Grey’s gaze flashed. A pulse came from Prometheus and he reacted in kind. He didn’t have the reaction time to act fast enough, but he did have the reaction speed to react to Prometheus.
The arc of lightning passed over his shoulder as he thrust out.
The Volthari punched out, meeting Grey’s blade. A strong amount of pressure surged, but Grey’s gaze only flashed. Lightning passed in an arc over his body, slamming down to the ground behind him.
His arm absorbed the kinetic force of the actual punch itself, and he realized something quite perfect just then.
The physical prowess of the Volthari was weaker than the Dormaji by a substantial margin.
Grey pivoted, his blade slashing out at the Volthari’s body. It realized the problem and made a motion with its closed fist like it was slamming the butt of a staff to the ground.
At first, there was no staff at all. But then it suddenly formed from its lightning.
Grey’s blade was blocked by the body of the staff as it suddenly became a spear. Lightning burst from one of its tips like a blooming flower, and then surged from the other in quick succession.
The ground was splintered, lightning snaking through it like sand worms eating through the soil itself.
A complex series of pulses came from Prometheus, the energy reserves of the Helm Frame dipping even further.
But this time, Grey ignored it. His teeth clenched and the lightning tore into him, shredding his inner organs to pieces and leaving them in piles of ash.
However, as terrible as the damage was, his eyes remained lucid, his gaze remaining focused beyond compare.
He activated the Helm of Grace and reverted his state back to just three seconds ago. A roar left his lips and he slid right through the Volthari’s defenses, slashing through the ancient chest plate armor that made up its torso.
He shredded through it like paper, and this time, he heard the howl of pain that followed.
It sounded like a booming cadence of thunder, clipped arcs of lightning sparking out of the cut. There was no blood, but that was already to be expected. That wasn’t what Grey wanted.
But he knew when he hit something.
Last Sever.
His blood blade gained a bright white gold glow to them almost as though contrasting heaven and hell in the palms of his hands themselves.
The Volthari howled, a pulsing dome of lightning pushing outward. A crater opened up beneath its feet as the blooming radiance of energy was so dense it burned everything in its path.
Another complex series of pulses came from Prometheus, but this time, it was rapidly changing, always shifting and morphing. It was impossible to keep up with.
Yet Grey did.
The rhythm of the horns in his head shifted, his stance changed. He flipped one blade into a smaller form, holding it in a backhand grip. Sliding backward with a calm cold on his face, he timed the resonance of his Resonant Sense perfectly.
The lightning passed over him, flowing through the impulses of his extended Neural Frame.
Then he slammed a foot down to the ground, closing in the distance so fast he was the one who seemed like a blur of lightning.
BANG.
The Volthari swung its double-headed spear to meet him.
Grey blocked it with his short blade, swinging the longer at its head. His arms crossed in an unflattering and off-balance pattern. He followed down the angle of the Volthari’s pole arm, trading power and balance for a sure strike.
Chi.
He cut into the Volthari’s armor again, not as deep, but it howled in rage nonetheless.
Grey didn’t even reply, he didn’t give it a quippy retort or a snide dig. He was so focused even his hairs stood on end, his eyes continuously churning with their own electrical impulses.
The moment his strike landed he pulled both of his arms down, parrying the spear to the side as he spun to the other. He slashed out both weapons at the same time, cutting into the Volthari’s side.
He cut into it, again and again, relentlessly patient. It was like he was grinding away at a video game, feeling out the combos and reacting to the shifting changes with a frightening amount of speed.
Every time Prometheus sent him another pulse of information, he incorporated it, growing faster and faster at it. Sometimes he would directly ignore it, using an absurd battle instinct to find an opening for a more devastating blow.
Chi. Chi. Chi.
His blade lengths changed as his rhythm shifted again. He slammed the hilts of his blood blades together, forming his own two-headed spear.
He matched the rhythm of the Volthari and it was like they were fighting on two completely different battlefields.
Grey shifted and danced, dodged and parried. His skill was on a completely different level compared to the Volthari who didn’t even seem all that familiar with how to battle in close quarters at all.
It continuously roared, crying out like a baby in its cradle. But Grey only kept cutting, and cutting, and cutting, and cutting.
His double-headed spear spun in his hands, it moved so fast that it was hardly even a pole arm in the sights of many. It was a pinwheel of crimson, cutting against the air, ground, and light itself without losing any pace.
Grey shredded the body of the Volthari to pieces.
Its arm flew into the air. A spark of lightning arced out to catch and reconnect it, only for Grey to take a leg in the next sweep.
At some point, the Volthari didn’t even have enough lightning left over to keep its spear intact.
Again and again and again, it lost pieces of itself, being shredded one step after another.
Grey walked it down, horns blaring, drums beaming. His heart marched to a beat of its own rhythm, his double-headed spear separating into two pieces again, a small leash of blood connecting the two halves.
Grey roared, the spear splitting again from two to four pieces, and then from four to eight, each one linked together by a chain of blood.
His range extended, but so too did his leverage.
He sent one to the side, swiping out a wide arc of crimson that split the Volthari in two at the waist.
Then he sent one blade high into the skies.
For a moment, it paused from on high like a stalled judgment from a god above.
"Die."
Grey spoke out the word as though an unbreakable command.
The blade descended, cutting the ground apart long before it even landed.
Chi.
It split everything in its path apart, shredding, cutting, and sundering. Not a single thing seemed capable of surviving.
A blade of crimson continued into the distance, scars leaving their mark across even the Fog of Chaos. The mist sparked and flashed, unable to fuse back together for a moment as though it, too, had suffered an open wound.
The Volthari shuddered, its body stumbling once as though it hadn’t realized what happened for a moment...
And then it slowly fell into two pieces.
Grey tilted his head to the skies, unleashing a roar that tore a tornado of wind through the clouds above.