When there is no light, only then can one feel the true despair of darkness. Just like the desperation the world had felt a few moments ago, when Arnold had seeming been put out of battle by the one enemy whom the world feared the most. The feeling of despair was strong, yet it did not last for long. For their fears were unfounded. The Deathless was still alive.

Just seeing him walk to the edge of the mountain, felt like the world was witnessing the rise of a new sun. The luminous aura surrounding him took away all of the worries of warriors as well people across the globe. All was not lost. They still had a chance. The sacrifices of thousands won't be in vain. Deathless will avenge all those who died at the hands of Hercules and his army. 

As the sun crept below the horizon, everyone felt more optimistic than ever before. It was the god of strength's turn to taste what true despair felt like. Hercules had one chance to end Arnold, once and for all and had he tried harder, Arnold was fairly sure he wouldn't have survived a barrage of heavenly lightning strikes.

But Hercules being Hercules. He just had to boast about his greatness rather than putting an end to his enemy in whatever small frame of time he had. He messed up and as a result, things had taken a turn for the worst. At least for him. At that moment, there was only one thing pacing through Hercules' mind.

'He will not kill me. He just can't, Loki assured the father that if the mortal dared to kill a higher being he would lose control over himself...' 

Hercules has realised his position. He would have barely managed to handle the fifteen thousand soldiers on top of Arnold's summons. But now with Arnold being back into the fray, he couldn't evade death anymore. He might have been a demigod, but he was suffering through the rebound after forcefully transforming into a god.

He was breathless. All of his stats have been reduced by 30%. The way he was now, Arnold's stats were much better than his and without his weapon and armour, Hercules was as vulnerable as a turtle without its shell. Things were not looking good for him. He had to escape. That was all he could do now. On the other hand, Arnold was sporting a brand new armour, in the shape of the guardian angel.

Hercules knew how the angel functioned. In a way, it wouldn't be wrong to say that the Guardian's defence was absolute. As long as the guardian was alive, no matter how many times Arnold gets hit, he won't take any damage and wouldn't lose a single point of HP. Moreover, the guardian wouldn't disappear until the duration of the skill was over or that the summoner ends up using all of his mana. The only plus side Hercules had was that whenever the guardian got hit, the summoner, Arnold in this case, would lose mana equivalent to half of the damage the guardian took.

All Hercules had to do was to hit the guardian angel with blows after blows and hope to drain mana faster. There were, however, some unaccounted problems he would have to think of a way to deal with first and foremost.

Hercules was well aware of the fact that Arnold had a ginormous mana pool. So it was foolish to think that the Guardian would disappear just after taking a couple of hits from him. Moreover, it wasn't as if the guardian would stand still and not do anything while Hercules treated it like a punching bag. The same was true in Arnold's case.

While it was true that Hercules couldn't directly harm Arnold while the guardian was still there. The same wasn't true for Arnold. He could easily attack Hercules while being safe under the Guardian's vision. For Hercules, fighting Arnold was equal to simultaneously taking on two overpowered opponents and in his weakened state, it was suicidal to do so.

While Hercules was carefully planning his next move, Arnold was trying hard to not show what a wreck he was on the inside. In fact, even with the guardian angel activated he was in a crappier condition than he had been in a long time. While what Hercules thought was true, and summoning the guardian indeed saved his life. The guardian's defence wasn't as absolute as Hercules had thought.

To its benefit, the guardian did protects the user from all types of physical damage. Let it be piercing attacks, slashes or blunt attacks. Nothing like those attacks could harm Arnold while the guardian was active. But when it came to magic damage, all the guardian could do was provide the summoner with a teensy bit of resistance. Arnold was not even aware of this until he could hit by the lightning bolt.

Since Hercules' thunder attack had been a magical attack and not a physical one, Arnold was still got a nerve-wracking injury. But it was thanks to that 50% magic damaged resistance of the guardian that Arnold was able to survive even after taking the lightning bolt head-on.

Arnold had taken a risk by using the guardian. He wasn't sure if he had enough mana to sustain the Guardian due to the absurd amount of damage the lightning bolt could do. Still, he knew he wouldn't die because he had a second layer of defence ready in case the guardian failed to protect him. It was the skill because of which he had earned the title of Deathless. Sacred Protection.

As long as [Sacred Protection] wasn't on cooldown, Arnold could freely go berserk on his enemies with the fear of death looming over his head. Thus even if the guardian was to fail, Arnold wasn't going to die by Hercules' hands. But thankfully, the skill hadn't activated. The guardian had successfully saved his bratty a*s. 

"I should end the battle while things are still in my favour..."

***

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