“I can feel your rage but, I can also feel your fear behind it.”

  Step!

  And that’s exactly why my footsteps are louder than normal but only to him, my foe. Even if they are expected to echo inside this room and consequently kill the silence present on it, they are far too obnoxiously loud but only to him, my foe. So loud it’s almost as if the sound itself is piercing through his ears, stabbing the brain with such precision that it bothers him to no end but only to him, my foe. While I may look quite relaxed, I’m more than focused on the task in front of me, ready to strike him once he gets close enough to me. One thing that does not surprise me is that he seems to have switched from magic attacks to physical attacks as I cannot sense much magic from him. It's quite understandable as I have more than proved, forced him to accept should be the best term, that I can hurt him severely and deeply even with the barrier protecting him not only that, if our theory is right and he’s weak to Light magic then, he will need every single bit of magic to recover from what I’m about to do to him. Something that will happen in this next moment as he has leaped towards me, ready to crush me with his massive claws.

  Slash!

  My response to him is rather simple, one where I simply swing my Paladin White Sword towards him. It really is a simple swing, a vertical one from right to left but with it, I easily and cleanly slice his paw in half while at the same time somewhat dodging the “free falling” claws as their moment was not stopped whatsoever by my attack. In other words, Light magic truly is his weakness and my goddess spell is more than overkill for this situation.

  GROAR!

  Now that’s something that I should’ve been hearing for a long time now. With a loud and rather deep cry of pain and desperation as I easily slice through his paw, he powers through the pain as best as he can, somehow recover what I sliced in half in that very instant. His entire paw was consumed by a dark blue fire for brief moments and once they have vaporized into nothing, recovering his paw into new, almost as if nothing ever happened to them. Hmm, the magic usage for such was much higher than normal but it seems he more than was expecting this as he’s ready to strike me yet again or at the very least trying to do so, causing what I will call as the-

  Last clash between us.

  Woosh! Slash! Slice! Magic noises!

  It’s a fierce clash between us, he leaves me no time to rest as he attacks me with everything he has even though each time he does so he ends up losing parts of his body. Maybe it’s because of the pure unaltered hatred that he has for me but he just keeps on going, quickly recovering the damage in the very next second. Unbelievable, this thing has suffered so much and yet, here it is ruthlessly attacking me left and right like nothing has happened. I mean, he had his back broken into dust, his necks snapped/broken, for crying out loud he was just mere moments into being crushed into a gruesome scene if not slowly burned alive! His survivability truly is something out of this world however, while he’s trying to hide his tiredness on purpose or maybe it’s just the adrenaline doing it for him, I can clearly see signs of fatigue on him. Not that he seems to be any slower though.

  We keep on clashing but while doing, I’ve been experimenting around a little bit. Since I noticed that my goddess spell was that strong it made me think if weaker Light spells could do the same thing albeit they still would need to at the very least be slightly stronger than his defences. But now the problem arises, how strong are his defences? The barrier is doing a lot of work for him but once it’s gone, what will happen? Do I have to go through another set of “defences” that is as strong as the barrier or with the possibility of being even stronger than it? This thought suddenly appeared on my mind and my curiosity got the best of me, forcing me to experiment around just like a damn ape would after finding out that hitting two rocks together might cause a sparkle. Whatever, to go through the barrier I still need to use a Light spell but the strike itself needs to be S rank, in the comfortable middle realm is more than enough to slice through his body with little resistance. For example, if I use the magic on my Paladin White Sword, I’m able to cut through his barrier and body, as I’m basically using a Holy spell with it. It really seems that if I use a Light spell, as long as it is stronger than S- rank then I’m also able to damage however, let’s say that I infuse my sword with a little quantity of Light magic, in this case I’m actually not able to do anything to him, as my attack will bounce back, causing that rather loud and acute sound with it, the one sound that has tormented me for far too long. No seriously, I will probably have a few nightmares because of it.

  But, even after all of these strikes, these cuts, he still is coming at me viciously.

  This is far too ridiculous; he somehow is getting even more fierce and aggressive than before. It has reached a point where he has thrown any type of defence out of the window so much so that he does not seem to care when I cut his tail in half for example. No, I do mean it, he still hasn’t recovered it, the only scenario that he does recover his body is when I do enough damage to incapacitate him in any way as for example, cutting one of his legs in half. He’s starting to look like a monster straight from a horror story, a gruesome one at that and one that I don’t want to be the protagonist of at all. He’s bleeding from close to being everywhere in his body, a type of blood that seems to resemble something that belongs to the abyss itself thanks to its dark colour, even though it has a blue shade to it. From all of his mouth’s saliva drops from them, part of it is thanks to the fatigue but the majority is because of the pure anger he’s feeling. As I said before, his tail has been cut in half, leaving a rather large trace of blood as he dances around the room trying to kill me however, his tail is not the only reason that this room is starting to gain a different set of colours to it, no, each time that I strike him, cut in this case, I paint the surroundings with his blood, some more, some less but always with each slice. Maybe I should just end this rather than trying to figure out where it is the limit? I’m starting to seem like the bad guy, one that enjoys to torture the good guy… I mean, I have just figured it out, I only need to use a moderate amount of Light magic to be able to do the deed per say however another thought crossed my mind at this moment…

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The golden flames.

  “As the one that traverses the vast ocean of sand-

  As the one that has slain countless foes on the ocean of the land!”

  ROAR!

  How is this even possible? He still has this much energy? The moment I started my incantation he somehow understood quickly what I’m trying to do, not what I am saying of course but the meaning of such. He violently swings around with his claws, scratching the floor that I was standing and even though I’m saying an incantation, I can still move around easily, dodging his barrage of uncoordinated set of attacks, ones that easily resemble those from a feral beast, one that his famine and desperate to eat. If cutting me in three not so equal parts does not work then smashing might do the job, creating a crater twice the size of his paws on the ground as he fails to smash me into a pulp. Since that has failed and since he has three heads, biting is next but this action is even worse than the previously as at least they all need to attack in the same direction, something that seems to be proving difficult as they have lost any coordination that they had previously, making them clash with each other instead as they are far too desperate and impatient to wait for their turn. And this goes for a few moments until I finish my incantation and unleash death upon him.

  “I am the one that will conquer the vast ocean in the land! Unleashing my rage upon those that stand in my way! Burning them away with the scorched flames of hell itself! While piercing through them with said flames!”

  This is it, but I still need to get in position… Nothing too hard to do, just dodge this barrage of attacks and hit him with a clean gut punch in the process. This way it will destabilize him a little bit, allowing me to do my deed in peace per say. The punch is simple, a straight punch with my left fist as I’m holding the sword with my right hand. Since he’s quite tired and damaged, he felt the impact of my punch much more than before even though the barrier kept the damage to very minimal but with this, I’m now ready to end this. I need to gain a little bit of altitude, well, quite a bit thanks to his massive size but once again nothing that a simple jump won’t be able to achieve…

  Once I’m in the air I finally allow the magic spell to gain a physical form. With my left hand open and slightly raised upwards and then backwards, a magic circle appears above the palm of my hand and from it, fire quickly starts to be formed but one that has a golden colour to it and one that gains its intended form in an instant. It has the shape of a spear, a chaotic spear all thanks to the unstable and chaotic nature of fire itself however, those with strength and knowledge will quickly see just how perfect this spear made of fire truly is. It’s stable meaning that it won’t bend if I hit something with it, it won’t explode either and the same can be said about being vaporized by water. A masterpiece of a magic spell, one that in base is ranked at S rank, now imagine if I increase its strength to SS rank or above. Only someone like him could create such powerful, dreadful and yet beautiful spells, ones that have stood the harshness of time with ease. Shame very few know how to use them…

  “Ignatius Spear!”

  Fwoosh! Fire noises

  With a powerful and quick arm movement, I throw the Ignatius Spear towards Cerberus, hitting him in the middle of his chest. The spear is close to 3 meters long and with a few good centimetres of thickness however, thanks to the speed at which it travelled, one that was faster than he could react to it but not as fast as the speed of sound, it easily pierces through his chest, hitting his core while at it. But a core that mind you, it had two layers of barrier on top of it. That was the main reason why I was not able to defeat him as not only I had to go through the main barrier, his body defence but also that two-layer barrier, one that was preventing from any type of damage to reach the core even though I basically had him pinned against the wall for example, crushing his body the same way we crush an ant with our feet. Either way, he went backwards a few short centimetres thanks to the force behind the impact but right after that, he lets out a massive cry of pain as he feels the pain, as his brain processes the consequences of getting stabbed on his “heart”.

  Shortly after shooting the spear towards him, I land on the ground and once there I begin the true end of this battle. I raised my left hand at around chest level while also facing slightly to the right but with my eyes directed at him. He’s doing his best to overcome the pain, to recover the damage that was done to his core and to be honest, if I left him like this, I wouldn’t be surprised if he somehow found a way to survive and that is why I’m going to this extent to make sure he won’t survive. I won’t be using another spell in fact, the spell that I have used has a few more “quirks” to it, ones that with a little magic manipulation you can use them per say.

  There is a reason why I praise so much the Ignatius family of spells.

  “This is the end!”

  Magic noises! Burning noises!

  I grasp my hand as I say this, as I loudly but confidently assert this affirmation towards the one that is the target of such. Then with a little bit of magic control, the golden flames on the spear burst, causing a chaotic scene with them while at the same time surrounding Cerberus by its entirety. Mere moments later, as his skin is burnt alive, as his claws turn to ashes, something akin to a fire tornado starts to form, consuming him by whole in the matter of a second or so, with flames that do their job even faster than when they were forming such phenomenal shape. It’s a magnificent display where you see the golden colours illuminating the entire room while at the same time giving warmth to it as the temperatures of these flames are close to 2500 degrees.

  After this, nothing was left behind.

  The tornado lasted a few seconds but only one was needed to decimate Cerberus into nothing. There was no sound coming from him, the previous cries of pain were swallowed by the cruel but warm flames, his hatred and rage weren’t enough to sustain his life as the flames burned them with ease. There was nothing that he could do, the barrier couldn’t stop his own skin from melting, his own bones from suffering the same fate, even his magic somehow was able to be melted by the golden flames. In this time spam you could truly only hear the tornado itself, spinning with speed comparable to a running cheetah, maybe even faster, having that characteristic “swiish” sound to it but one that is mixed with the sound of fire, turning the “swiish” sound to a much deeper “swoosh” sound as it consumes anything that is far to unfortunate enough to be inside of it.

  However, the moment everything went quiet, the lights that were beautifully illuminating this space followed the same path, it’s the moment that this far too long battle has been decided and the victor emerged.

  ……..

  ……

  …