The battle continued becoming even more gruesome, the terrain had turned to Nephelin’s advantage. The biting cold accumulated continuous damage on their aura armor, slowly seeping at their reserve. Worse, even though their aura prevented them from ending up frozen solid by Nephelin, it didn’t protect them from the temperature. It was biting cold, and even with their tough body, they were getting affected by the frigid air gradually slowing down their movement.

They had set up many traps in advance to gain an advantage on Nephelin but now it felt as if the situation was reversed. The few traps that hadn’t been used yet had been rendered ineffective by the ice, ice that Nephelin could control and he didn’t restrain himself from doing so. Whenever they were less expecting it, spikes were surging below their feet forcing them to lose their posture to avoid the unforeseen attack.

Ignis himself was particularly affected by the cold, he had control of fire, and whenever he attempted to summon any kind of fire it got extinguished before it could do any damage. Thankfully his repertoire wasn’t limited to fire, and he switched to wind base attacks.

With the change in terrain in his favor, Nephelin should have had an insurmountable advantage, however, he had been heavily injured a mere moment before, and his wounds hadn’t magically disappeared. He was slower than before and he couldn’t summon the same amount of force. He limited himself to basic attacks and to controlling the elements to ambush them.

With both sides losing in speed the fight was strangely still balanced. Edward ducked under one of Nepehlin’s four arms to avoid a swing, while Adotinus’ own strike was blocked by Nepehlin’s other arms, the next instant a wind blade was stopped by an ice wall forming in front of it.

Not being able to teleport reliably seriously frustrates me. I feel like I have lost my flow. I’m too static. And the cold is not helping. I’m so slow that it barely feels like my acceleration power is still active.

Actually, I usually don’t use my clones much against fast opponents since they are too slow without my acceleration. But in this situation, I can’t use my teleportation, and I’m barely faster than when I’m not using my acceleration. My clones are made mostly from my aura, they shouldn’t be affected by the cold.

Edward formed three clones next to him. They didn’t freeze and seemed impervious to the cold. He allowed himself a wicked smile. The clones were barely slower than him. The tide of battle immediately turned with the addition of three allies. Nephelin may have four arms but they started to fall short against so many enemies at once.

The fight was turning in their favor but Nephelin didn’t lose his calm. He summoned ice wyrms constructs to tie Edward’s clones. They flew around the battlefield, it didn’t even matter when they got destroyed, he simply continued to summon more. The only limit was how many he could control at once. Edward felt a vein throb on his forehead as the fight entered a stalemate once more.

“ENOUGH!!” Edward felt his vision turned red. He used the two healing syringes he had on hand and used them both at the same time. He had nothing more than bruises but the energy from the healing syringes restored his aura reserve pushing him back to full capacity, some of it even lingering in his blood system afterwards.

He took a step forward, the ice cracking under his foot. Four additional arms made from his own aura pop up from his torso. “You have more arms. I WILL GIVE YOU MORE ARMS!!” He let his clones disappear, they were not important anymore. Once he got in close range Nephelin’s ice constructs would turn useless. The fight was between he and him.

Edward had suffered from constant adversity the moment he had stepped foot in this world. He had barely been there for a scant few minutes when he already had to fight for his life. From then although he had grown more and more powerful the pressure and the weight on his shoulders had only continued to grow. Agripin’s village had threatened to collapse under the Bloodmaw’s assault, and he had barely finished dealing with them when he had to deal with the animosity and greed from Gobéliard’s nobles aiming to either coerce or destroy him. And it had kept going on and on.

With the surge progression, monsters became increasingly numerous and dangerous. He had to leave for several expeditions to cull Gobéliard’s surroundings, even going as far as to relocate Agripin’s inhabitants forcing them to forsake their village that he had saved just months before.

When it finally began to settle down, he realized that the situation was much worse elsewhere. Dealing with the spiders had almost pushed him to the edge, especially after realizing that he had grown so powerful that he was the only one still able to defend the city against waves of dangerous monsters.

And once again when he had dealt with the problems popping up left and right, it was only for something worse to happen with the fall of the capital to foreign monsters. He was DONE. He wasn’t ready for a boss second phase of whatever. It was time to end things.

Edward advanced alone not even caring about his allies. Nephelin sensed his change in attitude and sent several of his wyrm ice constructs to stop him. When the first ice construct came into range one of Edward’s extra arms shot out and caught the construct. His hand close, catching it by the throat and crushing it with one dismissive gesture, it didn’t even slow him down.

Edward looked like a vengeful deity, he marched forward one step at a time with a deranged look, six arms ready to strike, and his aura flaring brightly. He didn’t hurry but that only made it more disturbing, he seemed unstoppable as if he was destiny itself, every obstacle crushed in his way, totally inescapable.

Be it ice spikes, wyrms constructs or even Nephelin’s blade of energy, every attack was either smashed apart or deflected. Adotinus and Ignis watched from the sidelines incredulous. Of course, the energy expenditure from Edward’s was massive, but after absorbing two healing syringes at once he was overflowing with energy.

Edward was now in striking distance of Nephelin, his four extra hands each materialized a sword to hold onto. Realizing they were useless Nephelin stopped summoning constructs to focus fully on Edward. Their weapon clashed but this time Edward didn’t take a step back. Nephelin was already weakened after he had ended up severely injured in their first bout. His powers had received a boost once he had given up on the spatial runes, but it didn’t heal his injuries.

The two exchanges multiples blow per second, Edward’s summoned arms were not slower than his real one by an inch. He had been working on his aura control for a long time, and multitasking became natural to him with the multiple uses of his clones. For the first time, it became Nephelin’s that got pushed back in a one-on-one exchange. Edward wasn’t any slower than him, and with his additional arms and Nephelin’s decrease in strength, he was gaining the advantage.

Fear flashed briefly within Nephelin’s single eye before settling on acceptance. “Hahaha! YES, this is how it is supposed to go! If I go down let it at least be a worthy fight,” he laughed madly.

Edward didn’t react to Nephelin’s laughter, only pummeling him with strikes with the look of a man who had nothing to lose. Edward was single-mindedly consumed by his goal to end it here and there. He was savage and relentless, focusing much more on offense than defense, even letting some strikes hit him if it meant he could continue to pummel the shit out of Nephelin, his armor tanking the damage.

Somewhere during the fight, his swords had turned into hammers, better reflecting his desire to batter his problems into a pulp. Nepehlin wasn’t able to stop the onslaught of attacks coming his way, the ice protecting his body cracked further with each hit he took until it began to crumble. His injuries reopened and drenched him in blood. The blizzard was raging around them but it couldn’t stop Edward, the field of ice had an effect over time and Edward didn’t give him any.

Nephelin faltered for an instant due to his heavy injuries, it was the tipping point. Without anything to stop him all of Edward’s attacks landed on Nephelin like a hurricane. Nephelin didn’t have enough strength left to resist but nonetheless, the battle didn’t enter a lull. Edward continued to ravage him, hammers falling on Nephelin like a torrential downpour. Nepehlin collapsed and with his fall the blizzard abated, revealing Edward standing above him huffing and puffing but still brutalizing his corpse.

Ignis and Adotinus watched the scene with wide eyes not daring to say a word as blood splashed on Edward with every hit he delivered. Nephelin had turned into a pulp and each swing of Edward’s hammers was accompanied by a wet splotch.

The scene stretched for several minutes before Edward calmed down. He stood silently above what was left of Nephelin, gazing into the void. Aura tendrils subconsciously emerged from his body to absorb Nephelin’s blood essence. Ignis’ right eye twitched but he refrained from saying anything.

When Edward came around slowly blinking all of Nephelin’s essence had already been absorbed by him.

“Well…That was something,” Adotinus chuckled not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

“Make me remember not to anger him,” Ignis added with a straight face making it hard to discern if he was joking or being serious.

Edward blushed realizing what he had done and what had just happened. “Sorry…I lost control” he told them not knowing how to explain himself.

Adotinus laughed uproariously “Don’t excuse yourself. You got rid of him for us. The fight was far from over and it was an impressive display on your part. You were a total badass.”

“I must admit that it’s the first time I see someone create additional arms for oneself with one’s aura. It was unexpected. It’s a shame that you absorb all of Nephelin’s essence, but with everything you have done for us, I guess you deserve it.” Ignis added.

“I’m just glad Nephelin is dead.” Edward waved at Pescara ruins, the spatial distortions clearly sensible for him. “And we still have to deal with whatever Nephelin was talking about. It just seems problems are never ending…”

Ignis nodded in appreciation. “As the one at the head of an empire, I can understand how you feel. Not taking into account future problems, we still have to deal with stragglers monsters within Pescara. The capital itself is ruined beyond recognition. I have no doubts that the rest of the empire must be struggling as the surge is still ongoing and I will have to calm the unrest growing within the population. Given the actual state of things, the capital can’t even begin reconstruction.”

“You must have met your fair share of trouble.” Adotinus agreed. “You raised from being an unknown to the patriarch rank in no time. I would bet that you are the fastest one to reach that rank in history.”