“Maaaarcoooosssss!!”
Marcos thrust the Grace Lance forward, the beast’s guttural roar echoing as if from the very pits of hell.
His spear collided with a fist wreathed in roaring flames. As the ice began to creep over the fire, Galberos realized his disadvantage and pulled back. Marcos gave him no room to breathe, closing the distance instantly.
He smashed into the beast with a heavy shield bash, throwing Galberos off balance before following up with another sharp thrust of his spear.
Galberos crossed his arms to intercept the strike, but the freezing chill of the ice ignored his guard, biting deep into his flesh.
“Gah! Guh, gah! Guuuuuuh!!”
Forcing the ice on his arms to melt with a burst of heat, Galberos looked up, groaning as he unleashed a desperate volley of fireballs.
Marcos remained unfazed. He deflected the projectiles with his Giga Scissors, looking his nemesis in the eye with a cold, piercing gaze.
“Your power may have grown, but that is the extent of it. So long as I have the means to counter you, you are no threat to me.”
“Grrrrrr! Gwooooooooo!!”
Just as Marcos said, Galberos’s fighting style was fundamentally no different from Burn’s.
His raw magic power had increased, allowing him to produce more intense black flames, but the same advantage applied to Marcos. Having fused with his best friends to become the Trinity Blaster, Marcos saw the current Galberos as nothing more than a ghost of a foe he had already conquered.
To prove it, Marcos continued to parry every strike with ease. Within the shifting mass of Galberos, Burn’s consciousness clawed to the surface, his voice thick with loathing.
“Marcos...! Don't you dare look down on me...!! You... someone like youuuuu!!”
“...I once thought you’d gained a shred of wit, but I see I was mistaken. Is this all you can say now? You’ve devolved into a literal dog... no, you are something even lower than that.”
“Maaaaarcoooooosssss!!”
Watching Burn—now a mere puppet of Dogma, reduced to a manifestation of pure, unadulterated spite—Marcos felt a flicker of pity.
But he had no intention of showing mercy. He would simply, solemnly, execute the enemy standing before him.
“You think I’ll let you mock meeee! I am! I am! I am aaaaaaaaah!!”
“Enough. Be silent. Even for a hated enemy, your current state is too pathetic to witness.”
“Let us help,” a voice echoed from within. “Put him out of his misery already.”
Feeling the support of his friends, Marcos leveled his spear.
Galberos conjured a massive swarm of black fireballs, training every single one on the Trinity Blaster before screaming as he fired the entire payload.
“Die!! Dieeeeeeeeeeeee!!”
The incoming flames converged, swallowing the world in a monochromatic shroud of black.
It was the very hue of the abyss. Standing before the dark void wrought from flames that threatened to consume all, Marcos unleashed his magic power, guided by the currents of Ryuga’s winds.
“Haaaaaaaaa...!!”
He funneled his mana into the Grace Lance, pushing his ice attribute to its absolute limit.
Bolstered by Ryuga’s gale, a freezing vortex began to swirl around the knight spear. Marcos felt the storm’s momentum reach its peak and thrust the concentrated strike toward Galberos.
“Consume the darkness! Golden Storm!!”
“Gah! Aah!?”
Responding to the surge of mana, the silver-white ice storm turned a brilliant gold, instantly dispelling the black flames.
Swallowed by a tempest that devoured the darkness and replaced it with a radiant glow, Galberos was swept up in the golden tornado and hurled into the sky.
“Golden Rise Claw!!”
“Gwaaaaaaaaaah!?”
Caught in the heart of the raging storm, Galberos’s screams echoed as he was battered by frozen shards and subjected to a relentless torrent of magic.
He crashed into the earth with bone-shattering force and lay still. Marcos maintained a quiet vigilance, but then...
“Ooh, oh, ooooooooooo...!!”
“What...!?”
The single form of Galberos sprawled on the ground suddenly split, multiplying until three identical monsters stood before them.
As Marcos watched in shock while the number grew to five, Ryuga, sensing the shift, spoke up from within.
“It seems Burn has retreated. I suppose it’s your turn, Hypno.”
“Wooooooo...!!”
A zombie-like moan escaped the beasts—a sound that carried none of the intellectual arrogance Hypno had once displayed.
As the pathetic remnants of Hypno used illusions to frantically multiply his forms, Ryuga addressed Marcos.
“An even more pitiful soul has come out. I’ll take the driver's seat from here.”
“Yeah, that’s for the best.”
The armor's eyes shifted from gold to green, and the very aura of the Trinity Blaster transformed.
Sensing the change, Hypno’s forms flinched, trembling in visible terror. The Trinity Blaster discarded the spear and shield, drawing a single katana in their place. He released a sharp, piercing fighting spirit and roared.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Hypno... Now, let's shake it off!!”