Advent Beast (II)

Herakles didn't respond to his words, he merely kept his defensive stance and waited for his opponent to approach.

Seth was happy to oblige to his wordless demands, so, after a slight pause, he darted toward his foe. Although the occasional giant tentacle tried to grab him or simply hit him along the way, he managed to avoid all of them with relative ease. The black-haired man doesn't need to see them, as the sound generated by the wind pressure is enough to alert him of their location. Fortunately, the Leviathan was helping him on the sidelines, so he could avoid the trouble of shifting his attention continuously.

Berserker met the Egyptian God's charge head-on. Both warriors swung their weapons slowly, but with added strength behind them.

The impact of the collision created a sonic boom similar to a clap of thunder. However, the two didn't seem to be affected by it. Instead, it seemed to have brought extra motivation to declare themselves as the winner.

The Egyptian God, unlike usual, was grabbing his weapon with two hands. Once they started clashing, again and again, the awkwardness of trying something new became evident. Fortunately, it didn't take long to grasp the proper movements. It still cost him a few cuts here and there, though.

Herakles, despite adopting a more passive stance, still kept wildly attacking without mercy. He had noticed that his opponent adopted a new battle style, so he took advantage of that to rampage with all his strength. Although the little man was not using those flashy letters anymore, and he had gained resistance against them, he still didn't let his guard down.

Nevertheless, like most Berserkers without their sanity, he never backed down and became more aggressive with each consecutive hit. His size compared to the enemy allowed him to add extra weight to his blows, something that gave him an advantage over his enemy.

Seth was aware of this, that's why, instead of remaining stationary, he moved around the ship together with his opponent, trying to find a way to get past his defense. He still did his best to avoid the others' battlefield, though. He doesn't plan to involve himself with them.

Everywhere they went, they left destruction and blood in their wake. If the Argo wasn't a legendary ship and Medea Lily hadn't reinforced it, it would not be able to stand the battle between those two.

With the passing of time, both warriors started accumulating wounds. Herakles' high vitality allowed him to shrug most of them off, though. Not to mention they were relatively shallow.

Despite both receiving nearly the same amount of hits, Seth appeared to be more bloody than his opponent. That was in part thanks to Berserker having an absurd amount of vitality. Additionally, the black-haired man was preventing his regeneration from activating.

Vlad was hard to imitate thanks to most of his abilities coming from a Noble Phantasm, something he couldn't replicate yet. That man could use even the blood of his enemies to pierce them with it. Unfortunately, he didn't have the capabilities. It was the reason why he needed to use his own blood to make it work. Additionally, he was mixing his blood with small grains of sand to facilitate the work and make it more flexible.

As he was now, his Trickery Authority was not capable of doing much more. His Divinity was not high enough to show its full potential. It was maybe his strongest one in terms of versatility, so Seth didn't have complaints about it, especially when it allowed him to take control of the Ark without a hitch.

Returning to the fight, Herakles seemed to have become more bold with his attacks, maybe thanks to the state Seth seemed to be in.

When he swung his weapon downward, the Deity in front of him quickly blocked it with his spear. However, he quickly took it as an opportunity to kick him in the stomach and send him flying like a missile.

What he didn't expect, though, was for his kick to pass through his opponent's body as if he was a ghost. The Divine being transformed into a black, blood-like substance and quickly reappeared behind him, thrusting at his back with his spear.

Herakles, who was now at the receiving end of an attack, and in an extreme display of agility, arched his upper body sideways, barely avoiding a piercing wound that would have been problematic even with his Battle Continuation Skill.

When he tried to retaliate by elbowing his opponent, the same thing happened again. The black-haired man was able to disappear and spawn in a new location ready to pierce his flesh.

Herakles roared in fury before throwing caution to the wind and striking his location with a powerful blow. However, much to his misfortune, the Egyptian God repeated the same action, making his attack hit the ground, throwing pieces of wood everywhere.

No matter what he did, or what method he used to attack, Seth was able to shrug everything off by simply teleporting to another location.

At first, Herakles was able to dodge or counterattack before any damage could be done. Eventually, though, Seth was able to land hits on him by attacking from unexpected angles.

The frustration of being led into a goose chase made Herakles roar again in anger. He even activated his Bravery Skill by instinct. He suspected this was all done by some kind of illusion, but sadly for him, he didn't get any results. Seth kept injuring him little by little. What made the Greek Hero more annoyed though was the fact that he didn't focus on a single point, no. He chose to attack different parts of his body to render him useless. One of Seth's primary targets were the tendons on Berserker's feet. No doubt it was to deal with his fast movements. He was alternating Vlad with Sanson for briefs periods of time to know where to strike to disable most Herakles' mobility.

The situation seemed like it would continue like this until Herakles would not be able to fight anymore and Seth could kill him with little effort. Yet, something changed. It was without a doubt, an unexpected turn of events.

When the Egyptian God dodged a knee to the head courtesy of his opponent and was readying to pierce Berserker's calf to greatly reduce his combat ability, a small droplet of blood belonging to Herakles fell into his mouth.

Immediately, he was forced to stop his actions due to a sudden pain in his chest. It was so abrupt that he stopped in an attacking stance. 'Damn it! Why do I have to be so unlucky?! Why did it have to be no—'

Seth couldn't even finish his train of thought before a fist connected with his face. There was no way Berserker was going to let an opportunity like this pass. Sneaky opponents who used guerrilla tactics against him were his worst match-up. Only when facing an opponent head-on who relied on their physical and weapon mastery abilities would he show an absurd superiority. That's why chances where he could deal the most amount of damage like this one should not be wasted.

The Greek Hero saw how Seth shot like a cannonball and impacted on the Argo's mast. However, he was not going to give him the chance to recover.

His legs' muscles bulged, and after a sound equal to a sonic boom, Herakles immediately appeared in front of the Egyptian God. Seth was not even able to fall to the ground before a foot connected with his stomach, pinning him against the mast again.

The Deity spat a mouthful of blood, but that didn't deter Herakles from attacking again. A fist soon found its way to his opponent's face, followed by a knee, an elbow...

It might have been because of a grudge, one that was born from all the times his foe "played" with him, but he avoided—he refused to use his weapon. He opted to prolong his suffering instead of finishing him off.

Meanwhile, Seth reminded immobile. His body only moved by reflex when he received one of Herakles' blows. Unfortunately, he couldn't do much about his current situation.

While he was receiving a beating on the outside; inside, he was doing his best to calm the effects the previous accident caused to his being. Just standing near Berserker was enough to cause him discomfort, not to mention tasting his blood.

The two of them were existences that should not have any kind of contact, they were like oil and water. It didn't help that he was stealing Vlad's identity right now.

He thought that he had a bit more time before "that" came to happen, but it seemed it was not going to be like he initially believed.

While he was trying to calm the raging storm that was happening inside him, Herakles kept throwing blows at him relentlessly. It wasn't until he noticed the mast was about to give in that he decided to grab Seth's blood-covered face and throw him to the side.

The Egyptian God rolled on the ground before coming to a stop once he collided with the gunwale.

At this point, his whole body looked like it was bathed in blood. There were barely any parts on his form that weren't covered in red. Yet, Herakles paid it no mind. He was still rearing to go another round. This time, though, he approached his fallen opponent with slow steps instead of rushing at him.

As the sounds of his giant footsteps crushing against the wooden floor, Seth's hands started to twitch slightly. However, he didn't seem to be able to recover fast enough before Berserker was able to grab his neck and rise him up to eye level.

The pitiful sight brought without a doubt no small amount of satisfaction. Especially the little squirming when he tightened his grip around his neck.

But the Greek Hero seemed to have forgotten one thing: a cornered snake is not to be trifled with, especially a venomous one. And knowing Herakles' story with venom, he should have been even more aware of that fact.

It wasn't until he felt something piercing his chest that he finally realized his mistake. Looking down, he saw something like an armored worm wriggling inside his body, as if having a feast with his flesh.

Even though it looked like it was alive, Berserker knew better. Trailing that thing to its origin, Herakles saw it was coming from his opponent's back, more precisely his tailbone.

He could only see what it was about when that thing exited his body, ripping his chest apart. It was a tail, but not just any tail, it was a scorpion's one.

The Greek Hero was not knowledgeable regarding his enemy's legend. Otherwise, he would have known that this seemingly unimpressive thing was far more dangerous than what it looked at first sight.

Although there were not many stories about him using poison, there was one that particularly stood out. When his nephew was young, Seth sneaked in the tent he was sleeping in while disguised as a scorpion and stung him before going away, satisfied with having given a painful and slow death to the spawn of his most hated enemy. It was only thanks to the help of several Gods that Horus was able to avoid reuniting with his father at an early age.

Independently if this story was true or not, it really came to show how dangerous his venom could be—one capable of killing Divinities.

Against such a venom, Herakles could only let go of Seth and take some steps backs while touching his open chest.

With nothing to sustain him mid-air any longer, the black-haired man fell to the ground. It was an arduous task, not only due to his wounds, but due to the external interference as well, however, he still managed to slowly get up. He wouldn't be surprised if most of his bones were broken at this point.

"How... is it? Brings back memories... doesn't it?" Seth slowly asked his wounded opponent. He had planned to kill him by venom in the death before last, but the situation changed considerably from when he had thought about it at first. Not to mention that — even though he knew he shouldn't — he got altered for a second thanks to a certain parasite wrecking havoc inside him the moment he got in contact with Herakles' blood.

Still, he didn't expect the venom to be this effective against the son of Zeus. While it was true that he could do significant damage to Gods with it, he knew he was not near that level yet. He uses his own Divinity as a base to bring them extreme pain due to the clashing that two different ones could produce.

If the World were to categorize his Divinity right now, it would be around B rank. While indeed powerful, it would have to be at least A++ rank to significantly harm someone of Herakles' level.

What Seth didn't know was that Berserker was particularly weak to strong venoms. Normal ones would not be that effective, but those on God-slaying categories would take one or even more lives from him.

In fact, there was one that was the perfect counter to Herakles' God Hand, and that was Hydra's venom. His Noble Phantasm was incapable of doing something against it. Just one strike of something coated with it, and that something would eat through all of his lives in an instant.

Unaware of this, Seth just simply walked toward the trembling Herakles. The spear he had dropped before once Herakles relentlessly assaulted him was back in his hand. If there was something good about the beating from before, it was that now he could use his blood littering the wooden deck to pay him back for what he did.

Yet, just when he closed on the dying Berserker, a giant tentacle slammed the side of his body.

...He was going to devour this fucking octopus...