The Scrap Tamer

Boom!

Another shockwave spread across the field as Reid and Malrath clashed again.

At this point, Malrath had truly stopped holding back and Reid could feel it. Two of his three alternate versions had been destroyed while the third wasn't far off from sharing the same fate.

The original Reid on the other hand could only keep up due to his use of Axie's healing abilities.

The forged beasts were done taking care of the monsters from the portals but Reid stopped them, he didn't want them to interfere just yet.

Reid gritted his teeth as the latest exchange sent him skidding backwards, cracks webbing out beneath his feet as he came to a halt.

His last chrono-echo still locked in battle with Malrath.

"Damnit," Reid cursed as he spat out blood.

This might be a simulation but every hit he suffered from Malrath was followed by immense pain.

"Is there really no way I can be at him by myself?" He muttered.

Malrath was barely using more than basic attacks, yet, Reid was on the verge of losing.

The longer the fight dragged on, the more insurmountable Malrath seemed—but the more formidable he became, the stronger Reid's resolve grew to bring him down.

The final echo was finally reduced to smaller shards with one clean slash from Malrath's blade.

Malrath then turned its full attention on Reid.

"You've improved," it praised. "But improvement doesn't matter if the gap is infinite."

Reid wiped the blood from his chin and readjusted his grip on the sword, straightening his stance as he locked eyes with Malrath.

"I guess you're right," he said, in a calm tone.

"Oh?" Malrath responded, a flicker of surprise—and mild disappointment— evident in its tone.

But Reid wasn't finished. A faint grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"So let's close that gap, shall we?"

'Evo?' he called out mentally.

[Right away] Evo responded and Nyx immediately disappeared.

A dark shimmering glow covered Reid and when it died down, a different being was standing in his place.

He was covered in a black armor and in his hand was a massive sword. But what pulled Malrath's attention were the being's eyes.

Unlike Reid's previous blue ones, these ones seemed like swirling vortexes.

Malrath could feel the surging waves of power radiating from the being before him.

Reid, meanwhile, was nearly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of power coursing through his body, it was so much power that controlling it felt like trying to hold back a tidal wave.

His Void Core didn't make this any easier, as it was amplifying his Void Monarch form far beyond its usual parameters.

"Interesting," Malrath mused, eyeing Reid's transformed state with a mix of curiosity and interest. "Are you sure you're human?"

Reid said nothing in reply, as he was busy trying to get that much power under control.

Malrath stopped floating and landed on the ground, taking a step towards Reid. The ground beneath it cracked, and withered away, an ability Reid hadn't seen from it.

"So… you've chosen defiance over surrender. Good."

It raised its blade lazily over one shoulder.

"Let's see if that new form of yours can buy you more than a few seconds."

Reid just let out a slow exhale as he finally got the power under control, for now.

Facing the approaching Malrath, Reid suddenly disappeared.

CLANG!

The world blurred as Reid reappeared mid-strike, his sword crashing against Malrath's with such force the shockwave turned nearby primals into dust or rather, pixels.

But this time, it was Malrath who was pushed back. Its form was flung backwards and it was forced to plant its blade into the ground to halt its momentum.

The impact caused a crater to form where Malrath landed. For the first time in the entire battle its expression shifted from amusement to slight caution but it still remained intrigued.

"Now that… was unexpected."

But Reid wasn't about to allow it to recover, teleporting again, he appeared next to Malrath his blade already swinging down in a brutal overhead arc.

CLAAAANG!

Malrath barely managed to bring its blade up in time to block, the force of the impact creating a deafening ring that echoed for miles.

The ground beneath them split apart like paper but Reid still didn't let up.

He vanished again with [Void Step] and reappeared behind Malrath, thrusting his sword forward with enough force to punch through a mountain.

Malrath twisted unnaturally, its body bending at an inhuman angle as it parried with the sword in one hand and countered with the other, launching a blast of condensed energy from its palm.

Reid was hit point-blank, the explosion engulfing the field in a dome of black and violet light.

"That's a death orb," Malrath stated as it stood straight while looking at the explosion, "a blast which erases every matter, there's no way you'd come out unscathed."

Reid's observing forged beasts almost panicked seeing him get engulfed in the blast, only to remember that this was just a simulation and Evo would never let him get hurt.

"You really are more than an ant, mortal," Malrath said as smoke the smoke from the explosion persisted, "maybe you'd have stood a chance if you were one of us."

"Are you done?"

The moment Malrath thought of lowering its guard, a voice sounded behind it, making its skin...scale(?) crawl.

Its instincts screamed for it to move out of the way and it immediately obliged, dodging forward and turning back to its attacker.

Standing where Malrath previously stood was Reid, he looked completely unscathed as if he had never been hit point blank by a ball of death.

What Reid held in his hand made Malrath freeze in terror. It wasn't the sword that unsettled him—but what was clutched in Reid's other hand.

An arm, black and scaled like a dragon's, still faintly twitching.

Malrath slowly looked down at his left side only to see nothing. His entire arm was gone.