“Where to next?” Tim asked as I appeared before her.

“I guess the next time I appeared would be at the bridge where I fought Merlin who had taken over the body of an old man.” I replied.

With a snap of Tim’s fingers, I was inside the barrier that Iscarat had erected. Not too far from me was the bridge where Merlin’s puppet was. Beyond him was an incapacitated Scott and a really focused Iscarat. Approaching the bridge, I activated the spirit armor which made a metallic clanking noise every time I took a step. The sound of my armor made the puppet turn away from Iscarat and look at me.

“Elysif, Compton, please back me up.” I whispered as I walked up to the bridge.

“So the real one reveals himself. Are you mad that I was pretending to be you? Everyone swears you’re dead. So have you come back from the dead? What is the answer, Micheal?” Merlin asked loudly through the puppet. I refused to answer as I knew that it was pointless to talk with him. Instead, I stopped in the middle of the bridge and drew my sword.

“So it is you. Only you wield that blade. Arthur did entrust it to you after all. Although even if that blade can kill an Elder One it will be useless since I am immune to physical attacks.” The puppet stated. If I remember correctly, he was wearing a robe covered in protection runes. Though did he forget that my sword absorbs magic? Maybe. It has been a while.

As soon as the puppet finished speaking, he charged at me. The puppet threw a punch at me but I blocked it with my left forearm and parried with a thrust of my sword. The puppet dodged before I could stab him and he attempted to punch me again. Striking me right in the jaw. What was strange was that this punch felt far worse than any punch I received from anyone else. As if it backed with magic somehow. The pain I felt from the punch caused my mask to morph in a similar way to when I would want to intimidate someone. The mouth slit opened up revealing several layers of sharp teeth. Rolling with it, I decided to try and bite him but the puppet jumped back as I did.

“Well, that’s a new trick. Did your mask come to life as part of its curse?” Merlin asked.

“...” I refused to answer out of spite. That, and I had no idea why it just did that.

“Still not going to talk to me? Fine then, die!” he yelled before several hundred strings of blood surrounded him. They enclosed around him like a net until he couldn’t move. “Blood magic? That seems a little low even for you.”

“...” even now, I didn’t bother to answer him. There was just no point in talking.

“Oh, I know about these. A witch can sacrifice their own blood or someone else's in order to create weapons and traps from them for them to use. However, I have no clue where these came from. ” the puppet said.

“Compton, let’s show off a bit and destroy those runes.” I whispered before holding out my sword and dropping it onto the ground. Rather than hitting the stone below me, it disappeared. Without a single second passing my sword appeared above Merlin’s puppet. Cutting him before falling down and disappearing again. Repeating over and over until the puppet trapped within Elysif’s web had been cut hundreds of times over. Then we heard uncontrollable laughter from Elysif’s trap.

“Now I see. Dimensional magic as well. What an interesting combination, but did you think that would kill me?” he cried out as the blood wrappings dissipated. Underneath the wrappings showed that although his robe had been cut, there had been no harm to the puppet’s body. I bit my tongue to hide my rage. Despite knowing fully well that it would be hard to defeat him like this he still managed to piss me off.

“I am curious as to how you were able to damage the robe but that can wait. We need to wrap this up so I can get back to forcing that child to bring me back.” Merlin said, brushing me off.

“It won’t work, it’s too late to save her.” I said sternly.

“What do you know? That’s the first thing out of your mouth since we started this fight and that’s what you have to say you ass.” Merlin yelled angrily. I didn’t have anything to say to him. All I could do was uncomfortably stare at him.

“Fine, have it your way.” Merlin said before lunging at me once more.