Both men strained against one another until their blades locked—steel groaned under pressure, then slipped. Wolf shifted on his feet, taking one step back that forced Armada to overcommit and dip forward. Wolf withdrew his longsword in a single, fluid motion and swung it horizontally with his free hand, aiming to decapitate the Demon Lord.
Armada reacted in a heartbeat. He brought the broad side of his dao up and met the blow, the flat of the blade absorbing the strike, then snapped his wrist to parry and drive a diagonal cut across Wolf's torso. He met empty air, Wolf had leapt back and then launched himself upward towards Armada, twisting his grip into a reverse hold to drive the blade down in a killing arc.
Armada's hand moved like lightning. He drew a peculiar pistol with a single, practiced motion. The weapon's lines were sleek and streamlined, veins of faint light running along its frame; when he fired, the projectile looked less like a slug and more like compressed light—an energy round screaming toward Wolf at impossible speed. Wolf slammed his sword flat against the shot and took the impact, metal shivering as the round detonated against the blade. The force detonated through him.
He was launched so violently that he tore through the roof of a small guard tower—wood and stone exploded outward—then hurtled end-over-end and slammed into the road far, far down the street. The world blurred; when he finally stopped, he lay broken and bloodied nearly a kilometer from where he'd blocked the shot.
"This sure is one tough guy you're sending me after, boss," Armada said, holstering the pistol with a casual ease.
"Are you saying you cannot deal with him?" Domine asked, raising a clawed hand toward the portal, which trembled like a heartbeat.
"Absolutely not, boss—I'll deal with him," Armada said with a smile. Demons poured from the portal in a black tide; hundreds swarmed through the rip, a living army ready to spill into the city.
"Then go and deal with him already," Domine ordered. Armada nodded and vanished in a blur, launching toward where Wolf had crashed. Domine turned to the emerging horde, voice booming above the chaos. "Go! Kill everyone and everything you come across! Take no prisoners! This city will be our violent, bloody message to the rest of Aetheria of our dominance!" he yelled, and the demons fanned out across Arcadicia, beginning their deathly rampage.
Meanwhile, Wolf groaned, rubbing the back of his head as he pushed himself to his feet. Dust and splinters rained down from the shattered guard tower behind him. He looked around—the street was littered with debris, the civilians who fled into their houses now peeking nervously from shuttered windows and half-cracked doors. "Great," he muttered. "I've got to protect them too." He exhaled a tired sigh. "Goddess, I wish you all were here right now… this would be so much easier."
The words had barely left his mouth when steel came screaming down from above. Wolf swung his sword up, intercepting the blow with a hard clang. Sparks sprayed between them.
"I'm impressed you managed to block that," Armada said, eyes narrowing behind his grin.
Wolf shoved him back with a twist of his wrist, forcing the Demon Lord to slide ten paces across the cracked street. "It's hard not to block you when you're so damn clumsy," he shot back, leveling the tip of his blade.
"Clumsy?" Armada chuckled, raising his dao and pointing it back at him. "Do you think that highly of yourself? That your swordsmanship makes mine look clumsy?"
Wolf vanished in a blur, reappearing right in front of him—a reversal of their opening exchange. "Yes," he said simply, and his sword flashed twice in rapid succession.
Armada barely got his blade up in time to block both strikes, the second one nearly wrenching the dao from his hands. Wolf didn't pause. He stepped forward, long, smooth strides, feet gliding over the cracked cobblestones. His sword slashed upward from beneath, then arced down, swung left, then right, each strike snapping with deadly intent. He twisted his wrists mid-swing, reversing grips, flicking the blade in overhead chops and side-angled sweeps. With each step forward, his momentum pressed Armada back, forcing the Demon Lord to stagger, block, and pivot continuously, struggling just to keep his dao between himself and the storm of steel.
Wolf's advance was relentless—his sword never lingering. He stepped close enough that the air around them seemed to vibrate, each swing coming faster than the last, arms moving in a blur. Up, down, left, right, diagonal, reverse—Armada had to raise, shift, parry, and angle with every motion. Sparks showered around them as metal struck metal, a cascading storm that left Armada no time to breathe or counterattack. His boots scraped the road, struggling to find purchase as Wolf forced him back step by step, gradually losing ground under the unyielding tempo.
Then, without warning, Wolf dipped low. Sliding forward with a burst of speed, he wrapped his left arm around the back of Armada's knee and yanked sharply. The Demon Lord's body tumbled backward, slamming onto the cracked cobblestones. Wolf surged after him, the tip of his sword jabbing straight for Armada's heart.
The sound wasn't flesh splitting—it was metal. A jarring clang rang out, halting the blade just short of its mark.
"The fuck?" Wolf hissed, disbelief flickering across his face. Through the tear in Armada's leather coat, he could see gleaming steel—armor plating like that of a knight's hidden underneath. "What is with your damn fashion sense!?"
Armada smirked, snapping his pistol free with his left hand. He fired, the weapon's light-lined frame flaring as another energy round tore through the air. Wolf dodged this time, springing back as the shot seemingly disappeared above the dark clouds.
"Well, it saved me, didn't it?" Armada replied, getting back to his feet with a chuckle. Outwardly, he seemed calm—but his pulse hammered in his throat. *I would've died if not for the armor. Who the hell is this guy? No wonder the other two failed before us.*
He brushed off the dust and leveled his dao again. "But let's not talk about my sense of fashion. We're fighting each other to the death, after all."
Wolf growled, stepping forward, his sword angled low. Armada mirrored the motion. Then both men lunged at once, the distance between them vanishing as their battle resumed in full fury.