Chapter 418: A Waiting Game
Aether groaned as his back landed against one of the dark trees. Coughing up smoke, he looked up at the Demon, slowly walking up to him. "You didn’t need to blow up the house, you know!" One of the sleeves from his mantle was gone, completely, and the armor itself was already having quite a hard time.
Looking around, he saw Sena, who had also been blown away, but unlike him, she hadn’t been wearing any armor. Feeling the full blow of the explosion, she was lying on the floor, not moving.
’Shit.’ Turning back to the Demon, he had staggered, seeing how he was already standing in front of him, staring at him.
"Who really are you two?" The voice asked, tilting his head.
’Great, so not only is it insanely strong, but also smart.’ It had figured it out: the fact that they weren’t the same people it had raised to kill the guardian, which was insanity; they had barely spent any time together, and he had tried making sure that he acted as best as he could as a character he knew nothing about when it came to personality. And for nothing.
He chuckled. "What makes you think that?"
...Those red eyes, how much he despised them; he felt as if they were staring right through him. He couldn’t read him at all. "Do you really think I would believe that the brats I raised would be able to kill the guardians so fast? I thought they were going to take years, and yet, you don’t move faster. I’m not mad, not even close. I didn’t care about them; I would have gladly accepted you two."
Aether rolled his eyes. "No thanks, I’m fine, let’s just cut the chatting-" But as he was about to finish, he noticed something with the corner of his eye: Sena had managed to raise her head, and support herself with her arms.
She didn’t look to be in the best condition; her hair was all over the place, and blood was flowing down her forehead, as well as many burn marks on her body, as many parts of her clothes had been burnt off. But she was alive.
Turning back to the Demon, Aether gave it an innocent smile. "You know what, let’s continue talking. It’s not every day I have time to have a conversation with a Demon."
The Voice’s eyes widened, but following his gaze from before, it also saw Sena, smirking at Aether. He raised a hand towards her. Whatever he wanted to do, and what he was planning on doing to her, he wasn’t going to let it happen.
He wasn’t going to let him.
His chains rushed to bind his arm to the ground, making the Demon frown, as it broke through them like it was butter, before grabbing him by the throat. Its claws slowly dug into his skin.
Moving his feet in the air, Aether tried to get the arm away from his neck, but to not avail. "We can talk about this, you know." He said as he felt the claws get deeper and deeper inside his neck; it wasn’t long until it hit an artery. But suddenly, he saw Sena behind the Demon. The girl raised her blade, delivering a huge slash across the monster’s back, making him drop Aether, who took the chance to thrust Voidpiercer into its stomach... its skin, or whatever it was even made out of, was tougher than normal, not harder than the scales of the dragon, but the blade barely got through enough.
Seeing its immobilized state, Aether took out his blade and ran to Sena.
"Planning on fighting this yourself?" He chuckled. But the girl didn’t find it amusing.
"What does it look like I’m doing, dumbass? It’s not like I have anyone with me, nor would they be able to do anything to this thing"
He had known from the beginning, after all... it was the first time he had seen her put on her armor.
And it was far different from what he expected.
It had this black underlayer that covered her whole body, and had many leather pieces attached to it; it was more of a light armor, designed to protect her without giving her trouble with movement, just like his, after all; for her, agility mattered a lot, since she wasn’t a fighter. She wasn’t meant to be hit in the first place.
The chest piece was tight around her torso, like a corset, let’s say, to not overcomplicate things, making her figure more evident while at the same time protecting her vitals. It also had leather plates overlapping at her ribs and shoulders
To someone who hadn’t seen her wield the blade that much, her armor did help with it, having matching bracers to cover her forearms in case a blade slid past her defence while in a duel. Leather straps secured the armor around her waist and thighs.
’Is this armor really something a Celestial should wear? It looks more like something a thief would have on.’
There were more metal plates, again to protect her, without making the armor too heavy, but if he was to point out every small piece, even the Demon would get bored.
The only thing to say about the armor was that it also had a hood attached to a short mantle that covered her shoulders. And had these leather guards for her legs.
Aether chuckled, looking at her. "Kinda weird seeing you with armor."
Sena stared at him, dumbfounded. "Is it really the time to talk about this?!" She said, while the Demon slowly turned towards them, clearly very mad.
Aether gripped Voidpiercer, while Sena gripped some sort of Amethyst katana.
...
He sighed. ’If we can’t beat it, we just have to outlast it. I pierced it, so the soul poison should be there; the only bad thing is that it probably isn’t going to travel that fast as it did with the Knights in Frozen Crown. It doesn’t have the same amount of Godly influence as they had.
But still, even if it takes too much time, it was going to die... It’s just a waiting game.’