Prince Mark and Arkanis descended rapidly toward another district of the city, one that had already suffered from the tail end of the gravity wave the Demon Lord had unleashed earlier. The streets below were fractured and uneven, entire sections of pavement sunken or buckled inward. Buildings leaned at crooked angles, some half-collapsed while others had their upper floors torn open like broken ribs.
Just before they struck the ground, Prince Mark shifted his body in midair.
He twisted sideways and angled his descent so that he hit first, the impact sending him rolling hard across the ruined street. The battered G.E.A.R. armor scraped violently against the stone as he redirected his momentum, planting one foot briefly against Arkanis's body and kicking off with the remaining force of his flight-assisted velocity.
The strike launched the Demon Lord away from him.
Arkanis shot backward through the air toward the side of a nearby building, his crimson robes snapping sharply from the sudden displacement. But he stopped himself just short of the wall. Gravity bent subtly around his body, halting his movement before the collision could happen.
He lowered himself calmly to the ground.
"You're brave doing this," Arkanis said, lifting his staff and aiming it toward Prince Mark. "But bravery won't let you win against me."
The tip of the staff flared.
A stream of fire erupted outward in a continuous blast, roaring forward like a flamethrower and washing across the ruined street. Prince Mark reacted instantly, darting sideways as the flames swept toward him. His damaged thrusters fired in short bursts, giving him brief aerial hops that carried him over the advancing torrent as he moved from right to left across the street.
"I know that," Prince Mark answered.
While he was still airborne, the battered plates along his chest shifted and separated. Twelve small launch ports snapped open in sequence.
A rapid volley of micro-missiles fired out.
They streaked across the distance between them in tight formation, engines whining as they homed directly toward Arkanis. The Demon Lord barely moved. A faint pulse radiated outward from him as compressed vibrations condensed into a barrier of distorted air around his body.
The missiles slammed into the invisible shield.
Explosions erupted in rapid succession, fireballs stacking over each other as the blasts engulfed the barrier in flames. The air distorted violently around the impacts.
Arkanis simply raised a hand and redirected the pressure waves, pushing the flames away from himself as the last of the detonations faded.
"You know," he said calmly through the dissipating smoke, "that suit of yours is something we would make in the 3rd Generation."
He tapped the end of his staff lightly against the ground.
The space behind Prince Mark warped.
Arkanis stepped out of the distortion directly behind him.
"Magi-tech was always an interesting subject a hundred thousand years ago," he added, already swinging his staff in a wide horizontal strike.
Prince Mark spun around just in time.
His twin crimson blades came up in a crossing guard to intercept the blow. The impact rang out sharply as metal met the staff's reinforced arcane structure, the force of the strike pushing Prince Mark backward through the air. Instead of fighting it, he cut the thrust from his flight system and let gravity take him.
He dropped to the ground.
But Arkanis didn't give him time to recover.
The Demon Lord extended his staff and began firing bursts of fire in rapid succession. Each projectile struck the street or the surrounding structures and detonated like a grenade, scattering stone and debris across the area.
Prince Mark had no choice but to move.
He sprinted through the ruined street while the explosions chased him, diving and weaving between the blasts as chunks of shattered pavement and brick rained down around him.
"If you are that old," Prince Mark shouted while sliding behind a broken section of wall, "what is the point of doing all this? Do you not already have everything you want?"
He pushed off the rubble and dove through the window of a nearby house, shattering the glass as he disappeared inside.
"That is truly something only someone with youth can say," Arkanis replied.
He rose slowly into the air until he was hovering directly above the building.
"Once you obtain ageless immortality," he continued calmly, "you will find that you want so much more than you ever did when you were mortal."
Then he increased the gravity around himself.
His body dropped.
The impact was catastrophic.
It was like dropping a massive weight directly onto the structure. The roof collapsed instantly, the upper floors imploding as the entire building folded inward under the crushing force. Walls burst outward as the internal supports shattered, sending a violent cloud of dust and debris blasting into the street.
For a moment the structure simply ceased to exist, reduced to a collapsed mound of shattered timber and broken stone.
Then something burst out of the dust cloud.
Prince Mark shot forward from the wreckage, landing on one hand and both knees as he skidded across the fractured pavement. His breathing came in heavy bursts inside the G.E.A.R. suit as the damaged armor vented heat and smoke from the punishment it had taken.
"I am certain only someone with greed can say something like that," he said, forcing himself upright while gripping his twin blades for support.
Arkanis stepped out from the destroyed building behind him, fragments of rubble shifting aside as the gravity field around him displaced them.
"I am a Demon Lord," he replied calmly as he raised his staff and pointed it toward Prince Mark. "Of course I have a sin that defines me."
A thin beam of astral energy shot from the tip of the staff.
Prince Mark tried to dodge, but he was slowing down. His damaged suit struggled to keep up with his movements. He twisted his body aside just enough that the beam missed his core, but it still grazed across his hip.
The contact carved a burning line through the armor, slicing deep enough to expose the glowing magical circuitry beneath the plating.
Prince Mark didn't stop moving.
He sprinted straight toward Arkanis.
One of his crimson blades left his hand, spinning end over end as he hurled it low toward the Demon Lord's legs. Arkanis simply stepped back, letting the weapon bury itself in the ground where he had been standing.
Prince Mark was already closing the distance.
He swung the remaining blade in a powerful diagonal cut aimed at Arkanis's torso.
The Demon Lord sidestepped it effortlessly.
Prince Mark snatched the embedded blade from the ground as he passed it, pivoting sharply and spinning around with both weapons in hand. The second strike came up in a rising arc aimed directly at Arkanis's head.
Arkanis countered.
He swung his staff downward while increasing its gravitational weight. The moment the weapon collided with Prince Mark's blade, the impact became impossibly heavy. The crimson sword was ripped out of Prince Mark's hand and hurled away across the street.
Then Arkanis stepped forward.
To demonstrate the difference in power between them, he simply grabbed Prince Mark by the faceplate.
The Demon Lord lifted him off his feet and slammed him down onto the ground with crushing force.
"This is it," Arkanis said calmly.
He stepped forward and planted his foot on Prince Mark's chest plate, pinning him against the broken street. When Prince Mark tried to bring up his remaining blade, Arkanis casually struck it aside with the staff, sending the weapon clattering away across the pavement.
"This is as far as you go."
Prince Mark struggled beneath him, trying to push himself free, but the Demon Lord's strength held him firmly in place.
Arkanis raised his staff and aimed it directly at Prince Mark's head.
Before he could fire—
"Mana Blast!"
A beam of pure mana tore across the street.
The attack was a brilliant violet lance of energy, roaring toward Arkanis with tremendous force. The Demon Lord reacted instantly, raising his staff to block the incoming blast.
The beam struck the weapon directly.
There were no defensive spells reinforcing it this time.
The staff finally broke.
The moment it shattered, a violent surge of released magical energy erupted outward from the fracture point. The explosion blasted both Arkanis and Prince Mark away from each other, sending them skidding across the ruined street.
The blast had at least saved Arkanis from being hit by the attack.
Both of them turned their heads toward the source of the attack.
Standing at the far end of the street was Samwell Mathers.
His clothes were torn from the gravity wave, but the injuries he had suffered were gone. He stood there with one arm extended, the lingering glow of mana still fading from his hand.
"Did you forget about me you piece of rancid filth!" he shouted.
For the first time since the fight had begun—
Arkanis looked genuinely concerned.
Cornered.