Darkness and Hellfire

"Fight!" The announcer called at a volume that made Alexander wince because of his close proximity to the man. The sound amplification magic made his voice intense but not earsplitting to all of those watching and listening. Even so, the people who were not able to afford seating were easily able to hear the start of the match. Plenty of people were waiting just outside and were relying on the commentary to understand what was going on. Everyone in the crowd, including those in the ducal box, leaned forwards in expectation and were not let down.

Isaac appeared in front of Shamesh with his Truth already fully formed and striking forwards. Shamesh hadn't had time to properly react but a Reality Shield was still hastily imposed between them. Isaac had opted not to boost himself very much at the beginning, only around a fifty percent boost to his natural prowess, so he could push the safe limit of his sword. Truth punched into Shamesh's Reality Shield and kept going as the archmage yanked himself backwards via his Flight spell. Truth went the entire way through the shield until its cross guard slammed against the solid prismatic projection of reality magic. The sword, made of reality magic and powered by dark mana, had barely slowed from everyone else's perspective. Some of those watching, Alexander included, noticed that the Reality Shield had in fact slowed Isaac's attack down to less than his normal uninterrupted thrust speed. Alexander hit the nail on the head when he told the spectators that the shield had only slowed Isaac's attack down by half. A thrust, even at seventy five percent speed, was still far too fast for normal people to dodge without substantial training and good reflexes. Shamesh had a Flight spell and good reflexes which ended up at about the same point.

Isaac cut the power to Truth and appeared next to Shamesh in the middle of an uppercut into his right hip. Shamesh brought his own hand down in a hammerfist strike while he tried to pull himself out of the attack again. Shamesh and Isaac's fists collided and the archmage was sent up into the air. He knew that he had to float back down, or else he would be disqualified already, but that was a really scary place to be, especially considering what Isaac did next.

Isaac launched into a barrage of thrusts and slashes, angled upwards in an attempt to remove Shamesh's lower half, with Truth once again boosted to a point where Reality Shields were not enough. Shamesh started using Reality Shields as if they were ablative armor. Each one was simply a one time use effect that would hopefully stop Isaac's attack. Isaac's thrusts took two shields, at different angles, in order to stop. The switched angles from right to left or up to down made it far more difficult for the sword to punch through them, especially considering Isaac's high but still very human level of strength. Isaac was strong for his size but a fifty percent increase still put him only at the level of a body builder, a bit stronger than Lenna without her aura or mana but on par with Edward. Isaac's slashes fared far worse yet they were really what made the crowd sit on the edge of their seats.

Isaac's slashes tore through the Reality Shields as if they were wooden boards and he was using a standard sword from a local human blacksmith. His sword found itself stopped between a quarter and halfway through the two foot hexagonal Reality Shields. Each time Isaac's sword got stuck, he would cut power to it and then reform it. Each time he did so he could feel the sword threatening to break in his hand. The magics of the inner workings of the sword were not made to be pulsed every second. Even so, Isaac was careful not to push the sword too hard while he was boosting its sharpness so the weapon was holding up quite well.

"What I seek is thunder." Shamesh's voice carried across the battlefield right before a lightning bolt shot directly at Isaac. They both knew that Isaac's armor would be able to redirect it into the ground but that didn't stop Isaac from dodging it. It would look bad if Shamesh landed the first hit. The momentary reprieve let Shamesh try to regain his bearings. Isaac had pushed him halfway across the arena during his ten second barrage of melee attacks.

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Isaac squared off against Shamesh from ten feet away with his sword held up in a ready stance. "You've done well so far." Isaac praised his familiar. "Let's see if you can handle this as well as Fable did." He added and vanished.

Shamesh reached into his bottomless bag as Isaac started to move. Isaac launched into a thrust in an attempt to probe Shamesh's danger sense as well as land the first strike. Shamesh put up a large Reality Shield that was nearly as tall as he was interposed between them both. Isaac's sword punched through it but all anyone else saw was a blade shaped hole get punched through the Reality Shield and cracks spiderweb out from the damaged area.

Shamesh pulled out a pair of throwing spikes and threw them into the ground on either side of himself. "I prepared this just for you." Shamesh told his master. In that amount of time, he had been forced to put up three more shields.

Isaac appeared with a raised eyebrow. "Oh? And what might that be?" He wondered. Isaac was genuinely curious as to what trick his familiar was going to try to pull to get the first hit in.

Shamesh's voice nearly perfectly overlaid with itself as he cast two spells at once. It was a feat that only his substantial level and level of the spells in question would allow. Even so, he felt himself take damage in a way that he had never felt before. Some of the power that Isaac was constantly feeding him immediately went towards healing the damage to Shamesh's mana pathways but he would have to be careful for at least the next ten seconds. It wasn't a lot of damage but damage to the mana pathways could quickly spiral out of control. "Thunder I order thee, lightning my foes does seek." He chanted and two bolts of lightning shot out from him and latched onto the throwing spikes in the ground. The spell steadily bled out its power but he would have a short bit of time where if Isaac appeared then he would be almost instantly beset by a pair of lightning bolts.

Isaac from before would have immediately pressed the attack, and would have just assumed that he could have found a way out of the obvious trap, but this time be sat back and waited. He knew what Shamesh could do and they both knew that the concussive force of the thunder shockwave spell, which Shamesh had used against the tunnel horrors, would blast his shadow-cloak apart and leave him open to the Chain Lightning.

"Come forth, ember of a dying star." Shamesh chanted and pointed directly at Isaac. Isaac was forced to shadow-step away from the point of impact and Shamesh followed that Fireball up with another and then another after that as Isaac was forced to flicker around the arena. Shamesh's Chain Lightning finally died out and he stopped throwing fireballs at Isaac.

Alexander's commentary was slightly off at that point in time. For the most part, the court mage had been able to see things how they were. He pointed out how the Chain Lightning would be able to lock onto and hit Isaac as soon as he became visible again. He did, however, have a misconception about Shamesh's Fireballs. Alexander, and everyone other than Isaac and Lenna, had assumed that Shamesh was firing them off blindly in an attempt to flush Isaac out. The duo knew almost instantly that Shamesh was following their connection and just aiming his Fireballs at the endpoint.

Isaac appeared after he was sure that the Chain Lightning was gone and just shook his head at his retainer. "Following our link is sort of cheating, don't you think?" Isaac questioned him.

"I am the familiar of the Lord of all that is Dark, am I not?" Shamesh cheekily retorted.

Isaac laughed and turned his original plan of attack on its head. This time, he made sure his sword had enough power to maintain its shape no matter how hard he tried to hit something with it and then threw the rest of his regeneration into boosting his own stats. He quickly reached the level of boost that he had been capable of when they had left on their honeymoon. Once there, the rest of his power was taken up by his sword so it was a level of boosting that he was already familiar with. This euphoric power rush was enough to cloud just about anyone's mind, but Isaac was used to it and it also increased his mental faculties to be able to keep up with his physical increases. "Then show me what you've got." Isaac told his retainer with a wide grin and readied himself to push Shamesh to his limits and beyond.