"Impos... sible—"
The invisible Zach was confused about how Arthur found him, he was supposed to be invisible after all.
"We're not done yet…Since you still retain some of your sanity you should understand me properly right?
Please show all the Runes you haven't activated yet.
I really wanna see how much they experimented on you.
Also, we're having such an entertaining after all, are we not? Please, humour me."
"Gr… rrr…!"
Arthur meant to ask him in a friendly manner.
But, his opponent seemed to be enraged by him instead.
There was also a tinge of fear even though Arthur was clearly an entire realm of strength lower than him.
"GAAAAaaaahh...!"
The invisible Zach shrieked.
Flaming bullets, ice pebbles, lightning spears, small tornadoes, stone spears and even miniature water dragons appeared all at once, surrounding Arthur.
"!?"
'Nope! I definitely have to evade that!'
Unfortunately-
There was a sensation of a firm grip on his shoulders as if something was sticking onto him.
"Huh..?"
It was Zach, Arthur had grabbed his wrists to stop his ice blades, but Zach took advantage of that and stuck even closer to him to stop his movements altogether.
And then, several projectiles of multiple attributes surrounded both of them.
The amount was as if there were many mages using magic and ether-based spells all at once.
If the monsterized Zach were to unleash that, then he would surely fall victim to it as well and be damaged by his own attacks.
"In the end, just a brat who can't use his magic... eat this!"
The flames, ice, lightning, wind and stones that were suspended launched in unison. As for the water dragons, they spiralled down towards Arthur faster than the other projectiles.
Arthur tried to avoid them, but the monsterized Zach who had the strength of a superior stage grandmaster gripped him tight.
His movements were sealed. Even when he tried to shake him off, Zach wouldn't budge, the latter had used Earth magic to seal his feet to the ground so Arthur couldn't move him with the ridiculous strength he possessed.
That was—only if he let things be.
"...Zachary Pearce, why in tarnation are you holding me so closely, were both dudes you know? If anyone were to see this then they might have some weird thoughts."
Arthur spoke with a not-so-serious tone as he activated one of the artifacts equipped on his ankles. It was an anklet that had a simple feature.
It multiplied the strength of the wearer by almost threefold.
When used by Arthur who had enough physical strength to punch a hole in the head of an intermediate-stage grandmaster beast, the effects were disastrous.
"HAAaatt!!!"
After Arthur shook off Zach with brute force, then immediately crouched, grabbing a fistful of sand before leaping overhead.
There were no projectiles deployed above them.
While bouncing up the wall of the nearby building and climbing to the roof, Arthur observed the scene below unfolding.
The monsterized Zach who had been shaken off by Arthur was being charged by countless projectiles of his own creation.
Flame bullets, ice pebbles, lightning spears, mini tornadoes, stone spears and miniature water dragons. All of them shot at him at once.
'He's not gonna just stand there and let them hit him right?'
But, just before they landed, Zach's chest flashed with the brilliance of another rune and the attacks disappeared as though they were sucked into something.
As a result, he appeared to suffer no damage at all.
"Huhuhuhu..."
He turned towards Arthur and the two runes on each of his cheeks flashed.
He opened his mouth and fired a beam of light, one that was filled with the energy from all the attacks he just absorbed.
'Just how many runes does this guy have?'
Those were Arthur's thoughts and he dodged the beam of light that pierced through the building he was on, alongside the rest of the estate behind it.
**BBBBOOoOOM!!!
'Why the fuck are they still watching, dealing with this guy without energy-infused attacks is getting hard.'
Arthur decided to give up on waiting for the spectators to leave as they were even multiplying.
'Well, they're quite far so at least they won't get caught in the crossfire.'
Arthur jumped onto the roof of one of the few remaining buildings to look at the scene of destruction Zach caused.
He heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Zach, who also jumped to the roof, chasing after Arthur.
The two ice swords appeared again in his hand.
'He would most likely turn transparent and slash at me again.'
"Also stop copying me, I call copyright."
This time around, the fire, ice, and stone projectiles would surely be added into the mix.
'Evading everything with a bare hand would be tricky, would it not?
'If that's the case, then I'll go sword mode too… '
**CHINK!
Along with a clear, solid sound reverberating in the air, an ice sword appeared in Arthur's empty hand.
"The ice feels cooler than usual."
Now, he could parry the incoming attacks on top of evading them.
"Now, Round 2, or is it 3 already?"
Zach's figure vanished as if he was in a hurry.
'I really want a rune of invisibility now.'
While he was having such thoughts, Arthur heard footsteps approaching.
Zach's Invisible ice swords were slicing the air as they attacked.
Arthur turned to the direction he heard the footsteps approaching from and threw the sand he had grabbed from the ground towards it.
Zach, who expected such a trick again, twisted his body to avoid it, however, Arthur had also not expected it to work a second time.
Arthur slashed horizontally, making Zach who was in an uncomfortable position, have no option of dodging, unless he wished to fall off the roof.
He blocked Arthur's blades and the two began to exchange a flurry of attacks.
'I've gotten a feel for it, now even if he goes invisible, I can still find him.
**PRANG PRANG PRANG PRANG—!
The sound of ice swords locking ice swords was unlike steel clashing one another but clear like a musical instrument.
'What instrument was it called again?'
While Arthur was wondering about something completely unrelated to the situation at hand, Zach was preparing another attack for him.
"... Eat this!"
Flaming bullets, ice pebbles, stone spears, and even pure energy balls. Magic, ether and the rare prana too, all those projectiles appeared all around the perimeter of Arthur, even up above him, all at once.
It was the same attack as before, but now blocking his escape route through the sky completely.
"I knew you'd do that..."
Whilst still locking swords with the invisible opponent, Arthur pranced around to either dodge or parry the incoming projectiles with his ice blade.
His movements were simply absurd.
Arthur was dodging projectiles he could not see while locking swords with an opponent that he could not see.
The attacks that missed Arthur struck the nearby buildings and destroyed them completely. Some of the stronger ones were repelled with his second sword and they crashed far away.
It was a fantastical sight of flame spears crashing into buildings and burning them to ash instantly, stone spears crumbling even more buildings easily.
Arthur dodged the mini tornadoes that raged with a ferocity that could tear an intermediate-stage grandmaster to bits and the lightning spears scorched the earth where they landed.
In just a few minutes, two-thirds of the entire estate had been reduced to a pile of rubble. This was happening while Arthur and Zach were still clashing swords while moving from one building top to another.
Yet Arthur didn't suffer much damage, just a few burns from the flames that burned him lightly, besides that he was fine.
Even his enemy who should've been engaging him couldn't help but had his breath taken at this sight.
"Impossible...a mere brat who can't use his energy!"
"You've been quite focused on that for a while, could it be that you're jealous of me or something? It seems like you think that's my weak point and you are trying to pick at it."
Arthur spoke towards Zach who still managed to form words despite his crumbling sanity.
'If they were trying to create a monsterized devil that retained his sanity, then this guy is a success'
"O-, Ooooohh...!"
"Didn't they teach you to not get distracted during a fight?"
'A good time for a perfect Counterattack!
As Arthur further increased the speed of his sword, the pitch of the tones played between the ice sword heightened.
Gradually, the invisible Zach got cornered, and then
**SWISH!
At last, Arthur's ice sword had finally sliced off the monsterized Zach's right arm.
"AHHHHHH!?!?!?"
Along with a scream, the sliced-off right arm that was covered in runes, fell with a plop, revealing its figure. The light of one of the flashing runes on the arm, died down the moment it fell.
A few seconds later, its owner slowly faded into existence.
'It seems the Rune that caused the invisibility was on that sliced-off arm huh?'
Zach flailed around while screaming and because of his violent riot, he fell off the roof, and back to the ground.
Arthur, who had wanted to take the fight off the roof for a while now, jumped down with him.
The moment he landed, he switched out the ice sword in his hands for a flame sword.
'Now' let me get it right this time.
First, the flame circle.'