Grey exhaled a breath and then Helion’s sword was already upon him. Without missing a beat, Grey punched at it with his small parry shield. It was an attack that left no room for error. Just the slightest misstep and the blade would rip through his arm and then his chest right after.
Yet, the confidence in Grey’s eyes didn’t leave the slightest room for hesitation. His body was already back in tiptop shape after he used the Helm of Grace to revert it to three seconds before Zephros landed that blow.
And now, he was even stronger than before.
He could hear Zephros’ rhythm building up in the distance. He was standing still, probably about to use Sacred Bulwark and Hallowed Endurance to fully heal himself. He didn’t have the skill to do that while in the middle of battle, but if Helion distracted Grey first, he could manage it.
And Grey didn’t feel like allowing that to happen.
DENG.
Helion tried to twist his blade out of the way, but Grey predicted it, following the change in arc and then slashing out with his own blade.
Helion made a move to block it with his own shield, a clash of twin blades and shields entering a flurry.
Almost instantly, Helion felt his rhythm having a hard time keeping up. Grey had somehow managed to parry away his peak blow just moments ago, targeting its own weak point and dispersing its impact to nothing.
Helion was trying his best to keep up that momentum, but every moment felt like another blow against that focused pressure.
Grey chipped away at him. By the third exchange he was already taking a step back, by the fifth he had taken another, and by the sixth he took a third.
Helion couldn’t see Grey’s eyes, but he could see that eerie, crimson digital grin. But what shook him the most was that while he couldn’t see Grey’s eyes, he could feel them.
They were cold, relentless, and yet burning with a fiery passion. It was a pair of eyes that didn’t care for the blood he might shed or the heat pooling from his heart. He would have kept running like a warhorse on its last legs until his inner organs themselves gave out.
Chi.
Helion dodged to the side as a blade cut across his cheek. A suction of blood was ripped out of his body. Before he could understand what happened, a kick slashed at his outer knee.
His legs buckled and a flash of what happened to Setto settled into his very bones.
"ZEPHROS!" Helion roared. He knew he couldn’t last much longer.
Zephros ground his teeth. He wasn’t fully healed yet and unlike his brother, he used a spear. He needed both of his hands to be effective. If he moved now—.
"ZEPHROS!"
BANG. BANG.
Shields erupted to protect Helion and shattered moments later. Grey flittered around him like he weighed as light as a feather, his toes barely tapping at the earth and yet sending him dozens of meters at a given time.
No matter what distance Helion tried to make, Grey closed it. For a moment, Helion wondered if it wasn’t Grey who deserved the Title of Relentless instead.
BOOM.
As though on cue, the earth shook as something impossibly heavy landed.
Helion lost his footing and by the grace of the Goddess, his head fell out of the way of a swipe of Grey’s blade because of it.
Grey, though, didn’t even look over toward the commotion. It was like he had forgotten everything but the one battle he was in right this moment.
The Relentless had shattered a building down to its very foundations with a single bound. He had been locked away in seclusion and hadn’t felt the call of the Goddess. But the moment he appeared and saw the ticker above Grey’s head, he knew what might have happened.
"Guardian! Please save me! The Valdi will reward you greatly!" Helion called out.
The Relentless didn’t seem to hear Helion at all. His eyes were locked onto Grey, but then as though by some sort of compulsion, he forced himself to turn to the Goddess and bow deeply.
"My apologies, Your Holiness."
The Relentless realized then that if he hadn’t heard the call of the Goddess, that wasn’t because she couldn’t reach him. That was impossible. If she wanted to get in touch with him, she would have managed it easily.
That meant that the Goddess had no desire for him to be here. But now that he had appeared, it was simply impossible for him to just leave.
So he had to acknowledge this folly and apologize.
Helion was scrambling out of the way. Yet another treasure activating that should have sent him hundreds of meters away. But when he finally did grit his teeth and activate something so valuable, he felt like he was trapped in some sort of quagmire.
He barely teleported just 20 or so meters away, a distance Grey seemed to cross in a single bound.
"NO!" Helion roared.
At that moment, Zephros finally managed to heal himself.
"Brother!"
Zephros shot forward and Grey inwardly shook his head. ’Still a bit too slow. Whatever, this will have to do.’
Grey slammed down a foot and the slab of granite Helion had appeared on kicked up like a skateboard.
Helion panicked, quickly using his shield to block, only to suddenly feel a spike of pain at his legs.
His legs. His legs were gone.
Helion screamed, but Grey had already pivoted, summoning his tower shield to block Zephros’ blow once again.
Zephros’ pupils constricted and he retracted his spear. He wasn’t about to destroy his arm again.
Unfortunately for him, Grey retracted his shield at the same time.
Zephros’ eyes widened as a blade slit through the bottom of his jaw and out through the top of his skull.
Grey ripped his blackened blood blade coated in Null Veil out and kicked Zephros to the side.
BANG.
The corpse landed on top of Helion’s body.
Grey walked over calmly as Helion made a vain attempt to crawl away to safety.
"You tried, I guess."
BOOM.
A heavy body landed behind Grey, its shadow so large it blotted out the sun.
The aura of a Dominus Class shredded the air apart.