I tightly grip my katana as the airship approaches. Lonril silently stays where he is, not making a move. As the airship stops above us, Spiritus viciously growls, already knowing who's on it.
A long ladder drops from the airship all the way down to the ground. Lonril walks over to the bottom of the ladder and waits. I look up and angrily watch as a very familiar man with dark purple hair slides down.
"I have subdued him as you requested, my friend." Yuri grins at Lonril. "Good job, Lonril. If you weren't my general already, I'd promote you. Now, go wait over there." Yuri points at some trees nearby. "Brutus is mine." "Of course, Yuri." Lonril walks over to the trees and leans against one while he watches us.
Yuri turns towards me. "So. After all these years, we finally meet again. I hope you put up a better fight than last time!" I glare and point my katana at him. "You're going to die for what you did to me. You're going to pay for everything you've done to this world, you cruel bastard!"
Yuri laughs. "I never thought some of the first words out of your mouth would be a compliment! But you are wrong. I will not die. I don't have to pay for anything. All I have done is remove the weak from my world. The weak deserve their pitiful deaths, just like your sister did. She was one of the weakest of them all." Yuri smirks evilly. "Her screams were like music to my ears."
Unable to control my rage, I roar and charge at Yuri. He instantly unsheathes his katanas. "You will not disrespect Kara's name like that! She was a much better person than you could ever hope to be!" I furiously swing my blade at his face, but he easily brings his katanas up to block. "There's the reaction I wanted! Maybe I'll actually have to try this time!"
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Xerkhon sits on his throne and glares at the scene of Brutus and Yuri that he conjured. "What in the realms is he doing?! He's supposed to retreat, damn it!" Xerkhon growls and pounds his fist on the armrest of his throne hard enough to crack it. "If that idiot dies, everything will fall apart!"
A man with graying hair and a beard wearing an elegant crimson-colored robe walks over to Xerkhon. "You must have faith in your champion, my lord. Only then will he be able to continue on his destined path."
"Hmm... I suppose you are right. You have always been right at times like these, so I will trust in your advice once more." The robed man bows. "It is nothing, my lord. As your high priest, it is my duty to advise you and do everything in my power to make sure you succeed."
"You have been a great help to me all these years. Once everything is said and done, I will finally be able to reward you with the things that were wrongfully taken from you. But for now, leave me. I must continue to watch this play out." Xerkhon turns his gaze back to the conjured scene. "Of course." The man opens a portal and leaves.
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Yuri laughs as he blocks my attacks. "It looks like you've improved since last time!" Yuri leaps back and chants words from a strange language that sounds like pure darkness. His katanas immediately glow with a dark enchantment.
"While you may remember everything I taught you..." Yuri sprints at me faster than I expected and I don't have time to dodge. He manages to cut through my armor and slash open my left leg. "You'll never be a match for me!"
I charge at him and I try to stab one of his arms, but my katana just bounces off of his armor and doesn't even leave a scratch. "What the hell is your armor made of?! It's like it's not from our realm!" Yuri slashes at my throat but I quickly jump back. "You are correct. It truly is from somewhere out of this realm!"
Yuri starts laughing hysterically and I growl. "If you don't shut the hell up, I will-" "You will what? Shut me up?" Yuri laughs even harder. "You don't have the strength to do that."
Yuri taps the eye patch where his right eye used to be with one of his katanas. "You have two eyes, but you have a wound on your leg. I may only have one eye, but I don't even have a scratch on my armor. Tell me, who is more likely to win, hmm?"
Before I can open my mouth to answer, Yuri says more words in that dark language and slashes his katanas in my direction. As he does that, dark orbs fly out of the blades at me. I slash at them but my blade just goes through them. Yuri smirks as I can do nothing but dodge the orbs.
Spiritus spits fireballs at the dark orbs and surprisingly, his fireballs cancel them out. Yuri viciously glares at Spiritus. "I'm tired of your meddling, you filthy beast. It's time you and your master finally stopped being a thorn in the side of the future emperor of this world!"
Yuri holds his katanas in an X shape and he loudly chants a different phrase. As he chants, he waves his katanas around like a madman. "And I thought he was insane before..." Suddenly, thin dark beams shoot out of his katanas as he waves them around while chanting.
One of the thin beams zaps Spiritus and he yelps as the tiny patch of fur that the beam touched disintegrates. "We need to shut him up, damn it!"
Spiritus and I carefully weave through the beams, making sure none hit us. Once we get closer, I gesture for Spiritus to go behind Yuri. I stand in front of Yuri and dodge his beams while smirking. "While you may be unscathed, you're still a half blind bastard who can't hit someone who's right in front of him!"
Yuri immediately stops chanting and he glares. "I see you're still a smartass. I guess some things never change, do they?!" He tries to attack, but Spiritus quickly bites onto his leg and doesn't let go. "YOU FLEA BITTEN MUTT! GET OFF OF ME NOW!" I laugh as Yuri furiously shakes his leg to try and get Spiritus off.
I take my chance and slash my katana across his unprotected face. I slice open a wound from his left cheek to across the eye patch where his right eye used to be, making it fall off to reveal the empty eye socket behind it.
"You're lucky I didn't just take out your other eye. Consider it respect for the honorable man I thought you were back when you trained me." Spiritus lets go of Yuri's leg and backs off. Yuri says nothing, but then he immediately swings his katanas at my sword arm and cuts it open.
Yuri grins as I struggle to keep a grip on my weapon. "Respect and honor are for fools. To succeed in this world, you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to get what you want. If you truly wished to kill me, you would have stabbed out my other eye and made swift work of what would've been left of me."
I spit at him. "I spared you your sight because I'm not a monster like you. I would rather fight you at your full strength, so my victory would mean something."
Yuri nods. "I see. It looks like you have chosen death, then." Yuri unleashes a flurry of slashes that I barely block. "Ugh..." I get one last idea for breaking through his armor and I leap back. "Spiritus, exploding fireball!"
Spiritus spits an exploding fireball at Yuri. I use the last of my strength to throw my katana at the fireball. Just like with the greatshield wielding soldier earlier, the katana's tip pierces the core of the exploding fireball right before it hits Yuri, making it explode early.
Once the smoke clears, I notice that while Yuri doesn't look very wounded, the fireball's blast made his armor cracked and charred.
"I'll admit that I didn't expect that. However, you have stupidly thrown away your weapon!" Yuri sheathes his katanas and picks up mine. He tries to break it, but he clearly can't. "Having some trouble, "Emperor" Yuri?" I snap my fingers and I smirk at the shocked look on Yuri's face as it disappears from his hand and reappears in mine. "Missing something?"
Yuri snarls and starts to unsheath his katanas, but Lonril appears next to him. "Yuri, your armor is badly damaged. We must retreat for now. You can fight him another day."
Yuri looks like he wants to attack Lonril, but then he just silently stalks over to the airship's ladder and climbs up. Lonril turns to me. "It looks like we shall meet again another day, Brutus Crescent." Lonril climbs up the ladder and the airship flies off.
The silence is disturbed by my bracer suddenly blaring an alarm. I check it and I sigh. "Great. This'll be fun..." I tap the X button and I warp to Xerkhon's throne room. I'm immediately met with a glare that could kill.
"How dare you disobey my order to not fight the general?! Who do you think you are?!" I glare right back at Xerkhon. "I'm tired of you telling me to avoid Yuri and his generals "until I'm ready", damn it! I got more done today than I have in the last six years! I'm going to continue after Yuri's generals whether you like it or not, Xerkhon!"
Xerkhon becomes completely silent. For a second I think that I went too far and he's going to smite me, but then he chuckles. "You're right. You handled yourself surprisingly well today. So this time, instead of punishing you, I'm going to reward you instead."
I give him a confused look. "Wait... What? You're going to reward me for not following your orders?" "Don't get used to it. This is a one-time situation. Now, brace yourself."
"For wh-" I get interrupted by Xerkhon shocking me with lightning. Once it's done, I sigh. "So much for not getting smited. What was that for?" "I imbued you with the power of my lightning. Try it."
I point my hand at a wall and I somehow blast red lightning out of it. I try again and I manage to throw some lightning orbs at the wall. "This is pretty useful." I wave my empty hand over my katana and I cover it with lightning. "This is a great gift. I will put it to good use." Xerkhon snaps his fingers and my wounds heal themselves. My armor also fixes itself.
"There. I cannot allow my champion to bleed out." Xerkhon opens a portal. "Now get out of my sight. You will have your next mission soon." I nod and step through the portal.
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Yuri sits in his throne on the Brightburn as it flies through the sky. "Lonril, I want you to send your shadows to spy on Brutus. See if you can figure out where he's headed to next."
Lonril nods from his chair nearby Yuri's throne. "Of course, although I must insist that you recover before you go after him again." "I'm not going this time. I have someone specific in mind that I'm going to send after him."
Lonril raises an eyebrow. "You're going to send "her"? Are you sure she can be trusted with this?" "Yes. She has no choice but to follow my orders. She will bring him to me or die trying. If she brings him to me? Great! If he actually has the nerve to kill her? Also great! Either way, I will come out on top. Brutus Crescent or Lorelei Melnith. I wonder who will win…"