The dark figure didn’t display any particular weaknesses. It didn’t matter to Helios though. Without any apparent weaknesses to be exploited, the only way forward was to crush the enemy with overwhelming, unstoppable force.

With his white-hot weapons in hand, Helios went on the offensive.

Physical attacks didn’t have any effect, it was like trying to hit a ghost or a cloud. So the sword itself seemed useless to James.

But Helios had a different opinion. For him, the sword was a catalyst for all his power.

Helios started wildly swinging his fiery greatsword with just one hand, with the other hand holding the shield.

As James was watching Helios, he realized that he must’ve used some sort of intimidation technique, or perhaps it was just his aura, because as soon as he activated his skills and turned his weapons white hot, the dark figure stopped attacking Helios.

But as soon as he grazed the cloudy mass of Darkness with his sword, the figure sprang into action. It didn’t look like the hit did much damage, but the thing certainly felt something.

Helios smirked fiendishly. That was just the reaction he was waiting for. So the figure isn’t completely immune to all attacks, it can take damage after all. He didn’t harm it much, but just knowing it wasn’t invulnerable was great news.

Helios didn’t even manage to strike the figure directly, just the haze of Darkness that it was popping in and out of. And it felt something from that. Perhaps a direct hit would do more. But the thing wasn’t stupid, it would only emerge for less than a second to strike, then it would shift back into the cloud.

That wasn’t entirely against Helios’s interests though. With the figure having a limited time to attack, his shield wasn’t completely useless. Although its attacks were easily bypassing any physical block, and should’ve preferably been dodged, Helios’s white hot fires on his shield were acting as a buffer, distorting the attack and allowing him to more easily dodge.

As Helios was swinging his greatsword, each attack felt like an earthquake to James. The earplugs turned out to be the most useful piece of equipment he owned. Even through the earplugs the sounds were loud, it almost felt like he was the one being hit. He couldn’t even imagine how loud it would be without earplugs. He would’ve definitely developed tinnitus by now, that was certain.

Helios’s wild strikes were in fact not a mere swing of the sword. The white hot flames were the biggest threat to the figure. But it wasn’t only that. The wind and shockwaves created from the great force of the attacks seemed to be having a small effect on the figure. The damage was slowly building up.

“Oh? Looks like you didn’t like that, did you?” Helios grinned.

The dark figure’s mood quickly changed. Even though the attacks didn’t do much damage in total, Helios was succeeding in dodging and slowly hurting it. With each successful strike, the figure seemed more frantic.

The cloud suddenly started violently swirling as the figure entered a frenzy.

As if trying to confuse and overwhelm Helios, it split itself into tens of figures, each of them converging upon Helios’s location.

But Helios was not here to be overwhelmed. He would be the one doing the overwhelming.

While the enemy was coming at him from all directions, Helios smiled.

“You’re just making this easier for me. Thanks for giving me an idea.”

James wasn’t the only one who could have great ideas during combat.

He now had to fight what looked like multiple targets. But that didn't scare Helios, it inspired him instead.

With his greatsword in hand, Helios moved mana into his legs and started spinning furiously.

His speed alone was enough to make the attack dangerous. A heavy greatsword spun around by a powerful swordsman at dizzying speeds was so intimidating that James and Lunaris ducked instinctively. It was impossible for them to be hit, but their minds and bodies couldn’t help but react at the thought of that sword slipping from his hands and cutting them in half.

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Lunaris was dizzy just looking at Helios, if she were spinning around like that she would’ve definitely collapsed from dizziness and nausea. All she could do now was to keep casting buffs and support spells for Helios.

James couldn’t assist Helios that way, but the best thing he could do was to figure out some way to deal with this creature. Even as he was watching Helios fight, his mind was racing, trying to run simulations, trying to figure out a skill that could defeat such a being.

Helios was spinning at an incredible pace, the winds he was creating were strong enough to create cuts in the walls and floor of the room. To James it looked like the winds were magically enhanced, there was no way simply spinning with a giant piece of metal would create such winds, the gusts were as sharp as swords.

But as powerful as the winds were, the fires were the main threat. With every spin, a wave of fire would explode out from his sword.

The attack was successful, the dark figure retreated into the cloud. The fiery whirlwind appeared to be doing a small amount of damage to the cloud itself too. It was violently shifting, trying to avoid the fires and the winds.

But Helios couldn’t keep spinning forever, and the figure seemed to be relatively safe in its cloud. He didn’t know whether he would run out of mana and stamina before the cloud was eradicated. And he didn’t want to put that to the test.

A standstill wasn’t what Helios was after. He needed to overwhelm his opponent.

The white hot weapon was exploding in waves of fire with every spin. But that was not enough.

“All right, time to take this to the next level.” Helios shouted with a crazed grin.

In an instant, the entire room was ignited, as if every molecule of oxygen and mana was set on fire. A veritable inferno was raging throughout the room, James and Lunaris couldn’t even see anything. It was mind-boggling that Helios could withstand that heat, even the floor beneath him was melting.

Helios himself was covered in flames, white hot just like the weapon he was holding.

With a booming shout that made the room shake yet again, the inferno became even more violent. The flames raging throughout the room were obviously much less powerful than the ones on Helios’s weapon, but with Helios’s shout, every flame in the room seemed to be turning white.

As wild and uncontrollable as the inferno appeared, covering the whole room in white hot flames, Helios still retained control over it. Even with the flames raging all over, James and Lunaris were safe, the flames seemingly making an effort to avoid them or slipping into the next room. But even though they weren’t touched by the flames, their mere existence made even the adjacent room uncomfortably hot.

The light from the inferno was blinding, but Helios’s fiery eyes could still see through it. While the flames covered the whole room, he could still see the dark cloud swirling within.

Helios screamed and unleashed even more flames, directing them towards the spots where he could see the figure hiding.

But even as the fire was melting the floor and ceiling below and above the figure, the Darkness didn’t seem to evaporate. The cloud was weakening, becoming more transparent, more diluted. And it was slowing down to the point that it was barely able to move. But it was still there, biding its time. It knew Helios couldn’t keep it up forever.

Helios was constantly converting all of his mana into fire, concentrating it upon the location of the figure.

But even when he was almost out of mana, the figure still endured.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. And while Helios was a hothead, he wasn’t insane.

If the inferno wouldn’t do the trick, he had to try something else.

Helios extended his sword. A second later, the flames vanished. If it weren’t for the melted walls and floor, it would be hard to believe there was a fire there just a moment ago.

But the inferno didn’t just dissipate, all that mana and fire wasn’t wasted. Helios had concentrated the entirety of the fire into his sword.

The sword wasn’t white hot anymore. It was something much more powerful. The fire had turned entirely blue, a deep kind of blue that was so hot that it even distorted the space around it. It was the temperature of the hottest stars in existence. Tens of times hotter than the sun.

Helios struck with the sword covered in deep blue flames. The simple slash of his sword was enough to leave a slight distortion in space behind it.

And then, something unexpected happened.

The figure shrieked.

The figure that didn’t even have a real body, no vocal cords, throat or mouth, let loose a shriek that everyone could feel in their very souls.

It felt like they didn’t even hear the shriek with their ears, but sensed it in some immaterial way.

Helios could only smile.

“Well, well, well, guess you weren’t entirely mute after all.”

The figure that until then seemed so ephemeral and almost illusory, started becoming more and more corporeal and palpable, darker and darker. Every inch of darkness within the room seemed to be converging and gathering into the figure, the cloud was disappearing and gathering into the figure.

“God damn, it’s never just one phase, is it?” James said with an ugly frown. Helios’s flames seemed incredibly powerful, but the figure gave him the creeps. Now that it was transforming, every muscle in his body was tense without him even realizing it. It was like his soul was screaming at him that this thing was dangerous.

While he hoped that Helios’s greatsword could deal with it, that shriek made him even more anxious to do something, anything. It felt so frustrating and suffocating to not be able to contribute at all while his friend was fighting a monster whose existence he could barely comprehend.

His mind was already exhausted, he was starting to have migraines from overusing the arcane simulation. But the anxiety this dark being gave him and the concern for his friends’ lives was enough of a motivator for him to push through the pain, to try to create something that could help at least a little bit.