Faye saw the sword headed for her face, but the combat with the gorilla had left her completely exhausted, so she could no longer use her technique, much less dodge.
But just as the sword was about to touch her, she saw sparks fly as an arrow struck the sword, deflecting it slightly and preventing it from ending her life.
Lloyd's attack was not able to kill her, but went down the left side of her face, to her shoulder, leaving a deep but non-lethal wound.
Faye quickly stepped back and clutched her shoulder as she closed her left eye because of the blood that was starting to run down her face.
Lloyd then turned with a completely furious expression and looked at Nathan who still had the bow in his hands.
"What are you doing?!"
This time Nathan didn't bother to answer him, instead, he loaded another arrow and loaded it with essence.
"Are you planning on confronting me?!" Lloyd shouted as he saw Nathan raise the bow in his direction, but when he saw that he didn't say anything, he started to laugh lightly.
"Fine...fine, I never liked you either!"
Nathan was silent, watching as Lloyd turned away from Faye and focused on him, then sighed in relief.
'You got yourself in trouble...' Amelia whispered softly, to which Nathan fell silent and let go of the arrow.
Lloyd smiled and ran towards the arrow, raising his sword and slicing it in two before continuing to run.
'Never mind... it was the right thing to do'
Nathan let go of the bow and held the hilt of his sword while keeping his eyes on Lloyd, who was approaching the building where he was.
'I would have liked to have done things more quietly, but there's no other way'
Stepping forward, Nathan let himself fall from the roof, changing the direction of his body, aiming at Lloyd.
Finally, as he continued to fall, Lloyd jumped up and swung his sword, to which Nathan drew his katana, and the two swords clashed.
Lloyd was weakly pushed back as Nathan took advantage of his momentum to follow up with an attack, which Lloyd defended, and they began to exchange attacks.
So far Lloyd had not used any technique, but Nathan had and was slowly beginning to make the fear build up in his heart without him even noticing it.
This time Nathan was not in the arena of the Khan facility, having a friendly encounter with a cadet, this time he was not hesitating to make each of his attacks as effective and lethal as possible.
But Lloyd was no different, and he fought to the best of his abilities with his sword.
At one point in the fight, Lloyd deflected Nathan's attack and stepped back, to which Nathan did not follow and stood still looking at him.
"I was planning to go easy on you, we are comrades after all... but apparently it's not necessary"
Lloyd smiled and raised his sword, pointing it skyward. At the same time Nathan felt as if the wind began to behave strangely around him.
Suddenly a green aura began to surround Lloyd, it was then that Nathan understood what he was doing.
'Fuck! Since when he is a second rank?!'
When someone moved up to second rank, their technique likewise improved. Nathan knew at a glance, he knew that the green aura around Lloyd was not something a first rank could create.
Knowing that he would be in trouble if he did not stop Lloyd from completing his technique, Nathan quickly jumped towards him, swinging his sword.
However, when he was a couple of meters away from him, a strong wind pushed him back and forced him to cover his face, then as soon as he saw Lloyd again, a green armor covered his body as if he were a knight of antiquity.
In addition, his sword was also covered by a light green veil.
"Adore me, praise my power!"
Lloyd seemed to freak out as soon as the armor appeared on his body, then Nathan quickly looked at Faye taking advantage of the time Lloyd was taking to self-acclaim.
Faye was still bleeding, but slowly walked to the side of the street, approaching an alleyway out of sight.
On the other hand, the fighting between the agents and the cadets had already claimed several casualties, most of them being agents.
Finally, as soon as Lloyd realized that Nathan was not paying him the attention he thought he deserved, he flew into a rage, and without a second thought ran towards Nathan.
Nathan may not have been focusing completely on Lloyd, but at no time had he stopped paying attention to him, so he was able to barely dodge his attack.
Then he had to continue moving backward, realizing that the armor Lloyd had summoned had considerably increased his speed.
It was completely different to face a second rank first category calamity than a person of the same rank, especially someone like Lloyd.
Nathan knew that he could not beat Lloyd, but he did not have to. He just needed to buy some time, the rest was up to how lucky he could get.
However, even if he had to buy time, he couldn't keep dodging forever, so Nathan was forced to counterattack.
The problem was that he had to use all his concentration not to die at Lloyd's hands, which prevented him from thinking of a way to deal with him, so all he did was to occasionally hit him with an occasional attack, trying to influence as much fear as possible.
His fear was a way to make his enemy weak, and it was precisely something he needed at this very moment. But for every time he attacked Lloyd, a wound appeared on his body.
Little by little, Nathan was gaining more and more cuts, then Lloyd stopped abruptly and smiled.
"You're better than I thought... But to be a disciple of the devil? You're just an idiot behind a mask!"
Nathan caught his breath as he listened to his words, but he couldn't care less about that, as he was more concerned with getting out of his current situation.
He could not afford to spend all his essence on a single fight, there was still the whole day ahead of him and surely many more dangers even worse than Lloyd.
Taking a deep breath, Nathan held his katana in one hand and in the other he summoned Adan's black fang.
'I need to be more aggressive...'
So far seeing no decrease in Lloyd's strength, it was himself who was getting tired.
Inside his mind, Amelia watched silently but was concentrating on observing the fight. She had realized that Nathan had no real plan to confront him, knowing that he could not focus on coming up with a plan under such pressure.
But if he couldn't do it, then she would do the thinking and come up with a plan.
Amelia might not be an expert in combat, but she had seen Nathan fight enough times to know what his style was like. So she more or less knew where to start.
Focusing only on the movements of both Lloyd and Nathan, Amelia began to process everything that was happening quickly while Nathan focused on defending himself and surviving.
Without the need for words, for the first time they began to fight together.