“…?”
“Invincible,” Lucas whispered.
Golden lightning crackled around him.
In one swift motion, he pulled out the bow from his back and aimed at Neo’s head.
Time seemed to slow down.
“I’ve been ordered to eliminate you.”
Lucas released the arrow.
Neo, aware of the incoming attack due to his Death affinity, dodged by a hair’s margin.
In that short moment, Lucas was already far away from him.
He drew the bow and smiled.
“I can see you did not defeat my Shadow through a stroke of coincidence.”
“Why the sudden attack.
“You were listening to all my orders since the beginning. Was all of it an act to for this moment?”
Neo frowned.
“Indeed, I wanted to finish it with a surprise attack. But I failed since you are a wielder of Death.”
Unlike what Lucas expected, Neo was calm.
He was not surprised by his betrayal.
“You seem awfully composed.”
“Do I?”
Neo never trusted Lucas.
Why would he trust him when he tried to kill Neo along with the phoenix during the A-rank mission?
And.
It was better this way.
He could fight Arthur alone after the fallout with Lucas.
‘It feels weird how he really did what I expected him to do.’
‘Guess I can’t expect more from a third-rate villain.’
Lucas pursed his lips when he saw Neo unsheathing his sword.
“Aren’t you curious why my clan ordered to eliminate you?”
“Not really.
“I can guess it’s something related to Zeus Clan not wanting another Great God Clan to appear and compete with them.”
“That’s terrifyingly close to the truth.”
Lucas chuckled.
“But you know what?
“I have even more surprising news.
“You aren’t the first demigod to awaken Hades’ Bloodline. Do you know what happened to your predecessors?”
“….”
“They were eliminated.
“Just like you will be.”
Lucas shot arrows through the portals.
Neo ducked to dodge the attack and dashed forward.
He used the floating wreckage as footholds to bridge the gap between him and Lucas.
Suddenly, a portal appeared — directly in his path.
There was no time to react.
Neo was running too fast.
His momentum carried him forward into the portal.
In an instant, he was spat out on the opposite side of the battlefield, far from where he had been.
Neo fell from the sky.
He used the wreckages to break his fall.
The sudden shift disoriented him.
It made him nauseous.
Worse, the distance between him and Lucas increased after he was teleported away.
‘This is going to be tricky.’
Neo tightened his muscles.
He shot forward with explosive speed.
But the same situation repeated.
Every time he got close, Lucas would use a portal to teleport him away or slip away himself.
The sudden shifts due to teleportation gave Neo motion sickness.
It made it difficult for him to dodge the arrows that shot out from the fist-sized portals that suddenly appeared around him.
Neo’s heart raced.
Lucas’ advantage was too overwhelming.
His speed, his precise control over the battlefield, the way he used the portals to maintain the distance.
Neo couldn’t keep up.
He was losing, and they both knew it.
“Dammit, I wanted to save this for Arthur’s Shadow.”
Neo exhaled.
He called out to Obitus.
His blessing.
‘Now’s the time’, he thought.
An immense surge of energy exploded through him.
His muscles tensed, his senses sharpened, and his perception of the world increased dramatically.
Overwhelming power.
He hadn’t felt it for ages.
Neo bolted towards Lucas.
He moved faster than before and dodged arrows with ease.
Lucas’ eyes widened.
Neo had become faster.
Fast enough to almost match him.
The battlefield became a blur of movement.
Lucas’ arrows whistled through the air, and Neo deflected them with ease.
Everytime Neo was teleported away, he returned faster.
Every arrow Lucas fired, Neo evaded or parried.
It seems as if victory was within Neo’s grasp.
But he knew they couldn’t continue fighting like this.
The blessing was consuming a great deal of his Divine Energy.
With Neo and Lucas in a stalemate, the battle had become a test of endurance.
And Neo, a mere Grade 4 Awakened Demigod, would run out of Divine Energy faster than Lucas.
His heart raced as a plan formed in his mind.
Dangerous, reckless, but the only way he could win.
Neo launched himself at Lucas.
He ran while make sudden shifts to throw off Lucas.
His affinity did not warn him of the portals since they were not life threatening.
But he was beginning to understand their timing.
He was learning.
Lucas stopped smiling long ago.
He hadn’t expected Neo to be strong enough to match him while he was boosted by Invincible.
Just as he prepared to use another portal to escape, this time in desperation, Neo was already before him.
Red lightning and black flames flickered around Neo’s blade.
It seemed Neo had won when suddenly Lucas smiled.
“Got you.”
Multiple portals materialized around them in an instant.
Condensed beams of energy shot out from them.
Lucas did not dodge.
The Invincible would protect him.
Neo, however, was not so lucky—
“Why are you unharmed?”
“I have a good defense Spell.”
Neo swung his sword.
The blade and the Aura of Death failed to penetrate far into his skin, but he was heavily injured.
Before Neo could attack again, Lucas created a portal beneath his beneath and slipped away.
The portal did not disappear immediately.
It was blocked with some kind of translucent screen.
Lucas stood on the other side.
He pressed his injury to stop the blood from flowing out and stared at Neo with a tired eyes and a smile on his face.
“Aren’t you a bit too strong for someone who awakened less than a month ago?”
“Yes, I am.
“And stop smiling, asshole. You look fucking creepy.”
“I am just happy I won.”
“Won? You say that after running away with your tail between your legs?”
Lucas continued to smile.
Neo clicked his tongue.
It was true.
He lost and Lucas won.