Time was of the essence, the Lieutenant needed to act fast in order to catch Velmior off guard. Leo saw him scanning the destroyed dormitory, shredded flesh littered the floors atop rubble from the walls and pillars. In the far corner to the right of Leo’s vision, he saw that they had brought the tables that remained somewhat intact and made a small wall.

  Although it didn’t provide much real protection from the two, it did give them the sense of safety that they needed to stay in the fight.

  Leo waved his hands around, getting Joshua’s attention as he promptly connected with Leo.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Send a message to the Lieutenant! Get him to help against Velmior!’

  The connection quickly cut off as he saw Joshua turned towards the katana-wielding officer who was resting on one knee, taking labored breaths.

  He wasn’t in the worst shape as small cuts and abrasions littered his body, a portion of his uniform was mostly shredded, but remained intact. His katana remained in his hands with a white glow, practically sizzling as thin white smog rose from the blade as if cooling down.

  His head shot up, casting his eyes towards Leo.

  ‘Looks like he got the message.’

  But the officer did something extremely strange that caused Leo to unconsciously let out a small gasp. The instant he had laid his eyes on Leo, he cut his free hand off, letting it fall to the ground.

  ‘What in the world is he doing?!’

  In a single motion, the Lieutenant quickly sheathed his katana and grabbed his sliced off hand, throwing it straight at Leo like a baseball. A trail of blood followed, spraying across the room.

  Baffled by this strange action, Leo moved against the wall to his right to avoid the incoming projectile. But when he turned back to his left, he saw a glint right before his eyes as a needle-like tip was thrown inches before his eye.

  And just in time, the hand the Lieutenant had thrown flew into the spear, knocking it off course for a moment before a big orange explosion detonated right in front of Leo’s face, causing him to black out for a moment.

  A few minutes seemed to pass as Leo finally regained consciousness, his ears ringing from the explosion from earlier. He had ended up with his back against the wall, laying on his right side. He blinked hard, struggling to get a grasp as to what had just happened. Reforming the recent events, he remembered the hand coming into contact with the glass spear. That moment was when the explosion had occurred.

  ‘Wait! What am I doing?! I need to get up now!’

  ‘Stay down, Leo.’

  Joshua’s voice made him pause, confused by the sudden order.

  But that confusion quickly dissipated as his head rose up, seeing a vicious fight ensue before him. At some point during his blackout, the Lieutenant had begun a duel against Anthony. Just above his head, the remnants of Anthony’s speartip lay sitting inside the stone wall.

  The attacks were fast, but slow enough for Leo to follow their movements. Anthony’s armor had completely regenerated itself, perhaps using the time his mind had been focused on Teddy. And now he was fighting the Lieutenant with the thick-tipped spear, the crossguards catching the sword before attempting a stab.

  The Lieutenant’s sword, however, was able to hold its own as Leo saw the katana easily burnt through the crossguard and attempt to slice the belly, missing because of the thickness of the armor. However, what really stood out was that a melted section had been carved into the armor.

  Unfortunately, Leo wasn’t the only one that was growing in the recent battles as Anthony’s armor quickly regenerated itself faster than before, new crystal blocks scraping forward to fill the cracks and openings.

  But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that they could break through the armor. But they could only do so with one powerful attack.

  Not only that, Leo’s idea to get the Lieutenant to support Claudia was thrown away the moment he clashed with Anthony. And from the looks of things, both fights were in a stalemate.

  One battle, none of the opponents could get a hit on each other, the whips veering away from the white statue while he couldn’t see Claudia throwing any attacks in general. But it did look as though Velmior was dodging something, perhaps an invisible attack from Claudia.

  In the other battle, however, the Lieutenant took the offensive, hacking away at Anthony’s armor. The only reason the battle remained stagnant was simply because the armor was just too durable. And not only that, the moment he did cause a break in the armor, it would regenerate by the time he could get another hit in.

  Leo’s mind suddenly felt fuzzy as Joshua’s voice returned to his head.

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  ‘So he didn’t listen…What now?’

  That was the exact thought Leo was figuring out now. Besides from Connie and the twins, who now lay on the floor after exhausting themselves with the previous attack, everybody else was capable of fighting. The only issue was the losses. He didn’t want to get them killed, especially not in a useless assault on Velmior, who would erase them in a blink of an eye.

  The only option for them was to fight Anthony.

  ‘Get over here and help the Lieutenant. Just support him any way you can and we’ll figure it out from there.’

  With that settled, the group split up with only Patrick and Oliver coming to assist. The others were left behind as they were simply too weak to fight at the moment. Joshua also remained with them so as to keep the two groups connected in case of an emergency.

  Patrick patted Leo on the shoulder. “You sure you’re fine?”

  Leo waved him off. “Doesn’t matter right now. For now, just support the Lieutenant. I’ve got an idea, but just do your thing with Oliver. I’ll move around your attacks.”

  Not wasting any time, the group moved to support their ally. Patrick and Oliver charged forward, moving to the sides of Teddy, catching Anthony completely by surprise. Taking this chance, the two surged forward, grabbing Anthony by the arms and dragging him back.

  Right after, Leo moved past Teddy and threw a devastating punch down onto Anthony’s chest, causing a small crack on his chest.

  Anthony’s armor covered his head completely, making his words inaudible. But Leo could vaguely see Anthony laughing triumphantly behind the helmet. He was probably saying along the lines of him being too weak to break the armor.

  Bringing his arms towards his chest, forcing Patrick and Oliver’s heads to fly towards each other. The two were quick to react as they released their grip, falling back to Leo as they circled around him, occasionally rushing in to grab or punch him whenever he would try and summon a spear or try to escape.

  ‘It’s not like you were doing much against the Lieutenant anyway…You just lucked off with being so damn durable.’

  He knew that Anthony’s armor would regenerate at a pretty slow rate. That was the largest factor as to why this fight had been drawn on for so long. Even with his Refraction-empowered punch, the armor remained intact.

  Neither he nor the Lieutenant had enough power to break through the armor in one go, Leo could see that. The only person that could possibly do that was most likely Claudia, but he doubted she had the focus to fight Velmior while also breaking through the armor.

  Although the snakes were gone, immobilizing Anthony would be near impossible with the loss of Jamie and Lizzie, the two girls that supported Alyssa before, he couldn’t utilize her Refraction to the fullest without the circle.

  Unfortunately the circle had been destroyed completely, and without the two girls, they couldn’t repair it.

  The only person that could stop him in his tracks would be Connie, but that would have to be a last resort as it would probably be her last act before fading into the darkness.

  ‘Break through…Break through…Bre-’

  An idea suddenly popped into his head.

  ‘It could probably work, but I’d need to be extremely careful or I could lose a leg…’

  Leo yelled out to Patrick and Oliver. “Get him to the ground again! Don’t let him move!”

  The duo immediately acted as they both lunged towards Anthony. He tried to resist, throwing a punch at Oliver who swiftly slid underneath. Using the lower position, Oliver jumped up to tackle Anthony. As this happened, Patrick moved behind, pulling Anthony back by the shoulders. Unable to resist the sudden change in balance, Anthony fell on his back with his arms held by the two once more.

  Before he could get up, Leo rushed forward and stomped hard onto Anthony’s chest, a loud crack resounded in the nearby area.

  Upon finishing the maneuver, Leo quickly jumped back to where the Lieutenant was resting with his hands on his knees, prompting the other two to release him as they couldn’t hold him down any longer, returning to circle him once again.

  The Lieutenant tiredly looked up at Leo. “I’m guessing that attack there wasn’t just a normal stomp, Leo. What did you do?”

  Leo shrugged. “Let’s see if it worked.”

  Across from him, Anthony laggardly got up, obviously exhausted from the prolonged fight. He opened a few small slits near his mouth area to speak. “Leo, you can keep trying to break my armor, but you know it’s not going to work. Just give up! That Lieutenant of yours couldn’t break it, how would you?”

  Leo shook his head. “Anthony, you should know me better…You really don’t see what I did?”

  Anthony looked on, completely clueless as to what his opponent was talking about. “What are you rambling about?”

  Leo shrugged.

  ‘If he doesn’t notice it, why should I tell him?’

  The Lieutenant moved up near his ear, whispering similar confusion. “I’m curious. What did you do?”

  Leo nodded his head towards Anthony. “Look at the crack, it’s not regenerating anymore.”

  The tired officer observed the spot Leo spoke of.Across the room, the two stared at where Leo had stomped the chest. The area that had been impacted was cracked, a small crater formed around where the foot landed. The only abnormality, however, was that it wasn’t closing the crater, nor the cracks surrounding it.

  The Lieutenant squinted his eyes and upon closer inspection finally noticed the cause. Barely noticeable ripples in the air surrounded the damaged areas like looking into the distance on a hot sunny day.

  It wasn’t that the armor wasn’t regenerating, it was that Leo’s Refraction kept creating new damages at the same rate as the regeneration. This disruption made it seem as though the armor wasn’t healing anymore. He had tried applying more power, but this was the best he could do for now. But that was more than enough.

  And if the armor didn’t heal anymore…

  The Lieutenant gave Leo a satisfied smile. He pushed off his knees and straightened his body, glancing over to Leo with happy eyes. “Well done, I’ll take it from here.”