The Birth Of A Friendship

Hours had passed, and it was unclear just how long they had fought, but one thing was clear: Shiva had underestimated the sheer difficulty of the challenge. At some point, Velios had summoned both Vadh and Freya to fight him, but after he had killed them once, they decided to sit down and watch from a distance. The look of despair on Shiva's face, as the only two individuals supposed to help him, instead left him to continue getting killed over and over. What Shiva hadn't realized in the initial deal, which Velios clearly stated, was that the only condition for him to win was to land an attack. Little did he realize that it would be so hard to the point where he got killed the instance he got too close.

At this point, Shiva was completely exhausted, both physically and mentally. The thought of experiencing death over a hundred times is something that most individuals can't handle.

As the hours continued, it became increasingly unfair for Shiva as Velios grew stronger. Shiva thought it would be easy to make Velios restrict every little supply of magic he had, severely limiting his strength and speed. Not only that, Velios had been running around on one leg for hours, forcefully stopping the regeneration of his leg. What Shiva hadn't thought about, even after choosing his own advantage, was that Velios had obtained the counter to Shiva himself, thanks to Freya.

During the fighting, Velios had essentially obtained the perfect training dummy to further advance his holy magic and the correlated energy. What even Velios had forgotten during the past few hours was the fact that races like demons and goddesses experience a rapid increase in growth in a shorter amount of time.

"Demons sure are strong. You could consider what I'm doing cheating, but without it, he would have landed an attack ages ago. If I were to estimate it, if someone like Shiva were to exist back in the old world, he could easily bring a country to total destruction and ruin within hours. I guess that says something about how strong I've become since I started, as well. If things continue like this, Shiva might just become my strongest subordinate in all departments. Physically, mentally, mana capacity, magic, endurance, and even speed. Well... I doubt that he'd come even close to Bhautik when it comes to the physical department, but I'm still shocked at how strong these creatures are. He might actually stand a chance at landing an attack soon-"

Velios was suddenly caught off-guard. Shiva had essentially broken through a limiter of his. Demons are categorized into ranks depending on strength and mana capacity, and if a demon becomes strong enough, they can essentially move up to the next tier. In short, they have an easier time evolving than most species. Massive beams of fire began shooting out from everywhere imaginable. Velios hadn't even noticed it himself before Shiva had done it, but he had used the flames that were already scattered across the battlefield as a starting point for his spells. What Shiva still lacked was the proper concentration to cast more advanced and bigger spells, but that was one of the things which Shiva had improved during their fight. The attacks became much faster, and Shiva had suddenly become much stronger. It reminded him of the attack he used against Ajagar when she attacked the city, which was when she still was an inferior dragon. The number and deadliness of the attacks easily surpassed that of Velios'.

Velios found himself unable to counter all of them. They all came from different directions, and he had no preparation planned. He tried to manually dodge, but his lack of a leg made that task far too difficult for him. It essentially led to his loss. Shiva was not to be underestimated, and he had been secretly storing up his mana to launch a final attack. A big ball made out of super-hot fire was floating in the air above him. Velios had no way to dodge it anymore. He could feel the immense heat radiate from it, and even if he had both of his legs, it was far too close to change anything. Velios had no choice but to unleash all of his own holy energy, fearing that it could actually have killed him.

The attack went on to cause immense collateral damage, and the sides of the giant pit they were fighting in had another gigantic crater, many times larger than the last one. Velios essentially had to use every last bit of his holy magic to defend himself, which did work but also left him essentially depleted. The black flames surrounded them and were spread out in a way that Velios could see them while looking in any direction. Velios realized that he had essentially got carried away by how easy it was and therefore forgot that the person he was facing was an actual demon. What Velios hadn't noticed was that he had released so much of his own energy that it countered Shiva's attack and killed him. Only after he started looking around did he notice that Shiva had been killed.

"You got me good..." Velios couldn't help but fall to the ground. It reminded him of the times where he trained until complete exhaustion, passing out every time while doing so. "Sorry, Shiva... I'll take a little nap, but I'll summon you later. You did well..." Velios let his eyes fall shut. The effects of overuse of holy magic are far more severe than that of normal mana. He was in the center of the massive crater that had formed, and both Ragaja and Freya rushed towards Velios immediately. "Master!" They both screamed in unison, but with different intentions. Freya would have been undoubtedly faster, but she went directly into her state of admiring the male body a little bit too much just because most of Velios' clothes had burnt up. Vadh remained sitting down, watching as the events unfolded. "Serves you right..." he mumbled under his breath.

Velios woke up to find Freya having to be restrained yet again. Even Vadh had come to try and help Ragaja restrain her. The sun looked to be the exact same, but multiple hours could still have easily passed. Velios slowly stood up and began stretching. "Damn... he sure got me good. Right, Freya, come here." Velios stood confidently as Freya was allowed to slowly approach Velios. The two of them were still holding her back, and Velios didn't even question it. "W-what is it, master?" Freya was eager to find out what it was. She began fantasizing about what it could be. Some kind of reward, something he knew that Freya would want, maybe even something romantic. These ideas were flying throughout her head, and even if it was for only a small moment, she did believe that it might be the case. But, after having spent less than two days with Velios, she was still confident that it wasn't going to be any of the like.

"Freya, look at me." Velios clearly ordered her to look at him, but she didn't know if she could bring herself to. She had finally regained composure, and if she even looked at him for a second, she would immediately begin to fantasize about it. Despite that, she brought herself to look at him. Velios' eyes shined unusually bright in the desert sun that shone ever so brightly. Velios wrapped his hand around the back of her head, making sure that he held onto her securely. Suddenly, he pulled her in a quick movement towards himself before kissing her on the forehead. It all happened so suddenly, and Freya didn't know what to make of it. It happened way too quickly, and as soon as they got to a distance where they could see each other's faces again, Velios smiled. "You did well, I'm proud of you. Make sure to become strong so that you can protect yourself, okay? You never know when I might not be there." The smile was genuine and it continued throughout his sentence.

Freya became completely red in the face. She was flustered and didn't know what to make of the situation. She wasn't even able to freak out like she normally would, but instead, she just stood there, completely still. It wasn't clear whether she could see what was happening in front of her, and not even she herself was sure. She was blushing all over her face, and her eyes were wide open in shock. She didn't even notice that Velios had already left with Vadh. Ragaja had missed what had happened and was confused at the way she was acting all of a sudden. "H-h-h-h-he... he kissed me...?" Freya was frantically grabbing her face to feel if she was hot. At first, she couldn't tell if she was, but it became apparent that something similar was happening. Freya thought that she had seen steam coming off of her body for a sec. "W-why...?" Freya had entered a stage of confusion. She thought that she had seen what kind of male Velios was, but even so, Freya would have never guessed that Velios would kiss her all of a sudden.

Vadh and Velios were walking together. "Why did you kiss her? I thought that you didn't care about such typical human desires." Vadh was talking in a casual tone. "Normally, you would be correct. To be completely honest, I don't know why I did it either. It's something I recently began feeling pretty recently too. Some kind of responsibility over you, to protect and care for you guys. I only kissed her because I knew that it was what she wanted." Velios was matching Vadh's pace while talking in the same casual tone. "I'd never think that you'd ever say that, do you remember how many times you've killed me?" Vadh was speaking a little irritated but also teasingly, as if he was trying to trigger any kind of emotion in him. "Don't be like that, I make sure to revive you, too. Still, it's nice that I have somebody to talk to once in a while. I'd never thought that I'd ever talk to a monster about these things at all..." Velios still sounded unsure in his voice, a small hint of regret and sadness as he reminisced about previous memories.

"I've always wondered why you did it, but I want to ask you. Do you remember that city of stone from all of those months ago?" Vadh had suddenly stopped in the middle of their walk. "I do... and I already know what you're going to ask me. The answer is no." Not even Velios could hide his emotions properly. Talking about his past had never been easy for him. "So you don't regret it? Let me ask you again... does it have to do with your past?" Vadh asked him casually, but he didn't know what to expect as a reply. "You know, I actually feel a huge amount of respect towards you. Ever since you told me...Ever since you told me about your past after you had finished your little massacre." Vadh looked over to Velios, who was looking back at him. Vadh then spoke again. "I know that your past with humans haven't been great either. You either hated them or loved them, but they all died in the end. I just want you to know, whatever you do or whatever may happen in the future, I will be here for you, to fight by your side."