'What the hell is wrong with that guy?!' Michael shouted inwardly as he blocked another attack from Nial.
He tried to evade the attacks but Michael noticed that his body stiffened again the moment Nial said "Freeze" the second time.
The feeling was weird, yet, Michael got a rough understanding of the ability Nial used.
However, he was surprised when Nial said "Freeze" the third time but nothing happened. Nial didn't activate the skill even though he uttered the command. This was totally unexpected because Michael had already changed his stance the moment the word left his mouth.
He had entered a defense stance with close to zero openings. Nial, however, expertly used the few openings and thrust the spear straight at them.
Michael was trying hard to evade them but he couldn't do anything against it. The injuries he sustained were shallow but they kept increasing steadily. Bothered by this, Michael wanted to initiate an attack the moment Nial's attack finished.
Yet, even before he could do something, Michael noticed that his body froze once again. Nial hadn't even opened his mouth but his body froze. The effect wore off faster than before but it was still enough for Nial to drive his spear deep inside the Draco's chest.
A faint smile appeared on the face of the blind Original, which was what caused Michael to realize that he had messed up big time.
'He just said 'Freeze' to trick me earlier!'
Nial didn't bother focusing too much on the Draco's shock. Instead, he was testing himself to see how far he could go while fighting an opponent all on his own. He knew that now was not the time to play around, but he had to try out a few things.
It was not often that he received an opportunity to go all-out against a prodigy of another race. The Dracos were a highly tough and resilient race, which was why there was even less reason for Nial to hold back.
He didn't want to humiliate the Dracos by holding back and going soft on them.
Thus, Dilan ended up using his dark energy which was enhanced by his crimson moonlight and the Essence of Darkness. Darkness vines with crimson veins spreading through them shot out of the ground.
They coiled around Michael's legs and waist in an instant while temporarily ignoring the blazing blue flames that burned down the dark energy.
At the same time, spears of darkness rained down from the sky. They pierced the ground surrounding the Draco tightly. Just a moment later, Kaeldur, transformed into his bestial form, appeared in between the spears of darkness.
His large maw crunched down on Michael Ignis' tail who screamed in pain. His teeth and two huge tusks were engulfed by poisonous dark energy and so were the claws that dug deep inside the tail of the Draco.
Kaeldur's head was shaking wildly and it was quite obvious that he was trying to rip Michael's tail apart. Nial was surprised by the sudden change in Kaeldur's form and the fact that Kaeldur was being more ballsy than before.
'Looks like advancing to the Deux rank returned some power to you!' Nial figured, just like he understood that his bestial transformation overwhelmed his intelligence, replacing it with carnal instincts.
However, Kaeldur was not the only one who attacked the Draco without caring about the blazing blue flames that were strong enough to burn through dark energy. The Tyrant of Destruction reappeared as well. He was on the other side of Michael and ready to bash his head at once.
He smashed the darkness mace down on Michael Ignis, whose eyes widened for a moment. Michael Ignis saw from the corner of his eye that Nial opened his mouth, which was nearly enough to move his body subconsciously. The Draco grit his teeth at this moment and he accessed his spatial ring to retrieve something.
A moment later, Tyrant's mace smashed down on the Draco, whose blue blazing flames erupted all of a sudden.
Nial could tell what Michael had retrieved something from his spatial ring the moment he took it out. It was several runic armaments, including a celtic shield. The shield was oddly familiar but Nial didn't have enough time to focus on that.
The Celtic shield manifested a second, semi-translucent shield right above it. The second shield absorbed most of the attack's impact before it crashed down on the Celtic shield.
While Tyrant's attack was blocked easily, the blazing blue flames intensified around his tail. Kaeldur's head was burning as if it was being fried in oil. The Devil had to release Michael and use dark energy to cover his entire head to avoid gettingburned to death.
Kaeldur backed off to recuperate a bit while the Tyrant of Desturction's other hand shot out to rip the Celtic shield out of Michael's hand.
However, it was at this moment that Tyrant noticed that Michael had retrieved not only a shield from his spatial ring but also a weapon.
He was holding a large blunt weapon in the other hand and smashed it down on the Tyrant's arm.
Tyrant's arm dispersed into darkness just before it was hit by the huge Warhammer held by Michael Ignis. Tyrant's arm manifested once again a moment later.
In response to the Warhammer that crashed into the ground after missing its designated target, Tyrant stomped his foot down on the head of the Warhammer, pressing it deeper into the ground. He was trying to ignore the pain shooting up his legs due to the blazing flames that scorched his feet as they shot out of the hammerhead, but that was hardly possible.
Nonetheless, the Tyrant of Destruction was giving his utmost to get his hands on the Celtic shield as he made a second attempt to rip it out of the hands of their opponent.
Ryu released a bunch of darkness spears from above as well. It was hardly possible for the Draco to evade them because he was temporarily imprisoned and it was also not possible for him to lift his shield to block the attacks.
Nial was just standing on the side and visualizing how the darkness spears were weakened through the blazing blue flames before they collided with the scales of the Draco.
Some spears shot through the gaps between the enlarged scales but the damage they caused was less than that inflicted by Nial's darkness bolts.
However, it was not as if Nial expected too much. He was just trying to figure out whether Ryu and his two Devils were strong enough to defeat the prodigy of the Draco race.
Nial was not sure what to expect from their prodigy and neither could he say for sure how powerful his Devils were. Both Kaeldur and Tyrant were rather arrogant, but they couldn't do much against the blazing blue flames of the Draco.
Were they just at a disadvantage because they were weak against the flames, or was there more to it?
Nial hoped for the latter, otherwise, he didn't have much hope in the strength of the Devils, no matter how much of their power would be unveiled.
In the end, he decided that he had idled around enough. He replaced his spear with a different one and inserted mana inside it.
"Let's see what you are going to do against this…."