บท 43: Wantonness - Ⅰ

3rd person POV:

Blood and Arcanum both drummed not only in Arthur's ears, but it resonated with his entire being.

The pupils inside his glowing grey irises contracted until it completely vanished, leaving behind an expressionless void instead of the growling fear that had crept up onto his face due to the growing paranoia of him falling right where his mother wants him to be.

His consciousness was completely buried underneath a layer of viciousness, which was in total contrast to his usual pragmatic self.

Pain faded away and so did the useless thoughts that hindered his movements.

Ed levitated in the sky, looking down at Arthur with a disappointed look. Wings of dark grey flames fluttered, sending ashes in every direction. Nightcrackle pulsed in his grasp like a sentient entity, perfectly conducting his decay property flames.

He shook his head and directed his sword's tip towards Arthur, planning to finish it with this strike. Flames started to grow. But unlike the first time, they didn't seem to detach themselves from his sword and turn into the mass slaughtering attack. It grew as an extension of Nightcrackle's tip, never leaving it.

"In the end, you're just a human." Ed spat. "Parlour tricks fade away in the face of true strength. You blame us for your near extinction." His nostril flared. "All of you are just liars. And mindless murderers. Living in your own ideal fantasy where you victimise yourself. I thought highly of you even when you killed my mother. Because you had a good presence of mind and detected that she was probing you and was going to report back… but, but you are no different. Thinking you can defeat me. That same confidence is going to be your downfall. Just like your kin."

His words were not laced with anger, but disappointment. As if avenging his mother's life was more of a chore than an act out of genuine affection.

As Ed held the hilt of his sword with his other hand, the ground beneath Arthur exploded and he disappeared.

Ed's hair stood on its edge as he suddenly turned around. However, Arthur wasn't coming from his back.

Before he could turn back towards Arthur, his sword met the exposed back of Ed.

The ashy flames decayed the sword's blade before it could even sever more than the fabric that Ed was wearing, however, Arthur spun in midair and his shin met Ed's face.

The kick was followed by an ear-numbing boom followed by the formation of a shockwave in the shape of a halo with Arthur as its epicentre.

A sudden rush of Arcanum flared upwards and his wings increased three-folds in size. Every beat sent a wave of heat that decayed everything in its path.

The sky was covered with the glimmer of weapons—the only metallic objects in the keep—as they started to congregate in a thick kaleidoscope formation in front of Arthur. The heat wave crashed like a high-tide against a cliff.

The hissing sound and acrid smell of something foul burning against metal filled the air as Ed stabilised himself via his gigantic wings.

The centre of the giant kaleidoscope opened, paving way as Arthur's hand emerged from inside it. Lightning crackled and enveloped his entire hand before shooting a concentrated beam of azure lightning down at Ed.

The air whistled as it cracked and popped, random sparks flying in every direction.

Swinging his Nightcrackle, he once again enveloped it into a sheen of grey flames before detaching the slash.

The ethereal tendrils of the flames stuck to the lightning like a parasite. Most of it fizzled away and some of it cancelled the spell, weakening it enough for Ed to swat it away with a flick of his hand.

Letting loose another thin and much weaker streak of lightning for cover, Arthur burst across the ground before leaping at him, his both hands tightly clasping a spear.

Gone was the calculative expression from his face and the cold logic from his eyes and was replaced by a harrowing emptiness, focused on the sole action of killing the person right in front of him.

Ed and Arthur both crashed in tandem.

Grey and azure sparks flew as lightning impacted against Nightcrackle's decay aura.

The following moment both Arthur and Ed's figures became a blur. In a series of what looked like synchronised detonations, they exchanged more than a few hundred strikes in the matter of seconds that passed by even faster than they should've.

Each strike from Arthur was being perfectly parried by Ed, and the ones that managed to bypass his defences left only a meagre mark.

A dozen new wounds opened up across Arthur's body, albeit much more serious and deeper than Ed's.

However, Ed's nose was scrunched. Arthur's body was a bloody mess, but he kept swinging his sword without any decrease in efficiency.

As if the wounds were not significant. As if the wounds didn't matter. As if the wounds were not even inflicted and it was just an illusion that Ed was seeing.

It irked him.

He roared at Arthur's insouciance towards the state of his own body or the current situation and lunged at him.

Then Arthur was hurtling like a lifeless object through the air.

The extension of Nightcrackle's tip was embedded in his chest, and it was growing, carrying Arthur along with it.

Fifteen feet, eighteen, twenty… fifty—until he slammed high against one of the few standing workshops.

However, his fall wasn't stopped there as he went on crashing like a ragdoll before eventually crashing into a brothel.

The establishment collapsed, cries of women echoing everywhere. The air was heavy, laden with the smell of body fluids; however, it didn't really matter much to the robotic state in which Arthur was.

His spear lashed out, but the grey flames shifted, moving and reforming around his weapon. He hacked at it wildly, like an untrained boy trying to split a log.

His temples throbbed like an insistent beat of a drum, echoing throughout his skull. Each pulse felt like an explosion, sending waves of discomfort to almost palpably radiate outward. A rush of blood surged through his veins with every beat of his heart, amplifying the sensation to a fever pitch.

The numbed state of mind was washing over the hot pain, submersing it in a detached and concentrated manner.

However, the decay-imbued tip continued to expand, growing through him, pressing against with an intent to puncture through the Arcanum imbued flesh and into this heart. Layer upon layer of Arcanum was slowly getting peeled away as the tip grew wider, trying to rip a hole through Arthur.

His eyes were eerily blank as he didn't spare a look down at the sword's tip that was about to dig a hole into him. Disregarding any common sense, he gripped the blade's extension. The wispy grey tendrils latched themselves onto his hand and his palm started to get dark.

Like an alive, symbiotic organism, a black blotch took a sinuous leap, its inky body trying to seep into flesh and bone. The skin right beneath his thumb started to decay, first the epidermis and then the lower layers, as they began to give away with a slight sizzle.

From beneath the layer of mindless bloodlust, a moan of pain escaped his lips.

People were escaping from the brothel where he had crashed and were now running away.

A short statured Dwarf, with a towel wrung around her body, peeked in from the other side and saw Arthur pinned to the ground in a bloody mess.

Finding the right moment, she made a dash for it.

However…

A spark of electricity left Arthur's left hand and struck the woman right beneath her right knee. She fell down on her face and by the time she looked down and a guttural cry of pain erupted from her throat, Arthur had already dragged her to himself from the red stub that was once her leg.

As he did, Ed's brows narrowed into a frown. Holding the Dwarf woman by her hair, Arthur pulled and was about to bang her face into the extension of Nightcrackle.

Without wasting words on a remark, Ed cancelled Nightcrackle's extension just in time.

A small gash had made its way on Arthur's chest; however, his internal organs were safe and there was no internal bleeding.

Wasting no time, Arthur stood up like a dead corpse reanimating and then disappeared amidst a net of lightning that fried the woman's skin to black tar.

The azure bolt of lightning arced upwards, carrying Arthur with it. The broken shards of weapons Arthur had used until now started to tremble in a frenzy as the shrapnel lurched towards himself. The tangerine-coppery shade of flames engulfing The Keep made them shine brightly like shooting stars across the smoky sky.

Ed growled and blitzed towards Arthur, swinging Nightcrackle in a downward slash.

His eyes grew wide.

"How?" He mindlessly mumbled.

The wispy grey aura latched on to Arthur's dense sword, however, it struggled to initiate oxidation as azure lightning fought back against it. It was too dense to decay immediately.

Arthur no longer needed to deliver one strike and then back off. His weapon wasn't going to betray him anytime soon.

In his moment of daze, Arthur found an opening and immediately took advantage of it. However, something he had been trying to ignore until now finally made its presence.

Gravity.

He tried to fight back against the laws of nature, to believe— believe that he can fly, however, it pulled him down and his sword swung at open air.

The place where Arthur landed caved in on impact and the crater only widened as Ed followed suit.

"Enough of this mouse-chase, boy!" Ed was losing composure at the certain events repeating themselves over and over with minimal changes.

Arthur stayed silent however, his Arcanum flickered weakly before booming outwards.

And then the two became a blur. Once again.

Golden tinged with azure lightning and black carrying hints of grey wisps aura manifested and mingled before flattening everything down to the ground. Their auras hardened like blades and whipped like mad snakes at everything.

Despite the earlier irritated expression on Ed's face still lingering, he was smiling. He was enjoying it.

Fissures snaked from the inside of the crater, cutting at everything. Even Ed's allies who were starting to overpower Michael with pure, sheer numbers started to get cut. Their bodies were cleaved in half, cut into different areas as limbs, head and entire bodies started to fly in every direction imaginable.

The ashes and smoke from flames that engulfed The Keep were blown away by the crimson rain that rained like a heavy downpour.

The golden, crackling aura whipped around Michael and struck his hand as he let out a gasp. The intoxication had long since left him and now pure adrenaline acted as a fuel. However, he had gained enough sanity to not die purely because of his high headedness.

He looked at Arthur and then narrowed his eyes.

"Something's wrong with this fucker." He mumbled to himself before sidestepping and avoiding a flying javelin. Catching it in his bare hand, he threw it back. The tip of the javelin pierced a demon's gut and then continued to travel backwards until it struck another demon and then pinned their light bodies to the wall of a ration shop. "Also, how many of you are here!? Damn you!" He cursed and then ran after the incoming people.

A demon with short cropped hair lunged at him.

Michael's eyes gleamed as he saw the demon wearing gauntlets.

"Oho! Oh yeah, baby! That's how it should be." He cried out as the demon swung at him, causing a shockwave to travel behind Michael. A small trail of blood flowed down his nose as he looked back at the demon. "Men should throw hands, don't ya think!? Weapons are for pussies like that idiot there!" He cackled, pointing at Arthur. As the demon glanced in Arthur's direction with a morbid sense of gnawing fear, Michael kicked him in his crotch.

"BAHAHA! You're such an idiot. Listening to your enemy." Michael looked back and squinted his eyes. "He's not being his usual self. There can't be a realm where that's right." As he was thinking, the subtle smile all but faded as a hundred needle-like spikes started to rain on him.

Flipping to the side, he avoided most of them, however, some of them lodged themselves into his shoulder blade and his arm.

He looked down at them with a frown before Arcanum covered his skin and he flexed his muscles. The needles shot out like miniature projectiles. Turning to the source of the attack, Michael raised his chin.

The one who had fired it was a Dwarf with long facial and head hair. So long that his features were almost impossible to make sense of. His beard was combed neatly until it reached his knees and was put in place using a beard ring at the end. Two thick, brown-ish pig-tails rested on his shoulders.

"Hmmmm. Finally, someone who has an Arcane Art." Michael cocked his head. "I am not really smart, I'd admit, but don't you think it's strange? So many of you weaklings in an army camp of sorts?" He asked the Dwarf.

"I will waste no breath on you, human."