The temperature in his surroundings became so high that Arthur could no longer ignore it.
Even while wearing the Godbuster Armor, he felt the heat would cook him alive from the inside out. The air around him distorted violently, and matter started breaking down at a molecular level as Typhon's orange flames spread farther and farther, devouring nearly a tenth of the planet's surface. Oceans evaporated into steam, the surface of the planet slumped into seas of molten lava, and the sky burned with a constant red glare that turned everything into silhouettes.
Arthur exhaled slowly as Aether started to flood out of his body.
A storm of purple energy erupted outward from his body, tearing through the superheated air as if it didn't exist. The pressure around him inverted, pushing the heat away. The purple storm increased in size and intensity and finally as if reaching a threshold it condensed, spiraling faster with each passing second, until it began to take on form.
First came the outline, it was a vast humanoid silhouette that emerged within the storm. Then translucent purple bones began to assemble themselves piece by piece, locking together. Muscles formed, as layered strands of condensed energy weaved themselves over the skeletal frame. Finally, an armor formed over its body, it was imposingly styled like a war deity from some forgotten age, plates overlapping seamlessly from head to toe.
When the storm dissipated, the construct stood revealed and it dwarfed the ruined landscape.
The energy construct was over a kilometer tall, its proportions were balanced and powerful rather than grotesque. A massive sword rested in its right hand, while a pair of enormous, luminous wings extended from its back, each subtle movement from it caused the air around them to distort. It was by no means looking less imposing that Typhon.
Arthur hovered within the construct's forehead, suspended inside a core of Aether, his senses expanded outward to encompass the entire form as if it were his own body.
Arthur had known that Typhon was a being who was immense in size and such a body must possess tremendous physical strength. So, to counter that he had come up with a technique and created an energy construct that could rival Typhon both in size and physical strength.
He had taken inspiration from one of his favourite anime characters while creating the technique, so it shared many similarities with it and he had named the technique Behemoth.
Behemoth possessed dozens of times his physical strength, its body was nearly immune to conventional physical damage, its sword was capable of severing space itself, and its wings were designed to warp space to cover distance rather than simply allowing it to fly.
Arthur flexed his fingers and Behemoth mirrored the motion, its massive fingers tightening around the hilt of its sword. He felt if he was not inside Behemoth right now, he would have melted even while inside the Godbuster Armor.
Across the battlefield, Typhon finally finished gathering his power.
Orange flames roared outward from his body in violent waves, the ground beneath him collapsing completely into magma as the heat reached catastrophic levels. His wings were spread wide, hellfire condensed around his arms until it shaped itself into a massive blade of molten rock and hellfire, the air distorted as it struggled to exist near it.
Typhon stared at Behemoth, his pitch-black eyes narrowing slightly. He had taken a lot of risk by utilizing his power to its fullest, so he was determined to kill Arthur.
The next second both Arthur and Typhon vanished from their position. Space folded violently as both entities accelerated beyond conventional limits, shockwaves blooming outward in concentric rings that tore what little remained of the planet apart. By the time the first shockwave finished forming, both of them had already clashed multiple times, the shockwaves lagging behind in action like thunder chasing lightning.
And from the first blow Arthur understood, Typhon was still stronger than him.
Not overwhelmingly so, but enough that each direct clash of blades sent tremors through Behemoth's frame. At the same time, Arthur's speed advantage became apparent, his movements were much faster than Typhon, even if his mind struggled to keep pace with the speed his construct allowed. Every swing of his sword demanded absolute focus; a single miscalculation could send him spiraling out of control due to his own momentum.
For now, they were evenly matched.
…
Behemoth's sword came down in a sweeping arc, slicing cleanly through space itself. The cut didn't just sever things in its path; it erased and displaced them, collapsing space along its path. Typhon barely managed to raise his hellfire blade in time, the two weapons colliding with a shriek that tore open the sky. The impact hurled both of them backward, the shockwaves flattening entire regions beneath them.
SCCCCCRRRRKKK!
BOOOOOOOMMM!
"ARRRGGGGG!"
Typhon roared and lunged forward again, his blade crashing against Behemoth's torso, tearing open a massive gash in the energy construct, fragments of Aether scattering into the air like shattered glass.
Arthur gritted his teeth, Aether flooded the huge gash instantly, stitching the torn structure back together as Behemoth countered with a thrust that pierced straight through Typhon's shoulder. The blade cut through scale, flesh, and bone, leaving a wound that refused to close immediately as it had simply obliterated the flesh and bones from where it passed.
Typhon snarled in pain, twisting and retaliating with a horizontal slash that clipped Behemoth's side, carving another rent through its energy body. Lava-like flames spilled into the tear, burning through layers of Aether until Arthur forcibly expelled them and repaired the damage.
The fight intensified and the battle immediately descended into chaos.
Behemoth and Typhon collided again and again, their movements ripping through space with such speed that the atmosphere of the planet was ignited repeatedly. Each clash of their swords sent delayed shockwaves that raced across the planet long after the blows themselves had landed. Entire regions would detonate seconds after the combatants had already vanished from that location.
Arthur drove Behemoth downward with a roundhouse kick, his wings flapping as space warped around them, allowing him to close distances between them in an instant. His sword swept in a diagonal arc, the blade cutting through space and carved a deep wound across Typhon's chest.
Typhon roared and retaliated instantly, his molten blade slamming down with overwhelming force. Behemoth raised its sword to block, but the impact still drove Arthur backward, the energy construct skidding through the molten ground.
Behemoth's torso fractured under the strike, a massive tear opening through its chest where Typhon's blade had pierced through, but Arthur reacted without hesitation, flooding the damaged area with Aether. The energy weaving itself back into shape, reinforcing the damaged sections even as the heat tried to burn through them.
Arthur forced more Aether into the wings, warping space aggressively. The sudden acceleration caught Typhon off guard, Behemoth appearing directly at his flank as the sword thrust forward, piercing cleanly through Typhon's lower ribcage. The blade emerged from the opposite side in a violent eruption, tearing through flesh, scale, and bone in one clean motion.
Typhon howled, staggering as the wound widened unnaturally.
"You dare…!" he snarled, swinging blindly.
Behemoth twisted, barely avoiding the retaliatory slash, though the edge of Typhon's blade still tore through one of its wings. The severed section dissolved into scattered Aether fragments, spiraling away before Arthur forcibly reassembled them.
They vanished again, and when they reappeared, they were already mid-clash, their blades locked against each other as they pushed against one another. Beneath their feet, what remained of the planet's crust collapsed entirely, a country-sized section breaking free and drifting into space as molten debris followed behind it.
Typhon shoved Behemoth backward and unleashed a blast of condensed hellfire point-blank towards Arthur's chest.
Arthur reacted instantly, angling Behemoth's sword and slicing through the blast itself. Space ruptured along the blade's path, the fire splitting into two as the sword split the space in half. The blast detonated behind Arthur, but he was already moving, his wings snapping open as Behemoth slammed its shoulder into Typhon's chest.
The impact sent Typhon hurtling backward, smashing through a mountain range that disintegrated on contact.
Arthur didn't miss the opportunity, he pressed for advantage, each of his strikes were aimed at taking Typhon's life. Behemoth's sword flashed again and again, carving long, jagged wounds across Typhon's arms, legs, and torso. Several strikes targeted the damaged area at the back of Typhon's skull, forcing the Demon King to raise his guard repeatedly, disrupting his rhythm.
Typhon snarled, he abandoned defensive footwork entirely and leaned into sheer destruction. His blade grew brighter, the hellfire condensing until it burned white-orange at the core. He swung in wide, brutal arcs that forced Arthur to choose between blocking and retreating. Each blocked strike sent fractures racing through Behemoth's arms, each retreat cost Arthur more and more Aether to maintain stability.
"You have an impressive ability," Typhon growled as he looked at another gash in Behemoth's torso close up. "But even you must run dry."
Arthur's jaw tightened. "Talk about yourself." But he knew Typhon was telling the truth, he was nearing his limit, he won't have enough Aether to repair it if Behemoth sustains any more damage.
Behemoth absorbed another blow, the impact tearing open its thigh and nearly severing the limb entirely. Arthur poured the last of his Aether into the wound, but the repair was already for a fraction of a second longer than before.
'Then I'll end this before that happens,' Arthur muttered inwardly.
He changed tactics, now instead of retreating, Arthur forced Behemoth into close quarters. He allowed Typhon's next strike to land partially, sacrificing part of Behemoth's shoulder as the hellfire blade tore through it. Before Typhon could pull back, Arthur twisted Behemoth's body and drove the spatial blade upward in a brutal counter, cleaving through Typhon's forearm at the joint.
Typhon's arm with the hellfire sword still in its grasp fell down from the sky.
"ARRRRRRGGGGGGG!"
Typhon screamed at the top of his lungs, the sound ripping across the planet as he clutched at the severed part of his arm to stop the bleeding. His balance faltered for the first time, and Arthur seized the moment.
Behemoth raised its sword overhead and brought it down in a full-force strike aimed directly at Typhon's spine.
The impact split the sky.
BOOOOOOOOMMMMM!
Typhon crashed downward, smashing into the planet's surface as the remaining landmass finally gave way. The continent cracked apart, enormous fragments breaking free and drifting outward as magma geysers erupted into space.
Arthur hovered above the devastation, Behemoth was standing tall but visibly scarred, sections of its body constantly shifting as he used the Aether used to create it to stabilize itself.
Typhon staggered up slowly from the molten ruin, his body was battered, scorched, and bleeding in places that refused to close.
And yet his eyes still burned with hatred. Typhon snarled, hellfire surging violently as he forced his broken body to keep fighting.
Arthur tightened his grip on Behemoth's sword, his chest rising and falling inside the construct.
He said quietly. "Do you have any last wish?"
Typhon gritted his teeth and made his decision, if he was going to die here then he would take Arthur down with him.
***
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