"Hey, is that you? Is it really you!?" Junhyung exclaimed joyfully, his body trembled with excitement.
"Want me to answer that?"
In a flash, a fist connected to Junhyung's face, smashing it in, and sent him straight flying through multiple buildings.
"Ice Creation: Silver Sword!"
Toshirou turned around and blocked the sword-shaped ice with his bare hand, crushing it at the same time. The action gave Azahel some seconds to jump back in wariness.
'What just happened? I lost sight of him for a moment and the next thing I knew, he had punched Junhyung away. Why? Why does it keep seeming like he's getting stronger and stronger with every passing battle!?'
"Oh come on, you didn't run back earlier, did you?" Holding up his hand, Toshirou opened it, letting pieces of ice fall to the ground. His eyes shone with malevolence. "Come at me like you want to kill me."
"Don't get cocky, boy!" Azahel swiped his hands in the air and shouted, "Ice Creation: Quad Poles!
Sixteen iron rods forged from ice with sharpened edges appeared and hurled themselves at Toshirou.
'This is my last sword.' Toshirou thought as he put his arm into a blue circle with symbols on it and pulled out a black katana, its hilt also pitch black and shaped like the wings of a Slavor.
With incredible speed, he hacked through every single one of the rods, destroying them to pieces with each hit.
'He's not even using divine energy, it's simply brute strength!'
Azahel suddenly saw Toshirou's face up in his, with his sword between their eyes.
"Hollow."
A sharp blue light fired out Toshirou's blade, sending Azahel back in the air.
"Act 2: Cursed Venom!" A crescent-shaped wave of black energy hit Toshirou powerfully from behind. He flew forward and in the air, turned round to face his assailant.
Junhyung swung his staff down at Toshirou. The azure-eyed teen defended with his sword and grabbed Junhyung by the collar, bringing him down and using him as a landing platform.
The golden-eyed male coughed up blood as his head scraped along the rough icy ground. Toshirou stood on his stomach. Wrapping his legs around Toshirou's neck from behind, Junhyung threw him over and came to a halt.
Toshirou backflipped and also came to a stop, landing on his two feet. His opponent picked himself off the ground, chuckling as he did so.
"Be healed."
A bright blue light enveloped Toshirou's body, making the poisonous aura around him disappear and healing his wounds.
"Well I'll be damned, you can heal yourself too?" Junhyung said, admiringly.
Toshirou held his sword by the hilt and threw it at him like a spear. The sword came with full speed and pierced Junhyung through the chest. Instantly, Toshirou was in his front and punched him in the face.
*krunch*
Junhyung was pretty sure that his nose had been broken, but that served to only fuel his excitement rather than deter him. He gripped his staff tightly, turned it around, and used the end of the staff to hit Toshirou on his head.
Toshirou bent down, dodging the attack and drew his blade out of Junhyung's chest, causing Junhyung to crack a smile.
The two teens fought in a series of quick movements. Side to side Toshirou swung his sword, Junhyung blocking them with each spin of his staff. Sparks flew between them as their weapons made contact with the other. Junhyung swung his staff down and Toshirou moved his body to the left, grabbed the hilt of his sword with two hands, and swiped it up against Junhyung's face.
*Swish* was the sound it made as Junhyung bent down with his head faced up, narrowly escaping the attack. He passed his staff to his left hand from behind and struck it at Toshirou's neck.
Toshirou placed his bare hand by his head, using the back of his wrist to block the attack, and kicked Junhyung painfully in his abdomen. He followed up with a knee to Junhyung's face, no doubt forming a crack in his skull, and grabbed him, holding him up by the head.
"Sayonara, Junhyung," said Toshirou, and he stabbed him in the right side of his chest, digging the sword deep into his heart.
Blood poured from Junhyung's mouth, his attire becoming dyed in red as blood from his heart spilt outward on his clothing.
Toshirou flung the boy away and suddenly circled, hitting the ice boulder that came at him from behind and shattering it to pieces.
"Ice Creation: Cold Stone!"
Massive boulder-like structures made of ice attacked Toshirou.
'Tch! The edge of my sword's all chipped.'
However, that didn't stop him from cutting through each of the boulders. The last boulder was bigger than the rest and he smashed the hilt of his sword into it, destroying it completely.
Azahel stood some distance away from Toshirou. He was injured, part of his sleeves were torn revealing sharp wounds, his coat was also in a similar state, dishevelled and decorated in dirt mixed with blood, fingers from his gloves on both hands were noticeably missing as well, and his face was riddled with scratches and bruises.
He stretched out his arms and clasped his hands. In quick motions, he executed three hand signs.
"Ice Creation: Frozen Gates."
*Boom*
*Kink*
*Boom*
"Amusing," Toshirou remarked.
Three enormous gates, each at least the size of a building, with the markings of five spiral circles engraved on each of them, closed the gap between them. Their density and sturdiness were unlike anything Toshirou had ever seen before. The three gates unexpectedly opened up, and something that resembled a cannon, massive in size, came through the gates and focused its hollowed end directly in Toshirou's face.
"Decimate," Azahel said.
A bright light glowed within the cannon. At a swift pace, the third gate from behind collapsed and melted into the cannon. The same went for the second and the first gates.
Toshirou narrowed his gaze in the face of the cannon and gripped his sword tightly in his right hand.
A powerful blast of ice shot out from the cannon-like object at point-blank range towards him.
The sound was like a deafening earthquake, the explosion so powerful it destroyed more than half of the town and its surroundings.
"That's the end of the line for you, Aosaki Toshirou," Azahel said, tilting up his thinly framed glasses, being pleased with his handiwork.
"So tell me, really, is that the best you can do?"
Azahel's eyes opened up in shock.
As the fog caused by Azahel's attack cleared, it gradually exposed the person behind it. Toshirou, with an evil toothy grin, stood far back with torn clothes, and a destroyed sword in his right hand that was burnt out. Most of his inner shirt and jacket was gone. Only a sleeve on his left arm, joined to torn fabrics of clothes on his torso, remained. His trousers were also destroyed by the blast, remaining only a short with disfigured hems that reached a bit below his knees.
The blade of his sword was gone, leaving behind a broken hilt in his right hand, and half his body was light blue, a result of being hit head-on by the cannon attack.
"How are you still alive!?" Azahel shouted, beginning to be at his wit's end.
"I'll ask you again,"— harsh visible breaths came out of Toshirou's mouth, accompanied by a wicked evil grin— "is that the best you can do!?"
He disappeared from his sight.
The sound of the speed at which he moved was like the deep boom of a bass drum.
"You're too arrogant, brat."
Azahel also disappeared.
With a booming sound, they reappeared on another side of the battlefield, with their hands against the other.
Azahel reinforced his palm with ice and struck Toshirou. The winter blue-haired teen responded by countering the blow with a fist of his own.
Both disappeared again, reappearing in yet another location, and exchanging fists as they did so. Vibrations were sent throughout the town as they repeatedly disappeared and reappeared, trading blows all the way.
'He's adept at using the flash step? What kind of human is this? Why is he so powerful?'
Toshirou drew back his arm and threw his fist at Azahel's head, sending him some distance away. In the air, Azahel swiped up his left hand and giant spikes made of ice protruding from the ground, headed straight at Toshirou.
Toshirou placed both hands in front of him, ready to face the attack.
"Way of the Serpent: Act 3; Cruelty."
Powerful and enormous dark energy in the form of a skull hit Toshirou hard from behind, catching him off guard. The giant spikes of ice crashed into him from his front causing a terrible explosion of grey and blue to erupt from the collision.
"Haa... Haa... Haa..." Junhyung panted heavily, with his knees bent and back hunched over as he held his almost broken staff in hand.
"It's scary, so damn scary in fact."
The remains of the explosion cleared, revealing Toshirou with half his body burnt black, and his other half frozen blue. His torso was bare, exposing a well-sculpted body run with blood-stained injuries and painful bruises.
"You," Junhyung grinned as his golden yellow eyes gleamed with uncontrollable excitement, "just what the hell are you?"
"We often ask ourselves the same thing."
Junhyung bent backwards immediately, dodging the bullet-like torrents of wind by a hair's breadth. He stood up and looked behind, his grin widening on seeing the source of the attack.
"You're alive?"
"It's thanks to Aosaki over there. I should have been long gone by now."
Both Dae and Yeong-ji, feudal lords of Min-ae and Min-ji respectively, stood before Junhyung, Toshirou, and Azahel, fully healed and revived.
A sneaking suspicion came over Azahel, that his time was up.