Slack-Jawed

Kravoss and Gevum ascended higher in the skies, the former using full-power water beams that could burrow several inches deep into the aesh's skin and the latter guiding arrows and sword strikes to hit more vital areas.

Kravoss aimed for the head every time, but the aesh recognized the danger of the beams early on in the fight and had made sure to pay close attention to the rooster and dodge every attack.

Instead of the head, it would chip a horn or shear off some skin. In the worst of cases, it left a hole in the demon's body or leg that added to the hundreds of wounds that already covered him.

And yet he kept fighting.

The persistence of the aesh was terrifying. He had lost enough blood by now to kill a human tens of times over, and yet he still swung his arms, one limp and both riddled with arrows and injuries, as if he had just joined the fight.

The four humans and Pospo flitted around the towering demon like they were performing some kind of sacred dance, having found the key to success.

Instead of using their own, mediocre physical power, they'd use the aesh's strength against him.

Every blow was met with the blade of their swords, forcing the demon to either cut his attack short or risk cutting himself open even worse.

Most of the time the aesh would be able to course correct in time and avoid the weapon entirely while still landing a blow, which is what knocked Samantha out shortly after this attack and what sent Fate hurtling backward.

His back hit a building fifty feet away, pain shooting up his spine as he felt it crack.

He landed on his feet, only to drop to a knee, wincing at the pain. Even with Inverted Loop dulling it, the pain of breaking one's spine, the body's nerve center, was enough to make him nearly scream out in pain.

Only Inverted Loop kept him from losing consciousness. Thankfully, he hadn't fractured it in a way that would paralyze him.

He got to his feet, using the building as support, and tested his ability to stand.

His legs wobbled and his back ached, but he could work with that.

He seriously needed to work on Reflexive Zero. That punch would've been harmless if his Skill was used, but once again it was too fast to track.

The aesh switched between swift and slow with remarkable ease, something that made predicting his attacks difficult.

Fate guessed that it was the bracers. He hadn't gotten a good look, what with being too busy staying alive, but he had vaguely sensed what felt like an Imprint in each bracer.

The aesh must have been using it sparingly for a reason. Perhaps it had limited uses, or perhaps it needed to charge in between uses.

That would explain why only the aesh's fists had this speed, was likely how he had been swerving his good hand around their swords.

'Hurry up and get back,' Kravoss told him. 'The Master's body should be ready soon, and we need to keep him here if it's going to work.'

'I'm on my way,' Fate replied, lurching forward.

He gritted his teeth through the pain, breaking into a run. The Master Guard's corpse lay only a few feet away from the aesh, who hadn't gone far after his foot had been turned into a bloody mess.

As Venden threw his sword up to parry the aesh's punch, Fate and Cait rejoined the conflict, their swords piercing forward in unison.

The aesh's gaze turned triumphant as his mouth split into a grin, even as his fist barreled toward Venden's blade. "Checkmate."

Suddenly, the sword that the aesh had wielded at the start, the same one he made no effort to retrieve, shot into the air.

It spun toward Fate's neck, far too fast to dodge. And since it bore an enchantment, Fate's Skill would do nothing to save him.

At the same time, the aesh roared, his already thrown punch opening into a grab and blurring as it careened undeterred around Venden's sword.

Then the Master's body reached critical mass.

The Master, as he had explained when he was alive, was a Gluttony Mage. He could take the energy, in this case kinetic energy, of an attack and amplify it within his own body.

His Master Body reinforced this Skill, allowing him to take an attack and return to sender with an output up to hundreds of times that of the original.

And since the only involvement his Mana had was in amplifying the kinetic energy, the attack would remain "ordinary," and wouldn't have any Mana behind it. The perfect trump card against an aesh.

The drawbacks to this, which the Master had long since accepted, was that it took an untimely amount of minutes to do so, and amplifying the energy taking all of that energy and allowing it to roam freely in his body until saturation.

This meant that he'd dealt with the attack of the aesh every moment since the attack had landed, and it steadily got worse.

Ironically, it was his internalization of the attack's kinetic energy that had prevented his head from being separated from his body and allowed him to hold on until this very moment.

The Mage was tenacious, and maybe could've survived the aesh's attack if he did everything in his power to dodge or expelled it shortly after being struck, but that wouldn't have brought the humans victory.

Neither he nor the civilian Master had enough firepower to take down a Tier III aesh, even with endless time on their side.

This was evident now, as the aesh was still as fresh as when he entered the city, despite being riddled with enough holes to resemble Swiss cheese.

So, the Master had done the only thing he could do, sacrificing himself for his Empire.

Now, the relentless power of the aesh, multiplied over 400 times, exploded forth, decimating the Master's corpse and exiting his body in a ray of energy.

It went straight for the aesh's torso, smashing the demon's sword to pieces and continuing before running the aesh through and coming out the other side, obliterating his last remaining hand before it could collide with Venden.

The aesh halted in his tracks, slack-jawed, as his yellow eyes widened.