Milo held his breath in few seconds that it took for the fire to clear.
Merlow appeared behind Milo, rising from his shadow. Merlow had managed to avoid the full brunt of the attack.
Half of Merlow's body had scorch marks on it, but aside from that, he seemed fine.
Milo looked at Merlow's status.
(Status)
Lv.26-Exp(3,784/26,000)
HP: 12,341/23,500
MP: 4,700/5,000
Strength: 245 (1,321)
Agility: 242 (1,267)
Endurance: 204 (1,123)
Intelligence: 221 (1,156)
Sense: 234 (1,235)
Mana: 280 (980)
Spirit: 346 (1,365)
Attribute Points: 0
The two of them made a silent exchange and Milo casted heal on Merlow.
This opponent was different from the rest. It reminded Milo of when he had fought Sonahg, he was nothing more than entertainment. It would take the two of them to beat Roland.
"He can read our minds." Merlow notified Milo.
"This guy's full of surprises." Milo thought.
"Purification, you have to use it. Roland's corrupted mana is the perfect target for light magic."
Milo activated purification in his hands and created a torrent of wind in the direction of Roland.
By infusing the two, Milo had hoped the purification would reach Roland through the wind, but Roland wiped it all away with one wave of his hand.
"Tch, should have known that wouldn't work." Milo proclaimed.
"No, it might actually, that's just the wrong approach." Merlow added.
"Care to explain?"
"We need to immobilize him first. It would be easy if he was on the ground."
"Got it, so force him to the ground."
"Pretty much."
Instantaneously Roland had appeared in front of Milo, grabbing him by the throught and dragging him through the ground.
Milo grabbed Roland by his arm and tried to shake him, but nothing was working. Milo instead sought to compromise.
He attached multiple webs onto Roland and began shooting their other ends all over the surrouding area.
Eventually there was so much resistance that Roland couldn't drag Milo and further.
"Impudent knat!" Roland yelled before releasing Milo and forcing a shockwave out of his hand, blast Milo further.
Roland's wings began spinning around like blades as they cut all of the webs off of his body.
Roland fell to the floor and was now approaching Milo, at a fast pace at first.
However, Milo had already recovered and started shooting more webs at Roland.
Roland slowed down and started cutting the webs one by one using his winds.
This was extremely alarming, Milo considered his webs to have a tensile strength higher than that of his own body. This meant that Roland could probably cut him into pieces with ease if given the chance.
Seeing that Roland was now on the ground, Merlow took this as his chance.
He started manipulating Roland's shadows, causing them to rise up, restraining Roland.
Of course, Roland had already seen ahead.
Roland smirked and accelerated his movement, slipping out of Merlow's restraints.
"Shit! Look out!" Merlow yelled.
Before Milo could react, his torso was cleanly sliced away from his lower half.
"But how?" Milo thought as his blood sprayed everywhere.
"Notification: All Stats Have Been Halved"
Roland grabbed Milo by his hair, making sure to look him in the eye.
"A peasant like you shouldn't have gotten involved with the affiars of the capital, trash."
Roland placed a ball of dark energy to Milo stomach and blasted him through several walls.
"Damnit, he's done for. Even healing magic can't bring you back from that." Merlow assumed.
Milo was now underneath a heaping pile of rubble, feeling soreness all over.
Milo looked down at his waist to see his lower half missing. Luckily, he was no longer bleeding thanks to his shape shifting ability, but something weird started to happens.
His waist started writhing as nubs sprouted out from it. The nubs continued growing and reshaping themselves until they transformed into an entirely new pair of legs.
"Holy shit, that was disturbing."
Milo stumbled onto his feet, stuggling to maintain his balance on his new pair of legs for a short while.
Milo cleared the rubble and made his way back to the battle ground.
Merlow was on the defense, dodging Roland's strikes to the best of his ability.
Milo was ready to go fight Roland again, but a tiny obscure detail caught him off guard.
The place where his legs were supposed to be was empty.
Suddenly Milo felt a tap on his shoulder from behind.
"Shoot, I let my guard down!"
Milo shot around with his arm sharpened into a blade. To Milo's surprise, his attack was stopped by non other than himself. Well it looked like him, only more gender neutral.
"Calm down, it's me."
The voice that came out of the double sounded a lot like Erythro's.
"Erythro?"
"Yes."
Milo lowered his weapon.
"But how?"
"When you were severed in two, I transferred a fraction of my consciousness into your lower half and reconstructed the rest of the body."
"So that's why out stats were halved. But when did Erythro learn to do this." Milo thought.
"Anyway, I have a plan as to how to defeat Roland."
"Incoming!!!" Merlow yelled as he flew through the air on a collision course for Erythro.
Erythro stuck his arm out and created a cushioned net, catching Merlow, but forcing him back a few meters.
Merlow looked up in confusion. "You got a twin or something?"
"Something like that." Milo said.
Their conversation was quickly interupted by reinforced spikes of ice rising from the ground all around them.
Everyone scattered and began charging Roland, Erythro in the lead.
"What's the plan Erythro?!" Milo yelled in desperation.
"Go all out, don't use projectiles." Erythro stated.
"Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down!?" Milo returned.
Erythro didn't reply, only accelerating further.
"Damn, so no projectile attacks huh. Guess I have to do this the old fashioned way." Milo thought.
Milo stopped moving foward and thought of an idea.
Merlow's Fist of the Gentle Demon wasn't working too well. It was like Roland knew every move he was going to do which was beginning to frustrate Merlow.
Even with Milo's double and Merlow attacking simaltaneously, neither could land a single direct hit.
"He's reading your movements through your negative energy. You'll have to fight without it." Drelmoth noted.
Merlow knew Drelmoth was right, so he compressed his negative energy back into his body.
Strangely enough, Roland wasn't blocking Milo's twin, only dodging.
"Why is he only blocking me?" Merlow thought.
"It's because they're using purification magic." Drelmoth informed Merlow.
"Something's off." Roland thought.
Looking closely at Milo, he could see that his features had changed quite a bit.
Roland created another force wave, forcing the two attackers to retreat.
As Erythro regained their footing Roland had already approached, wings overbearing.
"I don't remember you being this. weak." Roland said.
Erythro prepared for the incoming strike, eye closed, but it never came.
Upon opening their eyes, Erythro witnessed a familiar looking demonic rabbit with a faint white glow planting it's huge fist in the side of Roland's face.