Perry huffed a bit as he looked at the bloody Darian in front of him. He himself had been quite wounded, but he had managed to drag on the fight enough to gather his Aether back while also beating Darian.
Darian who didn't have the vials of Aether as Perry did was forced to take more damage than he could endure.
He couldn't see from his right eye as the blood from his head had crusted over it. That section of his face was also swollen, to begin with making simply opening the eye a difficult task.
Still, using his one usable eye at the moment, Darian kept fighting.
Two gravity wells appeared on either side of Perry, threatening to tear his body in half, but with a simple swipe of a finger, Perry disrupted the gravity being poured in there.
Then, lightning crackled from his finger as he targeted Darian with it. Darian tried to move away, but the lightning chased him, striking him right on his left shoulder.
Despite being reinforced by his own Aether, he felt a burning pain pass through his body.
As parts of his flesh charred black, just like many of the other parts. Darian was now starting to find even flying bothersome. Keeping himself afloat was taking a lot out of him.
Seeing this, Perry created a small metallic javelin in his hand and created a strong magnetic pull from Darian's body.
Darain tried to fight against the Aether, but he barely had any at this point. Even his enforced body was starting to grow weak.
His consciousness started to fade as he could barely look at what was happening in front of him.
Then, Perry shot the Javelin. Even without being on target, as it got closer to Darian, the Javelin twisted itself towards Darian's body. With the tip being magnetic as well with the opposite polarity, it was sure to hit him in the chest and kill him.
Even as Darian tried to get rid of the magnetic energy in his body, he couldn't help but think how useless his life had been.
Ever since his grandfather, the last Emperor of the Serian Empire had been usurped and killed, Darian had managed to escape amidst his entire family dying.
He had lived nearly 500 years, going day to day thinking nothing but revenge. He didn't find a woman in this life as there was no space for anything but vengeance in his heart.
As he killed everyone that was involved in the coup, even the new Emperor, Darian still couldn't find a way to kill the last person involved in that matter, Perry.
'This is it for me?' he thought. He was surprised he didn't regret it as much as he would have thought he would. After all, he was going to die while fighting the bastard he wanted to kill for a very long time.
Even if he failed, at least he tried.
~BANG!~
The Javelin struck him on the chest with a… light force? Darian slowly opened his eyes to see why he wasn't dead.
It was then he saw someone standing in front of him with a palm to his chest and another hand grabbing the Javelin mid-flight.
Just when he was about to say something, he felt something strange happen to him.
Suddenly, he lost all the pain and fatigue he had gathered from the fight. He could even feel the swelling above his right eye fade as he could open that eye as well.
"You… You're here," Darian said. Then he looked at his own body that was healed. "How did you?"
"Go and rest. I will take over from here," Ning said as he pushed Darian towards the ground and he himself turned around.
Ning was too strong for Darian's currently low-on-Aether body to resist. As he fell to the ground, he caught himself in midair and slowly drifted down.
When he was down on the ground, he looked up to see both Ning and Perry hanging in the sky, doing nothing.
Since he couldn't hear what they were saying, he could only sit on the ground and wait for the fight to begin.
* * * * *
Perry was extremely cautious at the moment. Not only had this young man appeared out of nowhere, but he had also grabbed the Javelin that he had thrown with so much force and neutralized it without any problem.
"Who are you?" Perry asked.
Ning was a little surprised. "Don't you recognize me?" he asked. "I know we only met for a few seconds, but I was sure I would have left a mark on your memory. I'm a little shocked that didn't happen."
Perry looked closer, but he still didn't recognize him at all.
"Senile old man, how about this then?" Ning asked and with a wave changed his face to look like someone else's.
The old man's eyes finally went wide. "Terran?" he asked in surprise.
"Yes, that's me," Ning said with a smile and waited for the old man to look even more shocked. But, instead of shock, Ning could only see confusion in the old man's eyes.
"Who are you?" the old man said.
"I just told you, I was Terran f—"
"Terran Forn is dead. We've already acquired his corpse," the old man said.
"Huh? How could you find his corpse when I'm very much al— Ah," Ning remembered something that he had to do, but he forgot in his hurry.
He left behind the Terron Forn's body after he acquired the Aether and left. 'That must have given old woman Gaani quite the shock,' Ning thought.
He would have to apologize to her later.
Ning brought out a bottle of dark purple liquid and showed it to the old man. "Look at all of this Aether, do you still not trust that I'm Terran Forn?" Ning asked.
The old man still kept quiet, so Ning couldn't help but sigh and get rid of his illusion.
"If not that name then what about this one?" Ning asked. "I… am the Apostle of Alexis."
