With a broad grin on his face, Gran looked back at Eisen, who had just announced to the warrior in front of him that he would end up losing now that he lost his weapon.
But in return, Gran himself just stared at the old man and shook his head, "Gran no lose! Gran no need weapon!" He exclaimed with a loud laugh as Buldor started to sprint forward toward Eisen again. Gran jumped up on the ground-dragon"s back, as if he was surfing on the beast instead of truly riding it. The warrior hooked one of his feet into one of the metallic-leather straps that Eisen attached to Buldor before, and the ground-dragon seemingly knew exactly what its rider was planning on doing.
Just before they were about to hit each other, Buldor rapidly stopped and swung its body around. Usually, this would have thrown Gran off, but now that he was "hooked in" with his foot, he was able to stay on it. But at the same time, he used this chance to grapple Eisen after being swung around like that. Of course, the old man wouldn"t have that either. He heated his own body up so much that the fake Cabarum underneath him seemed like he was about to bend due to the immense, sudden heat.
Of course, this affected Gran as well, but he still held onto the old man, without any signs of letting go. He was burying his fingers deep inside of Eisen"s skin, ripping the rocks apart as the burning crystal formations inbetween the cracks were burning the warrior"s fingers to a crisp.
As both of his shoulders were affected by this grapple, Eisen couldn"t really swing his sword around either. The old man had already "disposed" of the halberd, and that was achieved by simply throwing it into his item storage. Gran didn"t complain, and n.o.body said that it was breaking the rules, so Eisen really didn"t see any issue with this either.
But this still made Eisen wonder what exactly Gran was trying to do. This definitely wasn"t enough to just bring Eisen"s health to zero, that was for sure. Eisen tried to get away from Gran by having Cabarum run away as quickly as he could, but it seemed like Buldor was able to catch up to the speed somewhat by controlling where exactly Cabarum could run, by blocking the paths wherever he tried to turn to.
And so, Eisen and Gran were basically "stuck" in this position for now, and that was until Eisen"s sword reacted on its own to a stimulus it received from the old man. As it was an ego-item, it was capable of swinging itself to an extent. Sure, it wouldn"t be possible to really damage Gran like this all that much, but it would be enough for something else.
The pitch-black, demonic ego-sword swung around until it was inbetween Eisen and Gran, held horizontally, with the edge pointed at Gran"s stomach while the flat side was pointed at Eisen"s.
The old man managed to slightly twist his boyd around so that he was now facing Gran. It let the warrior dig his fingers deeper into Eisen"s skin, but at the same time, it allowed Eisen to do something as well. He pressed his feet onto the flat side of his blade, and tried to just press it into Gran"s stomach. Eisen knew that Souls couldn"t die here. They would just be "repaired" even after being cleaved in half, so Eisen figured that might be a pretty good plan to go for. It would be a definite loss on Gran"s part, after all.
And so, Eisen pressed his sword against Gran"s abdomen with as much strength as possible, while the warrior started to rip on Eisen"s arms. And even if Eisen didn"t feel the complete, full extent of pain in this world yet, this pain was enough to usually make him scream out. Although this time, all that Eisen could do was press his own mouth shut involuntarily, as if it was a physical reaction he couldn"t control. It felt like Eisen"s teeth were about to shatter, he was grinding them together so hard.
Eisen could feel and hear some of his bones cracking as bright red blood flowed out of Gran"s abdomen. The two men were staring deep into each other"s eyes, and both knew that this was going to be the end of the fight, one way or another.
The stronger Eisen pressed onto the sword with his feet, the more Gran could rip on his shoulders. Eisen knew that at this point, he had definitely cut into some of Gran"s internal organs, as blood was just pouring out of the warrior"s mouth.
But at the same time, Eisen started to lose his full control over his two arms. He wouldn"t be able to really hold onto anything anymore while his arms were in this state, but for now, Eisen didn"t need to anyway.
And so, the old man made his choice. With a strong, last kick, he pressed onto the spine of his blade and could hear multiple loud cracks as the old man cut through Gran"s spine. His upper body went flying, but at the same time, it both of Eisen"s arms with it.
The old man ground his teeth loudly as he started to bleed all over the place, his health slowly but surely dropping due to the ma.s.s of bleeding. He only had about 10% of his health left anyway, but he somehow had to fix himself up quickly.
Eisen jumped off of Cabarum"s back and summoned his elemental spirit. First things first, Eisen had it apply some concentrated health jelly on those areas to stop the brunt of the bleeding and recover a bit of Eisen"s health, before the old man deactivated his Draconic Demon King transformation, and had the elemental spirit press its glowing hot, metallic hand onto both of Eisen"s wounds. It hurt like a b.i.t.c.h, but at the very least Eisen stopped bleeding now.
The old man turned his eyes over toward his greatsword and made it disappear in his soul storage, while the fake Cabarum disappeared into nowhere as well, now that this fight was over. Eisen watched as Buldor ran over toward Gran"s upper body, while his legs and lower half of his abdomen were still hooked onto the metallic-leather strap on the ground-dragon"s back.
Eisen looked down at Gran"s face with a deep stare while he managed to get his breathing back under control. This fight was definitely won by Eisen, there was no doubt about that. If Eisen hadn"t managed to fully cut through Gran"s body, then the warrior would have won instead, since Eisen was hardly able to continue fighting with no arms.
But considering that Eisen could technically still fight with his feet somehow, he wasn"t put completely out of commission, at least compared to Gran himself. Eisen looked down at him and the puddle of blood underneath the warrior"s body, before what Eisen a.s.sumed to be one of Gonor"s angels ran over toward Gran.
He had regular angelic wings, but his whole body was clad in full-plate armor. Or his whole body was a set of armor, Eisen really couldn"t tell, but he didn"t care that much either. The angel pulled Gran"s lower half off of Buldor"s back and placed it back underneath Gran"s upper body, before pus.h.i.+ng out some glowing light out of his palms.
Weird threads started to pour out of Gran"s flesh in the cut, both on the upper and lower half of Gran"s body, and started to pull on each other, as the warrior"s body slowly healed back together. Eisen quickly checked his quest-progress, and was happy to see that he had now completed four out of ten tasks that he had to complete here in this specific divine realm.
The notification disappeared as Gran slowly pushed himself off the ground again, and the angel of Gonor looked at Eisen, "I am unable to heal you in the same way. I apologize. If you wish to be healed for your limbs, you will need to either use a means you can produce yourself, or you need to head to the tower at the center of this realm and pledge yourself to the great Gonor." The angel explained, but Eisen just sighed and shook his head.
"Don"t need that, I just need a quick nap. Thanks, anyway." The old man explained, and the angel simply accepted this and turned around, ready to leave again.
Gran stood up and stretched himself a bit as he rubbed some of the blood covering his body off of himself, and then looked down at Eisen with a broad grin, "Aye, you strong! Really, really strong!" He exclaimed loudly, "You beat Gran! You strongest of arena now!"
Eisen looked at Gran with a slight laugh as he opened his item storage and had his elemental spirit grab Eisen"s two arms to place them safely in there while bringing out Gran"s halberd, and then closed the item storage up again, "I know I am. But obviously not without repercussions. If I was a normal living person, it would be pretty tough to recover from this, you know?"
Gran didn"t really seem to care for what Eisen just said all too much and hit him on the back, "Come! Celebrate! Drink with Gran!" The warrior exclaimed, and Eisen figured he should just follow Gran for now. That way, he would be able to find a spot to quickly sleep for an hour to heal his arms, "Fine, but later. I need to rest a bit."
"Aye! Sleep! Right of champion!" Gran yelled out. Eisen quietly followed the Warrior and Buldor as the souls that had been watching the fight continued to cheer at the fact that the champion of this arena was beaten by a living person of all things.
They climbed up some stairs and made their way over to the same balcony where Eisen and Gran first encountered each other here in this realm. Gran sat down, leaning against Buldor in a similar fas.h.i.+on to before, while Eisen sat down cross-legged while letting out a deep, exhausted sigh.
Ambriel looked at the old man with a deep frown, unable to stop themselves from commenting on this, "I expected more from a man like you. Such a wild way of fighting. It is truly sad, is it not?"
"How often do I have tell you that I don"t want you to speak anymore?"
"At this point, I will have to interject. You realize you have no right to command me, don"t you? I followed your wishes out of pure respect for your name before, but now, even that is not something I can do."
"Fine. Then I"ll just ignore you." The old man replied. He really, really didn"t want to hear Ambriel"s voice anymore, one way or another. But then, he heard something else instead that surprised the old man quite a bit.
"Gran will do rebirth soon."