...

As soon as Yato reached the ground, Nishky pointed his sword at him.

[Relax! I want to talk first.]

[First, huh…] Nishky murmured. 

[About what?] Nishky raised his voice.

[Why don't you join us again?]

...

[...] Nishky didn't say anything.

[We can tell the church it was an operation we had to make it look real and you know…]

Nishky couldn't help but laugh inside. He knew what Yato said was pure without any tricks behind it but…

[… Humans are all dumb! They'd buy it without any questions because it's from us, Gods' words… or something like that... We can fix it Nishky.]

Without letting his guard down, Nishky looked dead straight at Yato.

[Let me ask you something then.]

[Huh, wha`!?]

[Is Ian thinking the same?]

[Well…]

…[He betrayed. He wasn't fully on our side in the first place. We'll eliminate him with others. No holding back, Yato.]…

Yato remembered what Ian told him as they were marching towards the castle. His face told Nishky everything.

[Augh….!] Yato started rubbing his head. [I can't stand you two!] He exclaimed. [And the way you both do your things! Both of you are driving me crazy!]

Nishky gave a little smile.

[Aren't we friends, Nishky!? Why are you doing this!?]

[...]

[Answer me, Nishky!]

{It's not like you can understand it even if I tell you} Nishky thought.

[Why did you come here?]

[Huh...? Of course, I'm here to beat the shit out of you and take you back.]

{Yato is just plain stupid. He never was a bad guy... He's just following the wrong man in his stupidity. I'm not saying he is a great man either. It's just that he has done less things than all of us.}

[There's no going back for me. I'd rather die here than go back to the church.]

{To be honest, dying is easier than getting tortured to death by Ian, no?}

[Is that… so…?]

Nishky nodded.

[Now, come on. This is a battleground, not a place for chat.]

[What do I care…] Yato murmured. [Ah…]

[What are you saying over there!?]

[Let's just finish this then…]

Yato drew his sword.

[It's all because of that BITCH!] Shouting that, Yato dashed forward and swung his sword.

Stopping that attack was way out of Nishky's league. The only way he could not die was to deflect the attack.

He changed his way of gripping the sword and took the swing. Controlling his upper body and using his legs, he directed Yato's blade to the side.

Quickly, Nishky cast a wind magic and blew Yato back. He cast it really fast without decent imagination or time for mana input so, it didn't have enough power to penetrate Yato's armor or even gaze his protectionless head.

Yato slid about five meters away and then stopped.

[Hahaha…] Yato laughed.

[Nice move for a Passivist God!]

{Well, this Passivist God has been through hell these past months.}

After changing his stance, this time Nishky charged. There was a little more than five meters distance between them. He held his sword down pointing outside.

[Come!!] Yato shouted and raised his sword.

Suddenly, Nishky disappeared while running. He reappeared right in front of Yato slightly to his right.

Yato's eyes opened wide in shock. He bent his body to the left and changed his stance to block the blade that was going to cut him horizontally. By swinging his sword, he managed to deflect Nishky's sword only to get a shallow cut below his abdomen. Turning to thrust his sword he saw Nishky disappearing and reappearing where he was standing before he attacked.

[What the fuck!?] Yato shouted.

Three soldiers jumped from behind Yato. They all attacked him at the same time but before landing a hit, they got blown back by a strong compressed wind. The wind cut through their ashen armor and injured them.

[Sir!] A knight exclaimed as he reached Nishky.

[Stay out of this!] Nishky shouted.

[But sir!]

[I said, stay out of this!]

The knight hesitated but, in the end, he stood down.

{Teleporting is harder than I thought.} While gasping for air, Nishky thought. {And it takes a great troll on me.}

{Whatever the fuck was that trick. I'll beat him.} 

Training under the "Demon Queen" is something that few demons get the opportunity to do and among those few, even fewer finish it intact.

{Who could have thought I'd learn the teleportation in a week?} Nishky exclaimed inwardly {It's risky though.}

He looked at the place where he cut Yato but, there wasn't any sign of the cut. The armor was dirty but had no cuts or damage.

Looking back at his sword, he saw blooddrops and they definitely weren't his.

Seeing the reaction on his face, Yato laughed.

[It's our new card on the table!] He shouted as he dashed.

Yato zeroed the distance between them in an instant. Swung his sword but cut through nothing but air. After he stopped, three fireballs hit his back and exploded.

[New card my ass!] Nishky exclaimed.

[Hot hot!] Yato shouted while putting out the fire on his head.

[That's really irritating, you know!] Yato exclaimed and looked back.

Burn marks on his armor started to vanish.

[Hmm…]

[I'm talking to you!]

{How did they progress this fast in these few months!?}

[Hey… Auuughhhhhhhh…]

A thick bolt of thunder descended from the clouds and hit Yato.

Power left from his legs and his knees bent, making him knee on the ground. His whole body had burned, and the armor's light blue color had turned black.

[Did it kill him?] Nishky murmured.

[…You… ba…erd…he…he…]

Yato was muttering something, but Nishky couldn't hear.

His skin was healing, and the armor was retaking its original color.

{That armor is bad news. It has healing and repair enchantments.}

Nishky opened and closed his fists.

{Attacking or defending doesn't make a change for me. My hands are almost numb. Even by deflecting his attacks or getting my attacks blocked by him, I feel my arms screaming under the pressure.}

[You… want… all out… have it…]

{I can't take his attacks head-on.}

Suddenly, Yato dashed and Nishky fired three fireballs in successions, but they all were cut in half by Yato.

Only magical or magical enchanted metals can destroy magic and Yato's sword was one of them.

{If I could control mana better, I had them explode when cut!}

Nishky jumped back. While doing so, he used earth magic and brought out dirt walls to slow down Yato.

His walls were working but not much, as Yato was slashing through them one by one very quickly.

Yato cut another wall destroying it in half but behind the wall were two fireballs ready. As soon as he slashed through the wall, they exploded making a black smoke screen.

{I have to make some distance.}

Nishky continued jumping back to make some distance but, Yato dashed out from the smoke screen and reached him in an instant.

[Wha`…!?]

Yato swung his sword. Nishky wasn't on the ground so couldn't deflect Yato's attack like the last time.

{There's no other way!}

Half a second until Yato would cut Nishky, he suddenly disappeared.

[Tch…] Yato frowned and landed on the ground as quickly as he could.

[That's a very irritating move you know!] After stopping, he shouted.

Two soldiers charged at him from both sides.

[This one too!]

Without moving a muscle, two huge sharp rocks erected from the ground like a lance and pierced through both soldiers' armor impaling them and killing them on the spot.

Suddenly, Yato felt a presence behind him with a strong bloodshed so, he swung his sword.

There wasn't anything.

The dumbfounded Yato looked around.

[Where the fuck are you, Nishky!?]

[Here.]

Yato moved his gaze to the front, where the sound came but nothing was there.

From the clouds, another thunder came. But this time, the bolt's color was black with white sparks circling it.

Its target, Yato, saw the light from the corner of his eyes so, he jumped forward to avoid it but in the middle of the air, the thunder changed direction to where Yato jumped to.

[Shi...!]

The thunder hit him exactly in the head and exploded.

The shock of the impact could be felt around a large radius some soldiers stopped fighting and looked at the scene. 

{That stupid, brainless, twat! Hasn't he even learned anything from all those briefings Ian used to drill in our heads back then!?} While descending from a group of clouds, Nishky thought.

After he got on the ground, Nishky walked towards Yato. Dust was still floating around the place of impact so he couldn't see him.

{But really, both black magic and teleportation magic use a ton of mana. It's really tiresome.}

Nishky couldn't take that attack head-on. Among the Gods, he was the weakest one and Yato ranked fourth. So, he teleported himself above Yato where he could hover and take cover behind some clouds.

From there, he used "Illusion" for the strong bloodshed to distract him while he cast "Black Lightning". And used Wind Magic to buy a bit more time and further distract Yato.

Black Lightning is a superior version of Lightning magic which is under the "Light Magic" category. Black Lightning on the other hand is under the "Black Magic" category which is the most powerful category of magic and Illusion Magic is under the "Dark Magic" category.

{Well, Annabella said they are strong magics with high mana consumption, but I didn't have an idea that it was this high.}

Nishky stopped five steps before the dust.

[Just be dead already.] He murmured and walked forward.

[Dieee!]

From the dust, Yato emerged leaping towards Nishky with his sword raised. Nishky blocked the attack with his sword leading to a loud bang and sparks flying from the impact.

Yato had launched himself higher and slashed downwards. For Nishky to block it, he gripped the blade of his sword with his left hand and held the handle firmly with his right.

{My back just cracked!}

Lightning sparked on Nishky's blade. It traveled towards Yato's sword. Seeing the sparks, Yato jumped back. Quickly Nishky did the same.

They both stared at each other with strong killing intent. Yato didn't have his calm face and Nishky was biting his lips.

Meanwhile, Explosions around lighted the dark sky and flying arrows whistled overhead. The clang of swords and soldiers fighting around echoed around mixed with cries of the fallen.