A black figure sat half-collapsed on the ground, wailing in agonising pain.
It was cloaked, with a humanoid body bound in black leather armour.
It had a distinct head like a black candle extinguisher, although tall and pyramid-shaped, covered in the occasional black writhing root.
Julius watched from a distance, his eyes vigilant as he endured the painful wail of its cry.
Behind him was the sun goddess, Amaterasu, with long black hair and two eyes like a deep abyss.
Her form was previously half flickering in black flame from Julius's use of a shin talisman.
Though just as Julius was about to finish her off, the creature appeared and wailed, throwing Julius off.
It's appearnce attracting Julius's attention, who had never seen anything like it.
He wasn't the only one either, Amaterasu stared from where she sat on the ground, now having recovered her form.
With her aeons of life, she couldn't identify it either.
Though she didn't need to.
Her true enemy, the mortal with a celestial bronze blade, was standing with his back to her.
Her eyes like two deep, black seas, immediately reaching for her golden blade, about to piece Julius's Sparrow heart-
Then suddenly the creature all the way across from the street sank into a pool of shadows beneath its feet.
Before Amaterasu took action, in front of her, Julius's Sparrow's shadow started rippling like a pool.
A black figure splashed out; its back to Amaterasu, its arms lunging out for Julius's Sparrow.
The moment its arms threatened to close around Julius Sparrow-
A cold feeling entered Amaterasu's mind, like cold balls of light drifting out of her mind.
S C H I L K
"AAAARGHHHH." The banshee wailed in horrific pain, the sound so sudden and loud it was easy to alert Julius to the creature behind him.
Then as he turned, Julius Sparrow's eyes, normally so dark and mysterious, widened like open windows.
A golden blade thrust clean through the creature, the tip pointing toward Julius like an extended hand.
The blade now held it in place as the affected area of the creature's body began to flicker like black flames, its arms pausing from the sudden pain.
Julius wasted no time, already whipping one wrist toward the creature, the other sending out a white talisman.
Julius, who had reacted to the creature's appearance too late, didn't have enough time to catch the entity before it swiped behind it at Amaterasu.
The goddess instinctively pulled back to avoid its arm, with pitch-black bones, causing the sword to slip free.
The creature immediately tunnelled back into the shadow pool, evading Julius's next talisman as it slipped to safety.
S i l e n c e
The breeze gently howled as two people stared at each other for one small awkward moment.
Julius's eyes narrowed, cautiously watching.
Amaterasu stared back, deep black eyes meeting his rich muddy gaze.
She sprang up suddenly, silently slotting her back against his.
Before Julius could question her-
"Silence, it could still be here." She gushed the words out in a sharp puff of air.
Julius watched her over his shoulder from the corner of his eye for a long moment, before pulling his gaze ahead, looking around the street.
The two stood back-to-back in unison with one another, as the silence in the air grew like a miasma.
The street was plain, holding a few stretches of faint orange from dimly lit streetlights.
The goddess narrowed her eyes into vigilant slits, her stance calm and poised.
Julius stood behind her, his back to her, his face like a polished surface as his eyes tracked everything.
Suddenly a still image caught Julius's eye.
In front of him, far down the road, there was a grey overpass, with a dark figure standing on top of the ledge.
They were cloaked, with dark leather armour, and a head as tall as an average male's leg, shaped like a black pyramid with writhing tendrils.
They pulled a hand out aside, opening their fingers, distantly facing Julius like a haunting ghost.
A black rod suddenly appeared from behind the ledge, as it rose into the figure's hands.
With a swift tug, the figure yanked and a black slab followed where the rod extended.
It was far too big to be called a sword, more like a massive black slab.
They held it with the grace of a god, as though the sword were weightless in their hand, suddenly whipping it around them before disappearing in the next-
WHOOSH
The gigantic black blade hurled across the road straight toward the two.
Julius's pupils shrank, "Move!" He commanded the goddess behind him.
The woman's ears pricked, her face tensing before throwing herself to the side just as Julius did.
Julius snapped his neck to the overpass as he hurled himself toward the street.
The figure was gone.
Then in the next moment, as the sword flew through empty air where they once stood, the figure emerged from a shadow in the road.
Like they were bursting through the surface of a black pool, they rose and caught the blade in the air by the rod.
Instantly swerving toward the dark-haired boy, the great sword in the air behind it now charged forward with absolute force.
Julius didn't dare to meet with its weapon, already pulling his body over the hood of the red four-seated car, flipping over and landing on the concrete street.
C R A S H
The black slab dropped like the hand of god, rupturing the front of the car, spilling oil and metal engine parts like a scene of grotesque machinery.
Julius watched from the street on the other side of the car, before he could even ready his blade, the figure leapt up from a pool of Julius's own shadow.
Its black image popped up like a ghost, already dragging its grand black blade across the air toward Julius.
Julius felt the harsh wind of unimaginable force blowing toward him, already dropping his body to the ground when Amaterasu suddenly closed in on the creature.
She broke her golden blade through the creature's left arm in a clean arc, the massive black slab launching through the air, dragging across the road.
Meanwhile, Amaterasu swept with a follow-up attack, the golden blade already curving up through the air with the intention to make another cut with surgical precision.
Though as the blade closed in, before it could reach the dark apparition it dropped back into the shadows as if falling into a pool.
Amaterasu's eyes, like two caves devoid of light, flashed with the ignition of battle.
Her head snapped up to watch a dark figure crash down from the sky, perhaps from the top of one of the buildings, with impending revenge.
Then suddenly, the square-framed tattoo on her bare shoulder flashed with golden light.
A golden mirror materialised above her, right in front of the approaching right fist of the creature.
It was similar to her blade, dripping in gold, with intricate golden swirls in each corner.
It had a golden frame, with dazzling gems scattered across it of varying colour.
Julius watched with eyes like dark slits, his gaze glinting with recognition.
"Yata no Kagami, one of Amaterasu's legendary artefacts" Julius identified the item easily.
He had been wondering how a shade could bring artefacts with it.
Artefacts were like magically enchanted items, they were a concept created an aeon ago by a famous revolutionary dwarf named Silheimrr.
Though of course they were still items, they had to be transported and accounted for, so how could Amaterasu bring them from the sun to the earth?
"Is it possible those tattoos were the artefacts? Can she place those tattoos on anything?" Julius theorised mid-battle, splitting off a piece of attention to habitually refine his magic comprehension.
Julius was incredibly knowledgeable for his age, he had access to texts no mortal should have had due to a certain masked man, though that didn't mean he knew everything.
"A shade is limited to roughly 3-5% of their power, that's even assuming they use any of their scarce magic, if I was fighting Amaterasu at her full power I wouldn't have lasted a second." He documented his thoughts as he went along.
"If the tattoo was placed on this shade? Does that mean it's only limited to the power of the shade?" Julius guessed as a new web of thought expanded in his mind.
After all, the power of an artefact didn't rely on its user, it was rare to see one that did.
Though then again it was even rarer to see an artefact that could bind to something or someone.
Artefacts were truly amazing inventions!
Even at this moment, Julius couldn't help but be in awe, with artefacts there seemed to be no limits.
At this moment Julius had a thousand thoughts bottled habitually in his mind, like an overflowing suitface.
"If only I had magic, I would definitely make an artefact."
"What kind've man was Silheimrr, to make such a thing?"
Though as quickly as they came, Julius just as quickly put them all on hold in the heat of battle, right as the creature's fist came down on the surface of the mirror.
DDDRRR
The attack landed on the polished screen of the ornate mirror, only instead of shattering, a loud sound reverberated.
BANG!
In an instant a sudden impact rocked the black creature, sending it flying across the air and crashing along the floor.
"My turn." Julius had a relaxed aura now, as if fighting was music, as if he figured out the rhythm of this battle.
His body then slowly tensed as he bent down with his sword in hand, ready to pounce.
"Let's finish this."
End of chapter 39