Chris knew that he had made a mistake when he first crossed blades with the Dullahan king. He regretted not listening to Pyrrha when she had tried to stop him, but Chris hadn't cared, he wanted to prove himself.

He swung Lucius-Aurora and the Dullahan king swung its own great sword. The blue blade and its dark counterpart met each other midair and the collision of magical steel produced a shockwave that was like thunder.

"Damn it! " he thought as he was almost knocked aside by the power in its arms.

He had traded blades with multiple great warriors in sparing matches, especially his teacher Morrigan in training. Very rarely did he get so easily overpowered by an opponent, infact only Morrigan had so easily achieved this and she was a Paladin.

He had every intention to be the aggressor in this exchange, but here he was on the defensive. The headless rider's every slash and thrust came with a near contemptuous ease and all he could do was parry, dodge and raise ice shields that all shattered under the Dullahans strength.

"Boy..." the creature declared in a booming voice as he narrowly avoided getting decapitated by its great sword.

"What!" Chris gritted his teeth as he was forced to plant himself into the earth in order to avoid being knocked back from a parry.

"Your smell, i know it," it thrust the great sword forward and Chris ducked under it while swinging Lucius-Aurora for its legs.

The Dullahan noticed and it tried to back step in order to avoid Lucius-Aurora. But Chris was fast enough and the blade slammed into it's shinguard so hard that a dented impression remained.

"I know who you are, Ddraig. You have the hair, the eyes, the smell," the Dullahan said as it put some distance between the two of them.

Chris felt a swell of pride as he watched the slight limp in its step and the dent that had no doubt injured whatever putrid flesh was within.

" So you do feel pain, " he thought with glee.

"But there is another smell, another one that I know," the Dullahans dismembered head sniffed the air. " It is Natalia, the wench with the burning sword. So you are one of their progeny."

" I am Christian Ddraig, I am their son," he responded as he waited for an opening.

"Really, she never mentioned you."

" Why would she, I wasn't born yet when your master was destroyed."

The Dullahans twisted mouth opened wide and a great bellowing laughter streamed out "That was not when we met. No, we were close allies when she saw the true light of our ways, when she was part of us."

The pride within began giving way to a bubbling of anger and Chris sneered. "That was just a corrupted half of her, it is gone now."

" Corrupted?. No, that was her true self, if you were a good child you would be saddened by her lose and you would stand by the right side," it declared as it outstretched its free hand to him.

From the open palm, a flow of dark purple liquid materialized and flowed out like an invisible pipe was resting upon it. As Chris looked at it, he no longer stood in the desert, but in the old palace and the twisted parody of his mother approached him.

"Don't run, I will make you perfect, I will make us all perfect," she whispered with the soothing voice that she used whenever she was comforting him.

"Please," he pleaded, his body frozen in fear.

"Don't worry, it won't hurt for long, in fact, it will be euphoric. Now come here...... And Let Me Get Ahold Of You!" She shouted as she lunged at him.

He wanted to scream and run, but all of his limbs remained in place and all he could do was watch her get closer and closer. The earth shifted beneath him as multiple hands composed of sand erupted from the ground and they grabbed his moth... no the Dullahan.

The sand lifted the headless abomimation into the air and slammed it back on the ground hard enough to send a tremor through the earth. A pair of hands wrapped around his shoulders as Ursa came into his view.

"What is wrong with you, don't just stand there!?" She shouted at him as she shook him out of his stupor.

"I... I am... I just froze, I am fine," he replied as he felt sensation returning to his body.

"Good, now let us deal with him," she said as she pointed at the Dullahan who was rising from the ground with a snarl.

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"You had a bit of the dark in you as well, boy. How curious, can you still feel it?!" It asked with a roar before lunging forward with its near two meter great sword in a overhead swing.

Ursa raised her bow and her arrows soon flew like lightning bolts into the side of the Dullahan, but the powerful impact of the arrows could not knock the massive Night Terror off its trajectory.

Chris rushed forward to meet it, but he would not parry blades with the monster . Instead he manifested his mist wraiths and he sent them rushing at the Dullahan in a pair. The momentary distraction of his mist copies colliding with its body was enough for him to close the distance and swing for the head tied to its waist.

The Dullahan proved his equal in reflexes however and it managed to sidestep Lucius-Aurora, though a cut was added to its forehead.

He formed a spike of ice in his other hand and he threw it at the Dullahan, but it managed to smack it out of the air with its free hand.

"You have your mothers rage in you, a pity it hides behind your fathers eye's," it taunted him as it narrowly avoided the top of his blade.

He had bore a candle of dislike before, but now it was raging inferno of hatred and he gnashed his teeth together before saying "For that, I will knock your teeth out and then I will rip out your tongue with my bare hands!"

" Perhaps there is still some of the dark in you," the Dullahan roared in laughter. "Come boy, show me just how much it is!"

The both of them rushed each other, but the earth beneath its feet shifted and opened up, swallowing its left leg, unbalancing the beast and forcing it to one knee.

"Thanks!" He shouted at Ursa knowing that geometric shift was her doing.

Chris was finally on the attack and he took the offensive with all the fury that burned within him finally let out. He would parry and thrust, from the top to the bottom and side to side. Every piece of technique and experience that Morrigan had drilled into him came to play.

The Dullahan tried its best to keep him away from its head as best it could, but Chris's rage made every blow that it parried feel like a jackhammer. Within a few minutes of this assault, dents had began littering its armor and a few cuts from Lucius-Aurora's close calls were etched across its head.

"Enough!" the Dullahan bellowed in frustration.

Shadows erupted around it and the invisible forces knocked Chris to the ground. He tried to get up, but he wasn't fast enough to avoid the Dullahans kick. The blow sent him flying through the air and his insides felt like they would rupture as he landed.

The world around him to spin about and his hearing departed from him. The young prince even forgot where he was, all of the pain burning through his nervous system made all conscious thought near impossible.

He felt his body being picked up off the ground, a sharp hammer blow to the side of his head followed, sending him once more to the ground. This time his hearing returned, though all that he could hear was a high ringing sound.

"I... I must... I will die," he thought as his vision stopped twisting and blurring.

The Dullahan was fortunately no longer upon him, unfortunately it held Ursa aloft by her neck. She struggled against it's grip as best as she could, but her strength proved insufficient.

He might not have been hearing anything, but he could see that Ursa was gasping for oxygen and her struggling was beginning to become more and more sluggish.

"Ursa.... she will.. No... No... I must.. I must... Alpha-Spell? " he thought.

Alpha-Spells stood as the greatest spell by any magically potent person. They are a pure expressions of the casters power and they were a pain to use. He didn't have much of a choice, as he leveled his right hand towards the Dullahan.

The tendrils of blue energy began dancing and interlocking around his fingers. He drew the threads of magic into a complex tapestry that was written into his very soul, before he breathed out the final incantation.

" Golau-Outlivion! "

From his hand, a blast of pure magical energy erupted forward in blast of multi coloured energy. The aurora of pure energy shot forward with the impact of a gigaton nuclear explosion.

The sharp sound and the impact shook the world as the following bright light blinded all upon the battlefield. This spectacle lasted for a few seconds before vanishing back into the nothingness that Chris had summoned it from. But that didn't mean his Alpha-Spell did not leave its mark.

For deep trench was dug into the earth tens of kilometers in length. The soil within it had lost the sands golden luster and turned to a black charcoal in some areas and glass in others.

Ursa lay besides the trench, her eyes closed, her body still an unmoving. Chris forced himself to his feet, and though every part of his flesh and bone ached from a mixture of his beating and the use of his Alpha-Spell, he still moved forward.

He slowly staggered towards his downed friend and as he touched her, he noticed her chest slowly rising and falling at a steady pace. Chris breathed a sigh of relief as he fell upon his knees, all feeling in his legs now gone as the full exhaustion kicked in.

"Its over," he whispered in relief.

"Is it, boy?" the Dullahans voice slowly whispered from behind his right ear.

He turned as fast as he could, the rhythm of his heartbeat, now a frenetic beat. The Dullahan stood, still alive, though the left side of its body was chard from the heat of his Golau-Outlivion, and its entire left arm was a mangled thing held together by shreds of sinew which had turned completely black.

"Impo..." Chris never got to finish as the Dullahan used its remaining right fist to strike him across the jaw.

The blow launched him upon his back. He tried to scream from the pain, but he could not control his jaw any longer. It was broken and all that he could do was gurgle as a droplets of blood leaked out.

"I will rip you're flesh off and wear it as a cloak!" The Dullahan roared as it approached him.

It grabbed and lifted overhead before slamming him into the earth hard enough that a three meter deep crator was formed in the earth.

The Dullahan then threw its foot forward in a soccer kick, and with the last of his strengh he tried to rise his arms and protect himself from the impending blow. But a shadow leaped ahead of him as a shield, within a split second he saw the red shadow, it was Pyrrha Ulster.

Her body was accelerated forward from intercepting the kick and she flew back into his body, knocking him into the realm of unconsciousness. Chris might not have known it yet, but him and Pyrrha were hit by the Dullahan so hard, that it launched them both through the air and multiple kilometers back to their other team.