The angel stepped forward, brushing past Jormun with about as much consideration as it held for everything else—which is to say, none at all. Its brilliant white eyes, shining within the black void beneath its hood like a pair of stars plucked from the night sky, were locked upon Xaphan.

The demon, in turn, had stepped forward as well, interposing himself between Leon and the angel.

“Concentrate upon your true enemy,” Xaphan growled, his crackling voice quiet and serious as he glared back at the angel. “I will deal with this old thing, alive far past its time.”

The angel didn’t respond, but it did lift its blade of light a little higher and took a few more menacing steps toward the former Lord of Flame. Its killing intent was overpowering, greater even than the killing intent that Leon could feel from Jormun, or the distant auras he could perceive from the Legion as it cleaned up the last remnants of Jormun’s pirates. Its aura was terrible to endure, and even with the violent storm outside filling Leon with power, he still felt tiny and insignificant with this thing closing in.

Before the angel could reach Xaphan, however, the demon lifted one of his massive hands and let loose with a torrent of flame. Dark red demonfire erupted from the orange fires that perpetually covered the demon’s body, rushing out and enveloping the angel in its entirety. But a moment later, there was a flash of white light, and a barrier of light was projected from the angel’s robes, pushing the fires away with seeming ease.

It then took a couple more rapid steps forward until it was in range of Xaphan and swung its massive blade of white light.

Xaphan raised his left hand, and from his orange fires, another hand made entirely of dark red fire sprang forth, brushing aside the blade with its fiery knuckles, and then detonated in a controlled blast, wrapping around the angel once more. Instead of just surrounding it, though, the fire then began to spin in a small cyclone, wearing down at the angel’s barrier of light.

But the angel just swung its sword again, ignoring the fiery cyclone as if it were inconsequential. Xaphan had to raise his other hand and conjure another fist of fire to block the blade. The demon then roared in challenge, and charged. The fires on his body exploded with fury, his aura spiked in response, and he rose into the air. The fiery cyclone intensified, increasing the temperature in the ruined chamber so high that the rain and lake water that was filling it began to boil.

For Leon, all of this boiling water was hardly concerning. He was far more concerned when the angel’s wings beat once, lifting it into the air as well, and it and Xaphan then floated up and out through the massive hole in the roof that Leon had created at the start of this fight, taking their bout out into the storm and away from Leon and Jormun.

They soon disappeared into the dark and the rain and the wind of the storm outside, but the effects of their fight could still be felt down below, as the earth shook with every blow they exchanged, and the rain and the howling wind seemed to pause in time with every strike.

But Leon and Jormun were left alone in the chamber, both rather stunned and struck temporarily dumb with what had just happened.

It was only when Leon glanced back at Jormun after staring at the hole in the ceiling, watching the indistinct flashes of white and dark red light as his demonic partner and Jormun’s angel dueled, that he again saw himself in his mind’s eye striking down Jormun and rending his flesh with his bare hands—though his fingers were long and sharp and covered in glittering black scales.

Leon took a menacing step forward, but caught himself. Coming here alone was a terrible mistake, that much he could recognize, and one he wasn’t quite sure why he made. But regardless, the decision was over, and he couldn’t back down now. He took another staggering step forward, the lingering effects of his and Jormun’s brief exchanges having taken their toll already; he was tired and ready for this to be over, but he wasn’t going to stop until it was.

However, he did pause when Jormun turned his attention back to him and whispered in awe, “I never would’ve thought that you were contracted with a demon, young Leon. Truly… this is… well, I don’t know quite what to say. I’m impressed. Usually, you people in your isolated northern Kingdom are so averse to using powers gained from other planes…”

Leon stood there, staring back at the pirate, unsure quite how to respond or how to proceed. So, he decided to indulge his curiosity a bit. “What was that thing of yours? Something sent by your Serpent?”

“Indeed,” Jormun proudly replied, his plain features breaking out into a smile. “The Serpent is a god, after all, and what better servant for a god is there than an angel?”

“It didn’t seem particularly serpentine,” Leon responded.

“Does it have to be?” Jormun asked with a shrug. “Far be it from me to dictate how a being such as that ought to present itself. So long as the Serpent gives me what I want, I don’t care what other servants it has. I’m not that jealous…”

“And what is it that you want?” Leon inquired. “Truly?”

“Now there’s a question really worth asking…” Jormun quietly said. “I don’t think I’ll answer it just yet. There’s more for the two of us to do, and I don’t want to ruin the surprise… I’d rather talk about your demon friend. You see, it’s not the first time I’ve encountered a fire demon, and it’s piqued my interest.”

Leon cocked his head, taking note of that admittance. Xaphan wasn’t the only fire demon he’d encountered, either—his seemingly back-from-the-dead rival, Amon, was active on this plane, and had even sent assassins after Leon a couple years ago. Leon wasn’t sure if Amon was here physically on the plane, but he knew the demon to be an enemy that he and Xaphan would have to deal with sooner or later, and the idea of Jormun working with such a powerful demon didn’t sit well with Leon.

“When and where?” Leon brusquely asked.

If the pirate was offended by his attitude, Leon couldn’t tell; Jormun just smiled a little wider and promptly replied, “Oh, this must’ve been… two decades ago at this point? My, how time flies… Anyway, I was down in the south east, raiding the rich settlements of the Argonaut Sea, when I encountered a ship that seemed laden with spoils. Naturally, I attacked it, hoping to find sufficient plunder to advance my goals. Instead, I found a ship nearly devoid of goods, save for a rather curious stone that I later threw into the sea. You see, this stone captured my mind and gave me visions of a great ocean of fire, and a pair of eyes within it.

“I knew this to be a demon, and tried to bargain my way out of its domain, but all it did was rip from me any knowledge I had of the old places of power on this plane, and then release me. It was quite painful, and I knew it to be looking for something. All I cared about, though, was that it didn’t seem to be looking for the same things I was. In the years that followed, I ignored several other ships that had similar markings to the one I’d found that stone on; that demon and I could leave each other alone. It wasn’t getting in my way, so I wasn’t going to get it in its.”

“Seems a rather passive response from a demon,” Leon remarked, not doubting Jormun’s story any more than it deserved—the pirate was a proven liar, and Leon took everything he said with a huge grain of salt, but he didn’t think the pirate was lying about this.

“It was,” Jormun replied, his statement punctuated by a titanic explosion from far above that shook the entire chamber and briefly illuminated the interior with dull red light. “The second time I encountered that demon was less so.”

Leon cocked his head again.

“I was approached several years later by a rather tall, thin, and pasty individual that I quickly identified as a vampire,” Jormun explained. “I usually give such types a wide berth—you never know what kind of powers are backing them, after all—but this one sought me ought and contracted me to retrieve an object for them. This object was held being transported from the island of Empty Promise to the city of Argos by ships of the Sunlit Empire. I fulfilled that vampire’s request, and in return, that creature gave me all the information I needed to finally finish my mission. If it weren’t for the servants of that demon, I wouldn’t be here now—at least, not so soon.”

“What did that vampire tell you…?” Leon quietly asked as he took a step forward, his blade sparking and crackling with lightning.

“Who can say?” Jormun smilingly said.

With that, Jormun’s grip on his massive bronze hammer tightened, and Leon dropped into a powerful offensive stance. The two stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, Jormun up on his broken stage, and Leon a little bit below, his blade brandished and his aura filled with killing intent.

Leon, his body blazing with silver-blue lightning, charged the pirate, who responded with a mighty swing of his hammer. The ground beneath Leon broke open, but he nimbly leaped up and hurled a bolt of lightning. A shield of water appeared in front of Jormun, protecting him from Leon’s attack, and he countered by freezing the shield, shattering it, and sending it sailing back at Leon in a hail of icy shrapnel.

Leon conjured another shield of fire, halting Jormun’s attack in its tracks. Then, he charged again, but was stopped by another of Jormun’s hammer swings, which tore apart the already-ravaged floor and had Leon dodging by leaping through the air as spikes erupted from the ground. All the while, the sky above was lit up with white and dark red magic as Xaphan and the angel clashed, their powerful attacks sending shockwaves back down that were powerful enough to cause the lake to vibrate and the ground to shake. That, combined with the magics Leon and Jormun were throwing around, was enough to send the much-abused boxy structure crashing down.

Jormun and Leon quickly adapted, dodging hither and thither as great chunks of stone fell and the walls collapsed. The two were so fast on their feet that neither missed a beat in attacking the other even as they leaped and wove through the falling stone.

The pirate shouted in exhilaration, swinging his hammer and sending a great wave of spikes, both ice and rock, Leon’s way.

With his legs glowing with lighting, Leon dodged, and hurled a bolt of lightning.

However, unlike the battle so far, instead of Jormun blocking or dodging, a great beam of light fell from the sky, creating a shield between Jormun and Leon across which Leon’s lightning bolt harmlessly splashed.

A moment later, the angel descended from the clouds, the storm seemingly parting around it. Xaphan came crashing down a second later, landing upon the ground with much less grace than his winged foe. The angel lightly touched down in front of Jormun, while Xaphan stood in front of Leon.

From Leon’s perspective, it definitely looked like Xaphan had gotten the worse of their short bout, with his shadow within his orange flames looking a little more defined, and the angel looking largely unhurt, but neither otherwise seemed particularly debilitated at all.

Xaphan then said something in a strange, lilting, almost song-like language that Leon couldn’t understand—his tone, though, indicated that he was asking it a question. The demon waited a moment for the angel to respond, and when it didn’t, he said something else, his tone taking on a stronger and more resolute quality.

The angel responded by lifting its sword, the blade of light pointing straight at Xaphan. The blade then dissolved into countless millions of tiny floating motes of light, which drifted away from the angel like a massive swarm of tiny fireflies. Xaphan waved his arm, conjuring a hundred bats made of dark red flame and sending them hurtling toward the angel from all directions, but a small portion of the motes of light froze in their drifting, and then shot through the air like falling stars and tore the bats to pieces.

But if Xaphan was disheartened at all, he didn’t show it, and simply waved his arm again. This created a great wall of fire, and when he stomped on the ground a moment later, he sent it rolling toward the angel like a great wave. However, Leon noticed something else…

The angel’s motes of light responded once again, launching themselves into the fiery wave and dissipating, but ripping the wave to pieces in the process. However, Leon knew the wave to be a distraction, and as the wave was forcibly ripped apart only about ten feet from the angel, the ground beneath the angel fractured and a geyser of dark red demonfire erupted at its feet, bathing it in Xaphan’s horrific power.

This fire rose up from the ground—sent by Xaphan when he’d stomped on the ground—but instead of just washing over the angel, it instead took on the form of a hand and closed around its body like curling fingers.

The angel’s pure white robes began to burn, and its sparkling white feathers began to blacken, but it just flexed its body and broke free of Xaphan’s fire. Then, all of its remaining motes of light swarmed around it, severing Xaphan’s power at the point where it left the ground.

Xaphan didn’t remain idle, though, and he snapped his fingers, cracking the ground and sending another geyser of flame shooting at the angel.

This geyser was further away from the angel, and all it had to do was raise a shield of light to protect itself as it took again to the skies.

‘Maybe it’s more injured it looks?’ Leon thought to himself, noting that even though it hardly seemed any different from how it had looked immediately after it had been summoned, and it had several chances to, it wasn’t able to seize the initiative back from Xaphan.

Keep it up, human, Xaphan whispered into Leon’s mind as he leaped into the air in pursuit of the angel, this won’t take too much longer. I expect to see that pirate dead at your feet when I knock this pigeon out of the air.

“Working on it…” Leon whispered, trusting that the demon could still hear him despite his low volume.

The two inhuman combatants rose back up into the air, the small hole in the storm that the angel had created over the island in the center of the crater lake closing again as they soared back into the sky, bringing back the pouring rain and the gale winds.

“HAHA!” Jormun roared, his face lit up with glee as he watched the two vanish into the clouds. “WHAT MIGHT! WHAT POWER!” The pirate turned his gaze back to Leon, who was already conjuring a lightning bolt in his off-hand.

Leon hurled the bolt, but Jormun was ready with a wall of water. After blocking the bolt, that water wall came hurtling in Leon’s direction, backed with even more water that was rising from the lake.

Leon silently cursed as he used his last anti-magic bracelet, letting the wall and the water behind it fall apart as the silver band snapped in half and fell to the ground at his feet. He had to end this now. His blood boiled with the need to end the pirate, to bring a bloody end to this tiny creature that had challenged his position, his power, to rake his claws through Jormun’s flesh and eviscerate his internal organs, to fill his body with fire and lightning and burn him until not even ash remained.

This was his last chance to do that. With no more anti-magic bracelets, he no longer had an effective counter to all the water that Jormun could call upon. The storm around them filled Leon with power, but with such a deep lake at his beck and call, Jormun was completely in his element.

Leon threw aside all caution and charged Jormun as the water wall dissolved. His golden eyes were wild, his teeth bared behind his helmet, his body so flush with power that he seemed to shine brighter than even the lightning bolts that were striking the top of the crater walls. As the storm filled him with power and purpose, Leon even began to feel like his power was the cause of this storm, like it was his power that was causing it to rage and so violently twist the ocean.

As he charged, for just a moment, Leon saw a vision of himself high above the clouds, the Lord of the sky, the King of the Heavens, just as his Mana Glyph claimed he would one day be. But he wasn’t himself; his body was much larger, covered in feathers that sparkled with lightning. He looked almost identical to the Thunderbird in her avian form, just with a few harsher lines to mark him as a male of that ‘species’.

It was intoxicating. For just that moment, Leon felt what it must have been like to be the Thunderbird at the height of her power, when even the weather was at her beck and call. When she was equal to gods.

And then, as Jormun smiled and swung his hammer with speed that seemed to Leon to be far more than he’d previously shown himself capable of, the vision shattered. The massive head of the bronze hammer struck Leon’s unarmored stomach as he closed to within striking distance of the pirate. Leon felt his bones shatter and his internal organs immediately bruise. All the air was driven from his lungs, and he was hurled back like a ragdoll, pain filling his mind as all the power of the storm suddenly fled from his body.

Leon hit the ground, gasping for air as the pain drained his body of energy. He could do nothing except watch through the gloom as Jormun slowly walked toward him, the sly smile of a man who’d never once lost control of the situation adorning his face, the pouring rain parting around him as if he were maintaining an invisible shield.

Jormun loomed over Leon, paused just long enough to ensure that Leon could see his grinning face, and then raised his hammer. In that last moment, Leon saw that Jormun’s eyes had started to glow a gentle white, and his aura had drastically changed, as if he’d suddenly tapped into an unknown reserve of power.

Leon had only just enough time to wonder if this was the end, and for a spike of white-hot fear to lance through his mind before Jormun brought the hammer down upon his helmeted head and everything went dark.