I lay in a pool of blood, staring at the night sky above me."Hey," I said. "It"s not over yet."
I slowly rose to my feet, swaying unsteadily from the ma.s.sive loss of blood. Grinning, I stared straight into Hades" stony countenance while pointedly ignoring Selina"s incredulous expression. She shook her head in disbelief.
"Despite suffering such fatal injuries, you can still stand," Selina remarked, astonished. "I must applaud you for your tenacity and persistence. But didn"t I tell you that you will never be able to defeat my Hades?"
"You know, I"m glad that you told me that Hades has thirteen lives, and that I"ve taken only three of them away."
"Why?" Selina had a perplexed and bewildered expression on her face as she watched me stagger. "Most people would have fallen into despair."
"Really?" I began laughing hysterically. "Because it means that I just have to kill your Hades ten more times!"
Selina narrowed her eyes. "I see. You truly are insane."
"I don"t want to hear that from a psychotic ma.s.s-murderess like you."
Selina ignored me and turned to Hades. Anastasia struck from behind, but she casually moved her sword to her back to parry the dagger. Anastasia clicked her tongue, but before she could slash again, Selina kicked in her direction, forcing her to dodge. Not paying much attention to her opponent, the black-clad killer shouted a command to her contracted spirit.
"Hades! There"s something wrong with that boy"s head! Destroy him before he attempts anything funny!"
I c.o.c.ked my head and smiled as Hades lumbered forward, gripping his halberd with both hands. My eyes riveted to the swinging Annihilation, I nodded to myself when I remembered something.
"You transformed your weapon from Pluto to Annihilation because you"ve acknowledged me as a worthy opponent, correct?"
Hades merely roared in reply. The berserk warrior was in no condition to answer any of my questions. Even so, I received the affirmation I needed.
"Very well then. As a sign of my respect, I"ll use my strongest Constellation weapon to slay you. Well, actually I"m forced to use it now because I won"t be able to kill you otherwise. Hercules!"
Mana began flowing into my hand as the strongest hero in ancient legends began materializing himself into the form of a weapon.
"You know, I"ve been meaning to ask you this, but what are those two swords for if you don"t use them?" Selina asked from a distance, pointing at Gan Jiang and Mo Ye. The pair of male-female swords continued to stay sheathed at my side. "You"ve been summoning weapons out of thin air during your entire fight with Hades. Other than the first time you"ve slashed his arm, you haven"t used your real swords at all."
I glanced down at them. "Oh, I forgot that they are still there."
Selina rolled her eyes. "That"s such an obvious lie."
"Maybe." I shrugged. "Believe whatever you want. I have no obligation to tell you anything."
"Fair enough." Selina nodded.
To be honest, the reason why I hadn"t used Gan Jiang and Mo Ye yet was because Constellation magic was my most powerful magic. At the same time I was saving them for a final surprise attack, a trump card that I could unleash from my hand if Hercules failed to end this battle.
Hercules finally materialized in my hand.
No. Not just my hand.
Golden armor materialized all over my body. Ma.s.sive gleaming gauntlets formed over my arms, and a huge breastplate fitted itself over my chest. In my right hand the golden sword of Hercules shone brightly, like a beacon.
"Herculean Armor. Hercules was a demiG.o.d. Summoning him consumes a lot of my mana, but it also gives me the power of a demiG.o.d."
"DemiG.o.d?" Selina smirked as she fended off Anastasia. At her command, Hades merely raised his Annihilation emotionlessly. "I would like to see you back up your claim."
"Don"t you ever shut up?" Ana growled, frustrated. Selina shrugged.
"The boy is the one who made such a bold declaration…"
She never got to finish her sentence. I smashed my golden fist into Hades" face, throwing his immense bulk across the street. Before he landed, I was already upon him, cleaving him in half with Hercules.
"That"s one life gone."
Selina recovered from being shocked, parrying Anastasia"s strike and then leaping back to put as much distance between them as possible. She glanced at her fallen spirit, whose face had been crumpled in, his skull cracked open.
"He certainly looks dead to me," Anastasia quipped with a shrug. "Convinced yet?"
Hades" face began steaming as his broken skull forcibly knitted itself back together and his head regenerated. He slowly stood up. Seeing him, Selina chuckled.
"Impressive," she conceded. "But do you think the same trick will work twice?"
Half of my golden armor shattered. My eyes widened in surprise.Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.
"When did he…?"
"Better start paying attention, boy," Selina sneered. "Or you"ll end up dead."
She was forced to dodge a vicious strike from Anastasia, whose dagger came up from her blind spot.
"I shall return those words directly back at you." Anastasia twirled her poisoned daggers. "You"ve been too distracted the entire battle. Do you really think so little of me?"
"I do." Selina grinned. "I can beat you with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back."
"Then prove it. Blindfold yourself and tie one of your hands behind your back." Anastasia pointed her dagger at her opponent. "Or are you afraid?"
"I have no obligation to go along with your stupid requests."
Even as the two girls clashed, I turned to face the slowly healing Hades. He shook his newly restored head and let out a deafening roar.
"All right then." I raised my sword and steeled myself for the coming conflict. "Let"s finish this."
The both of us sprinted at each other and swung our weapons, our collision resulting in a tremendous explosion that destroyed the buildings all around us.
*
My armor was almost destroyed, but I had taken at least two more lives from Hades. Parrying another blow from Annihilation, I gritted my teeth and forced the berserk warrior back with the demiG.o.d strength bestowed upon me by my Herculean Armor.
"You have surprised me," Selina admitted, still mult.i.tasking as she fought off Anastasia"s relentless attacks while watching Hades get shoved back at the same time. "DemiG.o.d"s strength, huh? It far exceeds my imagination. Usually the same weapon or technique wouldn"t be able to kill Hades a second time, but to have killed him three times with the same weapon…not bad at all. That"s a total of six lives gone now."
There was no trace of worry or concern in her voice, despite the fact that I had taken almost half of her spirit"s lives.
I panted, swinging my golden sword at Hades. "Seven more lives to go."
Selina"s grin widened. "Seven, right? You only took less than half of that down and you"re already at your limit. Do you really think you can win this? I bet you can only summon that Hercules of yours once. Once you lose all your armor and your sword breaks, you will have nothing left to face Hades with."
She had evidently forgotten about the two swords still sheathed by my side. The same two swords she asked about earlier when she wondered why I hadn"t used them yet.
Not that I was going to remind her of them, of course.
However, Selina must be extremely naïve if she thought I was relying on Hercules alone. I was a summoner, and I had been casting summoning spells the entire time I had been fighting Hades. I just needed time to complete them. After all, as I mentioned previously, regular Constellation spirits weren"t going to cut it. Not unless I planned to feed them to the grinder. No, I needed my big guns.
And one of those one guns was just about to emerge.
"Cerberus!"
A ma.s.sive three-headed dog materialized above Hades. Snarling, Cerberus pounced on Hades, biting and snapping at his face, arms and body. Annihilation was knocked away from the berserk spirit"s grasp, forcing him to defend himself with only his bare arms. Unfortunately, despite his relatively large size, Hades was still small enough to fit inside one of Cerberus"s jaws.
"The G.o.d of the underworld getting mauled and eaten by the guardian who watches over the gates to the underworld," I remarked, wiping a trickle of blood from my mouth. "This is some delicious irony."
"I almost forgot that you"re supposed to be a summoner," Selina commented with a frown. "But this is the first time you"ve summoned a Soul Beast."
"I was wondering the same thing," Anastasia muttered under her breath. I would later explain my rationale to her, but at that time she still didn"t know the reason. Why would she? It wasn"t as if she could read my mind.
"But so what?" Selina sneered. "Do you really think your dog can defeat my Hades just because he has three heads?"
Cerberus wasn"t just a dog, but it would benefit me if Selina continued to underestimate me and my Constellation spirits. Not to mention Anastasia as well. Despite Selina"s complete disregard for her opponent, I noticed that Anastasia had been steadily making progress, with each of her attacks being much closer than the previous one.
Instead, I c.o.c.ked my head toward Cerberus and issued an order.
"Cerberus, Triple Herculi!"
Cerberus reared his three heads back, abruptly ceasing their attempts to bite and swallow Hades. Instead, while pinning the berserk spirit down with one of his immense paws, Cerberus opened his three jaws wide and gathered black mana into them.
"W…what are you doing?" Selina demanded, sounding a bit frightened now. Linked to her emotional state, Hades roared and desperately fought to escape, but to no avail. His prodigious strength was allowing him to budge Cerberus"s paw ever so slightly, but he didn"t have enough time to break free before Cerberus"s spell hit him. "You can"t possibly…!"
Whatever she meant to say, she never got to finish because she was forced to shut her mouth and dodge Anastasia"s dagger, which almost sliced her cheek. Staggering back, she kicked out at Ana in panic, but the former a.s.sa.s.sin effortlessly dodged her counter.
I smiled and turned away to watch the two girls go at it. "Though I"m probably asking for too much, I"m hoping Cerberus"s spell will take away three of your spirit"s lives."
Cerberus launched his Triple Herculi into Hades at pointblank range, obliterating the entire city district and carving a crater into the road.