The fight raged on, even more fiercely than before. Both opponents were now determined to fight to the bitter end with everything they had. Since the boy seemed to have the upper hand in close quarters combat, Calitia decided to overwhelm him with magic instead, and she flew towards the sky to put some distance between them.
"I hope you are ready for this!"
Calitia started generating arrows of light left and right, and she then made them rain on the boy. He didn't seem to be able to fly, which gave Calitia an edge over him.
The attack took the boy by surprise, and he started to run backwards at full speed, trying to get outside of the range of the attack. He blocked some of the arrows with his sword, and dodged the rest of them, but he was too busy to counterattack, or that's what Calitia thought.
In between blocks, he sent flying blades shaped like a half moon. Every time the boy moved his sword, one of those blades was shot towards Calitia, who had to stop attacking to dodge the incoming projectile. Those attacks were, however, rather inefficient, as they lacked the speed and power needed to strike down the Katryde.
"You'll never be able to hit me with that," Calitia muttered to herself as she prepared to launch yet another wave of attacks.
However, she failed to realize that the true purpose of those attacks wasn't to harm her, but rather to interrupt the barrage of arrows. And as soon as he achieved that, the boy did not waste a single moment and immediately launched a counterattack.
"Impossible!"
Even though he was unable to fly, he still managed to close in on her by propelling himself upwards using some sort of explosions of darkness.
"You…!"
In just an instant, the boy had closed the gap between them. He held his arm extended, pointed towards Calitia with his palm wide open. A black sphere, similar to the ones that caused the explosions that had allowed him to jump towards her, formed in his hand. She reacted on instinct and created a shield that surrounded her in order to protect herself from the attack.
The sphere exploded, and the shock wave pushed her towards the ground once again. The shield had done its job and absorbed most of the attack, but crashing into the ground had left her slightly stunned.
'Flying is not an option. Had I not shielded myself from the attack I would have taken a lot of damage both from the attack itself and from falling to the ground. And being knocked down from high enough could be fatal… But I'm not that easy to beat!'
Getting up in the air had been easy for the boy, but getting down once again, not so much. He landed unceremoniously a few steps away from Calitia.
"Don't you dare think that this is enough to stop me. You should pay more attention to your surroundings! Especially to what's above you!"
Calitia had left behind a few arrows of light right before she took the boy's attack head on. They rained on the boy, who looked upwards with astonishment in his eyes, and desperately tried to dodge them. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't fast enough. He did manage to avoid taking fatal damage, but one of the arrows pierced him and left a deep cut on his left side.
"Tsk, what a moron. If only you'd stay quiet, you may have landed a solid hit on me. Don't think the same trick will work twice against me," the boy groaned as he pressed the wound with his left hand.
'He… has a point…'
But Calitia still had one trick up her sleeve. She was outmatched in terms of raw strength, but she could out speed him, that much she was confident about. Especially now that he was badly wounded, he should have a hard time moving, let alone keeping up with her at top speed.
"Whatever, let's see you try to keep up with me."
Calitia once again let as much magical power as she could muster flow through her body, which started glowing again, this time even more brightly. Her body shot forward like a missile, charging with unfathomable speed. Just as Calitia expected, the boy didn't have time to react and the blow sent him flying, and once he landed, the momentum kept him rolling in the ground a good distance. However, he once again stood, using his blade as a cane to regain balance. He stared at her, gritting his teeth with primal rage oozing out of him.
"Have it your way, you moron. Even if your body needs to be torn to pieces."
… but all of a sudden, that expression of rage faded away, and turned into a maniacal laughter, as his body started to emit dark smoke once again.
'That smoke again…'
By this point it was obvious to Calitia that the smoke was somehow related to his strength, as every time it made an appearance, he seemed to power up. But she was determined not to give him time to power up any further. She braced herself to end the fight with her next attack.
"Let's wrap this up!"
Calitia sped up and lunged at the boy even faster than the previous time, her blade at the ready, aimed directly for his heart. However, just as it was an inch shy of piercing him, the boy effortlessly deflected the attack using the lower part of the handler of his own blade, just as easily as he would shoo away an annoying fly.
'There's no way my blade can be blocked at such high speed! Let alone with such ease!' Calitia yelled to herself.
Did he perhaps see the attack coming? There was no way Calitia could believe that. It was the fastest attack she'd unleashed. Whatever the case, she had no time to think about what just happened; his curved blade was quickly and menacingly closing in on her, and the way the boy had deflected her attack just moments ago had thrown her defenseless, so there was no way she could react on time to parry the incoming attack. She let go of her sword and backstepped, nearly as fast as she had lunged moments earlier, just in time to prevent the sword from cutting more than a lock of hair barely an inch away from her throat.
"Where…"
And as she was backstepping, the boy vanished from her sight.
"Katryde think that there's nothing faster than light, don't you? Well make sure to remember this from now on: no matter how fast light may be, darkness will always arrive faster."
His distorted voice reached her ears in a faint whisper, coming from behind her.
'When did he get there?'
Calitia had no time to react. As she started to turn around, she felt an intense burst of pain exploding on her stomach. The boy had kicked her with strength so overwhelming that her armor could not protect her from it.
"This is on behalf of Raidha."
Calitia collapsed to the ground, just beside her sword, bent over in pain. She was having a hard time trying to breathe, but that was not enough to make her give up. As the boy was about to strike again, she produced a blinding flash of light. This would of course cause no harm to the boy, but it would blind him for a few seconds, buying Calitia some precious time to mount the counterattack.
"Next time make sure I cannot recover my weapon!"
It all worked out as Calitia has planned. The intense light did indeed blind the boy, who attempted to cover his eyes with his left hand. That left him wide open for an attack, and Calitia wasn't about to let that opportunity go to waste. She immediately grabbed her sword and attempted to stab him in the stomach, in the exact same spot he had kicked her moments ago.
The boy had no doubt good instincts. He was fast to react and jump away, but he wasn't fast enough. Calitia's sword still managed to stab him and left a wound a couple centimeters deep. Blood started pouring from it, and this time it was the boy who ended up kneeling on the ground and bent over in excruciating pain.
Calitia readied her sword and lunged at him once more, but again it was to no avail. This time it was a dark shock wave that deflected the attack and pushed Calitia herself back, but fortunately for her, she took no damage from it.
With his hand still pressed against the wound, the boy slowly rose. Calitia also regained her footing. For a spell, they both simply stood, immobile, staring at each other in silence. Each one waiting for the other to attack. In the end, the boy was the first one to do so.
He darted towards her like a feral animal. This time, Calitia was able to parry the attack with her sword, leaving him vulnerable to a counterattack. His strength was waning, as the wounds she'd inflicted on him started to take its toll. Taking advantage of this, Calitia stroke with her sword again, and this time she landed a solid hit, leaving a fresh, deep cut on his chest. However, the boy was able to avoid taking fatal damage once again.
Despite being stabbed once more, the boy was still able to fire another sphere of darkness that hit Calitia squarely, although she did not take as much damage as she had earlier when he kicked her.
The boy landed on his knees, using his blade to maintain balance and gasping for breath. This fact notwithstanding, Calitia still chose to keep her distance.
"What inhuman resilience…"
"I don't think I can be called something like human myself, although this body is indeed that of a human…"
He was badly wounded, yet he refused to go down. He was a true monster.
'He must be in dire straits, but I'm hanging by a thread myself. I'm running out of mana and physically I'm about to hit my limit.'
He could barely move anymore, so he should be unable to dodge any more of her attacks. But even in such a precarious predicament, he was not to be taken lightly. A single mistake could be deadly against such an opponent.
'I need to end this fast. This is it; I'm betting everything on my next attack!'
Calitia brought her hands together and focused her magic power on them. She created a sphere of light using every last bit of power she could muster. The boy must have noticed that this was an all-or-nothing attack, as he started imitating Calitia and created a sphere of darkness with his left hand as he rested his right hand on his sword.
"A similar attack? You are nothing but a copycat!"
"Indeed, let's see who's the strongest."
They unleashed their attacks simultaneously. The two beams, one white and the other black collided with each other, creating a huge shockwave that made the earth all around them crack, and formed a massive crater.
Both opponents were evenly matched. For a while, none of the beams gave an inch. Every second, Calitia felt her mana being drained away with maddening speed. At this rate, she'd be suck dry in less than 20 seconds. Not only that, the physical and mental fatigue were increasing even faster than her mana was being drained.
' He must be just as battered as I am, right?'
Thick drops of sweat started to run down her forehead. She was barely able to handle the accumulating tension, but Calitia was nothing if not stubborn. Even though she was being drained, she pumped even more power into her attack.
'Why won't you die already!'
It took 10 long seconds, but finally, one of the beams started to give in. Slowly but surely, the white one started to gain ground until it completely overpowered the dark one, blowing it away along with the boy.
As the light began to fade and the dust to settle, Calitia could make out the shape of a body, resting on a pool of blood, some 50 meters away from where the explosion had taken place. She was running on empty by now, but Calitia began to slowly make her way towards him.
"You should have finished me off when you had the chance. Kicking me was not the greatest idea. In war, that kind of mistake could cost you your life." Calitia mocked the boy in a similar fashion to what the boy had done earlier.
He was covered in blood and unable to move, but the boy was still alive…
"You are right, you cannot lower your guard even for a second. So I will return the favor just like you warned me to watch out for my surroundings, now it is my turn to warn you. Watch out…"
"What?"
Calitia quickly glanced upwards and got ready to guard against an attack… that never came.
"Beneath you."
"No way…!"
She couldn't react in time. The dark energy rose from under the ground and trapped her feet and hands. Calitia tried to break free, but she'd already hit her limit and had no strength left. She bit her lip out of frustration. She didn't even have strength left to lament the dire predicament she found herself in.
'I underestimated him and that was my downfall. I lost…'
Calitia was only able to silently bear witness to how the boy clumsily stood up and painstakingly made his way towards her, limping, dragging his sinister sword and coughing blood every step of the way, his other hand still pressed against the wound in his chest.
It was obvious that he was enduring excruciating pain, and it seemed like he was about to pass out any moment. But still, he endured it all. Calitia was feeling somehow moved by the boy's unrelenting determination.
' I'm not even sure whether he's the best warrior or the worst monster I've ever met.'
After a few long seconds, the boy was finally standing in front of her, his sword at the ready and aiming for her neck.
'Father… Mother…. Please forgive me, for I was unable to avenge you…'
And his sword flew towards her neck.