Yuki was now getting interested in the battle. His eyes widened as he prepared to counter any attack that would be thrown at him. Better yet, he planned to inflict double the damage.

"You think you can block my attacks? How about you try blocking this," said Yuki as he pointed his finger towards Kostas-twirling it in the air as if he was creating a circle.

In fact, that was what he was doing. As Kostas brought down the flame wall he had created, he was greeted with many large fire circles surrounding him. While he was confused at first, he would soon realize why they were there.

Yuki used his ability to sprout more large flame arrows out of the fire circles which surrounded Kostas from all directions. As they fired at Kostas, the armoured fire demon created a dome like shield which blocked off all the arrows-or as he thought. Yuki was already anticipating this to happen. The arrows which Yuki created began to sink and mix with Kostas' flames. Yuki's flames were a deep crimson colour while Kostas' flames were orange. Even when those flames mixed together, they did not create a new colour. Instead, there were rough patches of both colours on Kostas' dome-like shield. However, moments later, Yuki's flames would become more prominent.

As Yuki's deep crimson flames began to overtake the orange ones, Kostas began to stress as he tried to push them away. Yuki didn't plan on letting up any time soon. With a large push, Yuki took over the ulterior of the dome shield. While Kostas had the interior of his shield covered in his own orange flames, it didn't matter anymore.

Yuki gave an evil smile before beginning his plan which he had been setting up. He began to hold his palm upwards as if he was holding on to a spherical orb. Yuki began to grab hold of that imaginary orb. Yuki looked to be struggling for some odd reason, however, it was because of the dome shield. As Yuki continued to crush the imaginary orb, the dome would contract as if it were about to break any time soon. Yuki was using his ability to try to crush Kostas in his own dome.

Kostas was at the losing end of this exchange of strength. As Yuki persisted, Kostas had no choice but to give in. Kostas let go of his barrier which caused the friction between the two forces to die out. However, instead of normally being absorbed by the flames, the sudden release of the existing friction caused Yuki's flames to explode, in turn doing much more damage than he had intended. Kostas was sent flying and crashed down back at the stage ground.

While Yuki had been surprised at first and left with a gaping mouth. That later turned into a slight laugh of mockery. Yuki had been expecting Kostas to attack him in agro as most of the monsters within the dungeon were full of pride, however that was not the case. Kostas was much calmer about it.

Kostas stood up from where he landed. He didn't care about the damage that had been done to his armour or about the fact that Yuki was laughing at him. Kostas stood once again like a statue.

[Flame commander]

Kostas used his special ability to create flame clones of himself. While they didn't have the armour which he wore, Kostas didn't care as their purpose wasn't to be a decoy but to be a fighting army. Kostas' army charged at Yuki from all directions. Although it was a bit hard for Yuki to keep up with them at the start, he began to get used to their movements. Yuki used flames of his own to keep a large majority of the clones at a distance by creating fire arrows and fire tornadoes. As for the ones who he couldn't block, Yuki engulfed his fists in his crimson flames and began to exchange in hand to hand combat with the clones.

It only took either 1 or 2 hits from Yuki to take down a clone due to the increased strength from the attack boost potions. As Yuki continued to have the advantage between the fire clones, he failed to realize something. A small fast shadow passed through Yuki's line of vision. He just assumed it to be just his imagination so he decided to ignore it.

Yuki was in a 2 versus 1 match up with two of Kostas' clones at the moment. One of the clones had thrown a right hook at Yuki which he ducked down to dodge. The moment he did that, a metal fist made contact with his jaw, causing him to be sent flying.

Yuki assumed it to be Kostas who had snuck up behind him, however when he looked down at the position where Kostas was last seen, Yuki was surprised to see him still there. Still in the air, Yuki then looked at where he had been struck from. Standing there were the two clones which he had been fighting; however, beside them was a 3rd clone. He looked exactly like the rest however, his fist looked to be covered in the same metal which made up Kostas' armour.

"Where could he have gotten that from? Kostas didn't have an object covering his arm. So where did he get it from? Unless.." Yuki thought right as he crashed into a large pillar which was made from the same material as the stage floor.

Yuki quickly stood up from where he was knocked into. Unexpectedly, Yuki fell to knees and was forced to look down at the ground. His eyes had been tearing up and his nose was bleeding.

"When did this happen?" Yuki asked himself. He soon realized that he hadn't taken any defense boost potions which meant that any damage he would take would still have a great effect on him.

"I've got to end this quickly. Any more hits like that could sway the battle into a direction where it would become impossible for me to win," Yuki thought to himself.