Estyshana’s POV
   Before Esty could even react to all those Spells around them, she hears the Hero letting out a bored snort.

   “Is this the best you can do?” he asks with an even more bored tone.

   His sword Felfarthen appears on his left hand out of nowhere.

   “Get down.”

   Esty does as she was told. The Hero swings his sword in a wide arc, and all the Spells disappeared in an instant.

   Igmis whistled loudly while looking really impressed.

   “Look at you, making all those high-level Spells go poof like they were nothing. You’re the Chosen One of the Humans alright!”

   “Save the insincere compliment. You already pulled this crap the first time we fought. Why do you even bother to do it again?”

   Igmis shrugs. “It was worth a try.”

   The Hero was about to say something when all of a sudden, he looks to his right.

   “Ah, so that’s why.”

   Esty has no idea what the Devil was he on about. Her confusion was increased further when he swatted at an empty spot a few inches away from him with his sword. Esty swore that something was about to come out from that spot. Something small and shiny.

   “A Detonate was about to be activated there.” the Hero explains to her casually.

   Esty could only grits her teeth in frustration. This is one of Igmis’s favorite tactic. He would first cast a Spell, then activates Chronokinesis to delay its activation time, thus making it a time bomb. He called this trick of his Paused Present. How could she forget?

   “Don’t let it bother you too much. We all get memory loss when we’re old.” the Hero comforts her all of a sudden.

   Esty feels her veins at her forehead pulsing due to her anger.

   “Stop calling me old!” she shrieks.

   “But you are.”

   “You didn’t have to bring it up at every chance that you get!”

   “If you hate it so much, stop having an age-related episode.”

   Igmis laughs at their exchange.

   “Wow, the two of you sure sound like a pair of married couples!” he cackled.

   “Quiet, you!” Esty demands as she fires a Wind Lance towards him.

   Igmis calmly raises his right hand. One of the rings on the middle finger of that hand glows. At the next moment, an invisible barrier appears and absorbs the Wind Lance.

   Esty grits her teeth in frustration. “You and your magic rings…”

   “Hey, cut me some slack, would you? You know this is how I do things.”

   As mentioned before, using Chronokinesis puts a huge burden on Igmis. To compensate and avoid using it as much as possible, he has come up with multiple methods. The first one is Paused Present, and the second being the magic rings which store different types of Spells that can be cast in a moment’s notice. As for the third one-

   “Incoming.” the Hero warns.

   His warning came right on time as a Naga Bolt came flying towards Esty. She manages to think fast and cast Barrier after Barrier after Barrier. In the blink of an eye, three layers of invisible barriers stood in front of Esty.

   CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

   The barriers were broken down by the azure lighting bolt only slightly slower than the time Esty took to materialize them. However, they’ve done their job well enough, which is to stall for time. In the short three seconds they brought, Esty managed to cast Metallic Form, a Level 1 Spell which turns non-metal objects into metal, at a few of the nearest stalagmites. The Naga Bolt immediately switched direction and head towards the now-metallic stalagmites which double as lightning rods. The lightning rods were struck by the lightning and exploded loudly.

   Igmis shakes his head while looking a little disappointed.

   “Esty, Esty, Esty. It was just a single Naga Bolt, you know? What would you do if there was more than one, or I have cast something much stronger? Petty tricks won’t help you when you’re facing overwhelming force.”

   Esty ignored the jibe. She agrees with him, but she doesn’t care. She can’t fight evenly with him, so she has to resort to the so-called petty tricks like this. If it doesn’t work, well, she’ll come up with something.

   She hears the Hero letting out a sigh. She risks glancing towards him and sees that he’s shaking his head.

   “Overly optimistic as usual…” she hears him mumble.

   Concentrate, concentrate, concentrate. There’s no time to snap at a human who’s way too good at reading her thoughts.

   “I’m going to make things tougher for you.” Igmis declares.

   Upon hearing that, Esty gets to work immediately. And right on time too. Four of Igmis’s rings glow, and the same number of Spells appear simultaneously around her. Not that it matters. She has already opened a portal right next to her and dives inside. She made the portal linked to the location right above Igmis, so that’s where she appeared.

   The Marquis looks up in surprise. He then takes a step back as Esty lands at the spot he was standing a second ago. Esty does a back spinning kick while aiming it at his face. He blocks it by raising up his arms and makes an X. Esty lands her foot quickly and follows up with a punch to his liver. The punch lands, but based on his indifferent reaction, he countered it by casting Strengthen on his side, even though her punch was strengthened by the same Spell.

   “That was a good punch.” Igmis compliments even though the attack didn’t do a thing to him.

   “There’s more where that came from. A whole lot more.” Esty says as she readies another punch.

   She was about to begin a barrage of punches when all of a sudden, she was pulled back by an unseen force. The pulling force was so strong she was dragged back at least a hundred meters. She glares at the Hero.

   “What’s the big idea?” she demands loudly.

   “Are you blind? Can’t you see that two of his rings are shining?”

   Esty turns her neck to look at Igmis and squints. Now that he mentioned it, one of the rings on his left middle finger and another one on his right pinkie are indeed glowing. The one on the pinkie are giving out a faint white light just like all the previous ones were, but the one that got Esty’s full attention were the one on his middle finger. This one is glowing with a eerie purple light. If she recalls correctly-

   “That one allows him to use Soul Drain.” the Hero tells her.

   Soul Drain. A sinister Level 8 Spell which, as its name suggests, allows its caster to drain the soul of his/her/its target. The drawbacks of this Spell are that its range is extremely short, and that its success rate depends on the mental strength of the victim.

   Whoops. She was so focused on trying to beat up Igmis that she didn’t even notice the glowing. And the fact that he activated that ring without a second thought told Esty one thing: former comrades or no, he won’t hesitate to kill her in this situation.

   “Why did you have to go and ruin the surprise?” Igmis whines.

   The Hero shrugs. “Isn’t that obvious? I don’t want her soul to be drained.”

   “I already know that, Igmis. Sulgran told me about each and every one of those rings of yours.” Esty tells Igmis.

   Igmis pouts. “Boo. And here I thought I’ve been doing a good job of keeping their functions a secret.”

   “You do realize that particular one glows with a different color than the others, right?”

   Igmis looks down and stares at the ring. He then shows a surprised expression.

   “Blimey, I never noticed that…” he mumbles.

   Esty rolls her eyes. Not at his ignorance, but at the fact that he’s sneakily readying his left fingers to do a snap so that he could activate Chronokinesis. She points her right index finger and fires another Wind Lance at him. Igmis notices it coming and dodges it.

   “Hey, I was in the moment of something!”

   “Yeah, in the moment of activating your Bloodline Magic, you mean.”

   Igmis widens his eyes in surprise and looks at the Hero.

   “Did you hear that? She became observant. Her, of all demons.”

   The Hero grunts at that. “Bah, it’s just that you were too obvious. Like seriously, were you even trying?”

   “I need to ask. Just how big of an idiot do you guys take me for?” Esty asks them while being on the verge of being really ticked off.

   The two of them look at her, and then avert their eyes. Esty feels that her blood pressure has increased at least tenfold from their reaction.

   “That’s it! I’m going to thrash you both and prove once and for all that I’m not an idiot!” she declares angrily.

   Igmis looks at her again and grins.

   “That’s the spirit!”

   “...Wait, did you say “both”?” the Hero asks her.

   “You bet I did! Once I’m done with all the Four Demon Marquis and my father, I’m coming for you next!”

   “Well, good luck with that…” he wishes with a bored look.

   Esty growls and stomps her right foot on the ground angrily.

   “And there you go again, looking down on me!”

   “I know I’m being rude, but I think our score of 13-0 pretty much speaks for itself.”

   Esty got tongue-tied at once. She then immediately shakes her head. This is no time to be arguing with him. Defeating Igmis comes first.

   “Do you even have any plans in order to do that?” The Hero asks her by using telepathy.

   “...No.” Esty confesses sheepishly.

   “Muscle-brained as usual, huh?”

   This is one of the times when Esty can’t say anything back.

   “Come on Esty, you gotta move more if you want to defeat me!” Igmis encourages.

   Two of his rings glow at the same time. All of a sudden, Esty feels like something is crushing her from above. Two seconds in, and her feet are sinking to the cold, hard ground. Gravity Crush, a Spell which, as its names suggests, crush the victim of the caster by taking advantage of gravity.

   “Don’t you dare interrupt.” Esty tells the Hero calmly through telepathy.

   “Sure.”

   The effect of Gravity Crush is already starting. Esty can barely move, and she feels her flesh being crushed slowly. The only reason that she’s not being squashed immediately is probably due to the fact that the Spell was being cast from a magical ring which tones down strength in favor of convenience.

   “Come on, Esty. You better hurry up and get away, or you’ll be turned to jelly.” Igmis tells her while grinning.

   “Yeah, yeah. I’m about to get to it.” she grumbles.

   She takes a deep breath and let it out. She then concentrates while staring at Igmis. She tried casting Naga Bolt at him. Nothing came out. As expected, the second ring allows Igmis to cast Silent, a simple Spell that bans its target from casting Spells.

   “In case you failed to figure it out, I cast Silent on you. In other words, you can’t get out of this by casting something.” he informs her while yawning.

   “Yeah, I thought that would be the case…”

   Igmis raises his eyebrow in surprise.

   “Aren’t you being awfully calm?” he asks.

   “You’re just imagining things.”

   Esty concentrates again. This time, though, she’s not gathering up mana. Silent can only prevent Spells from being cast. Not Youjutsu.

   Three seconds later, a gust of strong wind surrounds Igmis. He yelps in surprise and jumps backwards in order to escape the wind. The temporary distraction causes him to lose focus and stops casting both Spells, thus releasing Esty from being restrained and prevented from casting Spells.

   The moment she got free, she charges forward with the intention of having a fistfight with Igmis once more.

   “Wait! Hold on! Time out!” Igmis pleads while putting both his hands in front of him.

   Naturally, all his pleas were turned to deaf ears. The moment she’s right in front of him, she raises up her right fist and aims towards his left jaw. He blocks it casually with his left arm. A left middle kick. Blocked by a raised right leg. A swift one-two. Swatted away just as swiftly by a right palm.

   “Is that the best you can do? Surely not! Come on, at least land a hit on me! One’s a good start! Go on!” Igmis encourages as he continues to block her rush of attacks like they’re nothing.

   Esty grits her teeth. “You can help by standing still.”

   “You know and I know that’s not happening.”

   “Watch out for his Soul Drain.” the Hero advises from the back.

   “I know that! I’m not stupid enough to fall for the same trick twice!” Esty yells angrily without looking back. “And no, I’m not implying that I’m stupid to a certain extent!”

   She hears him clicking his tongue.

   “Having a couple’s fight in the middle of a fight? My, my. You must be pretty confident.” Igmis laughs as he dodges an uppercut by moving his tilting his head backwards.

   Esty decides to ignore his teasing and concentrates on trying to land a hit on him instead. Try as she might though, she has difficulty in doing so.

   “Man, this sure brings back memories.” Igmis says all of a sudden. “We used to spar like this all the time, remember?”

   “...How could you even call it a sparring when you were the only one who managed to land hits?”

   Igmis laughs at the question.

   “True. You were more like my personal sandbag.”

   Contrary to his skinny body, Igmis is extremely strong, and that’s before he reinforced his tiny muscles with Strengthen. She has seen him defeat creatures much larger than him like dragons by using his limbs alone.

   “I trained. Also, I’ve learned to use my brain.” he answered when she pestered him to tell her about the secret to his raw strength.

   “Trained? Using your brain? Just like how humans do?”

   Esty couldn’t believe her ears. Demons always fought with the strength and Bloodline Magic granted to them from birth. This is not only to preserve their pride as a superior race, but also as a token of respect and gratitude towards Al’gauz the Demonic God, who was believed to grant them the said powers in the first place.

   He shrugged at that. “You know how my Bloodline Magic works. I can’t afford to use it too much, so I have to use everything at my disposal.”

   “Is that why you got those?” Esty asks while eyeing the many rings on his fingers.

   He shows them off proudly. “Yup. They’re useful AND trendy! Can you ask for anything more?”

   “Trendiness aside, I guess they’re useful when used at the right time.” Esty acknowledges grudgingly. “Them and tactics. I mean, the Hero especially favors using the latter rather than brute strength.”

   At least, that’s what he told her after she got beaten by him again just two days ago.

   Igmis looks at her with an amused look.

   “What? Why are you looking at me like that?” she demands.

   “You know, you’re mentioning him a lot these days. It’s only been, what, three weeks since you got thrashed by him?”

   “Normally, one would mention the first time we met, not how I got beaten up…” she grumbles.

   “Well, it’s funnier that way.” he grins.

   She rolls her eyes.

   “And? What are you trying to say?”

   “This is the 12th time you talked about him these past three days alone. I bet the number would be higher if I included the first day.”

   Esty feels her cheeks burning up, and the worst part is she doesn’t even know the reason. Well, she does now, but it’s not important.

   “I’m just, uh, thinking of how to beat him the next time we meet, that’s all!”

   “You’re not looking at me, Esty.”

   “Oh, shut it!”

   “He sure is on your mind a lot.”

   “No he’s not! Who would be thinking about that loner who’s surprisingly a good teacher? That gloomy rain cloud who’s surprisingly funny? The human-”

   “You’re mentioning him again. While dissing and complimenting him at the same time.”

   “I was not! I-”

   Esty shakes her head irritably to clear her thoughts. Right, time to get back to fighting Igmis. By using brains-

   “That you barely use.” the Hero mumbles in her head.

   “SHUT IT!” she yells out loud.

   Esty raises both her palms and releases another gust of wind, this one even stronger than the previous one.

   “Whoa!”

   In fact, it’s so strong Igmis was literally blown away. Wasting no time, Esty fires barrages of fireballs at him, some using Spells and some products of Youjutsu. Igmis saw them coming and points his left ring finger at those fireballs. One of the three rings on the finger glows. In the blink of an eye, the fireballs made from mana disappear without making a single sound. Whatever Spell that he cast, it sure didn’t affect those youjutsu fireballs, and they fly towards him without interruption.

   Igmis yelps and raises his right finger this time. However, he was too slow. Those fireballs exploded on his body and jacket, and the latter starts to burn.

   “No no no no no NO!”

   Frantically, he tries to swat away the flames with both his hands. While he’s being distracted, Esty wastes no time in charging forward and attacks him with more barrages of closed range attacks. Much to her irritation, though, he’s dodging all of them without even looking.

   “What have you done? This was my favorite one, you know…” he moans while on the verge of tears and still looking at his ruined jacket.

   “Don’t know, don’t care. ” Esty says while aiming a left hook at his rib cage.

   “And what’s with those fireballs just now? How come I can’t get rid of them even though I cast Spell Negate! And don’t even get me started with that gust of wind!”

   Ah, so that was what he cast. A Level 8 Spell that could literally negate any Spells provided that the person who cast the Spell is weaker than the one who cast Spell Negate.

   “I learned a ting or two after I came to this world.” Esty says mysteriously.

   “Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be. Fine. You can keep your secret. And I’m going all out.”

   He sticks out his tongue and shows the three rings that are piercing its left side. Uh-oh. Here they come.