"Nuke spell?"

"No, that's not what I mean…"

"I don't think the Black Swordsman will just stand there and let you hit him," Theodore informed me seriously. Glancing at the center of the smoldering crater, I saw that he was right. The Black Swordsman was taking a single step forward. As injured as he was, he could still move. While his movements were clearly slower than before, there was no doubt he could close the distance and attack us before I could nuke him.

"Hah!" Craig chortled. "Then we'll just have to pin him down, don't we?"

The spearman always loved a challenge. He was already racing forward, his spear held in his hand. Halfway toward our opponent, he suddenly jumped up and soared into the air. I watched in astonishment as he drew his demonic spear back, the muscles in his arm bulging as he coiled them. Ma.s.sive amounts of crimson mana swirled around his cursed spear, distorting the air around it in a terrifying manner.

Then he hurled it at the Black Swordsman. The Grimaldus ace scowled as he watched the demonic spear hurtle toward him, instinctively understanding that he couldn't dodge it. The curse enchanting the spear would ensure a sure-hit, no matter how quickly he evaded. Therefore he could only block it.

Holding his sword in both hands, he swung it to counter Craig's spear, and there was a huge explosion that sent soil crumbling down the sides of the crater, creating a smaller hole in its midst. Blood dripped down the Black Swordsman's face as he fell to a knee, his armor cracked in various places.

Then Theodore swung his hammer down and conjured a lightning cage that hemmed him in. The Black Swordsman gritted his teeth as he held up his obsidian blade to fend the lethal electricity away, but it refused to be conducted, instead forming a squarish cage around him. The imprisoned swordsman tried to slash his way out, but the lightning cage held firm, crackling fiercely as its golden bars resisted his attacks.

However, it was clear that he would eventually be able to cut his way free. I could see the lightning cage slowly diminis.h.i.+ng in power, each strike from its prisoner slowly sapping away some of the electricity.

"That's where I come in!"

Dong Fang Yue Chu jumped to the front, right at the edge of the crater. He slammed his palms together and murmured an incantation.

"Reduce all Creation into Ash…Liu Ren Ruo Huo!"

Flames erupted all around him, surrounding him in a crimson and orange halo that simply seemed divine. Fiery wings burst on either side of him in an angelic manner, a conflagration so colossal that Dong Fang Yue Chu's form was dwarfed within it. I watched at the maelstrom of Pure Yang Flames blazed around him, consuming the remnants of the field like a G.o.d of fire.

The Black Swordsman watched him from inside the dwindling lightning cage, and his eyes narrowed.

Flames engulfing his entire right arm, Dong Fang Yue Chu gave a shout before punching it forward and unleas.h.i.+ng a tremendous torrent of flames that swept across the crater. In just one instant, it swallowed up Theodore's lightning cage and its captive.

"!!!"

The Black Swordsman's expression remained somewhat impa.s.sive, but his eyes flickered with barely concealed emotion. Even he was impressed by Dong Fang Yue Chu's technique.

At first, it created a colossal ring of fire that surrounded the Black Swordsman, and then closed up over him, turning into an enormous inferno that raged and melted the once solid rock into molten lava. An enclosed, fiery s.p.a.ce that cut the Black Swordsman off from the outside world, it blazed brilliantly, almost like a second sun.

"Cheng Guo Yan Shang (Fortress Blaze)." Dong Fang Yue Chu lowered his arm, upon which the flames flickered and dwindled away. Even as his body was no longer wreathed in flame, the blazing sphere of inferno that entrapped the Black Swordsman continued to burn brightly and fiercely. Dong Fang Yue Chu grinned smugly. "Even the Black Swordsman wouldn't be able to get out of this wall of flames for a while."

"Whoa!" Craig cried out, s.h.i.+elding himself. As stoic as ever, Theodore remained silent, but even he had to take a step back from the flames. I was also backing away in reflex, watching the powerful spell in awe. Despite the great distance, the embers were reaching even here, scattering onto our position and causing us to flinch. Craig brushed the glowing embers off his skin, visibly stung. "You're pretty drastic as always, aren't you, Yue Chu?"

"Hey, powerful enemies call for drastic measures, don't they?" Dong Fang Yue Chu shrugged with feigned innocence. He then turned to me, his grin growing wider. "Now then…shall we nuke him?"

"I'll wait until he gets out," I replied with a shrug. "Otherwise I might accidentally just blow away your Fortress Blaze and not do as much damage to him."

��Richie has a point," Craig agreed. "Your d.a.m.ned fire technique also acts as a s.h.i.+eld from external attacks."

"Oh…whoops." Dong Fang Yue Chu looked sheepish, but Theodore shook his head and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"No, you did the right thing. Whatever the outcome, it's clear that the Black Swordsman will no longer be able to move. Then Richard can nuke him once he's ready."

"Yeah," I told Dong Fang Yue Chu gratefully. "You bought me all the time that I need."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really."

Even as Dong Fang Yue Chu breathed a sigh of relief, I turned back to my enemy. Within the inferno, the Black Swordsman thrust his obsidian sword forward and tried to cleave apart the powerful fire spell, but to no avail. He suffered a few horrendous burns, being trapped inside an inferno of such extreme temperature, but impeccable discipline forbade him from expressing any pain.

I couldn't help but be amazed. Not just at this guy's tenacity, but also his strict control over himself. If our positions were reversed, I had no doubt that I would be howling from the excruciating agony.

Too bad we were enemies.

The Black Swordsman regarded the wall of flames impa.s.sively, his features as stoic as before. He raised his sword and slashed at the hot inferno again, only to be met with the same result.

"Do you think this will stop me?" he asked, his tone dripping with contempt.

"Well, it did, didn't it?" Dong Fang Yue Chu pointed out dryly. He wasn't wrong. It certainly worked. A little too well, I might add. I shuddered to think what sort of level Dong Fang Yu Chu had reached, if he was capable of pulling off such a powerful technique now.

Then again, that Black Swordsman had to be even more terrifying, if he couldn't be killed off by such powerful Pure Yang Flames. That said, the Pure Yang Flames were more effective against monsters – particularly those with the yin attribute – than enemy mages.

However, just as I was given enough time to finish the casting of my spell, the Black Swordsman had also gained a considerable amount of time to cast his Excalibur. Regarding the Fortess Blaze with contempt, he then began charging his obsidian sword with a large amount of black mana. The destructive energies raged around his blade, a maelstrom of death and chaos.

"Uh oh," Dong Fang Yue Chu murmured, turning pale. Even his Fortress Blaze wouldn't survive such an attack. In fact, given the anti-fortress nature of the Black Swordsman's n.o.ble Phantasm…ahem, I mean ultimate spell, this was the perfect counter to his enchantment.

And the Black Swordsman knew that.

"Relax," Craig a.s.sured Dong Fang Yue Chu, chuckling confidently. "If he really does that, it'll be his funeral."

The Black Swordsman snorted, but didn't hesitate to destroy Dong Fang Yue Chu's Fortress Blaze with his Exclaibur. Fortunately, despite the ma.s.sive magnitude of his spell, my friend's Pure Yang Flames had a purifying effect and neutralized much of the unholy blast. The Excalibur succeeded in ripping through the Fortress Blaze without much impunity, but much of its firepower was nullified by the purifying fire's holy effects and it petered out somewhat pathetically before it could reach the edge of the crater, never mind us.

Before he could take another step forward and emerge from the diminis.h.i.+ng inferno, I sent out an order, both mentally and verbally.

"Scorpio, Antares!"

"!!!"

The Black Swordsman tried to evade, but he was too late.

A purple, red and bluish-white torrent of energy surged from Scorpio's tail, leaving charged particles in its wake. It slammed into the Black Swordsman just as the last of Dong Fang Yue Chu's flames flickered to nothingness and engulfed the entire area in a colossal explosion that mushroomed toward the air. The effects were even more devastating than the Black Swordsman's Excalibur, the resulting conflagration engulfing and then dwarfing the crater that he had created through his ultimate technique.

"Whoa!" Dong Fang Yue Chu was backing away. "Isn't this overkill?! We're going to get caught up in this!"

"No, you won't."

A golden barrier of energy s.h.i.+mmered to life between us and the explosion that I had caused, deflecting most of the volatile energies. The ground around us crumbled and disintegrated from the sheer force, and the golden barrier cracked and shuddered violently, but it held for now.

"Thanks, Harrison."

Even without looking up, I knew who had erected that barrier. Harrison Reed smiled tensely as he stepped up to stand next to us, his complexion pale and perspiration dripping down his face.

"Don't thank me yet," he said. "Wait until I actually protect you from the nuke spell first."

"That won't be necessary," I informed him as I pushed my gla.s.ses up my nose. Just before Harrison's golden barrier shattered, a gigantic snowflake materialized between us and the destructive energies, forming an azure aegis that enveloped us protectively.

Even Snow Aegis was barely able to withstand the powerful blast and crumbled under the onslaught, the colossal shockwaves battering it into oblivion.

Then, as suddenly as it began, everything stopped.

"Jeez, Harrison, you're really cutting it close!" Craig threw an arm around his shoulders. "What took you so long?"

"Sorry. I was a bit further away from Flandor than you guys when I received the call."

"Harrison took a later train," Theodore explained to me. "He originally didn't plan to come at all."

"Oh, yeah. I just happened to have business here in the end." Harrison chuckled and shrugged. "Family business."

"I'm glad you came, all the same."

"Yeah, if you didn't, we would all have been blown up by Richie's spell!" Dong Fang Yue Chu shot me a glare.

"At least the sucker was nuked." Craig stepped through my broken Snow Aegis and glanced down at the crater. This time I had ended up boiling the entire lake, wiping it off the map entirely. I felt sorry for the ecosystem that I had obliterated, but I didn't have a choice. "Whoa! There's not even any remains left of the poor dude!"

Glancing down, I saw that he was partially right. There were still shards of black armor splattered everywhere, and the shattered obsidian sword, but there was no corpse. However, when I adjusted my gla.s.ses and magnified my vision, I caught sight of scorched bone. Not a whole skeleton, especially since Scorpios's Antares had disintegrated most of it, but at least a blackened skull was lying next to the broken armor.

"I told you he wasn't the only one with a nuke spell," I remarked somewhat humorously. Then I jolted up. "Oh, d.a.m.n it! The kids! I need to check if I didn't accidentally blow up the shelter along with that b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

"I wouldn't worry about that if I were you," Harrison said confidently. "The underground bunker was built to withstand even nukes and ride out the apocalypse."

"Still best to check," Theodore murmured as he took out his smartphone. I left it to him, being too exhausted to even make a call. After a few seconds, he turned toward me and smiled. "They are all right. All of them. A bit shaken from the multiple explosions, though."

"Great!" Dong Fang Yue Chu brightened up, and then helped me to my feet. "We should go let them out then!"

Please go to to read the latest chapters for free