Rather Die Once Than Twice

Vadh was still helplessly trying to pull the spear off him, to no avail. The spear was at least a couple of meters inside the sides of the cylindrical hole, yet much more of the spear still stuck out. Vadh couldn't force his way out by walking forward, as massive parts were still and made so that he couldn't try to escape. He was essentially completely stuck, and with his regeneration abilities, the wound could easily close. However, that would leave him completely stuck with the spear still going right through him.

"Calm down, Vadh. You have no superiority anymore. You're a weak monster that happened to be blessed with intelligence, and even so, normal monsters could still easily beat you. You're nothing. Sit down."

Velios was slowly approaching Vadh, walking with a slow pace, and every step sent out clear sounds. He suddenly stopped, raising his right arm and pointing it towards Vadh. The spear that was fully lodged into him slowly started going backward, exiting the wall behind it. Vadh's wound slowly reopened, and the pain intensified with every passing second. Then suddenly, the spear went flying out and towards Velios. Vadh's wound had re-opened again, but it easily regenerated. The spear flew through the air and stopped at Velios' side, indicating that he was the one controlling it.

"Damn you... Already learned something new? Your progress is frightening." Vadh let out a little smile as he brushed himself off once again. "Ahh! You ruined my clothes!" Vadh sounded a lot more friendly now, and his clothes now had a giant hole in them. Velios continued approaching him with the spear following behind as if it was his pet.

"What's the deal with the giant spear? I thought you couldn't use any weapons?" Vadh was confused, but his mood immediately improved. Despite having trained and fought with each other thousands of times, Vadh was still bad at reading Velios, and Velios was bad at reading Vadh because of how fast their emotions change. The two of them continued walking to each other for no apparent reason.

Velios continued, and his smile quickly faded as he got closer. It was at that moment Vadh knew that Velios actually wasn't friendly. It was one of those faces that most people wouldn't understand, but to Vadh, they meant a few specific words. "I'll kill you."

Vadh tried to strengthen his defenses while running away, but it wasn't enough. The spear that had previously pierced him came at him from his blind spot, slicing him over and over at incredible speeds. Vadh had been reduced to nothing but pieces of his former self and had died pretty quickly. The blood that remained on the blood was easily removable with a single swing of the blade.

"Ragaja, go rest. You need it." Velios could clearly see what kind of expression Ragaja carried on his face. He knew what was best for him, and even Ragaja, after a few seconds of thoughts, agreed that he needed to go and clear his mind, alone.

"Freya, Shiva, come with me. You guys will be fighting." Velios was walking towards the two of them, but they immediately backed off. "S-shiva... Does he usually do thi-" Freya was afraid of having to fight Velios again. She was scared of dying and feeling completely and utterly helpless.

"I'm afraid you have no choice... but I don't recommend running either. Trust me, that's much worse. Just ask Vadh the next time you see him."

"Are you guys fine with fighting here?" Velios asked the two of them, only caring about himself regarding their emotions. "I'll give you a choice. Either you fight me, and if you lose, we fight again. The other choice... is fighting each other and only having to fight once until either of you die. But I'll definitely have the two of you fight again if I sense that you're going easy on each other. Got it?" Velios said it so casually, and he seriously thought that the two options were equally enticing, but it was completely one-sided. The two of them answered without hesitation, and Velios was shocked.

"What? You don't want to fight me? And why did you answer without hesitation?" Velios was genuinely confused at why they wanted to fight each other. He couldn't imagine why they wouldn't want to fight him. Is it that boring to fight against me? I might be more powerful, but I still let them attack me. Well, guess they'd rather fight each other.

"Well, I'll be over here training, but tell me if anything happens. And just so you know, I'll know if you slack off, so I hope that you two fight with all you have. I might even give one of you a reward of your choosing if you do well enough." Velios sounded enthusiastic and happy while talking, but both of them figured that it was because he was talking about fighting and combat. Velios left to go do his own thing, and the two of them were left there alone.

"What are you still doing here...?" Shiva looked over to see Ragaja sitting on the ground a fair distance away, but all he did was remain expressionless while doing a thumbs-up, as if encouraging the two of them. Shiva looked over to Freya's direction, not ready for what he would find.

Freya looked excited, far too excited. "A reward...! A reward...! A reward of my choosing...?" Freya was freaking out at the reward as her mind immediately went towards the most unique way to take full advantage of the "reward of choosing" that Velios would provide the winner.

"You look like you're about to have sex for the first time..." Freya was immediately taken out of her trance and instead started getting defensive and completely red. "W-w-what are you saying!?" She had been completely flustered and felt like she had been embarrassed, although there were only two other people except her, and neither of them cared about her to any degree. She didn't even try to deny that she wasn't thinking about similar stuff. She instead tried to defend herself but made it worse as she spat out all of her other ideas that she had in mind, which weren't actually better than what Shiva had joked about earlier, which was true to some degree. Shiva knew that they were screwed if they didn't begin fighting, but there was no way he would get Freya to fight him at this point. She was covering her face with her palms, imagining the kinds of things she could do, daydreaming about them, having completely forgotten what she had to do to even earn them.

A ring of fire that isolated the two of them had been cast. The fire reached several meters into the sky and eventually connected at the top. The fire was pure black, and Freya was immediately snapped out of whatever she was doing. Shiva had confined the zone for a specific reason. Holy magic may be strong and effective against dark magic, magic inherited by demons. But it's also the same way around. Holy magic is both strong and weak against it. The only thing that matters is how the user uses it.

Shiva immediately began rushing towards Freya, and she responded by doing the same. A blade of light came flying towards Shiva but eventually caught on fire, burning it whole. The two of them each had an impressive amount of mana at their disposal, and it immediately became a battle of magical prowess.

The fire covered Ragaja's view, so he had already walked away. Because of her overthinking, Shiva clearly had the advantage from the beginning thanks to his fire. He had taken inspiration from Velios' technique the first time they fought, and Shiva continuously began launching attacks from everywhere, using the fire on the walls to launch attacks from the walls itself. Freya was immediately overpowered, and Shiva had even received training for two days with him. Even so, they had been fighting for almost the whole two days without stopping. Although it was nowhere near the level of magic prowess that Velios's technique, mana dome, needed to effectively work, Shiva's version was the budget version.

Despite that, a driving factor that made Freya put up a significant effort against him was that they had different driving factors for why they fought. Shiva didn't want to have to fight again, and Freya wanted that reward more than anything. With that drive, Freya was able to release much more holy magic than she would usually be able to do.

Freya's defense was highly advanced compared to the rest of her technique's, and even with all of Shiva's attacks, she was able to cancel most of them. The only advantages that Shiva had that would turn the tides of their battle massively were two things. Freya may have had a natural talent to wield her holy energy because of her goddess status, but her actual abilities in normal mana and its magic were lacking. It was by no means weak, but she had no proper training in the ability to wield mortal mana. The other thing was that she was inexperienced in battle. Her hand-to-hand combat was far worse than most, and despite her having good physical strength, her inexperience in physical combat would prove to be her shortcoming.

Shiva launched an attack from behind that Freya would have to either dodge or block. Suddenly, he appeared behind her, punching her in the gut, sending her flying into the wall. Once the fire from the walls had been exposed to her for long enough, the fire did not stop burning, despite Freya trying her best to negate the effects; it was far too inefficient to try and remove it. Shiva mercilessly came in with a fury of punches, kicks, and even occasional knees. Freya had no way to dodge them, and even if she tried to parry them, Shiva fainted into another attack that landed. With Shiva infusing all of his remaining mana into his body, it was clear that he bet everything on killing her with his physical attacks. Freya couldn't do anything. She was completely hopeless in terms of experience and raw power, and she had never tried to imbue her physical body with her holy energy. If things continued as they did, Shiva would ultimately win within a minute's time.