Annoyed, Finn cracked his neck. “You always were a stubborn bastard.”
“And you used to have manners.”
Finn instantly appeared in front of the flame person and punched it straight in the gut. The enemy recovered and kicked thin-air. Finn smashed its knee to smithereens and sent it flying.
“Things change. However, never in my wildest dreams did I ever think it would be this easy!”
Finn flew across the cave and grabbed the mystery person by the throat. With a mix of rage and disappointment, he held it with one arm and punched it with the other. “We were supposed to be a team.” [Boom, Boom] “We were going to go through hell and back” [Boom, Boom] “together. How are we supposed to fight the demons now, huh!?”
Suddenly, Finn felt a palm lean on his shoulder. His eyes were closed, his vision blurred, but he kept on punching. The foreign palm then moved towards his eyes and gently wiped away the tears, one by one.
“Open up,” a soothing, female voice called out to him. “I won’t let you face the demons alone, although…” He slowly opened his eyes. “You don’t need to worry about the demons and you don’t need to wait for hell. Finn, congrats. You’re already here.”
True to the woman’s words, the two of them were literally burning alive. A sea of flames had spilled over the entire cave, with such intensity the stone walls were melting. Tiny eruptions occurred all over the ground, creating rivers of magma which flowed towards Finn’s feet.
The runes on Finn’s shield began burning like paper. His lungs soon filled with hot, toxic gas.
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‘Impossible…’ He let go of the woman and jumped back, but there was nowhere to go. His shield popped like a zit and his skin started to melt. It was so impossibly hot inside the cave that as he stepped into the river of lava, even more molten rock poured on his head from the ceiling.
‘Finn, do something!’ Caroline shouted from inside a floating black crystal which she had summoned around her body.
“What’s the matter, Finn? Can’t you copy my magic? It’s quite simple, really. All you have to do is embrace the flames, let them swallow your body.”
“No thanks.” Finn summoned a torrent of ice, which moments later boiled and then turned into gas. ‘Shit, her skin cells are on fire, she’s turning into a Goddamn flame spirit.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Finn. I’m not that strong, yet.’
With no place to retreat, Finn directed a massive amount of energy towards healing, charged forward and punched the woman straight through her stomach. He then punched through her jaw, sliced off an arm, ripped out a leg and crushed her chest.
In response, the woman smiled. The sudden dismemberment did not bother her spiritual body at all. All the broken, physical pieces simply floated in the sea of flames. Her mana was not one with fire completely, but she was so close, so in tune with the heat that the entire cave might as well have been the woman’s body.
‘That’s… cheating.’
‘Now you know how it feels.’ The woman’s voice resounded in Finn’s head, and he could’ve swore he heard God’s voice too.
‘Who the hell are you?’
‘Really, Finn? Was I so weak that this much is shocking?’
Suddenly, something sliced Finn’s body in half, starting from the very top of his forehead all the way through his groin. The cut obliterated a shield which he had hastily resummoned, crushed his reinforced bones, and rendered even his spiritual body a complete mess.
‘How did you get this strong… Sensei?’