The Cursed Swordsman

Chapter 21: Grudge Match Part 2

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"Have at you!" Aileus exclaims and charges. To impede his attack, Kheios raises his arm as his army of snakes slither forward.

Sharp quickly hops backwards to get into a favorable position, but he feels himself bump into someone behind him. Realizing it had to be Aileus, he pivots and points his gun at the dark haired man. But when he turns around, he's not there anymore. "This should be a cakewalk for you two, right?" He asked as he appeared to the left, as Sharp swings his arm, only to miss and get sent off balance, as he leans forward now. "C'mon, you gotta try harder than that ya know." Sharp could now feel Aileus was back to back with him.

Kheios was going to help out his friend, but as he turns around, a bright light flashes right in his eyes, sending him stumbling back and screaming in surprise. "TOO BRIGHT!!" He groans and holds his hands over his eyes.

It seemed Aileus was done messing with Sharp now, as he rolls off the alien male's back and pivots, slamming his fist right into his stomach. "You're pretty annoying, so I'm gonna take you out now." He smirks as Sharp falls on his side, unconscious.

Just as Kheios started recovering from his blindness, he focuses his eyes back on Aileus and sees Sharp on the ground. "BASTARD!!" He shouts and creates a giant snake from his cape. The large shadow creature hisses as its frills start to flash.

Aileus felt something was off about the green lights the serpent was emitting from its frill. In a matter of seconds, it fires off thin green beams down at Aileus. He jumps backwards to avoid it, but now had to deal with the massive thing to fight Kheios. Thankfully, he knew just what to do to handle it. He raises his hand and creates an ice mirror, which created a reflection of the snake in it. It soon slithers out of the ice mirror and starts attacking its other self. "Huh, so THAT'S how you do it. Weird. I can even see through its eyes." Aileus said, copying Kheios's fighting abilities as he swung the rusty dagger around.

Now irritated that his opponent was essentially mocking him, he pulls out his rapier from his sleeve, and sends smaller snakes his way in an attempt to bite him and get venom coursing through him again. Aileus, however, rushed right through the horde, killing all the snakes in his path and getting face to face with Kheios. The ginger man raises his rapier to block the attack from Aileus's shitty dagger, but somehow, the rusty piece of metal snapped Kheios's weapon in half. This shocked him, as he leans his head back as Aileus nicks his cheek with the weapon's tip.

Kheios's eyes widen in surprise by how much this little cut started to hurt, as he jumped back to get some distance between them. "Fffffffffffiretruck! That hurts way more than it should have!" He groans and touches the cut, his blood dripping from it and onto his fingers. "What the hell is that dagger?!" He asked.

"This? It's just a piece of shit, man, it doesn't hurt that much." Aileus smirks, getting some more practice swings in with the small weapon.

"Grr...! Don't mock me!!" He shouts and creates more snakes from his clothing. These ones were larger than his usual creations, but not as big as the one that was still fighting its reflection.

After getting a few more swings in, he charges again, dealing with each snake with a couple swings. But suddenly, he stops using his weapon entirely, and soon starts to use what seemed to be Shadow Magic. This sudden switch up got Kheios curious, as he swung his arm to have a snake on the battlefield try to snag the weapon. But the god was too fast for his snakes to keep up with, as Aileus suddenly appears behind Kheios, arm above his head and ready to go in for the kill. This makes Kheios pivot and morph his sleeves into more snakes to bite the Sun God, but their fangs shatter upon impact with his skin. Venom spills out from the broken fangs and sends Aileus back to avoid being touched by it. Seeing this as an opportunity, Kheios charges this time, as a hidden dagger emerges from his cloak. The aura it gave off was similar to Claus's sword, which surprised Aileus. He quickly moves his hand up to stop the attack, as it clashes blades with his own rusty dagger.

"Surprised? You should be!" Kheios pushes his opponent back and tosses his fang shaped dagger over his head as a snake made from his cloak grabs in its mouth. He then pulls out three more daggers from his cloak and tosses them around, his cape creating three more snakes to wield the daggers he just tossed. Finally, he grabs two more in each hand, essentially wielding six weapons at once.

"Well shit. You're a pretty crafty guy, I'll give ya that." Aileus says with a smirk, getting in more practice swings with his rusty weapon. "I guess since you're finally getting serious, I'll tell you a secret. This little shit dagger?" He presents his weapon as he takes another swing. "Yeah, it's pretty garbage. But on the 100th swing with it, it's a guaranteed critical hit. That's why that tiny cut I hit you with hurt so much." He explained as he started walking to his right.

"That so? Pretty gimmicky." Kheios followed him as his walked, turning to make sure he was still in his sight. Even if he tried to get behind him, Kheios already had scout snakes scattered around the temple.

"Yeah, pretty shitty, right?" Aileus asked. "So how's it feel being beaten by it?" He smirk.

"You're a pretty chatty bastard. Stalling for something?" He asked.

"Nah, not at all." Aileus soon disappeared from Kheios's sight. Thinking he had this covered, he focused and started looking through the scout snakes' eyes. At least, he would be if the snakes weren't already dead. Wait, they're already dead? When did that happen?!

Realizing his sudden mistake, he feels his bottom left snake dart its head behind it, aiming to strike at Aileus, who attempted another sneak attack. Kheios pivots, but finds Aileus was already gone again. He had the snakes attached to his cape look around and even act independently if the god tried to attack them. Next, the top right snake lunges its head to the right, and actually makes contact with Aileus. But the blade couldn't penetrate his skin, as he aimed his dagger to strike Kheios.

The ginger male turns and uses his two fang shaped daggers to block Aileus's, completely stopping it unlike his rapier. "Interesting... These daggers are supposed to cut through and nullify your divine powers... So how did it still bounce off you?" He asked with his usual smile.

"Because I'm not fighting you with Divine Powers. Once again, I'm not fighting you as a God right now. I'm fighting you as The Protagonist!" Aileus matches his smirk, then kicks himself away. As Aileus lands, he rushes to right side of Kheios.

As the man tried to follow him, his eyes were suddenly assaulted by another flash of white light. "GAAAAH?!" He screams in surprise, and covers his eyes. His snakes also hiss loudly, dropping their weapons and leaving Kheios completely exposed.

Taking the chance, Aileus lunges forward, his dagger ready to land the last critical hit of the fight. As he was right in front of his opponent, however, a bright flash floods Aileus's vision. He wasn't blinded, but his attack had hit nothing. Kheios had completely disappeared from the Temple. Aileus even double checked by copying Kheios's snake control powers to patrol the whole place. He was just gone. Realizing this, Aileus shrugs, and walks over to the still unconscious Sharp and picks him up. "Guess I won." He sighs, not feeling satisfied at all from the ending.