Chapter 41 - the battle (FINALE)

his face twisted in anger, John said with a growl, "You leave me no choice." Without warning, he launched himself towards Dante, using the spear like a catapult.

"Fhuuuu," Dante breathed out as he dodged the oncoming attack. John's spear slashed through the air, missing Dante by a hair's breadth.

As John prepared for another attack, Dante struck out with a powerful punch, hitting John right in the stomach. The force of the blow sent John flying straight into a nearby tree, the wood cracking under the impact.

"Fuck..." Dante muttered, coughing up blood as the pain from his burnt body began to take hold. "I may not be able to stall for as long as I had imagined."

John cracked his neck as he stood up from the tree, ready for another round. But just as he was about to attack, Nicholas arrived on the scene.

"What the fuck is going on here?" Nicholas demanded, his face twisted into a deep frown.

Dante explained the situation as briefly as he could. "The kid's gone crazy. We need to stall for time, at least until Oberon figures out some way to make him stop."

Nicholas looked at John, his deep blue spear held tightly in his hand. "Try not to hurt him," Dante said, looking at Nicholas with concern. "We still don't know what exactly happened to him, but he is still John."

Nicholas looked at Dante as if he was being ridiculous. "You really think we have the luxury to not go all out right now? Just look at this." He pointed at the spear that had been hurled towards him, now half a meter into the ground.

Dante shook his head in exasperation at the situation that had escalated beyond his control. "Do whatever the fuck you want," he said, his voice dripping with annoyance.

Nicholas glared at John, who was now eyeing them intently while wiping off the blood from an axe he had just pulled out the weapon from the body of a dead dukal soldier. "You two done talking?" John asked, his voice laced with arrogance.

Nicholas nodded silently, his deep blue spear held tightly in his hand.

"Good, I'm coming then," John declared, charging towards them with the axe held high above his head.

Dante and Nicholas exchanged a quick glance before diving into action. Dante brandished his sword, while Nicholas prepared to strike with his spear.

With a wide swing, John hurled his axe towards Dante, who blocked it with his sword, the two weapons clashing with a loud clank.

As that was happening, Nicholas was caught off guard when John landed a solid punch on his face, sending him tumbling back in pain.

"That was close," Dante muttered as he charged towards John, who picked up a spear lying on the ground and expertly used it to block Dante's sword.

"You're going to have to try harder than that if you want to hit me, uncle," John taunted, a smirk playing on his lips.

Before John could finish his sentence, Dante threw a punch with his burnt left arm, which John narrowly dodged.

As John separated himself from Dante, Nicholas's spear started to come at him from all directions. Some he managed to block, but most he had to dodge, his heart pounding in his chest.

Breathing heavily, John backed away from the two, his injuries from the bouts starting to take a toll on him. "Hufff," he breathed out, trying to recover his strength.

Nicholas looked at Dante with a mixture of confusion and frustration. "How the fuck is this kid doing all this? Till yesterday morning, the bugger could barely run."

Dante shrugged. "Do I look like I know how the fuck this happened? If you want to know more detail, ask the old bugger there," he said, pointing at Oberon, who was perched on Stormwing, circling around the three combatants.

"What the fuck is he doing here?" Nicholas asked, incredulous.

"I hired him as a teacher for the kid, but I didn't know he had gotten this strong in 10 years' time," Dante replied, his annoyance growing with each passing second.

"We need to talk about all of this once this whole fuck fest is over," Nicholas said, turning his attention towards John, who wore a bored expression on his face.

"You're always welcome in my office," Dante said, his tone bitter and sarcastic.

"BOOOOORIIINNNGGG!" John's voice pierced through the silence, interrupting Dante and Nicholas' conversation. Almost instantly, he shoved his spear into the ground and spread his arms apart, muttering "Chaos sphere" under his breath. Suddenly, a black sphere resembling the night sky started to expand, with John at the center.

"RUNNNN!" Dante exclaimed, looking at the ground getting devoured by the sphere. "THE FUCK ARE YOU IDIOTS LOOKIN' AT? RUNNNNN!" Nicholas shouted at the soldiers who were staring in awe at the spectacle.

"RUUUNNNNN!" a few soldiers screamed as they scrambled away from the incoming black sphere. But for the unfortunate ones who didn't manage to escape in time, screamed in agony as the chaos slowly devoured their bodies.

Seconds later, the sphere that occupied a 25-meter radius disappeared along with everything in its wake: the ground, the soldiers, and their corpses. The aftermath was a pit on the edge of the battlefield that seemed to have swallowed everything.

"Was that all you guys could do? I was honestly expecting more from you...you're supposed to be a few of the strongest people in the empire, are you not?" John taunted as he stood at the bottom of the newly formed pit. "What, are you holding back because you think you could damage this body?" he continued, breaking his arm in half.

*CRACK*

"JOHN!!!!!!" Dante and Nicholas yelled in unison, looking in horror at John's broken arm. But before they could say anything else, the broken arm slowly readjusted itself and started to heal as if it had never been broken in the first place.

"See, I'll be fine. So make this more entertaining for me, will you? You've already taken up so much of my time. At least try to make this more interesting," John said with a maniacal smile on his face, reveling in the violence and gore of the battlefield.

"...Fuck it, the bugger is too arrogant," Nicholas said through gritted teeth, his expression contorted in anger as a chilly aura exuded from him. He took a deep breath and focused his energy. "Glacial Lance Style: Final Form - Ice Dragon!" he roared, summoning a giant ice dragon that enveloped him before launching straight towards John. The ice dragon followed closely behind Nicholas as he soared through the air.

With a resounding boom, Nicholas's spear pierced through the shield of chaos energy surrounding John and collided with his spear, causing Nicholas's momentum to falter. However, his spear couldn't last long enough to give John time to retreat from the aftershock, which sent the boy flying out of the pit and froze half of the hemisphere formed by his earlier attack.

"Yes, yes! This is what I was looking for!" John cackled as he got up from the attack, a manic glint in his eyes. Dante looked at John with a pained expression as he tightened his grip on his sword, preparing for the next move. But before he could make a move, Nicholas reached his position and spoke.

"Oye, you aren't seriously planning on fighting properly in that banged-up shape of yours, are you?" Nicholas scowled at Dante, eyeing the burnt skin falling off his body.

"I took a potion, I'll be fine," Dante tried to excuse himself.

"Really? Your burnt skin says otherwise. Stay back, I'll take care of him for the time being. I'm in far better shape than you are," Nicholas said, his frown deepening.

Dante's eyes widened as he turned to face the ground where John was now lying. Just as he was about to say something, Oberon teleported right behind him and uttered, {Weight of the Hecatoncheires.} Suddenly, the air thickened around John, and he appeared to be carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

John struggled to stay on his feet, bones breaking apart, but healing rapidly. "If you think this will hold me back, then you are terribly wrong," he snarled at Oberon, his expression vicious.

"Who told you that was all?" Oberon retorted, casting two more spells to ensure John wouldn't be getting up anytime soon. {100 Seals of the Giant Lord,} he said, and several arms appeared from the air, pushing John down to the ground. {Chains of Polyphemus,} he muttered, and another circle materialized beneath John, followed by several chains that pulled him into the ground.

John groaned in agony as the pain increased, but Oberon wasn't done yet. "Stay there for a while," he said, leaving John immobilized.

As the color flickered in John's hair, skin, and eyes, he suddenly started to scream, "STAY IN, YOU FUCK!" Everyone around him stared in confusion, not knowing who he was talking to.

"What's happening?" Dante asked Oberon, as Nicholas supported him to stand up.

"I don't know, don't care either, but I need to have a little talk with John here," Oberon replied, moving towards John. "The two of you should stay right there and recover. I should talk to him alone for now."

Dante nodded, wincing as Nicholas laid him on the ground. Blood and pus dripped from his injuries, but he tried to ignore the pain.

Paying little attention to Dante's agony, Oberon walked over to John, who had finally stopped screaming. Without warning, Oberon cast another spell, enveloping the two of them in silence.

"Now, mind telling me where the real John is?" Oberon asked coldly, bending down to meet John's gaze.