotic, high-speed rhythm of combat. We clashed weapons. The sound of ringing steel returned to the dimension as I lunged forward, swinging the white gold sword in a series of rapid, heavy horizontal arcs. Zarha met every strike, his regenerated daggers moving in a blur to deflect the heavy blows away from his vital organs. Sparks showered the invisible floor, illuminating the space between us in brief, violent flashes of light.
I kept dodging. Zarha's offensive was completely unpredictable, a flurry of rapid stabs and slicing motions aimed at my neck, my ribs, and my legs. I twisted, ducked, and sidestepped, my body moving on pure instinct to avoid the lethal edges of his blades. The air around me hissed as the daggers continuously sliced through the empty space where I had just been.
And he kept disappearing and reappearing attempting to hit me. He would vanish into thin air right before my eyes, the space he occupied suddenly empty, only to materialize instantly on my blind side, his daggers already in motion. I felt the rush of displaced air behind my head and threw myself forward, rolling across the void as he appeared and swiped at my back. I spun around, raising my sword to block, only for him to disappear again, reappearing directly above me, driving both daggers downward. I threw my body to the right, avoiding the falling strike, my breath coming in ragged gasps as the relentless, teleporting assault pushed my reflexes to their absolute limit.
During the frantic evasion, amidst the flashes of steel and the blurring of his movements, I saw the masked man on his throne watching. His posture remained unchanged, his dark mask fixed on the chaotic dance of our battle. He was a silent, looming presence, a constant reminder of the overarching authority that dictated the terms of this hellish arena.
I focused back on the immediate threat, tracking the subtle shifts in the air that signaled Zarha's reappearance. He vanished again, the sound of his movement entirely masked. I anticipated the angle, planting my back foot and gripping my sword tightly. As he materialized to my left, his daggers already swinging in a deadly arc, I stepped directly into his guard instead of retreating.
I managed to hit Zarha with my sword.
The blade moved with blinding speed, a horizontal sweep aimed squarely at his center of mass. And he blocked it. Zarha crossed his dual daggers in front of his chest at the very last possible microsecond, catching the heavy, glowing edge of my white gold sword against the dark metal of his weapons.
The physical impact of the blow was tremendous. But he flew into the stairs of the throne. The kinetic force of my strike transferred entirely through his blocked guard, lifting the assassin off his feet. He was sent hurling backward through the reddish-black air like a projectile. He traveled across the vast distance of the void in a fraction of a second, crashing violently into the base of the massive throne. The impact shattered the heavy, obsidian-like material of the steps, sending large, jagged fragments of the stairs exploding outward into the mist. A cloud of dark dust rose from the point of impact, obscuring the base of the Masked Man's seat.
Zarha stood up.
There was no hesitation, no groans of pain. The dust had barely begun to settle before the white-masked figure rose smoothly from the rubble of the shattered steps. He dusted off his shoulders with a calm, methodical motion, his posture entirely unaffected by the devastating crash.
And dashed forward. He exploded from the ruined base of the throne, covering the massive distance between us in a heartbeat, his dual daggers held out in front of him.
And we continued our fight.
Our weapons met again in a thunderous clash that sent shockwaves rippling through the crimson sky. The exchange was faster now, more desperate, the air thick with the smell of ozone and clashing mana. As we parried and struck, a sharp, echoing sound cut through the noise of our blades.
The masked man snapped his fingers.
The sound was impossibly loud, a singular, authoritative crack that demanded the attention of the entire dimension. And the stairs got fixed. From the corner of my eye, I saw the shattered fragments of obsidian and bone halt in mid-air. They rapidly reversed their trajectories, flying backward and fusing together perfectly. In less than a second, the heavy, imposing steps of the throne were completely whole again, without a single crack or scratch to show that an assassin had just been smashed into them.
The sheer casual display of power from the throne only fueled the adrenaline coursing through my veins. The standard exchanges of combat were not enough. Dodging and clashing would not break this stalemate. I needed to overwhelm the entire space, to drown the teleporting assassin in an unavoidable ocean of raw power and divine numbers. I broke the clash, stepping back rapidly to create a massive distance between us. I raised my hands and reached deep into the absolute core of my magical reserves.
I created 1 million swords with creation magic.
The space above the dimension ignited. The reddish-black void was instantly replaced by a blinding, overwhelming canopy of emerald and white light. A million individual blades, perfect and lethal, materialized out of thin air, stretching across the sky as far as the eye could see. The sheer density of the summoned weapons blotted out the crimson mist, the air humming with the terrifying, collective vibration of a million sharp edges waiting for a command.
Simultaneously, I called upon the divine. And summoned 100 archangels.
Pillars of absolute, holy light crashed down from the sky, piercing the dark atmosphere of the Masked Man's realm. From the blinding columns stepped one hundred towering figures of divine authority. Their massive wings unfurled, casting long, brilliant shadows, their armor gleaming with an untouchable radiance. They drew their massive, glowing swords in unison, a synchronized sound of steel that shook the invisible floor beneath us.
And my demon girl spirit attacks Zarha at the same time.
She re-entered the fray with explosive violence, her dark aura contrasting sharply against the holy light of the archangels and the emerald glow of the million swords. She lunged at the white-masked assassin, initiating the ultimate, overwhelming assault.
The command was given, and the dimension descended into absolute, catastrophic chaos. For an entire minute, the noise was deafening. The million swords rained down from the sky in a relentless, endless torrential downpour of metal and creation magic. They crashed into the invisible floor, tearing through the space where Zarha stood, creating a storm of flying debris and explosive magical impacts. Simultaneously, the 100 archangels descended, sweeping their massive, glowing blades in wide, devastating arcs, attempting to crush the assassin under the sheer weight of their divine numbers. In the center of this apocalyptic storm, my demon girl spirit fought relentlessly, adding her own flurry of strikes to the impossible barrage of attacks raining down upon the single target.
For sixty continuous seconds, the space where Zarha was located was nothing but a blinding, churning sphere of absolute destruction, holy light, and flashing steel. The dimension trembled under the sustained weight of the combined offensive.
After 1 minute of attacking, the blinding light began to fade. The dust settled, and the deafening roar of the assault slowly died down to a heavy, breathless silence.
He killed 100 archangels.
The holy warriors were gone. Their massive forms had been systematically dismantled, their divine armor pierced, their light extinguished in the chaos of the storm. Golden dust, the only remnants of their existence, floated softly through the reddish-black air, dissolving into the mist.
And only a few of the swords scratched him.
The millions of blades that had rained from the sky lay shattered or vanished, having failed to find their target. Zarha had moved through the catastrophic downpour of metal with an impossible, ghostly precision, allowing the deadly edges to miss him by fractions of an inch.
The mist completely cleared, revealing the assassin standing in the exact center of the ruined battlefield.
And he is standing without a sweat with only a few scratches.
His breathing was completely even, the rise and fall of his chest slow and steady. His posture was perfectly relaxed, his hands holding his dual daggers loosely at his sides. The white mask remained firmly in place, entirely unblemished. Across the dark fabric of his clothing, only three or four tiny, shallow tears were visible, revealing faint, superficial lines of red where the edges of the millions of attacks had barely grazed his skin. He had not been pushed; he had not been exhausted. He was completely, utterly unfazed by the most devastating combination of magic and divine forces I possessed.
He tilted his head slightly, the white mask looking directly at me through the dissipating golden dust of the fallen archangels.
He said, "Is that all you got?"