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“Azaela, huh…” Rex muttered as he eyed the commander of the Venerers warily. Though he had not known Azaela personally, he was thoroughly briefed of her existence and prowess by his employer and peers. He had also heard about her aplenty from rumours alone.

Now that he was facing the infamous Azaela herself, he could tell those rumours were no exaggerations and his employer’s word of caution was not to be taken lightly.

“You can surrender quietly and face a fair trial, or you can resist and I will end you right here and now. What say you?” Azaela asked as she unclasped the cloak she was donning and let it fall to the ground, revealing her thin and scarce garment underneath.

Rex snorted. “Why do you ask a question that you already know the answer to?”

“No harm in giving a criminal the chance to do the right thing.”

“The right thing, you say?” Rex chuckled. “Pretentious fucks, you zealots always tend to be.”

“...Very well, then. I shall take that as your answer,” Azaela said, drawing a longsword from a rippling space. A black gooey essence with a red sheen enveloped her and it then solidified into a set of black armour with a faint red shade, covering her from the head to the toes.

“Come on,” Rex urged. “I shall let you have the first strike.”

“As you wish,” Azaela and disappeared from Rex’s sight.

“What the—”

She reappeared right in front of him and swung her sword down.

Rex could only stand still and receive the slash. Thankfully, the slash left only a shallow cut on his torso but a cut nonetheless.

Azaela tutted and moved a few yards away from Rex. “High physical resistance… just my luck,” she mused. She stowed away her sword and took out a battle axe instead.

“Arms Inventory, what a neat spell you have there.”

Azaela spared no retort for Rex and simply lunged at him.

Rex threw a punch towards Azaela in response but she disappeared from his sight the second before his fist collided into her face.

She reappeared behind him and swung her axe.

Rex groaned and tossed himself out of the way. His instincts were telling him that he would not get out of that swing in one piece if he received it.

Azaela’s axe split the air and caused a ripple. She let the momentum bring the axe around and she went in for another swing at Rex.

The tattoos on Rex’s left arm glowed.

An invisible force clashed with Azaela and sent her flying, or that was how it should have been. Instead, Azaela flung herself to the side using the momentum of her swing. She stored her axe and drew out a spear in one fluid motion. Using the leftover momentum, she thrust towards Rex with the spear.

“Fuck!” Rex grumbled. He had no choice but to raise his arm to defend against Azaela’s attack.

The spear pierced into his upper arm but it didn’t go beyond the flesh. Before Azaela could pull her spear out, Rex grabbed onto the head.

“How foolish,” he scoffed and tugged at the spear, pulling Azaela along.

But Azaela stowed away the spear and Rex lost his grasp on her. She flipped herself in the air and swung a kick into Rex’s head.

Rex slanted his head away, just barely avoiding the kick.

The moment Azaela’s foot touched the ground, she twirled on the spot, brought out a rapier, and thrust towards Rex’s heart.

“You annoying pest!” Rex roared and tried to grab the rapier, but it disappeared before he could.

The rapier reappeared in Azaela’s hand and shot forward, piercing into the left side of Rex’s chest but failing to reach his heart or any of his vital organs.

Rex groaned with a deep scowl.

Azaela hopped away before Rex could retaliate, taking her rapier with her as she retreated.

“Orichalcum metal.” Rex tutted, clutching his bleeding left chest. “You zealots are truly prosperous despite being so pretentious.”

“Those two traits aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“Unfortunately so,” Rex huffed with a grimace.

“Surrender, sir, or your suffering will only continue.”

“Good luck getting through that thick skull of his,” Aedan muttered aloud, who was sitting on the sidelines, leaning against a piece of rubble.

Azaela raised an eyebrow and turned her gaze to him. “You’re still here.”

“Should I be somewhere else?”

“No. But I sincerely hope you won’t hold me responsible for any collateral injuries that you may garner henceforth.”

“I’m hurt that you would take me for such a petty man.”

Azaela did not continue to spar with Aedan and turned her gaze back to Rex, who had seized this opportunity to attack her.

Using one of the many spells he had inscribed onto his very flesh skin, Rex shortened the distance between him and Azaela in a split second. He threw both of his fists at Azaela with only a foot’s distance between them.

“Slow,” Azaela remarked indifferently with a quiet voice. The dual fists missed her as she simply sidestepped the attack. She brandished her rapier in retaliation.

“Daughter of a bas—” Rex canted his head just in time to avoid having his head impaled but he suffered a shallow cut across his cheek and temple.

Azaela reeled in her rapier and switched it out for a longsword, which she swung upwards.

The markings on Rex’s left arm shone glaringly and an unseen force pushed out. This time, Azaela had no leeway to avoid it and was thrown off her feet a good distance away. She managed to recover her balance by stabbing her longsword into the ground.

However, Rex was already onto her. He was only a few feet away from her when she caught her bearings with his fist swinging. She dodged low, the punch going over her head, but his foot awaited her. She spun to the side and his kick struck the empty air.

Press on or retreat, those two options immediately weighed in Azaela’s mind as she was caught in a predicament. The two of Rex’s failed offences had left him vulnerable. His guard was open and if she attacked now, she would deal a heavy blow to him. But at the same time, that scenario felt too convenient and easy to her liking.

A trap, she concluded.

Just as she was about to retreat, Rex stomped his foot on the ground hard. A force of over a hundred thousand pounds was packed into that stomp. A dense ripple emanated from that stomp radially. The force hit Azaela and threw her off her feet once again. She tried stabbing her sword into the ground to counter the force but her blade tore right through the ground and she went tumbling across the ruined street.

Azaela eventually crashed into a pile of rubble and stopped her tumbling. Her armour absorbed most of the impact but she was not spared of the motion sickness incurred from her tumbling. Her world was spinning as she struggled to rise to her feet.

Rex chuckled. “You’re certainly a tough one, I’ll give you that.”

“Those are spell inscriptions on your body.”

“Astute observation, paladin.”

“Yet, you have not been ripped apart by the invocation of the spells.”

“A testament to the durability of my body. Do you understand now? If this is all you got, you cannot win against me.”

“Then it is fortunate that this is not all that I got.”

“Oh?”

Azaela took in a deep breath and held it as she lunged at Rex. Her speed doubled and Rex only realised she had moved when her blade was only inches away from his neck. He raised his arm in defence in a panic, hoping to stop her slash at the cost of suffering a flesh wound. However, Azaela’s blade sliced right through his arm and continued travelling towards his neck.

Tattoos appeared all over his body and shone in a dazzling radiance. Azaela’s blade was only an inch away from his neck when the space closed in on him and spat him back out hundreds of yards away from Azaela. It was the Spatial Magic spell, Warp. It only activates in response to his mind when he was a hundred percent sure of his demise. The other limit of this insurance was that it could only be activated up to once a day.

Azaela released the breath she was holding with a gasp. “A neat precaution you had in place.”

Rex snorted, clutching his left stump of an arm. Sweat poured down from his head and his breaths quickened rapidly. “Sly bitch!” he snarled. Blood dripped incessantly from his arm that was missing a hand. “You think your victory is assured with just this much?”

“Yes,” Azaela answered and held her breath after drawing in a deep one.

Rex saw the cue and prepared himself for it, enduring the pain that was coursing through his body from his throbbing stump.

Azaela closed in on him in a split second with her sword already swinging.

Rex thrust his palm out as the tattoos on his left arm glowed.

The unseen force blasted towards Azaela but she reacted swiftly and dodged the attack without suffering even a simple bruise. However, she released her breath in the process.

Rex quickly threw a punch at Azaela but a shield appeared between her and Rex. His fist collided with the shield, plunging right through the frail steel with ease. Though the shield was no match for Rex’s strength, it slowed him down just enough for Azaela to catch her breath and hold it.

Rex grunted and hopped away from Azaela just as she twirled with her sword spinning in a complete arc. He was clearly nowhere close to the reach of Azaela’s blade but somehow, a horizontal cut appeared across his torso and it was no shallow cut.

The brief moment Rex used to grunt and pressed down his pain, Azaela was regathering her breath. As she held her breath once again, Rex raised his foot for a stomp. But the stomp was disrupted by the broken shield that Azaela threw. The shield displaced the stomp and ended up dampening the force of the stomp.

“Damn you!” Rex cried and hastily retrieved his bearings, but Azaela was upon him. A golden streak flashed across his eyes and the image of his headless body also flashed across his mind.

“Hmm?” Azaela hummed in disbelief and confusion when her blade failed to cut through Rex’s neck or even draw his blood. She squinted her eyes and saw a faint dark reddish glow enveloping his entire body. Then, a shiver ran down her spine.

“Get away from him!” Aedan shouted.

Azaela didn’t need to be told. She immediately moved a considerable amount of distance away from Rex as the red glow intensified.

“To think I am forced to draw upon the power of the Demons…” Rex mumbled with a grimace and a glare piercing Azaela deeply. “Congratulations, paladin. You have forced me to accept my human limits.”

“Save your praises, I am not honoured by words from the likes of you,” Azaela retorted.

“And I don’t care.” A black hand of a demonic contour grew from his stump. The red glow seeped into his body, turning his skin into a deep dark crimson. A pair of tusks sprouted out from his mouth as a pair of horns emerged from his head. The wounds he had suffered disappeared into ropes of smoke.

“Ruva guide me,” Azaela muttered.

“Please don’t tell me you don’t plan on using your gift this time either,” Aedan said.

“You mock me, Dragon. I learned my lesson and I shall not have a repeat of my mistake. That said, better make yourself scarce. I don’t know why and you have gotten so weak and feeble but I don’t wish to see you becoming collateral. I don’t want that weighing down on my conscience.”

“You can’t win against him alone. I can help, believe it or not.”

“Just don’t make this any more difficult for me.”

“I won’t— Incoming!”

“Foolish bitch!” Rex was suddenly upon Azaela. He threw a punch that was much faster than all the punches had thrown before. “ You dare turn your eyes away from me!?”

“Yes, I dare,” Azaela responded calmly as a faint golden glow enveloped her armour and a scarlet light clad her blade. She received the punch with her sword as if she was stopping a fist playfully thrown by a sick man.

“What the—”

Azaela stared him deeply in the eyes. “You shall know where my moniker originates from.”