'Now, let me get it right this time.
First, the flame circle.'
Pouring more energy than before into the artifact, he generated another flaming sword and impaled the ground around the fallen Zach.
Fire began to swell from the ground below, dying their surroundings in a deep shade of red.
Arthur let go of the blade and peered beyond the flames. The injured and still healing Zach had been shaken by the sudden surge of heat, and again, his view had been obstructed.
Arthur allowed Zach to stagger to his feet, before summoning his last and most powerful magic gun, he waited for a moment before, taking aim, and firing.
'Should be around his heart?'
**PHSEWW!
There was a whistle. And after a moment's delay, it was followed by the sound of something bursting open.
The sword's flames waned.
They began to die down, but then suddenly sprung to life once more, almost as if they'd been fanned by some sort of motion.
Arthur's entire body was suddenly filled with a sense of impending doom. It was coming from his side. There was something right beside his neck.
He looked, only to see a partially healed Zach standing right there, sword in hand.
His arm had healed but there was now a visible hole that went all the way through his side and came out the other end.
'When did he get there?!'
"GRRROAR!" Blood was spilling from his mouth. He was grievously wounded, but he roared nonetheless.
"Die!"
And in that instant, his sword began to move. Straight towards Arthur's head.
Time almost seemed to slow to a standstill. The blade felt like it was approaching frame by frame.
Arthur could see it slowly drawing closer to his eyes.
'Even if I slowed his time, it was already too late.'
The judgement he made almost seemed to trigger an instinctive action.
The arm he had his gun in moved without him willing it to and positioned itself right between his face and the incoming blade.
**KKRANG!
He heard it right as he lost control of his hastily casted time spell and time began to speed back up.
The blade pierced his arm and caused a sharp pain to begin coursing through his nerves.
'Fuck!!! It hurts more than hell!
Wait, I'm in he- NOW'S NOT THE TIME FOR THAT ARTHURUIS.'
Arthur scolded himself internally and analyzed the situation quickly.
Impaling his arm had caused Zach's blade to shift its course.
And so, rather than skewering his brain like it was supposed to, it had only skimmed the side of his skull.
He wasted no time in immediately shaping his other, empty hand like a blade and thrust it straight into Zach's chest.
The hard sensation of bone was soon followed by the raw, unpleasant feeling of running his hands through raw flesh.
'My aim was true.'
Fresh blood scattered through the air like petals in the wind as Arthur's arm erupted from Zach's back.
However-
'I missed again?!!'
Zach had tilted his body at the last moment and Arthur had missed his heart.
Just like Zach's sword had missed Arthur's head, Arthur's hand had missed Zach's heart.
As Zach took greater damage, Arthur took advantage of his weakened state, to pull his hand out of Zach's chest before delivering a blow to the latter.
One he infused with a huge amount of magic, not caring for the eyes of the spectators or the approaching Epic realm guards.
The punch sent Zach flying through multiple walls and crashed in front of a half-destroyed building near the entrance of the estate.
"Arthur? Are yo-…!"
And at the worst possible time, Layla's voice echoed as she walked in.
Some of the stronger guards had arrived alongside a few fourth years and some fifth years who were in the intermediate stages of the grandmaster realm.
The magic circles that kept summoning monsters were broken and the monsters were being dealt with quickly.
Layla had gone over to where she saw Arthur take Zach in order to confirm the status of Zach.
"Layla! Get away, it's dangerous!"
Unluckily, when Layla walked into the estate, it was the fallen Zach who greeted her.
"GAAaaaaaaahhh!!!!"
"Kyaah!? W-, what is he—!? This is Zach Pearce...!?"
"M-, more...! I need more mana!! EneRgy!!! GIVE MEEEE!!!!!"
The crazed Zach leapt up and lunged at Layla, His ferocity was that of a wounded beast itself.
"YOU—!"
She reflexively activated a simple offensive magic, however, it was not enough to stop the charging Zach.
He created small barriers of magic to block her attacks.
She spread her wings and tried to fly away but Zach stretched out his arm and clenched his fist, a rune glowing on the back of his palm.
Her body stiffened, it was similar to what those on the receiving end of her paralyzing magic eyes felt.
If this continued on—
"I won't let you!"
Although Arthur always annoyed Layla on a daily basis, playing all sorts of pranks on her and dragging her into his various antics, it did not change the fact that he cared for her.
She was one of the few people Arthur really trusted, there was no way he would let any harm come to her.
Especially by an opponent, he was supposed to be fighting against.
With barely perceptible speed, he arrived in front of the charging Zach and launched a kick towards his face.
One became two and two became three.
Three kicks with more than double physical strength, and Zach had no choice but to be pushed back greatly.
Some of his bones were even broken by the kicks, the hole Arthur left beside his heart was still there, and as such the kicks only served to worsen his injuries.
Arthur clenched his fist, pulled back and punched with greater force than that of his kicks.
The punch sent Zach flying through what was left of the already broken buildings. He spat out a huge amount of black blood.
The hole in his chest, plus the punch that Arthur delivered resulted in his insides being completely messed up.
He tried to stand up, but he couldn't, one of Arthur's kicks had broken his legs, and they were taking longer to heal as his body judged the hole in his chest to be more life-threatening and was actively trying to heal it.
Arthur looked at this and spoke out loud.
"Lute, Layla and the rest of you. You all saw nothing here today"
At his words, Layla showed a confused look on her face, this confusion further increased when she saw what Arthur did next.
He revealed his wings.
She had seen what happened the last time he did so she was about to speak however the aura she felt after he did that shut her up instantly.
◇ ◇ ◇
Hello, my name is Lute, I am a guard in service to her highness Cattleya Vaughn, the princess of the Devildom of hell.
I have been serving the princess ever since I was at the age of ten, she saved me from my war-stricken galaxy and brought me to the Capital of the Devildom, Aeturn
The rest of the members of my team were like me, all victims of the numerous intergalactic wars that occur daily all across the billions of galaxies that exist in the Devildom.
Although her highness saved us on a whim, it did not change the fact that she saved us.
We all swore oaths of loyalty, oaths that bound our souls to her.
It had been nearly a thousand years since that day.
I achieved the realm of demigod a few decades ago after gaining authorities in the laws of life and darkness, I was promoted to team leader since then.
When her highness gave birth to her son, she put us in charge of guarding her son.
My team was just one of many but when he was to attend the academy, we were selected to be the sole team responsible for his safety.
We were quite familiar with the prince's unpredictable attitude that he inherited from her highness as we had guarded him for almost a decade.
We were also familiar with the widely known fact that he could not use magic or any energies. We felt sad for the prince when we discovered this and hoped he would regain his ability to use energy.
Although most would be depressed at such a discovery, the prince was far from that. In fact, he worked harder to become stronger and even though he was still a superior stage master, he had grown strong enough to face a grandmaster all on his own.
His sword skills were also noteworthy, capable of overwhelming some legendary realms, based on sword skills alone, that is.
He was currently fighting a monsterized brat named Zach who seemed to be the son of a marquis.
Even though monsterization magic was banned, and by the king himself, he still dabbled in it.
However, there seemed to be more to this as he still retained his sanity despite having transformed into a rune eater.
It seemed that the monsters the brat summoned had been dealt with and so his best friend and possible future fiancé came over to check on him.
Unfortunately, she appeared at the wrong place at the wrong time. She was clearly in danger so I was about to act to save her for the sake of the prince.
However, the prince moved after than I expected and kicked away the monsterized brat.
He then unleashed a punch that clearly knocked the living daylights out of the devil, as someone with an authority in the law of life, I could tell that the devil had lost a lot of life force due to that attack, yet he still took great internal damage.
"Lute, Layla and the rest of you. You all saw nothing here today"
At the prince's words, I tilted my head in confusion clearly not understanding why he said that.
He then did something I had rarely seen him do, he revealed his wings.
About a year ago, I noticed the prince seemed to be avoiding using his wings.
The reason still remained unknown to me, until now that is.
Unable to use his energy?
That was clearly bullshit!!
He was very capable of using his energy, the enormous amount of energy that was comparable to that of a legendary realm existence.
He cast a spell I was very familiar with, one that created a dome of darkness capable of covering the entire area.
It also had a feature that prevented probing magic or skills from being used to sense what was going on inside.
Detection was also impossible for those with lesser energy levels.
From what I sensed, the guards that appeared to take care of the other monsters were all inferior stage Epics, they could not compare in energy quantity or quality to the prince.
However I also noticed something else, the prince's body was breaking down, this was probably due to the enormous amount of energy he held and was probably the reason he concealed it.
I was about to take action again, this time to stop him from further damaging his body, however, his next actions shocked me to the core.
"Ah..."
I was sure, till the day I died, I would never forget what I just saw.