Galerius leaps to the ground, landing with a soft breeze.
Now calm, he takes a moment to absorb his surroundings. His eyes widen in horror. "What... what happened to the city!"
He keeps looking around—the city already in ruins, weirdly desolate. Not a single soul roams the area.
"Galela."
A small ball of green energy with tiny wings sprouting from it flies out of him.
"Go search for survivors."
The fey speeds away instantly.
Just then, a stench of blood and iron hits his nose, causing memories of the necromancer's evil undead dinner party to run through his mind. His stomach gurgles as sick spews from his mouth.
The necromancer smirks at this and stands up, brushing himself off with one hand while the other reaches behind his back to his staff.
"You know, I would appreciate it if you could be a tiny bit more gentle. These are new clothes, you know."
After Galerius recovers from being sick, wiping his mouth, his face turns grim and determined. He stares down the necromancer.
The necromancer looks back at him. "Uh... you got a problem?"
Galerius takes one step—he disappears instantly and appears in front of the necromancer, swinging his fist, gale wind coating it.
The necromancer sees the incoming attack and swings his staff to stop it.
They clash together. The force of Galerius's punch breaks the ground under the necromancer, but he stays firm in his grip.
Galerius doesn't waste any time. Swinging his left forward and pulling his right hand back, he tries to blast the necromancer point-blank with a burst of gale. But the necromancer catches on, swinging his staff in front of him and sending his own burst of energy in the form of a telekinetic blast.
The bursts expel each other, but the force of Galerius's attack forces the necromancer back. His feet skid across the ground.
The necromancer stands still, on guard, still smirking.
Galerius flexes his right hand. *That staff—it's a problem. I imbued my fist and it still hurt my hand. If I were to swing at it normally, it would probably break my hand completely. Not to mention he can actually react to my attacks. Either way, it doesn't matter because it seems that staff enhances his mana output to the point of contending with me... Got to get rid of it.*
Galerius takes another step.
Leaving gale wind behind, the necromancer looks around but can't find him.
Galerius appears in front of him again, already lunging for an attack with his left hand. The necromancer holds his staff in a high block, but Galerius drops low mid-dash and unexpectedly gut-checks the necromancer. In that moment, the necromancer feels the jolt of intense pain, his eyes popping with red veins as Galerius's fist sinks deep into his gut.
The pain causes him to let go of the staff. Galerius seizes the opportunity and with all his might places a gentle palm beside the mid-air staff, then sends a burst of Gale point-blank at it, launching it high into the sky and away from them across the city.
Galerius stands there, resolute. That should be far enough. Just to make sure he can't call it back, if he can.
He looks at the groveling necromancer bent over, staring at the ground, holding his stomach in great pain.
*That was full force with my bare hand and he's reeling in pain? I doubt he's ever taken a real hit like that before... hmm.*
As Galerius ponders, the necromancer spews clear saliva all over the ground, breathing heavily.
*Yeah, definitely not.*
Galerius starts walking toward the necromancer without hesitation.
The necromancer looks up, grinning crazily, saliva dripping from his chin as he stares straight at Galerius.
Galerius's face twitches as he swiftly right hooks the necromancer in the face.
The punch is so strong that it partially dazes him. The necromancer slowly wobbles and stumbles back, his eyes slightly dim from the punch.
Galerius grabs his shoulder, stopping the necromancer from falling back.
The necromancer's already dazed eyes meet Galerius's resolute ones.
"Necromancer, hear me..." His grip tightens. "Today I proclaim that as the strongest of this region and a warden of this city, you will die by my fist."
The necromancer merely smirks at this.
He lets go of the necromancer, who stumbles back a bit and catches himself from falling fully, head hanging down.
Galerius starts walking toward him again.
The necromancer caresses his jaw as he begins to look up with a smirk and a purple glint back in his eyes. "Hehe, that was a really cool spe—"
It gets snuffed out by another swift punch to the jaw.
Galerius doesn't stop, however. This time he continues to punch the necromancer—left to right, consecutively, ten times.
The necromancer gets pummeled, his face bloodier with each punch, saliva mixed with blood spraying everywhere as he slowly loses consciousness with each strike.
On the last punch, the necromancer loses consciousness. His purple glint snuffs out, his eyes now dulled completely, his tongue hanging out of his mouth. His head lolls to the side, his body slowly drifting, about to tip over.
Galerius then imbues his fist with wind and uppercuts him—shutting the necromancer's jaw on his own tongue, cutting half of it completely off. This jolt of pain, along with the bone-shattering gale uppercut, brings the necromancer back to consciousness as it sends him high up into the sky.
Galerius propels himself into the air along with him. Imbuing himself again with gale wind, he punches the necromancer downward. The necromancer tumbles through the air, landing straight into the ground a distance away.
Galerius instantly propels himself toward him. As he lands, he looks down on the necromancer, who's trying to crawl away with one hand clutched over his mouth, blood seeping from under it.
"Face me, necromancer," Galerius says, standing with his arms crossed.
Galerius sticks his palm out, getting ready to finish the necromancer off.
Mana seeps out of the necromancer's hand grasping his mouth.
As he turns his head to face Galerius as asked, he parts one of his fingers and slips his restored tongue out to speak.
"Gladly, warden," he says, his tone slight.
Instantly puffing his cheeks out, and with his hand guiding it, a large purple cloud spills from his mouth and envelops the unbothered Galerius, who crosses his outstretched arm.
With crossed arms, he thinks, *A necrotic cloud. It would destroy any normal person. Good thing I'm not normal.* His eyes quickly flare with an outline of green energy.
Looking forward, he can see the necromancer dashing away through the smoke. "Tsk..."
*Running now, huh?*
Suddenly, many copies of the necromancer jump out and lash at Galerius from all sides.
"It's meaningless."
Instantly, an immense shockwave of gale protrudes from Galerius's body, eviscerating every necrotic copy and whisking away the thick necrotic cloud.
All that's left is the ground and Galerius, leftover gale still swooshing in the air around him.
Galerius stands confident as one abnormally large fireball comes toward him.
He simply puts his hand out. As his palm touches the fireball, it dissipates outward.
Then as another comes, he thinks *Pure mana makes me immune to any attack against the soul, so infusing fireballs with soul necromancy is useless as I can just neutralize it. You're better off sending normal ones...*
*As long as I can stay calm, I can easily bat these away.*
But all Galerius does is lunge and swipe his hand, dissipating the fireball.
Then he disappears, leaving a great gust behind him, speeding toward the necromancer with his fist at the ready.
The necromancer, running and seeing this, has his book floating in front as he glances back at Galerius, smirking, purple glint back in his eye.
Then, just before Galerius can hit him, he disappears. In his place appears a bone walker.
Galerius is surprised but still committed to the attack.
When he swings, the gale-infused punch comes out as a burst of pressure. With the momentum he's built up, it eviscerates the bone walker and creates a large crater in the space, destroying buildings.
*Dammit, where did he go?*
Galerius instantly propels himself high into the air. As he briskly drifts up, his eyes flare up again with green energy.
Looking for the necromancer, he spots loads of necrotic auras in a big, long hall. "There—the Grand Hall!"
He repositions and propels himself forward toward the Grand Hall's entrance....
As he arrives, he brushes his hand across the door and looks up at it.
*This thing took a lot of resources to build. I must minimize the damage as much as possible.*
He opens the enormous door gently with one hand. As it creaks open, it's pitch black at first, but then slowly loads of blue eyes start to appear out of the dark—loads of them. He can hear metal being scraped off the ground and faint echoes of scuttling, scurrying, and giggling.
*It's like a nightmare... but too bad I'm here.*
He raises his palm.
As all the undead try to lunge at him, he lets out a quick, controlled burst of gale which takes them all out in one fell swoop and fills the whole Grand Hall.
"Mmm."
He walks to the side and places his hand on the wall.
"Let me turn on the lights first."
Instantly, a magic circle rotates on the wall around his hand.
Long runes on the ceiling light up in response and instantly flood the room with light all over the empty Grand Hall, illuminating the place completely before all the runes dim again.
Bones and metal weapons are everywhere, along with furniture and debris.
He looks around.
*I'll fix it later. Now where is...*
He sees one body—a middle-aged man lying motionless, face down on the ground. He quickly rushes to him. "Oh no!"
He turns the man onto his back. Looking at him, Galerius grits his teeth. "Connor... damn it all!"
"Show yourself, NECROMANCER!"
The necromancer's voice echoes. "Beg and I might!" he teases.
Galerius yells in rage. "I SAID NOW!!!" Gale starts to flare up around him.
"Alright!" the necromancer says excitedly.
A large magic circle appears underneath Galerius. He looks down. "What?"
The necromancer's voice echoes again, his tone joyful.
"Now...!"
Galerius looks around, confused, as each ring in the magic circle rotates in opposite directions like clockwork.
"Remember...!"
Galerius's eyes flare up instantly with green energy. *Where are you, dammit?* he thinks in panic.
"You asked for this! HEHEHE!" the necromancer cackles crazily.
Galerius looks up and sees him—he's in the attic space between the roof, just above him.
Galerius wastes no time and flies up.
"AAHAHAHAHA—" the necromancer laughs as Galerius bursts through, punching him straight in the face.
"The only thing you're going to remember is this, necromancer!"
But at this moment, the circle finishes moving and instantly explodes in a pillar, both of them being caught in it. This explosion blows up a large portion of the Grand Hall.
The purple explosion leaves a large black smoke cloud emanating from the burning Grand Hall.
Everything is calm in the air until one unconscious figure emerges from the top of the cloud, falling back toward the ground, wind rustling his charred and tattered clothes as he falls.
Part of the black smoke clears due to a gust of wind, revealing Galerius with his arms crossed, seemingly untouched, gale faintly wrapping around his body. He instantly propels himself forward, shouting, "NECROMANCER!"
His propulsion through the air toward the necromancer clears the rest of the top half of the black smoke.
The necromancer immediately opens his eyes, widening them in haste. His mage book floats in front of him as he quickly swipes his hand in the air. The pages flip fast, then stop as Galerius reaches him, about to smash his face with a gale-imbued palm.
But instead, the necromancer disappears. In his place is a thrall.
Galerius, this time, holds back his attack and swerves around, looking for the necromancer. His eyes flare up again. He sees the outline of the necromancer waving at him from the hole Galerius made in his own tower.
A vein pops on his face as he propels himself again toward the necromancer. "I will get you this time!" But the necromancer has already jumped down and started running, phantom dashing every few strides as Galerius stops his attack again.
He floats down. "I'm tired of these games."
He lifts his finger up. Gale starts to form and coalesce at the tip—a ball of gale appears.
He fires it. Just like a cannon, it hits the necromancer's back, briefly stunning him, but he pushes through.
Galerius fires another and another, each one like a cannon, a gust of wind left behind after each blast.
But the necromancer keeps going, even though he's being precisely pelted with them. It's like he's been through this before.
Galerius thinks, *Why is he so physically tough?... And why is he running? He's probably trying to lead me right into a trap. Won't let that happen twice!*
He switches his target, aiming for the necromancer's legs and firing again.
It hits his legs. This time the necromancer loses his balance after both hit each leg, but instead of letting himself fall, he starts twisting mid-air in a circle while conjuring something, waving his arms about.
Galerius sees this but still decides to rush right in. My chance is now.
When Galerius reaches him, the necromancer has conjured a large withering orb with many withering bolts within it.
"I call this DARKLIGHT BURST!" the necromancer shouts.
Galerius gasps at this as he stops to block, imbuing his own body with gale.
They clash. Energy streams in all directions. The pressure coming from the clash is strong for only a moment.
I can handle this, Galerius thinks.
The necromancer falls to the ground, tumbling along it, observing the clash while lying on his stomach.
"I'll toss this thing... Right back at you!"
But unknown to him, it's cracking rapidly.
When he starts to manipulate it and push it back, it breaks, letting all the withering bolts out.
A chain of big explosions starts.
The whole area smokes, but Galerius just stands there, untouched, gale imbued around his body protecting him from the attack. *That attack was not as powerful as I thought... what was the point? And he's not even running this time?*
The necromancer struggles to get to his feet. A devious grin forms on his lips. "How did you like the first part of the show?"
Galerius just looks at him in confusion.
*What does he mean?... First part? Was that a distraction?*
"You are correct!" the necromancer says excitedly.
Something comes from above—cursed energy emanating from its hooves. At the same time, the necromancer lunges at Galerius with his palm outstretched.
As they all get closer, Galerius smirks.
All the attacks draw closer, just shy of touching him.
As he imbues his body with gale, his eyes flare up.
"Hmph... interesting."
His feet leave the ground. As he repositions himself, the gale makes his movement efficient. He expertly wraps his fingers around the necromancer's wrist and swings him into the attack.
The horse stomps right onto the necromancer, crushing him into the ground beneath. Once the hooves hit the ground, cursed energy comes out in a shockwave outward. Galerius backs away, arms still crossed.
A large crater is left with nothing in it as the horse leaps into view of Galerius, purple necrotic ooze painting its hooves. It simply smears it on the ground.
*An undead horseman?*
There stands an undead bone walker with a bone lance, along with his loyal undead steed.
Galerius hears laughing. *I knew he was still alive. Couldn't be the end,* he reassures himself.
"Come out, necromancer!" he shouts.
Suddenly, the undead pair roar as crimson red mana surges from them, both eyes syncing in color.
This startles Galerius a bit.
They stand ready for battle. Galerius stands with his arms crossed. *This undead looks strong, but I can handle it. Physical fighters have never been a weakness. It's just that necromancer not being in my line of sight—that disturbs me more...*
The necromancer's voice echoes. "Focus on the battle at hand, warden."
The laughter then ceases.