Darkness and Hellfire

Isaac teleported directly in front of Shamesh. His sword was a black streak across space as its tip broke the sound barrier. The near weightless blade cared little for anything in its path until it impacted a Reality Shield the size of Shamesh. Shamesh had seen the attack coming, Isaac had practically told him how and when it would come, but that did not mean that Shamesh was prepared for the incredible force that Isaac brought to bear. Both the Reality Shield and Truth's blade exploded into countless fragments of reality magic and twin blasts of rainbows and pure darkness. Isaac was sent airborne by the return force of his attack but was already teleporting behind Shamesh before the skeletal archmage had even realized why he couldn't see.

Isaac appeared behind Shamesh and palm-striked his lower back with so much force that the entire area within nearly two feet of the impact point was turned into shrapnel. Shamesh was launched through the air without his pants or what was left of his legs but that didn't stop his mind from working to find a way to survive Isaac's unreasonable level of physical power backed by nearly limitless mana. Shamesh latched onto the word 'Nearly'.

Poison exploded out from Shamesh in all directions as he formed a poison cloud directly in front of his trajectory. His path through it caused it to burst like a Fireball. He immediately followed it up with a Reality Bubble around himself. Shamesh hadn't thought about his Reality Bubble sealing off his own connection to Isaac in that moment but it turned out that neither of them had needed to be that concerned about it. The mana connection between them was severed instantly, but the soul connection was not. The link between object and shadow was on a conceptual level that not even the all encompassing Reality Bubble could seal off. It did mean that Shamesh instantly had a portion of mana be dedicated to maintaining his physical form. It wasn't a lot for Isaac to maintain but it put Shamesh on a timer. All of this happened in less than a second which was more than enough time for Isaac to track Shamesh, via the same way that Shamesh had been tracking him, and teleport into another attack.

Shamesh had been using their connection to follow Isaac since the fight began and it was time for Isaac to do the same. His Polarity Sense helped point the direction for him but his connection to Shamesh was basically grid coordinates. Isaac appeared and broke Truth across Shamesh's Reality Bubble with enough force that the Reality Bubble shattered across nearly a third of its surface. Shamesh was ready for that outcome however, and a new Reality Bubble formed around Isaac before he could even react. Shamesh had pushed his mana pathways to their limit, again, but now no longer had a way to heal them. With his power from Isaac cut off, he was no longer healing because his stored mana was not death aligned, it was just normal mana. Shamesh's internal mana was being unbalanced as the dark mana in it was being used to keep his upper body together but, even if he had the ability to do so, using all of his dark mana to heal his mana pathways would just end up causing him to fall apart a moment later.

Isaac impacted the new Reality Bubble with a hollow thunk and his fist collided with an object much harder than it. He felt all the bones in his hand shatter and his strength dip abruptly from so much of his death flames being spent to put it back to how it was supposed to be. He was breathing in poison gas as well, which stung, but also lowered his strength by a few percent. The worst was how quickly his reserves started to plummet as soon as he lost his connection to the rest of the dark mana of the world. Isaac immediately stopped boosting himself and dropped to the bottom of the Reality Bubble that was suspended half a dozen feet into the air. He slid along its frictionless surface until he came to rest at the lowest point.

"Dick move, Shamesh, but I get it." Isaac told his retainer and planted both of his hands against the Reality Bubble. "I would have just let you run out of power by yourself," He continued and started dumping power directly into the reality magic construct at an even faster rate than he had done in the past. It almost instantly turned black. "but I don't want anyone to think that this is an effective way to kill me." He punctuated his point by forcing his fingers through the now malleable Reality Shield. He continued to dump power into the Reality Bubble as he forced his hands apart and pulled himself downwards and through it. The bubble opened like an eyelid and he fell free onto the ground. Isaac landed and dusted himself off as he let his reserves refilled at almost their normal rate, with only enough mana expenditure to counteract the poison mist blanketing half of the arena.

"It was the only thing that I could think of, my Lord." Shamesh conceded. "Telekinesis wouldn't have worked because of how boosted you were. You would have just forced your way through it. None of my attack spells would have saved me either." He finished while floating in the air, what was left of him anyway.

Isaac nodded. "You did well." He replied. Why didn't you try to cast another one as soon as I melted through it?"

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"My internal mana was becoming too unbalanced to be able to form one sufficiently stable to contain you at all, and even if it wasn't, I am nearly out of mana. I can barely maintain my Flight and the first Reality Bubble. A second would need to be large enough to encompass both you and the old one otherwise you could have shadow-stepped away." Shamesh explained. The poison was already fading away which just went to show that Shamesh hadn't been feeding the spell at all since its original casting.

Isaac appeared in front of Shamesh without his sword and without any boosting. "Well thought out and played. It wouldn't do for a familiar or a retainer to be stronger than their master so this was always going to be the outcome. Do you think that you would have fared better without any restrictions?" Isaac wondered and rested his hand on Shamesh's shoulder.

Shamesh was instantly covered in death flames as Isaac began rebuilding his body. "Yes and no. " Shamesh replied. "Using my only mental magic attack against you would have helped to keep your attacks more predictable but it would have cost far too much mana to maintain. From what I remember, Disintegrate was a waste of mana against you, especially when you were in a frenzied state, so that probably wouldn't have helped me. Stars of Doom was practically useless anyway so that restriction was fine as well. Power Word Die was also a waste of mana because it would hardly slow you down, if at all. The flight restriction was the only one that actually mattered in the end, I think, but even then, Jallen V'Nova would not scoff at your aerial combat abilities, and neither would Chatohsha." Shamesh finished as his new feet touched the ground.

"I am proud of your combat awareness and how far you have come. Your mental processing speed is only matched by mine once I am substantially boosted. It is impressive and has served you well." Isaac complemented his retainer.

"We have a winner!" The announcer's voice cut through everything else only to be drowned out by a cheer from the crowd. Their fight had been less than a minute long but that was more than enough for Shamesh to burn through almost his entire archmage level mana reserves and the entire arena to be covered in shrapnel marks and craters.

Alexander had been doing his best to keep up with everything but when Isaac had boosted himself to the moon, it had been hard for the wizard's words to keep up with the action. His eyes had struggled a bit as well but that went for everyone watching, even Marie and Lenna. The combination of Isaac's teleportation, obscenely boosted stats, explosions, and Shamesh's instant reaction time, had caused far too much to happen through too much obscurity. The one part that Alexander had made sure that everyone understood was how 'impossible' it was to break through a Reality Shield or Reality Bubble with raw mana output alone. He had made it a point to mention that until fighting alongside Isaac, neither he nor any of his professors had ever considered that as a potential outcome.

"Even though trapping Lord Darkness in a Poison Bubble will do little more than annoy him, Shamesh's ability to bait even someone as fast and skilled as the Lord of Darkness into a Poison Bubble should be commended." Alexander went on. "Trapping even a regular opponent in a Poison Bubble is difficult, let alone someone who can teleport in an instant and can move at multiple times the speed of even the best warriors enhanced by a Quicken spell. It is a mark of a legendary combat mage to enact complex magical traps onto an opponent while fighting for their lives. I truly commend him and hope to be able to do that as well in the future. This has been at least as enlightening of an experience as I had hoped, thank you Lord of Darkness and Shamesh." Alexander ended with a bow towards the arena.

"You heard it folks, even though this battle was short, it was more than brutal enough to make up for it, Shamesh even lost his pants!" The announcer joked with the crowd. "The arena is still rented out for the next twenty five minutes, and that is how long your seats are paid for, so I wonder if the Lord of Darkness has anything else in store for us?" He left the thought hanging in the air with a question in hopes that Isaac would take the bait and prolong the show.

"I would have liked to use my sword, at least a little." Shamesh told Isaac barely loud enough for his master to hear over the announcer and crowd, which had begun to shout encore.

"Would you like to train with your new fans?" Isaac wondered.

"Train with them?" Shamesh questioned.

Isaac smirked and then vanished with a flare of power. He appeared behind the announcer and Alexander. The announcer instantly froze in fear at the thought that maybe he had crossed a line by trying to pressure Isaac into entertaining the crowd for longer. Alexander just looked at him with a questioning gaze for a moment before he bowed in greeting.

"Shamesh has been learning swordsmanship and is disappointed that he did not get to use any of it in our match." Isaac explained. "Anyone under platinum rank is more than welcome to spar with him until our time here is up. He will not be using magic and will be sticking to a training sword, as I hope any who wish to spar with him will do. That is all." Isaac finished and then vanished again only to reappear next to Lenna with a smirk. "I think that went rather well."

Lenna just shook her head. "You shouldn't bully your retainer." She chastised him but a gentle smile never left her face. "You both looked like you were having fun."

"We were." Isaac confirmed. "It was nice to stretch."

"Speaking of, how close are you to being fully healed?" Lenna wondered.

"I think I am at ninety nine percent. I just need to stretch like this more often to loosen up. I'm healed but stiff, I think, at least I can't feel any existing injury anymore." He told her.

"Then my healing really has sped up." She said more to herself than to him. "When I woke up this morning I felt a bit better than I was expecting to feel. Not by some incredible amount but it was enough that I noticed it because I was paying attention."

Isaac beamed at her. "That's wonderful." He barely kept himself from exclaiming. "Are you ready to crack some skulls?"

Lenna chuckled. "Soon, but yes." She replied. "Fighting is in my blood."