The Demon Mask mage raised his blade.
Jeremiah's eyes widened—then he vanished.
Mana surged through his legs, igniting every muscle for a single, explosive step. just instant displacement. He reappeared inches from Gillian's face, his fist already driving forward with inhuman force. Red static lightning crackled violently around his arm, the air snapping as the punch broke the sound barrier.
Gillian reacted, bringing the flat of his blade up to block.
Too late.
Jeremiah's fist tore straight through the metal. The artifact shattered, shards whistling through the air as the remaining force slammed into Gillian's chest, launching him across the clearing.
Jeremiah didn't pause; he was already in pursuit.
Afterimages trailed behind him as he closed the distance in a blur. He leaped, driving his palm toward the earth.
"Ice Domain."
A burst of white, frigid flame erupted from his hand. In a heartbeat, the ground and surrounding trees were encased in glass-like stillness, frozen by a violent spread of frost. For a fraction of a second, Jeremiah held total control.
Then the earth ruptured.
A dome of stone surged upward, tearing through the frozen crust. The ice shattered under the pressure of Gillian's counter-magic, shielding him from the cold. Jeremiah landed lightly on a frosted branch, looking down with a scoff.
"Earth affinity..." His eyes narrowed. "And if he's not from this world, he's definitely got more. At least I broke that damn artifact."
Gillian's roar was a physical force that detonated the earth beneath him. The resulting explosion launched his massive frame skyward, while simultaneously sculpting the debris into a volley of jagged stone spears.
Jeremiah kicked off his branch, twisting mid-air to weave through the barrage, but the sheer volume of projectiles was too high. Sharp stone grazed his ribs and pierced his shoulder, yet the wounds closed in a blur of knitting flesh before the first drop of blood could hit the ground.
Jeremiah's expression remained cold.
Gillian landed heavily atop the pillar. Deprived of his blade, he let his mana saturate his very skin. In response, Jeremiah's head tilted at an unnatural angle. A low, unstable laugh bubbled in his throat as he surged forward, his feet carving grooves into the frozen earth.
Mid-stride, Jeremiah's intent manifested. A blade of white-hot fire ignited in his grip, woven through with the screaming friction of wind mana and the erratic pulse of red lightning. As he swung in a massive horizontal arc, the weapon elongated, trailing a curtain of elemental destruction. The strike bisected the massive structure with a clean, cauterized line.
As the pillar collapsed, Gillian dropped through the dust, and Jeremiah met him in the air.
Abandoning the flame-blade for raw savagery, Jeremiah's claws extended. He delivered four visceral slashes across Gillian's chest, the sound like metal rending leather. Yet the demon masked giant didn't even seem to notice the damage. Capitalizing on their proximity, Gillian's fist became encased in a gauntlet of hardened earth. He slammed the weight of it downward into Jeremiah's sternum, driving him into the dirt with enough force to crater the impact zone.
Jeremiah was stunned for a moment then bounced up instantly, his smile widening to reveal rows of sharpened teeth. His eyes burned a predatory crimson as blood mana surged, pulsing through the visible red veins webbing across his skin. He leveled his palm, condensing the chaotic power into a single, blinding point.
A beam of pure, pressurized elemental force erupted. It tore a scar through the forest, vaporizing ancient trees and clearing a scorched path all the way to the distant coastline. But as the smoke cleared, the target was gone.
Gillian appeared from the blind spot on Jeremiah's left. His speed was terrifying for his bulk, his hands now coated in dense, metallic plating that shimmered with a dull grey light. Jeremiah threw up his arms to block, but the momentum was insurmountable. His wrist and forearms shattered under the metallic impact, and the force launched him backward, skipping him like a stone through the treeline until he tumbled toward the cliffs of the coast.
Jeremiah forced himself upright, his breath coming in ragged hitches. The healing was slowing—the fractures clicked back into place, but the ache remained.
Gillian descended from the sky like a falling star. Multiple metal constructs—disembodied, massive fists—manifested in a circular sequence behind him. He unleashed a piston-like barrage. Jeremiah blurred, dodging the first two strikes as they pulverized the ground into powder, but the third caught him square in the ribs.
The impact sent him tumbling once more, his body acting as a plow through the undergrowth. He came to a halt at the edge of the world, the salt spray of the ocean stinging his fresh cuts. He stood slowly, his chest heaving. The monster within him was screaming, and the pain was only making it louder.
He's too strong, Jeremiah thought, his gaze locking onto the silhouette of the demon mask mage approaching through the dust.
Then, the laugh returned—fuller this time. It's simple, he's only human after all. I just need to get close.
Gillian stepped back into the clearing, radiating a suffocating menace. Jeremiah's expression simply went hollow, He conjured a jagged blade of ice, his free hand hovering over the frost as red lightning began to hiss along the edge, bounded by his own volatile blood mana.
He moved.
It was the Flowing Blade Style, but corrupted—no longer the disciplined grace of a human swordsman, but the hyper-accelerated blur of a predator. He pivoted to dodge a devastating strike, but Gillian's raw power was too vast to fully evade. A heavy, stone-encased blow caught Jeremiah in the ribs, the crack of bone echoing against the cliffside.
Jeremiah didn't slow down. He couldn't not when his opponent is vastly more powerful the only reason he could even fight him was because Jeremiah wasn't human if this had been Tessa or even Mariah they would've died a long time ago. In the heat of the exchange, Jeremiah did the unexpected—he threw the lightning-charged ice blade directly at Gillian.
Gillian twisted, the projectile whistling past and shattering against the trees. That split-second of evasion was the only opening Jeremiah needed.
He vanished, reappearing with his full weight committed. He tackled Gillian with an explosive force that carried them both off the clearing's edge. They plummeted from the cliffs, a tangled mess falling toward the dark sea below.
As they fell, the struggle turned primal.
Jeremiah surged forward,his jaw unhinging as his fangs sank deep into the meat of Gillian's neck. The first burst of arterial spray hit the back of Jeremiah's throat like liquid fire.
Gillian let out a strangled roar, thrashing violently. In a desperate reflex, jagged earthen spikes erupted from the mage's own body, impaling Jeremiah through the chest and abdomen barely missing his core.
Jeremiah felt burning hot pain but He didn't let go. He only bit deeper.
They hit the water like a depth charge.
The freezing ocean swallowed them whole, a chaotic swirl of bubbles and white foam.
Beneath the surface, the thrashing was chaotic, then desperate. Jeremiah's throat worked in steady, greedy gulps, drinking in the demon masked mages life force.
DIE YOU BASTARD DIE.
They sank into the crushing dark. Gillian's movements slowed to a twitch, then a faint tremble, and finally, his heart gave one last, pathetic shudder before stopping entirely.
The earthen spikes dissolved into the saltwater, leaving gaping holes in Jeremiah's torso, but he remained locked on. He continued to drink from the cooling corpse in the silence of the deep.