Chapter 53

I looked back to Maradon. 

We both looked worse for wear. His hair was fried off his now smooth scalp and a faint white smoke misted from smoked skin. The claws had been crushed and his toes now bent out like tree branches. Fresh blood seeped out of his mouth, fingers and toes. 

In imitation of his protective shroud, I constructed my own made of the storm. The blue bolts sparked and stretched out from my back. 

He rushed at me. We traded blows in a ruthless midair melee of pressing boundaries. Attacks of lightning against shadow. He feinted with his dagger that I met with my staff, then unleashed a furious attack with his spear.

I blocked it with a shield of pure mana. He kept on the attack with a toying thrust with the spear that he doubled. The second slipped past my mana shield but the spear point blasted away my storm shroud.