Martial Online.

Zadkiel danced around Moriarty and tried to stab his sai-shaped sword through his body like Swiss cheese, but Moriarty was too quick and deflected the strike, which ended up causing a small wound on Zadkiel's body.

"Rah!" Moriarty drove his spear into Zadkiel's side, causing him to stumble backwards.

It created a minor wound on his side.

Zadkiel's sai-shaped sword started glowing with crystal color and slashed repeatedly in front of him, creating a strange symbol on the air—looking like a six-pointed star.

At that moment, the six-pointed star started spinning and turned into six different poles that surrounded Moriarty, trapping him inside a magical barrier.

Moriarty twirled the spear around him and slashed through the strange poles. The poles got sliced in half, but then they started glowing and exploded in a blinding light.

Moriarty covered his body with his cloak and shielded his eyes from the intense brightness.

The explosion sent him flying through the air. He was about to fall straight to the lava, but he quickly threw his spear towards one of the floating blocks of black rock.

The spear stabbed through the black rock, and then Moriarty reached out his hand towards the spear, and it was as if he were a magnet; his body was pulled towards the spear as if he were guided by gravity towards the spear.

He landed safely on the floating block of rock and stared towards Zadkiel with a deep frown.

He then pulled out the spear from the black rock and pointed it towards Zadkiel.

contemporary romance

Zadkiel scoffed and raised his sai-shaped sword in response.

On the other side of the room.

Julian and Ambrose clashed furiously, their swords ringing out in a symphony of metal against metal.

At that moment, Ambrose shot out his muscle tentacle arm that was wielding one of the crimson shortswords and attempted to stab it into Julian's neck.

Julian deflected the sword and slashed at the muscular tentacle, but he couldn't penetrate the steel-solid flesh.

Then, steam flew out of the muscular tentacle, engulfing Julian in a cloud of scalding heat.

Julian couldn't see anything around him, and then he felt a numbing pain on his waist as a small wound appeared out of nowhere.

It was because there was a strange, small knife on his waist that was made out of golden light.

Swoosh!

In that same moment, dozens of small knives flew throughout the steam cloud.

Julian moved the sword with blitzering speed and smacked all the knives from the air.

Swoosh!

And then Ambrose appeared from the steam cloud and smashed his shortswords down. This time, he wasn't using cross slashing and instead swung both swords from the same side, which made defending more difficult.

Julian leaped over the swords and landed on the same block as Ambrose.

As more weight appeared on the block of black rock, it started tilting unpredictably, and a little bit of the lava started spilling over the edges.

"Ah!"

Ambrose leaned backwards as he lost his balance for a moment and was about to fall down to the lava, but then managed to pull himself back just in time.

Julian stabbed through the air, and Ambrose deflected instead of blocking or dodging.

If he blocked, he was afraid that he would get pushed out of the block of black rock, and if he dodged, he would fall straight to the lava.

In such a small space, the decision was crucial and had to be made quickly.

At that moment, Ambrose chose correctly to deflect, which Julian inwardly applauded him for.

They started clashing with their swords, and they couldn't move at all; otherwise, they would risk the block tilting and spilling them into the scorching lava.

And then Ambrose started to think faster than ever before, as if his mind were a supercomputer, and found a tiny, smallest possible weakness in Julian's attack.

As Julian attacked normally, Ambrose clashed with the side of his shortsword, tilting it to deflect the blow, and that created a minor opening in Julian's right side.

It was an opening that could only be exploited by him.

Ambrose stretched his muscle tentacle and stabbed the sword through Julian's waist.

"Ngh…" Julian coughed out air from his lungs.

Ambrose smiled slightly, but at that moment, warm blood trickled down from his nose.

As he saw it again, he noticed that the blood's color was red—

dark red and not the blue he had grown accustomed to.

"Oh, motherfu—"

A sharp pain struck Ambrose's head, and he felt like his head was splitting in half.

"Argh!"

He bit his lip, tried to muffle his shouting, and tried to desperately concentrate on the fighting. He knew that if he let the pain consume him, he would lose!

Julian saw that something strange was happening with him, but he didn't have time to think about it and resumed dealing blows.

Ambrose desperately tried deflecting the blows, but he missed a few, and deep wounds appeared on his arms and chest.

Another sharp pain struck Ambrose like a wrecking ball, and his vision turned hazy, making him disoriented for a moment. He wasn't even sure where he was at this moment in time.

Julian stabbed through his chest and pushed him near the edge.

At that moment, he caught sight of Ambrose's eyes. They weren't the beautiful, purple eyes anymore. Instead, they were red and black, as if he had turned into a demon.

Julian knew that something had happened to him; otherwise, he doubted he would lose his concentration this much.

'I don't want to win like this.' He pulled out the sword from his body and was about to pull him away from the edge of the block.

But then, Ambrose's eyes closed and his body turned limp; he fell backwards and tumbled down the edge of the block.

He fell on the lava pit below and turned into ashes in an instant.

"Sigh."

Julian sighed and shook his head.

He was somehow disappointed at how the fight ended.

"What happened to him?" Julian thought out loud and then looked at the black rock below his feet and saw that there were small bloodstains.

However, the bloodstains were red.

'What?'

Julian crouched and touched the bloodstains, feeling a sense of unease.

At that moment, he heard the sound of weapons clashing and saw that his teammate, Zadkiel, was still fiercely fighting against Moriarty and wasn't sure whether he would win.

Julian narrowed his eyes and leaped over the lava pits, using the blocks of black rocks to approach them.

Then he landed on one of the blocks that was right beside them.

Moriarty perked up his ears and saw that Julian was standing near them; his teammate was nowhere to be seen.

"He lost..?" Moriarty whispered to himself in slight surprise.

However, after remembering that his teammate's opponent was the legendary Saint Julian. The outcome wasn't surprising, but he still felt sadness.

"Damn it…"

"Hahahaha…" Zadkiel laughed and licked his lips, reveling in a taste of victory. "I guess your teammate couldn't handle Julian. I am surprised he lasted this long."

Julian didn't speak a word and just stared at Moriarty with a silent look, his sword still in hand.

Moriarty chuckled and sheathed his spear on his back.

He then looked at Zadkiel and said, "Just remember, I didn't lose to you. Next time we meet, I'll fucking destroy you."

At that moment, Moriarty spread his arms wide and fell straight to the lava, vanishing below the scorching lava. Just a few splashes of lava splashed into the air.

"Hah, he didn't want to get killed by me and killed himself instead…" Zadkiel laughed.

Julian sheathed his sword and heard a dinging noise echoing across the room.

The floor recovered, with the lava vanishing and being replaced by black rock.

done.co