Gril grabbed the head of a first rank calamity, then summoned powerful and fierce flames in both his hands, burning the calamity and quickly extinguishing its life.
The young man released the head of the calamity, whose body fell to the ground inert along with several other corpses.
He wiped his forehead with his sleeve, wiping away the sweat that was beginning to accumulate on his skin, and sighed.
"Phew... they're finally over"
Near him, Tana stowed her knife and Lynn also stowed her two pistols in the holsters she wore on her hip.
"That's enough for now" Gril looked around, observing the civilians behind them and the other fighters also finishing off the last of the incoming calamities.
Tana also sighed and stretched out her arms.
"Let's rest for a while, we never know when they might come back more"
Gril nodded, waving his hands trying to relax his muscles.
"Good idea... although I'm not really that tired"
"Oh, that's good then"
Gril turned at the sound of a voice behind him and barely had time to raise his arms and reinforce them with essence to cover his body.
A large sword slammed into his forearm, sending him flying into a nearby wall. Gril's body fell to the ground leaving a crack in the wall, then he looked up and opened his eyes wide at the great sword coming towards his head.
"It's you, bastard!"
Nathan charged vertically at Gril who was still on the ground, then quickly the young man stepped back and Nathan's sword met its fate on the ground.
A hole surrounded by cracks appeared in the ground as Gril clenched his bite angrily and began to form flames in his hands.
"What are you doing you fucking asshole!"
Nathan ignored Gril's shout and raised his sword again to attack him. But just as he was about to begin his attack, he felt an attack from his side, forcing him to back.
The knife attached to the chain crashed into the wall, then Tana swung the knife back towards Nathan.
Momentarily releasing the sword, Nathan ducked, dodged the attack, and then grabbed the hilt of the falling sword with a different kind of grip.
Without thinking twice, Nathan went for Tana, who was surprised by the sudden attack on her.
The last time they had fought against each other, Nathan had always focused on Gril, which had been a big mistake.
Nathan thought for a long time about the mistakes he had made during their fight and found several. He then began to think of ways to remedy these mistakes.
The first mistake was to face his opponents without knowing their techniques, and because of that mistake he now had horrible scars on his arms. But now it was different, as he knew and understood to a lesser extent the techniques of both of them.
The second mistake was not getting rid of Tana from the beginning. For that reason, he took advantage of the surprise attack and the fact that they were still somewhat tired after the fight against the calamities.
His sword came dangerously close to Tana's neck, then two shots landed on the edge of the great sword, deflecting it, and saving Tana's life.
Nathan turned his head and looked at Lynn who was holding her two pistols with a tense expression on her face.
Lynn was another variable that had not been present at the previous fight, but Nathan considered it likely that she would be involved this time, which would make his battle substantially more difficult.
But he had the easiest method to take care of Lynn quickly, his weak heart.
"Stay out of this!"
His slightly essence-laden shout passed through Lynn's ears reaching her heart. Lynn's body trembled slightly and momentarily froze.
Nathan smiled aggressively behind his mask and turned his attention back to Tana, who had taken a couple of steps back.
Regaining his stance lost by Lynn's shots, Nathan swung his sword horizontally again without caring about anything around him.
Tana paled as she saw the sword coming towards her again, then Gril appeared at her side, grabbing her by the collar of her shirt and pulling her to the side.
Nathan's sword only broke the air and he looked at Gril with an annoyed expression.
"Tch!"
Without pausing, Nathan continued on to attack Gril this time taking advantage of Tana being momentarily out of combat.
Another thing he had learned from his mistakes was the tempo of combat.
In the previous fight there had been moments when Nathan had stood still for a moment trying to think of his next action, but that was a waste of time, time that his opponent would use to regroup and defeat him.
Against a calamity it was easy to deal with... as far as it was possible, it was only necessary to understand its savage behavior and confront it. But to face a human, it was necessary to understand its combat skills, its technique, its habits and many more variables that were simply impossible to understand without something essential.
Combat experience.
Something that Nathan lacked, because even though he had trained with Boreas for years mainly to learn how to fight, the theory was very different from the practice.
But Nathan had an advantage over others, and that was that he could think while he was fighting... regardless of his own life.
He could learn from his opponent's habits in the middle of the fight... paying the small price of his own life.
The great sword came dangerously close to Gril's body, who stepped back slightly and dodged the blade, then Nathan smiled again behind his mask.
Moving such a large and heavy sword was difficult, but Gril had no idea that Nathan could lighten its weight with essence to ignore its great inertia.
Filling the sword with essence, Nathan released it with one hand and then threw a fist towards Gril's face.
Not expecting the sudden attack, Gril took Nathan's fist full in the face and was thrown back again.
"Ughh!"
Nathan smiled with amusement at the sight of Gril's bloody face.
"I see you didn't get enough of the one time I broke your nose" Nathan sneered with a small smile behind his mask, then grabbed the greatsword again with both hands and lunged towards Gril quickly.
"But don't worry, this time it won't just be your nose that will be broken!"