The defeated archon’s body disappeared and Zero turn to see the other archon stabbing the shadow of Death and ripping it to pieces. The shadow pieces clawed on the ground and fused back into Zero’s shadow. The archon then turned to face Zero and roared as it lunged at him. Zero dodged its onslaught of attacks easily have used his void style to learn their attack pattern. The archon continued to attack but Zero effortlessly weaved through the onslaught as if he had the ability of foresight. The archon jumped back as it saw that none of its attacks would hit Zero.
Zero wasted no time and attack the archon with his oblivion style of quick draw slashes. The archon was given no time to pull itself together as it was forced to be on the defensive. As Zero’s attack speed kept increasing the archon failed to properly dodge the attacks and received many cuts all over its body. Zero noticed that this archon didn’t try to protect any specific part of its body making it impossible for Zero to figure out where the crystal in its body was hidden.
As the pair were fighting suddenly Hikaru jumped over the shadow wall that was separating them and sliced the archon in half. The archon managed to move slightly to the side in order to keep its core from begin destroyed. It worked as soon the 2 halves of the archon merged together and jumped back landing next to the leader archon whose skin still glowed dimly. The archon then hugged the leader and suddenly their bodies began to conjoin and merge. The archons already had a grotesque appearance that would make one back away in disgust so when they merged the process was equally disgusting.
“This is quite unpleasant I’m resisting the urge to vomit.” said Hikaru as she watched as the archons continued to merge.
“Yes, it’s pretty gross but shouldn’t we be attacking them while they can’t move?” asked Zero
“There’s no point whatever they're doing is causing both crystals to travel at such an incredible speed throughout their bodies. We wouldn’t be able to accurately target them so we might as well conserve our strength for now.” explained Hikaru
As the 2 finished their conversation the merging of the archons stopped and a new creature emerged. It still looked like an archon with its translucent skin but it was vastly different in shape. The new creature had 1 head but with 2 faces looking forwards and backward simultaneously. The creature had 4 arms, 4 angel wings, and was quite muscular.
The new archon lunged at Zero at such an impressive speed that it seemed as if it had vanished but Zero had anticipated the move and moved his shadow blade to block the attack. Zero managed to block successfully but the force of the attack lifted him off the ground and sent him flying back. Hikaru move to attack the archon but it easily dodged the attack and punched her sending her flying in Zero’s direction.
Zero managed to catch Hikaru before she crashed into the wall. He then asked, “Are you okay?”
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“I’m fine this kimono protected me from most of the damage. What will do about this creature? It’s too fast for us to attack properly.” said Hikaru
“I have a plan that will make its speed useless. I’ll have it run towards us to attack but in that instance, I need you to inform me of where I should strike. If this fails I don’t think it’ll fall for it again. You’ll understand my plan when you see it so be ready to tell me where the crystal is.” explained Zero while he still kept his eyes on the archon for any sudden movements.
Hikaru nodded at Zero’s instructions and focused all her attention on the archon. As the creature leaped towards them Zero pushed Hikaru to the side allowing her to avoid its attack. The archon slammed Zero into the wall causing the young man to cough up blood. Perhaps due to the pain, the archon leader suffered it instinctively backed off from Zero a small bit. Zero’s original plan called for the archon to be further away but he saw an opportunity here so he wasted no time and created a tiny shadow space encapsulating the 3 of them.
Taking this as the signal Hikaru yelled, “Aim for the throat!”
Zero wasted no time and with his bruised body stabbed the archon in the throat as Hikaru impaled it in the abdomen. Zero dispelled the shadow and saw that the attack had been successful as the archon grew dark and fell to the ground growing dark in color before disappearing as the others did.
“That was impressive. Although I firmly believe you shouldn’t use yourself as bait I’ll let it go since we won because of it.” said Hikaru
“Well my original plan didn’t require any bait but I just saw a chance so I took it.” explained Zero
Zero and Hikaru’s conversation was cut short when the sky of Dracula’s castle suddenly lit up like it was daytime even though there was no sun. Zero looked up to find that the light was coming from Yaldabaoth as the lion dragon hybrid creature was glowing with an intense white light. The light slowly started to disappear from the tail of the Yaldabaoth. Rather than disappear Zero noticed that the light was being condensed as it traveled towards the mouth of the creature. This filled Zero with a sense of dread as he knew was about to happen.
“Yoko open a portal now!” yelled Zero as he panicked looking at Hikaru
Zero felt a spatial distortion trying to take place in a nearby wall but failing to do so because of Yaldabaoth’s spatial barrier. Seeing that Yoko lacked the energy to break the space as she did when she sent Hikaru here Zero shifted into his shadow form and attempted to help her by breaking the space from the inside. As Zero focused all his energy on the same spot as Yoko a door started to form and was finally stabilized. The doorway led to the temple and Yoko and the other girls.
“Go in now. I’ll follow after you because I have to keep it open.” said Zero as he struggled to hold the doorway open along with Yoko who also looked as if she were nearing her limits.
“Okay but hurry up that doesn’t look good.” said Hikaru as she took one last look at Yaldabaoth who had condensed 75% of the light before running through the doorway.
As Hikaru went through the doorway Zero attempted to move to follow her but as he did the portal destabilized and closed instantly. Zero sighed and looked up while saying, “Looks like moving caused the portal to close. I didn’t think I’d die here. Well, there are worse things in life than death and I barely managed to avoid them. I didn’t get the chance to apologize to Yoko. Sophia will awaken in 4 more minutes but I can’t buy any more time.”
As Zero finished his sentence Yaldabaoth released a breath attack more intense than the previous one. Zero attempted to block it with his shadow barriers as he did before but they were instantly reduced into nothing and the full effect of the beam hit Zero head-on. Zero was instantly disintegrated into nothing but the beam continued on even after Zero’s death. The attack finally ceased and the front entrance of the castle had been destroyed leaving nothing not even ashes.
“Foolish mortal darkness shall always be purged by the light and blasphemers all fall before God. You entertained me with your pitiful struggles and as a reward, I showed you the brilliant light of God” said Yaldabaoth as it waved its claw and more archons appeared to replace the defeated ones.