The idea of a round two didn’t please Helix, but what was he supposed to do? Object to that demon?
Yeah no, I’d rather fight.
He drew his sword and dagger, settling into the stance Cyril had drilled into him hours ago, weight forward, not back. He was going to be a mirror, not a wall.
Across the field, Cyril rolled his neck once, then raised both hands. His fingers stiffened, palms flattening, edges sharpening until each hand carried the faint, dangerous outline of a blade, flesh hardened into something closer to honed metal.
Cyril’s blood-red eyes gleamed, like a beast staring at its prey.
Helix moved first this time, refusing to give Cyril the initiative twice in a row. He closed the distance with a single leap, sword poised forward, dagger trailing behind for the follow-up strike.
An inch from Cyril’s face, gray smoke erupted from his blade, a giant shadow of his sword made purely from destruction.
Abaddon’s Abyss was a force of unparalleled destructive powers, but at its core, it was simply deconstruction.
Anything the gray fog would touch would crumble into atoms. But there were exceptions to every rule.
Cyril’s hands screeched against Helix’s crystal blade. Like color in water, the gray smoke tried to encroach upon the Blood God’s hands, but was swatted away like harmless smoke.
"Oh my." Cyril’s grip held firm despite the deconstruction licking at his fingers. "Your Abyss doesn’t work on me. Want to know why?"
"Not really, but I have a feeling you’ll tell me anyway."
"You’d be wrong."
Cyril twisted his wrist, and Helix’s sword wrenched sideways, smoke scattering into nothing. Before Helix could recover his footing, a palm-blade caught him square in the chest, sending him skidding backward through the grass.
He rolled to his feet, sword still gripped tight, dagger nowhere in sight, lost somewhere in the last exchange.
He took a deep breath, circling left, forcing Cyril to adjust his stance, and lunged the moment he saw the telltale shift in weight.
His sword arced toward Cyril’s exposed side, the same angle Cyril had used against him not five minutes ago.
Alas, the Blood God simply wasn’t there by the time Helix’s sword arrived.
A boot slammed into Helix’s spine from behind, and he went sprawling face-first into the dirt, sword almost flying from his grip.
Helix spat dirt from his mouth and pushed himself up, arms trembling, every muscle in his body screaming for him to stop.
But he couldn’t do that.
The flowing exchanges went fast enough that Helix barely processed it before they were over. Cyril’s palm-blade caught his sword mid-swing, redirecting it wide with almost no effort, and before Helix could recover, the second hand was already moving toward his ribs.
He twisted away, feeling the wind of the strike graze his side.
Helix reset his footing and unclasped the holster stuck to his legs. From it, he pulled his third and final weapon, a crystal revolver, specifically requested by him after witnessing Snow use one.
While a gun would be mostly useless against anyone above the Second Wing, most, if not everyone, his age would be below that threshold.
Lunging forward, Helix shot his beloved weapon three times. Rays of white carved through the air like lasers, each one heading towards a different target.
The first one, aimed at Cyril’s head, was dodged with a simple tilt, while the other two, poised for his chest, were caught.
Turning over the crystal bullets in his palms, Cyril smiled.
"This might hurt, so dodge Helix."
Saying so, Cyril casually threw the two bullets.
Helix had shot them. He knew exactly how fast they travelled.
They arrived faster.
Not marginally faster, incomprehensibly faster, the difference between a thrown stone and a lightning strike, and Helix’s eyes barely registered the white blur before both slammed into his arms simultaneously.
Crack—!
The impact detonated through both limbs like someone had swung a sledgehammer into each one at the same time.
His arms didn’t fly off; Cyril had flattened the bullets before throwing them, which was somehow worse, because instead of a clean penetrating wound, his arms just felt like they’d been torn from their sockets.
The revolver left his grip, and he didn’t even realize it, numb to everything.
Helix’s jaw locked, and he stayed upright through sheer bloody-mindedness, arms hanging at his sides like wet noodle, vision swimming at the edges.
Then Cyril was in front of him.
His hand came down in a devastating chop aimed at Helix’s shoulder with calm precision. The same carefree smile was on his face, a smile Helix had seen enough of.
The Young Abaddon retaliated by tearing his sword up.
His arms screamed. His grip screamed louder. But the blade intercepted the chop with a clang that shook his teeth, deflecting just enough.
Now.
His right fist snapped forward, straight at Cyril’s face.
Obviously it was blocked; Cyril’s free hand came up without him even looking, catching Helix’s knuckles in an open palm like he’d been waiting for it.
But that was all part of the plan.
Helix dropped his sword and drove his hand upward, straight into Cyril’s underarms, finding the gap the blocked punch had opened, fingers digging in before the Blood God could close the angle.
His hands cracked at impact, and a luminous smile bloomed at Helix’s lips.
He had hit him. After so many grueling hours, he had finally landed a clean hit.
For half a second, Helix was in pure bliss, then reality hit.
Cyril’s arms came down and trapped Helix’s hands between his sides in an absolute vise.
What followed could generously be described as a learning experience.
Cyril’s knee found his stomach, then an elbow caught his shoulder, then something Helix couldn’t even track rattled his skull hard enough that stars appeared in colors he didn’t have names for.
By the time Cyril was done, Helix could barely breathe, beaten to a bloody pulp.
The Blood God stood over him, not a hair out of place, red coat undisturbed, crown still tilted at its exact angle. He threw a healing potion at him.
"Drink that. Round three starts in five minutes."
I actually hit him.
Helix was going to have a fun time bragging.