“It has been too long, Apollyon, my old friend,” he said softly to the golden spear before turning back to Celeron. “Now, I think it’s time I showed you why your useless elders are so scared of me, Worm.”
Any traces of overconfidence that remained on Celeron’s face disappeared. His eyes began glowing, and he growled at Atlas. “It seems I have no choice,” he said, sheathing his swords behind his back before grabbing the whip at his waist. The moment he unfurled the weapon and cracked it in the air his body began to change.
His muscles bulged against the scaled suit covering his body, and the toxic green light that softly radiated from his body drained into the whip until all that remained was the core at his center and the light in Celeron’s eyes. At the same time, a pair of bony wings extended out from his shoulders, and they began to beat slowly, raising him a few inches off the ground. His already pointed teeth sharpened even further as his mouth widened to extend across his face. Finally, as the physical changes ended and he landed back on the ground, Cerlon stopped changing with a final boost to his presence that confirmed what had just happened.
“I did not realize the Tainted were so willing to take this location that they would sacrifice not only a Cursed-Evolution Weapon but also a D-Rank capable of using it,” Atlas said, unfazed.
Celeron snarled at the larger man. “You have been a thorn in the Tainted Army’s side for too long, and it was decided that you needed to die no matter the cost. No matter what happens to the portal here, there are other ways out of the Beyond, and even a legendary warrior like you couldn’t fight a mid-tier D-Rank while still in E,” he said, confirming Atlas’s suspicions of his increased rank.
“You are awfully confident for someone who will die after this meeting, whether I am the one who makes the killing blow or not.”
“Standing over your corpse is worth it!” Celeron roared as he cracked the whip at Atlas.
The Titano blocked the strike but still stumbled back at Celeron’s strength. When he caught his footing, he realized that the Tainted had disappeared. On instinct, he dove to the side narrowly avoiding the whip as it struck the ground where he’d been standing. He followed the whip back to its origin in the sky where Celeron flew above him, the confidence back on his face now that he had flown out of reach of Atlas.
To Celeron’s surprise, Atlas seemed entirely unconcerned by the flying man, though his next action proved why. Atlas slammed the butt of his spear on the ground once, and Apollyon changed from a melee-based dory to a shorter javelin. In one fluid motion, Atlas used the momentum of the spear bouncing off the ground as he took a step forward and launched the spear at the Tainted.
Celeron’s eyes widened as he dodged to the side but the force of the glowing javelin as it flew past him kicked up enough air to send him spiraling. He stopped his spiral before he entered Atlas’s reach and rapidly flapped his wings to put more distance between the two. Despite how close the spear came, the confidence hadn’t left his face. “What are you going to do now, oh great general? You threw away your only— Ack!”
He screamed in pain as another javelin shot through his stomach. He managed to keep his position in the air but it cost him more energy than before as he beat his wings much faster than before just to keep the same height.
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Atlas looked at him with an annoyed expression, as the spear he’d just thrown reappeared in his hand. “Are you done flapping around like an overgrown pigeon, or do I need to clip your wings?”
“Fuck you, old man!” Celeron shouted, striking at Atlas with his whip before he tucked his wings in at his sides and dove at Atlas. He no longer cared about his own safety, He just needed to kill the Titano.
Atlas twisted to the side to avoid the initial whip strike, but he didn’t have time to notice the lack of force behind it before Celeron’s fist collided with his face, blasting him back. He felt his body bounce off the ground multiple times before he slid to a stop. Celeron wasn’t about to let such an obvious opening go and struck at Atlas with the whip, though the golden giant managed to roll to the side as he regained his feet. He did sustain a few small wounds from the rocks the whip kicked up, but he shrugged them off easily as he kicked off the ground toward Celeron.
Apollyon’s glowing form shifted back to its original dory as Atlas shot toward Celeron. He stabbed out with the spear three times in less than a second when he grew close to the Tainted. Though his first two strikes managed to stab through Celeron’s armor, the D-Rank used his wings to get a burst of speed and height as he jumped over Atlas and dodged the third strike. He used the brief opening to whip Atlas’s back, and the wound his whip inflicted began to glow a sickly green as the skin around it took a black tinge. Atlas hissed in pain but stayed standing as he spun around and caught Celeron with a glancing blow.
The interaction repeated itself as the pair moved so fast that any normal human’s eyes couldn’t keep up. It was only a couple of minutes, but to the warriors, it felt like hours until they finally disengaged, each covered in wounds. By all rights, Atlas should have been completely overwhelmed by the rank differential, but his experience had allowed him to close the gap. Of course, there was one other thing that Atlas attributed his continued survival to as his stats gained another small boost from his human namesake’s actions.
Even then, the battle had been hard-fought, and Atlas struggled to remain standing as the Taint-affinity mana from Celeron’s whip wreaked havoc on his body. Still, the confident smile of the General of the Titanos sat on his face as he looked at Celeron, infuriating the man.
“What’s so funny, old man?” When Atlas said nothing, Celeron lost his temper. “Fine! This ends now!” He reeled back his arm as he prepared to strike.
“I agree,” Atlas said, finally breaking his silence. He slammed the butt of his spear on the ground one final time, and with power infusing his voice, he commanded, “Apollyon, Sunburst Remnant!”
Before Celeron could react, all of the wounds that Atlas had inflicted with his spear exploded into blindingly radiant mini-stars. The Tainted’s skin burned and his wounds simultaneously blew open and cauterized as the stench of burned flesh filled the air. The worst of the wounds was from Atlas’s javelin at the beginning of the fight, as the injury was big enough and close enough to Celeron’s hip that when it exploded, it blew off his leg, dropping the Tainted to the ground.
Now that his opponent was too weak to move, Atlas hobbled his way over to Celeron, who lay gasping, obviously on his last legs, even as his tainted nature tried to regenerate his body. The Titano looked down at him and raised his spear one last time.
“Well fought,” he said. With all the strength he had to spare, he impaled Celeron through the skull, ending the Tainted Lieutenant for good.
He heaved a sigh of relief and turned to go help his human counterpart, only for his breath to catch again as he saw the remnants of the fight that had been happening simultaneously to his own.