For an Archmage, he didn’t use magic to fight, instead employing a more… hands-on approach.

That was Dianthus' consensus upon taking a punch that sent him backwards several meters and broke several ribs, now healed.

Well, no, it wasn’t. By peeking over the Archmage’s thoughts, he was confident in not needing magic to ‘seal’ him, and that the fight would be over soon, to which Dianthus was decided to prove wrong.

He hadn’t had a great beginning, but that was the usual for him. He didn’t win by overwhelming his opponents from the start, but by wearing them out, bit by bit.

Now, that didn’t mean he was weak, just that his present enemies had just been unfairly selected. From Frenese, a Devil over six hundred years old, to the Archmage, probably also over five hundred years; Dianthus, who was nineteen, suffered from the difference in experience.

If he were to be matched against someone his age (Igern not included, well, actually including him), it would be a guaranteed win for him. Maybe also including mages three times his age.

But no, a Devil and an Archmage it was, straight to a damned boss. And he didn’t even finish his fight against Frenese, since the Devil ended up being resealed by Velvet.

And Frenese was extremely weakened over being starved, sealed and regularly blood-drained for hundreds of years. Compared to the Devil, the Archmage was in a perfect state.

Of course, Devils were Devils and mages were mages, so comparing them was ridiculously unfair. No mage could survive what Frenese survived, for example.

But enough of that, back to the fight.

Raising his hand, Dianthus summoned five enormous swords made of light, each one of them towering above him in a circle, their tips pointing outwards.

Clenching his fist, the swords launched themselves in different directions, a thundering noise arising from the sheer speed, quickly followed by a bang that shook the whole pocket dimension, the swords crashing against the walls holding it stable.

One of his plans was bringing down the pocket dimension with him. After all, he would survive doing so-

With a single snap of fingers, not from Dianthus’, his swords disintegrated, the formation instantly repairing itself.

- And, if that failed, at least he would’ve made the Archmage use the magic he didn’t need to use. Just to prove a point.

The Archmage took a step towards him, and then another and another, all of them at the same instant. Once again, it wasn’t magic, he was simply that quick.

Reading his mind didn’t help, since he was fighting him relying mostly on muscle memory, treating Dianthus’ as if he was a meat witch, even when the only similarity was the skill to regrow flesh and bones.

Dianthus barely had time to react to the stab, a piercing hit he didn’t even feel, traversing his shoulder right at the joint, through bone and nerve, making his right arm fall limp to the side.

Instantly, he summoned several light pillars that circled around him at immense speed, erasing all the stones and dirt that came in contact with them. And yet, the Archmage had already retreated, refusing to fight him in close combat.

He was mostly gauging Dianthus’ skills, just to test and ‘capture’ him better.

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Clicking his tongue, he reached for the knife lodged in his shoulder, grabbing the handle and pulling. That’s when he felt that some part of the knife’s tip had ‘opened’, difficulting the removal and remaining stuck inside his bones.

“This is an Inquisitor’s weapon.” He muttered, side eyeing the Archmage.

Mirel and Arhontissa had been at war several times, and not just over Charlampia’s ownership. That one was just the most ‘recent’, ‘big’ conflict, followed by a string of smaller ones.

What Dianthus’ meant by that was: any Arhontissian that had a minimum combat training had studied how to recognize Inquisitor’s weapons, symbols and modus operandis.

This type of knife was called an Umbrella Knife, due to how it opened once inside someone. Usually used to deal with flesh mages and witches, but they worked on almost everything.

But, Dianthus thought, changing his hold into a firmer one. It only works on flesh mages because they can’t block pain, one of the many, many reasons why they go mad so easily.

And that’s not an issue here. With a strong pull, he ripped out the knife, several bloody bone shards flying out and falling on the ground.

Dianthus moved his shoulder slightly, the gruesome wound closing until nothing remained, not even a single scar. Then, he used a spell to fix and clean his clothes, removing his blood and fixing the hole, leaving the fabric spotless.

He didn’t even need to read the Archmage’s mind to feel the grimace he just made.

Mages were really picky about wasting magic on the battlefield on unnecessary stuff, like repairing damaged clothes or cleaning their bodies from blood and dust. He had been admonished countless times just for doing so, the reason why he kept on doing it.

Not because he was obsessed with cleanliness, but because it annoyed his superiors.

And… yes, because he was also a bit of a clean freak. The texture of blood on his skin bothered him, even when he wasn’t currently feeling it. He just knew it was there, stuck to him.

The Archmage quickly recovered his composure, not making any comments, to Dianthus’ dismay.

“Oh well.” He said, starting to channel magic on the next attack.

This time, he would make sure that the Archmage showed what his Paradigm was made of, because-

The ground started cracking, like if a spider web suddenly grew below it, constantly expanding, tangling everything over its strings.

Light came from below the broken earth, faint at first, blinding at second, but, unlike normal, immaterial light, this one had a half-liquid texture, like lava coming from underneath.

Like bubbles, uncountable light spheres separated themselves from the light sea, floating towards the sky, slowly, almost in a serene manner.

A mesmerizing spectacle to anyone present to see it, even when both mages present knew that the beauty didn’t remove or hide the actual threat of that attack.

He wasn’t joking when he mentioned that only experienced beings had the skills to rival his own. Even when he hadn’t reached the peaks of magecraft yet, he had crossed more than half the path.

Right in the middle of the raising, light-bleeding ground, Dianthus chanted, separating his hands. “All-encompassing brilliance, land of the beginning,”

“Cradle of Stars, Solaris.”

As the ‘bubbles’ started waking up, their light expanding, he grinned, watching how the Archmage had no more ‘Inquisitor’ skills or weapons that could rival a whole Structuralization, and instead had to rely on magic, lifting one arm, with a black shadow curling around his legs, progressively increasing in size.

That’s how most Inquisitors worked, anyway. Killing everyone that used magic, accusing them of sin, while being mages themselves, most of them from both types.

As the Queen of Arhontissa had once told him, ‘If possessing an Esca is a sin, then all Inquisitors are sinners.”

It’s fine if you want your Paradigm to remain mysterious, if the blame of using magic feels too much, He mocked the Archmage inwardly, but, if you want to match me, you should be more than ready to spend all the magic you have in storage.

Because I will never run out of mine.