Clemence shouts, “Arata! Are you okay? You get backup, I’ve got a trump card.” I’ll just pretend like I haven’t seen this several times before already—the golden sword thing… pillars of light that spawn instantaneously on the enemy. There's no sign it's there since it uses enemy intent to aim.

  Arata lets go of his curiosity for the moment as he begins to stare off into the distance, neither Clemence nor Cayden seems to be aware of what he is seeing.

  The swarm of bugs have scaled over the walls, making their way inside. Yet this time it's much earlier in the day. Yet there's at least the silver lining that only a vanguard of flying Fiends were on the attack, the greater army still had some distance to cover.

  Maybe it's better that it doesn't distract Clemence.

  Her blade moves, Cayden’s side is pierced through by her magic, the golden lining spreads through his internal organs before it expands, violently rupturing golden spikes that spread throughout Cayden's body.

  Truthfully, Clemence's attack wasn't supposed to be used for combat, but rather an execution. Now that Arata wasn't on the other side of the attack, if you didn't kill your opponent with the technique, you lost the fight.

  Clemence keeled over, her face pale and her vision began to fade. Bits of her hair began to gray as that's when Beelzebub chose to strike.

  Arata dashes, seeing the black proboscis extend from above; luckily, he knows exactly where Beelzebub is targeting. With a dive tackle, he moves Clemence out of danger.

  Unfortunately, he was hit, feeling his nape being pierced by Beelzebub. Surprisingly, this doesn't feel that painful. It stung but… Beelzebub seems to dislike it more.

  Beelzebub retracts its gluttonous mouth; its body begins to spasm in the air.

  Beelzebub screams out, “Ah fuck! The blood- it's spicy! It hurts?! I can't drink this shit!”

  Spiralling out of control, the bug’s fall is caught on a nearby roof. Slamming into the building with a thud. It vomits profusely, even coughing up a slight bit of it's own blood. Arata was an anomaly to this world, Arata scratches his new bug bite.

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  Cayden isn’t down yet. In fact, when he stands up, he almost looks more menacing. I’ll apologize to Clemence later.

  With his internal systems being ruptured further, his body just morphed to a greater degree, his skin, flesh and bone looked like glass, cracking apart to reveal a robotic inside, gears turned in place of a pumping heart, valves with steam replaced his veins and the face underneath his human face grew a large circular mouth, the teeth shaped like the minutes and hours yet they were each colored as though they were an array of peacock feathers.

  The fiend’s sword also changed; it turned see-through, a sword of glass, now acting as a showy piece. The creature that was once Cayden looked into his blade, which reflected his own flamboyant colors.

  “Glory to New Mundi! This country does not need a lousy hero, it is I who shall fell the mad king! Selena, where are you? Shouldn’t you have polished my blade by now?” Cayden exclaims as he raises his glass piece in the sky.

  Near the hilt of the blade, there is a dull patch on the glass, an irremovable stain on an otherwise elegant weapon. The light from the sun is blotted out, any candles snuffed out and lanterns crumble. The world goes dark around him as the only beacon of light left is himself. The light shining off the sun freezes in midair; time freezes around him.

  Reminds me of a clock. Time then? While impressive he's also fairly limited in that regard at least. I can actually fight since he’s radiating like that, it might even be a detriment.

  The two stare each other down, Arata cloaked within the darkness, his position compromised by the light radiating off the clock face of Cayden, who shows no intention of hiding himself. He steps across the gray stone streets to reach Arata, wherever his foot lands, sees color return to its face yet similarly loses it when Cayden departs.

  Arata dashes towards Cayden, slashing at his legs. Cayden moves to parry when the two begin to exchange blows. Arata’s sword finds itself weaving in Cayden's shadow, returning to the light and lacerating Cayden’s arm. The metal underneath Cayden's old flesh seems unaffected by such an attack. Cayden returns, the light refracts off his blade, which Arata barely reacts to, having time to parry last second blindly. He narrowly avoids his ribs being opened, while in the bind he feels a sudden bonus push, a phantom arm behind the initial strike. The phantom hand slams its blade into Arata’s sword a second time.

  This is the technique he used earlier; his magic relates to delay, no, there’d be no point in activating an ability that merely made what you did delayed. The cadence, the arc of the blade, the power behind the strike, it’s all identical to that initial strike. The same strike can be in multiple places at once is impressive yet seemingly wasted on him. I see why he wasn't selected to fight.

  Arata is on the back foot, defensively reacting to every swing that Cayden throws his way. His back foot luckily has enough structure still to block the next few shots, until Arata takes another step back, he loses his foothold. The ground behind him was uneven as he tumbled into the ground; he didn’t notice the terrain due to the lack of color around him.

  Arata looks up, the shining blade lifts itself above the glowing clockface of Cayden, the glare blinding Arata, until the light suddenly goes dim.