173 Divided we stand

Part 1

Marceus and his group were all staring at the wall of diamonds that just appeared out of nowhere and separated Mia and one of the knights from the rest of his group.

They were waiting for Mia to use her blessing to make the diamonds go away but nothing was happening, which made Marceus decide to try and handle the wall himself by turning his arms into a pair of blades and began to ready himself to slash the construction into pieces.

But before he could finish his act, a rain of silver arrows began to fall from above. Marceus noticed the wave of projectiles coming right at him and began to leap out of the way with a few quick side steps.

He looked up and noticed a girl with long black hair wearing a baseball hat and a lad with silver hair on top of the wall. They both appeared to have transformed their arms into metal crossbows and were unleashing a barrage of silver arrows on his group like there was no tomorrow.

Marceus quickly moved towards his teammates to make a protective shield for them using his blessed metal.

The lad and the girl suddenly began to aim at the wind mage that was right behind him, forcing Marceus to approach him in order to keep him safe.

"Now!! Go, now!!" the girl shouted.

"On it!!" the lad replied.

He suddenly stopped shooting and changed his arms from crossbows into blades and began to rush down the diamond wall with lightning speed.

Marceus noticed that he was coming fast towards him and his blade and the shield Marceus created clashed with each other. The young lad was rushing with so much intensity that he ended up pushing Marceus back several meters away from his group, dragging the wind mage with him in the process.

"Ellie! This is your chance!!" the lad shouted.

"I know!!" the girl yelled back.

She then slammed her palms into the diamond wall which made even more pillars of diamonds start to appear and proceed to circle the members of the group that were left behind.

Ellie looked behind her and spotted Lilith and Mia at the bottom of the other side of the wall facing each other. Meanwhile, Marcus continued to drag the projection of his father and the mage as far away from the rest of the group as he could with sheer brute force.

All that remained was the projection of Evlin and the other two knights.

"All pieces are now in place..." mentioned a voice behind Ellie. The girl turned around to spot Detra by her side on top of the wall, "Are you ready?"

"...I think so..." Ellie responded. She stared down at the three warriors down below who were just waiting for her to come down so they could completely trash her.

"Mmm... Thinking back... Maybe having you perform in a three on one duel might not have been my best idea..." Detra whispered.

"Just relax and tell me what to do... We can do this!"

"Ok. Here I go then... Wish me luck!"

Ellie jumped out of the wall and began to dive towards her enemies. Evlin's memory aimed her crossbow at her and tried to shoot the girl with a blast of raw magic energy.

Ellie reacted by raising her palms and mirroring Mia's blessing that allowed her to swallow the energy and converted it into power for herself.

"Thanks, fake young aunt Evie!" Ellie shouted as she kept falling.

The two knights began to approach her with their swords ready to stab her but the girl mirrored Lilith's future sight to predict how their attacks would go and switched her arms into blades to block them as she landed.

She then pushed the two of them back and began to rush towards Evlin. The crossbow mage used her healing magic to boost her own speed and moved out of the way while Ellie passed by her.

She expected Ellie to try and attack but she just kept running getting farther and farther away.

The warriors using their silver swords and Evlin using her healing magic all began to give chase after Ellie, not realizing that this was her intention as she kept splitting their group apart even more.

Part 2

Marcus kept pushing the projection of his father as far away as he could and successfully managed to get him out of the range of the other knights.

Marceus showed that he was finally tired of the lad's little game and undid his metal shield instead opting to make a pair of blades just like Marcus himself.

The man raised his arms and right after that quickly began to drop them on top of the lad as if it was a guillotine.

Marcus noticed the incoming strike dashed to the side to successfully escape its trajectory.

At this moment, now that there were only the two of them, he finally stopped to take a good look at his opponent, and for a couple of seconds, his heart began to feel slightly heavier as he was once again face-to-face with his father

"..."

A face that he hadn't seen in seven years. A face that he secretly wished he would show up one day and save him from the clutches of his crazy mother who would take pride in tormenting the lad in order to build him into a proper tool for her to use. The face of the first man he ever saw once he awoke in this new world.

"D- Dad..." the lad whispered while lost in his own thoughts.

He then was suddenly blasted by a small tornado created by the wind mage that made him roll on the ground like a barrel of wine out of control.

He began to fall down a slope but managed to stop himself by stabbing the ground with his blade-arm.

"Right, right... Not my real dad... Come on, man... Put your head in the game!!" Marcus told himself while slapping his cheeks.

He noticed his shadow becoming bigger and when he looked up, he spotted Marceus dropping on top of him with his blades aimed at the lad's head.

Marcus changed his arms into a metal shield, mirroring their position from a couple of seconds ago but with their places switched.

The lad spotted the wind mage coming closer and getting ready to blow him up again. Marcus then pushed his father's blades away and moved so that he would be placed between him and the mage's attack trajectory.

Marceus kept trying to slash the lad while the mage kept circling around from a distance trying to get a good aim at Marcus, who just continued to try his best to block his father's attacks while always making sure he could use him as a meatshield should the mage ever try to blast him.

Marcus assumed he was in a good spot but he slowly started to notice that Marceus was much faster than he expected. He kept trying his best to block the blades from the original living weapon, but these things were moving so quickly that they almost looked like they were becoming invisible.

After a while, Marcus realized that he needed to stop trying to run around like a kid and actually focus even more on blocking the incoming blades or he would end up losing his head.

The mage noticed that the lad had stopped trying to run away from his aim and finally released another explosion of wind pressure. Marcus took a direct hit from the spell and his entire body began to fly upwards like a balloon.

"Whoooooaaaahhh!!!"

Once the lad was high enough, the mage halted his spell and Marcus began to fall from the sky. Marceus used this opportunity to leap towards his son with both blades ready to slash him.

Marcus noticed that he was too off-balance to properly stop that and decided to cover his entire body with metal.

Marceus swung his blade at the lad's stomach and the two pairs of holy metal clashed with one another, releasing a huge sound that echoed throughout the entire forest.

As they kept falling from the sky, Marcus decided to try attacking this time and while latching onto his father's collar, began to raise a metal fist to smack him down.

"I'm sorry, dad!" he apologized right before striking the memory of Marceus with all his strength, sending him flying towards the ground like a bullet.

While Marcus was distracted keeping an eye on his father, he failed to notice the wind mage sneaking right behind him using his magic to raise from the ground as well.

Marcus turned around to properly face him as well but he noticed that the mage was charging a lot of power into his staff, and with one swing of it, summoned a massive hurricane that launched Marcus against the soil with full force, opening a crater in the process.

"Gahhhh!!!"

Even with his entire body covered in holy metal, the impact was so powerful that still managed to injure the lad.

"All right... Screw it... I was going to take care of dad first but you just managed to get all my attention to yourself..." Marcus declared as he rose out of the hole. He then spotted the mage approaching his dad and grabbing his hand that was now starting to glow a little bit.

Marcus raised an eyebrow in confusion but then quickly realized what they were trying to do.

His father was indeed a very powerful warrior, but he was still a weapon, and every weapon needs its user to properly work.

And before he noticed it, his father fused itself in his metal form with the wind mage's staff, which right now was completely drenched in silver and had a huge blade on its tip, making it look less like a club and more like a spear.

The mage aimed at Marcus and released another blast of wind while drawing an arc with his spear.

"Oh my God!!" Marcus shouted as he noticed the wind moving so fast that was completely slashing everything in its path.

The lad crouched as fast as he could to dodge the attack and once he raised his head, he noticed that every single tree behind him had been completely cut in half by the mages wind attack.

Marcus just stared with a pale expression as the spear magician began to prepare another attack.

"Oh, wonderful..."