DEMON'S VIRTUE

"You're still holding back? Although you were able to dodge that just now?" Tin asked with a wry smile on his face, "How terrifying."

"Terrifying? Says the guy that can use a basic swordsman ability like slash with a giant's sword."

"Haha, I figured you'd be able to tell. But well, I guess I don't gotta hide it anymore then, huh?"

The two men stood in front of each other, both ready to attack the other. Tin grabbed the pillar, and swung it over his shoulder, using the giant invisible sword that was being created through one of Tin's awakened giant abilities to vertically slash at Eiro. Of course, the Demon quickly moved to the side, avoiding the unseen blade. It did crack apart the rock in a straight line between Eiro and Tin though, where the sword actually impacted with the ground.

Immediately after dodging, Eiro pushed his foot into the ground and forced his body forward at Tin. However, the Goliath was able to easily swing the pillar back at the direction where Eiro was coming from, once more using the 'slash' ability that he had used earlier in order to nearly instantly accelerate the sword to an incredible speed, just that this time Eiro was able to anticipate the usage of this ability, from the slight twitches at the sides of Tin's eyes, the same twitches that happened when he used this ability earlier. It was really just something minuscule, but it seemed to be something that only happened when Tin used certain abilities, and the Demon would certainly make use of this knowledge.

He threw himself down just in time, speeding himself up by creating a gust of air above him, and pushed himself off the ground with his free hand once the blade had passed over him. Due to his forward momentum, Eiro had been slightly sliding over the ground during the dodge of that attack, and now he was close enough to reach Tin again.

However, now, he slammed the pillar down at Eiro, seemingly without using its 'sword form', simply making use of a regular attack as Eiro came into range for it. As the Demon twisted his body to avoid said attack, he pushed his own body up by quickly forcing up some of the rock underneath him, quickly shooting him up into the air above Tin.

Creating a barrier using arcane magic right above him, Eiro now had a surface to kick off of easily, and shot back down at Tin, who used the momentum and weight of his pillar to pull himself away from where he was going to be attacked, while at the same time hoping for a counterattack. His combat sense was certainly amazing, but obviously, Eiro already figured out any and all ways that Tin could react to his attacks. If he wanted to, Eiro could probably win this fight in an instant from now, considering the versatility and power of his abilities, but he simply didn't want to do that. Eiro was quite enjoying this fight, so he didn't want it to end prematurely.

And so, Eiro had created another barrier that he could kick off, changing his direction mid-air. He twisted around so that he was moving forward with his feet in the front, and before Tin was able to push his pillar toward his chest to block this, Eiro already impacted with his chest.

The two of them locked eyes, as Eiro instantly kicked Tin away from him, increasing the raw damage from that impact even more, while throwing the goliath away and destroying his balance. Eiro, however, simply flipped over and soon casually stood there, while Tin was clearly trying to figure out what to do in order to not loose his footing when he landed back on the ground.

Currently flipped over, and only able to use one of his arms at all, Tin swung the pillar downward and made it hit the ground. Using that impact, he was able to slightly control his movement. He swung around and twisted his pillar with the strength in his wrist, so that he could turn himself around and change his own momentum, and soon landed on the ground, sliding backward but facing Eiro.

Immediately, in order to conserve the momentum as much as he could, Tin pushed himself forward again, and used another swordsman ability, which was quite a bit more advanced than the one from earlier, together with the invisible giant's sword. He pushed his pillar forward, and Eiro could feel shifts in the air as a flurry of attacks reached him.

It was an ability given by an advanced swordsman class called 'Multi-attack'. By using mana as a conduit, you were able to multiply the path that your weapon was taking. Other advanced classes had this ability as well, but it was usually fine-tuned toward the class they had. Depending on how powerful the user of said attack was, this multi-attack could show itself in the form of creating two or three parallel slashes at the opponent, or like now, cause dozens of stabs to appear randomly in the air, all aimed at the same target.

Of course, when used with such a huge, dangerous weapon, even Eiro had to be careful not to be injured too much. Sadly, he wasn't able to see exactly what abilities his opponents had, so his superior deductive abilities were useless in regard to something like this. Of course, Eiro had considered that Tin might have this ability, but he also considered that he might have a couple dozen other abilities, and it was impossible to prepare for all of them to the same extent.

But even so, although this attack was quite dangerous even for Eiro, it was nothing that he couldn't deal with. While he couldn't see the attacks, he could sense their approach through the movement of the air and the sound that they let off, as well as the faint auras that these attacks gave off. Most of the attacks were slightly delayed from each other to make it harder for Eiro to dodge everything at once, but that made this just more exciting for the Demon.

Eiro jumped forward and rotated his body in a way where he would avoid the attacks with minimal effort, but then... Tin did something else that Eiro found quite exciting. And that was that he used slash while this multi-attack ability was still being executed.

He swung his pillar to the side, and suddenly, all of the attacks created by that ability changed their direction, no longer moving forward, but slashing to the side as well. They all moved in the same direction, but that didn't make this much easier. Eiro was currently in the air, trying to dodge the stabs, so these incredibly fast slashes on top of that? That made this a bit more troublesome.

Eiro pushed the air out of his lungs, and manipulated the air that was around him to an extent. If he had his wings out, this would be easy, but now, he could only use magic in order to change his momentum.

But luckily, through the use of air and gravity magic, as well as more lightning magic in order to send subtle signals to specific muscles of his body like he did earlier, Eiro was able to dodge all of the attacks. And when this flurry was over, Tin stood there, clearly exhausted by using his abilities in this manner. Or at least, he was slowly growing exhausted, even if he wasn't fully there yet. But Eiro? He was fine. His breathing wasn't elevated in the slightest, he wasn't sweating, and his heartbeat stayed the same as well. Just from this, it was clear that Eiro had the upper hand in this fight.

"Ah, it's over already?" Eiro sighed with a disappointed expression, "Seriously, I really enjoyed this fight." The Demon said to the Goliath, who looked back confused.

"What do you mean? You givin' up or something?"

"Hm? Nah, my preparation is ready." Eiro said, slowly pointing upward. It was something that nobody had seen, since it was so up in the sky. Everyone was focused on the fight that was going on in front of them, and only when Eiro pointed it out did they realize that there was something high in the sky.

It was a magic circle, far, far above them. But even then, it had an impressive size. Tin was unsure how high up this was exactly, and how large this magic circle was, but one thing was for sure. It wasn't going to be pretty.

"Your giant sword was actually kind of cool, so it inspired me to make this spell real quick, you know? Here, let me activate it." The Demon said, before quickly speaking the chant that he had created for this custom spell. Of course, he said it in the ancient language, "Oh great spirits and ancient giants alike, let me borrow your powers for this spell. Come together, combine. Fuse, and become one. I gift you this tool, this weapon of valor, to cut apart your enemies. This sword, capable of cutting everything, only to be wielded by the greatest and mightiest." Eiro chanted. It was a long chant, at least considering the spells that he himself usually used, but it was to make sure that all the mana and materials were being accumulated correctly, especially considering the complexity of the spell and the different materials that went into it.

Eiro was pulling water and fire from their respective realms, and asked Gondos to pull rock from the realm of earth at the same time. The water froze into ice, creating the blade. The ice fused with flames, creating the powerful edge of freezing fire. The rock turned into the handle, fusing with the ice to hold everything together.

The air around the giant, truly enormous sword that was being created practically disappeared, creating a shell around the blade itself that kept the frozen flames tightly to the edge, sharpening it even more.

And then, that blade fell from the skies, the moment that Eiro's chant finally stopped. It was clear that it was falling, but it was taking quite a while, even longer than anyone had thought, since the magical sword was much, much larger than they tought.

But soon, it came close. It was about to impact with the ground, destroying not only Tin, but potentially this whole island. At least, that was the case if Eiro hadn't stopped the falling sword with any magic that he needed, while making sure that the sword was properly kept together. The air that was pulled down together with the sword created a cloud of dust around the whole area where Tin and Eiro had been fighting, and the moment it settled, it became clear that one individual had won this fight between these two champions, and that despite all their efforts, Eiro once more showed that there was a clear distance between him and the other champions.

Eiro stepped forward with a light smile, while the tip of the giant blade was hovering just an inch away from Tin's forehead. The Demon raised his right hand, and let out a wave of arcane magic at the weapon that he just magically created. It enveloped it all tightly in one more shell, as Eiro cast another spell, using the arcane magic to create the array of magic circles while speaking a simple chant, just whispering it into himself.

And then, with a single snap, with immense amounts of magic, this sword that had been something larger than anyone here had ever seen, slowly compressed down into something smaller. In that moment, not only Eiro's leftover crystal of mana, but also the one that had reformed last night, both shattered at the same time, leaving Eiro with a hollow feeling in his chest. But it was worth it, although this whole thing took more than two million mana from Eiro.

After all, he was now left with a rather interesting new weapon, a greatsword created from compressed magic, each taken from the elemental realms, as Eiro removed the air around the edge, as he now had arcana magic to keep it in shape instead.

Eiro made the blade float up to his hand, as he closed it around the grip before throwing it over his shoulder with a light grin on his face, "Really.... this was incredibly fun."