The Cursed Swordsman

Chapter 4: Chaos

———

As Aella was fighting Jeanne and Mabel in her temple, Kheios and Sharp had just started their own battle against Aileus, God of All Suns. The Sun God's weapons were a pair of daggers. With his weapon ready, Kheios steps up to the God's fighting arena, and let out a wicked grin. "Let's have ourselves a good time...!"

Just as Kheios said that, he thrusts his arm forward. His whole forearm stretched unnaturally, and his five fingers soon became a cluster of orange and black snakes. The stretch and split into separate directions, each looking to take a bite out of the Sun God. Realizing that the snakes were part of his body, he quickly hops backwards and cuts at them all at once. The snakes disintegrate, but it seemed Kheios was unaffected.

"You seriously didn't feel me cut your fingers off? You some kind of masochist or something?" Aileus joked.

"Hahaha, you're a funny one! Unfortunately for you, once the snakes form, they aren't part of my body anymore." Kheios smiles and raises his arms. His clothing seemingly began to melt, which created more snakes. "Like so!" The ginger male flexed his powers and commands the snakes to attack from all angles. Kheios himself even joined the charge, pulling out a thin rapier sword from under his black cloak.

"Kinda freaky, dude!" Aileus grinned and met Kheios's charge, clashing blades with him. "You ever thought about joining a circus? You'd fit right in!"

"You could pass as a stand up comedian yourself!" Kheios grins.

Aileus was about to make a rebuttal, but he suddenly felt a biting pain in his left leg. Then in his left arm. Aileus quickly scans for the source of the biting, and finds that Kheios turned his cloak into a pair of snakes as well. He didn't notice until they bit into him.

"Ahahaha! What's wrong, snakes got your tongue?!" The ginger laughed and used some force to push Aileus's blade away, then aimed to stab him between his eyes.

Aileus, realizing he needed to do something, suddenly flared up, incinerating the snakes biting him and surprising Kheios.

"Gah?! Too bright...!" He groans.

Aileus was about to take a stab at Kheios, but has the sudden urge to go on the defensive again. Out of pure instinct, the black haired god materializes his second dagger and blocks an incoming bullet from Sharp.

"...fast reflexes..." Sharp comments and takes aim again. He pulls the trigger as soon as Aileus is in his sight. At first, Aileus thought the alien missed his shot, but soon feels the surging pain of a bullet hit his foot before he could land on the ground. He took a shot at where Aileus was about to land, which caused the god to roll on his back from the shooting pain. Not giving him time to completely comprehend what was going on, Kheios's snakes hiss loudly and lunge at the god on the ground as Kheios himself recovers from his temporary blindness. "...if you need assistance, I have your back. So don't worry about getting blinded a few times." Sharp reassures his teammate.

"Of course, my friend, thank you!" Kheios gets his smile back and begins to drip some eye drops into his eyes.

Aileus, despite being caught off guard, erupts his backside with fire to protect himself from the incoming snakes. "I get you guys have a cute bromance, but you don't need to flex it." He says and stands after quickly recovering his shot foot. He attempts to stand, but finds his movements slower than how he usually is. His vision started going blurry, and he couldn't keep himself from wobbling. Snake venom. The two that bit him earlier. It was the only answer.

"Heheh...! What's wrong, dear God of All Suns? Don't tell me such a minuscule amount of venom was enough to encumber you." Kheios mocked him.

"...do not get cocky. He is still a god." Sharp says.

"Aw c'mon! What's he gonna do at this point?! He can barely stand straight!" The pale man says, and turns his back on Aileus for just a moment. His eyes widen, and Kheios suddenly jumps forward, evading a fiery arrow shot. "What?!"

"...you were saying?" Sharp asked as he watched from a safe distance.

"Phew... Close one..." Kheios turns back around and stares down his opponent. Aileus seemed to have his eyes open, but something was different about him. His stare was blank. As if he was looking right through him. "Creepy..." Kheios comments, and creates more snakes from his clothes. He didn't quite say this, as why would you give information to your enemy, but Kheios can see what his snakes see as well. Which was why he was able to dodge the fire arrow. He had a snake planted between him and Aileus to keep an eye out for sneak attacks. The reason he was so surprised by it was how fast he prepared and fired the shot. "Now this is getting interesting..." He grins and prepares his rapier.

Not wanting to let Aileus recover, he charges quickly, sending snakes in from other angles to trip him up. However, to his shock, the God met his charge with one of his own, completely ignoring the snakes and clashing blades with Kheios. 'How is he still moving so fast?! The venom should be coursing through him!' Kheios thought. He then noticed Aileus's brightening body a bit too late. A sudden flash bang sends Kheios stumbling back, screaming about how bright it was. With Kheios blinded, he straight up punches him and sends him flying into a wall. In an attempt to stop Aileus from doing that, Sharp fires his gun again, but it's avoided.

Now knowing Sharp's location, Aileus flashes forward, closing the gap in the blink of an eye. "You're annoying...!" Aileus swings his arm upward to hit Sharp with an uppercut, but the attack is blocked by Sharp's large, blue hand.

"...as are you." Sharp counters as Aileus could feel his knuckle being clenched.

Kheios was barely conscious from the powerful punch, but he managed to mutters some last words. "Go ahead...Sharp..."

Upon hearing those words from Kheios, Sharp suddenly gets motivated. It also felt like his opponent's hand was getting...bigger? And indeed, Sharp was growing in size, white suit and all. Aileus could hardly make him out, but his size was almost big enough to crash through the ceiling, which also lifted Aileus off the ground. Aileus grits his teeth, and starts to heat up his hand, but Sharp couldn't feel it at all for some reason. He then tried a flash bang, but that's also failed. Sharp's deadpan expression doesn't change, as he just throws Aileus right back into his throne, completely destroying it with how much force he was thrown with. The alien then takes his gun, which also grew with him, and takes aim to finish the job, but gets shot by another fire arrow in his side, knocking his shot off course. He looks down, and sees a Forest Chimera woman pointing at Sharp, her fingers smoking. With his now increased size, Sharp would easily squish her like a little bug. But with Aileus basically defeated, Sharp would rather avoid killing them, only to avoid making him angered and therefore harder to kill later. So with his job completely, he grabs Kheios out of the wall and uses a device to teleport them out of the temple.

Confused as to why he didn't try to continue the fight, the Chimera blinks twice, but quickly rushes over to Aileus. "Aileus...?!" She exclaims and holds his body. He was scorching, but she wasn't harmed by that.

"Ha...kan...?" Aileus mutters, his eyesight still poor from the snake venom.

"Who were those people...?!" She asked.

"No...Hakan... Dangerous..." Aileus groaned, and stifled to set himself straight. He grits his teeth, barely able to even see. "Where...they go...?" He asked.

"Absolutely not. You need rest..." She says.

While Aileus wanted to finish the fight, he could recognize that the two fled the temple already. He could hardly count this as a win. Sharp easily could have finished the job. But why didn't he? Was he concerned for his ally?

———

Sharp had taken Kheios away from the Temple of All Sun and back to camp, placing him down on his back. The alien male took some kind of vial out of his back pocket, and holds it up to Kheios's nose.

"...gah?!" Kheios shoots awakes, looking around. "What...happened?" He asked.

"I teleported us back to camp. The God of All Suns is weakened enough. So our mission is complete." Sharp said.

"I see..." Kheios groans. His body was still in panic from being slammed into a wall. "Dammit...! If only I had that sword...! Then I can kill him myself...!" He growls.

"Now we wait until Claus finishes the Goddess of Storms..." Sharp says, and walks off to get the camp's head nurse.