Eisen was flapping his wings, trying to keep himself suspended mid-air as he was thinking about who of the two Guards he should fight first and foremost. That was because together with that, he would make the choice of which place he would go to first as well.
And in the end, the old man figured that it really didn"t matter too much, and approached the one that he was most curious about, the gate to heaven that had the pitch-black Guard standing on the gate upside-down.
He approached it while flying, and the moment that he was underneath it, he was being pulled toward the gate, as if the direction of gravity changed all of a sudden. Unable to react perfectly in time, Eisen fell onto the gate, and pushed himself off the "ground" after being hurt a little bit. It was just a bit of a bruise though, so nothing serious.
The old man turned toward the Guard. He was clad in pitch-black armor and was carrying a s.h.i.+eld in one hand and a sword in the other. They were both held over each other, so the sword"s tip was pressed into the ground while the s.h.i.+eld was in front of the sword"s handle, facing Eisen right now.
Slowly, the old man approached the guard. Others may think that he was giant, but to Eisen, he was actually rather short. The Guard was roughly 15 meters tall, while Eisen was 23 meters tall, so Eisen luckily had the advantage there. Or rather, it was better to say that he simply didn"t have a disadvantage.
Eisen approached the Guard a bit more and then stopped when it suddenly held the sword and s.h.i.+eld in its hands properly, as if ready to fight. In a truly devilish voice, dry, unpleasant, and completely unfit to that sort of body, the Guard spoke, "Do you wish to take the test to pa.s.s through to the heavens with your life intact?"
Eisen looked at the Guard and immediately nodded his head, stretching his hand out forward to make his sword appear in it, "Yes, I do."
Immediately, the rough hint at a stance from before changed into a perfect form, making it look like the Guard was waiting for Eisen to do the same to let the fight start.
And so, the old man did just that. He held his sword tightly in both his hands, and all of a sudden, a wall of light appeared inbetween the Guard and him, as if dividing them. Slowly, that wall was growing smaller and smaller, and Eisen quickly understood what it was for. This was like a timer counting down toward the start of the fight.
Eisen watched as the wall approached his own height, and then as it approached the Guard"s height. Soon it became short enough for Eisen to step over casually, and then it became short enough for a person to do the same. While this was happening, Eisen was infusing his sword with his Demonic Transformation as well, and just waited to be able to get started. He wasn"t a combatist, and while he did get better at combat through the memories about the fights with Brody in the past, he still wasn"t amazing at it, because all that he got were snippets of the actual combat. Those memories weren"t focused on that, they were more focused on Brody.
Soon, the wall of light disappeared completely, and was replaced by a bright spark as if to say that the fight was starting "right now". And so, the old man jumped forward, at the exact same time as the Guard to heaven"s gate did it.
The Guard stabbed its blade forward at Eisen, but before it reached him, Eisen swung his own blade down and hit it at the Guard. It blocked the attack with its s.h.i.+eld, but at the same time, it had to stop its own attack. With the support of the soul placed into his Sword, Eisen pulled it away from the s.h.i.+eld and made it practically flow around the defenses of the Guard, hitting the blade into the side of its body where it currently didn"t seem to have any major defenses besides its armor.
In response, the Guard pushed its s.h.i.+eld down and pushed Eisen"s sword away, which in turn opened up Eisen"s own weak points. The Guard once more stabbed the blade forward, and at a pace too quick for Eisen to properly respond, the old man was cut into the side of his own body. He was able to twist away so it wasn"t a direct attack, but the cut was still at least an inch or two deep, and was gaping as Eisen started to bleed from it.
Without hesitation the old man shrunk down as much as he could and pulled out the healing jelly he kept in one of his ap.r.o.n pockets for this, quickly placing it onto his wound directly. It was quickly absorbed and healed the wound, stopping the bleeding at the same time before Eisen increased his size again.
And of course, he didn"t let this chance up. He had moved a bit more underneath the guard by flying while he was small, and was now stabbing his blade upward while he increased his size at a fast pace, to increase the speed incredibly. Eisen managed to hit the Guard"s armor and even put a deep cut into the metal as well.
Eisen could see a white liquid dripping out of the wound, which he a.s.sumed to be this being���s blood. It was a bit weird to see this from a creature like this. It was obviously supposed to be a being from h.e.l.l, but its pure white, pristine and somewhat holy blood seemed to say otherwise.
These beings were probably neither beings of heaven nor of h.e.l.l, and rather something like a mixture of both. That, or neither.
But either way, Eisen"s blade was now covered in a thin layer of this white blood, and it seemed to weirdly energize it even more, as if the blade was feeding off of the blood for extra energy. It was probably just some mental trick where he just got excited he managed to get a good attack in, but Eisen couldn"t tell if the blade has similarly weird feeding-habits to his Multi-tool, Bai.
But for now, that didn"t matter. Since Eisen was still pretty close to the Guard while it was. .h.i.t and jumping back, it managed to get a good attack in as well, although it mostly just affected Eisen"s ap.r.o.n. It was nearly completely cut up straight, and in a small area, even Eisen"s skin was grazed a bit.
The old man grumbled quietly to himself as he repaired the ap.r.o.n with his item-combination skill, just fusing the cut parts back together, "Don"t you dare hurt my dear items." The old man muttered, before using his wings to help his acceleration forward as he jumped at the Guard. He stabbed his large blade forward, and the Guard quickly put up its s.h.i.+eld on the place where the impact would have been to protect itself, but Eisen quickly stopped his own movement with the same things that he used to start it.
He used that momentum that was simply still there to divert the path his blade travelled in and cut to the side. Eisen followed the changed momentum and slid around the s.h.i.+eld"s defense, managing to cut the Guard"s arm up. The Guard tried to defend a bit by moving his arm around, so that his arm wouldn"t be straight-up cut off, but so that only the surface of it would be affected.
And so, Eisen basically cut off a strip of the Guard"s flesh, including a part of his armor, causing even more white blood to splatter around, soon staining parts of its own armor white. The old man continued, and tried to cut the Guard"s back now that he was in a position where he could, and slashed his blade to the side, but the Guard jumped away. All that Eisen hit was the Guard"s blade. There was a small dent in the edge now, and that was in a situation where the Guard actively tried to deflect and defend. Like that, Eisen got his new target for now.
The old man took a step back at the same time as the Guard, and when it seemed like it was about to attack Eisen, he jumped forward as well, holding his blade to the side as far as he could. The Guard slashed down at Eisen, thinking that he was defenseless as he wasn"t moving and had an open stance, but the old man was just waiting for this. Eisen slashed his blade toward the Guard"s, and before he knew it, managed to cut through its item.
To an extent, this actually felt kind of too easy. He thought that the items a being like this would wield were supposed to be far more high-quality, and wouldn"t be destroyed this easily. But who knew, maybe this was on purpose, or Eisen"s sword was just that great.
However, seemingly having learned from Eisen, the Guard used its wings to help it move around, speeding up its retreat.
Seeing this, Eisen felt a little empowered. The Guard to heaven had to be careful while fighting him... Just the idea of that made it sound like Eisen was incredibly strong, probably stronger than he actually was.
Either way, Eisen just continued on and on, he wouldn"t let the Guard retreat properly. Again and again, the old man slashed his blade at it and increased the damage that he was doing to it over time.
And soon, the old man was standing in front of a pure-white figure instead of the pitch-black one that he was looking at before. With a slight grin on his face, he continued.
He cut the Guard up. It lost an arm, then a leg. Until Eisen stood above the corpse of the Guard. The old man waved the level-up notification to the side and looked at the one that was more important to him right now.
[Congratulations! You have beaten the Guard protecting the gate of heaven, and have earned the right to enter the divine realm]
The moment he read this, the metal gate under his feet simply opened up, and Eisen felt the force that was pulling on him increase incredibly. He wasn"t even able to fly against this force, and just had to let it take him to heaven.
His eyes were filled with a bright white light, and his whole body felt like it was covered in a perfectly pleasant air. It was like he was in the perfect place, as if he could just doze off right now if he wanted to and just sleep forever.