Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Skullius made sure to exercise his greatest skill with moulding darkness to create the scimitars. They were incredibly sharp. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that if matched against regular Realm rank scimitars, they would be able to match their edge in terms of cutting potency.

After swishing the scimitars in his hands, Skullius threw up one of them and gave it a vicious kick. It zoomed towards Fulgardt, spinning like a chakram.

Fulgardt smirked as it approached.

What was this? A party trick?

Before he could choose which of the hundreds of ways he could use to dismiss the attack, however, Fulgardt found that he couldn't move an inch.

'Oh?'

Skullius had slashed with his other dark scimitar from the distance while simultaneously using the Andori, [Elusive Metal Carver]. With it, he successfully managed to cut Fulgardt's movements. The effect wouldn't even last for five seconds, but it would allow the first scimitar to reach Fulgardt, and then the Immoral would have to endure Skullius' own approach.

The original Insurgent Magnus was struck by the first scimitar point blank.

However…

Skullius frowned, but not for disappointment.

The scimitar dissolved into darkness upon touching Fulgardt, dealing no damage whatsoever.

'So that's how it is. Even though I have a perfect affinity with both my version of [Evil Darkness] and [Just Light], Fulgardt is still better than me. Is it because the Fruit of World Myths I have is an imitation and his is the real deal?'

This was a thought Skullius only spared while dismissing his other scimitar and extracting a pair of gladiuses – Treasures – he'd taken from the Warmoth's Treasury earlier. He was upon the stunned Fulgardt by then, gathering his Amras and applying the Andori [Ruining Cutter] to the edge of one sword and [Elusive Meta Carver] to the other. He maxed the output from both Andori as he attacked.

When he slashed at Fulgardt's neck, something stopped him… as expected. But the nature of what it was, was what surprised Skullius.

Darkness bled from the still Fulgardt and created an immaculate copy of him, black and incredibly detailed!

'Crude World Projection?' Skullius thought. The Projection caught his gladius with its bare hands, but Skullius didn't stop to gawk. He let go of the sword, spun over the Projection, and smote against the real Fulgardt's head with the other from above.

That… didn't work either.

…!!!

A pulse of something unfathomable thrummed from Fulgardt's body… and he moved. He left afterimages as he took a short step backwards to avoid Skullius' sword, and then swiftly countered by stomping on the backside of Skullius' sword, flying up and delivering an evil roundhouse kick to Skullius' head.

The Hybrid Warmoth managed to block by sending a blast of Ju`wtte to meet Fulgardt's foot. The impact pushed the combatants away from each other.

'What in the world?' Skullius thought, looking from Fulgardt to his Projection. The Projection twirled his gladius in its hand, and the real Fulgardt grinned at him, scoffing. Oddly though, the Immoral's eyes had turned completely black.

How was this possible?

From what Skullius knew, using Crude World Projection and your real body at the same time was impossible unless you had a second consciousness to pilot your body, or the Stolen Angel to control the body in the absence of your consciousness (like how the possessed Festos used it during their battle).

(A/N: Refer to Ch.1190.)

Fulgardt had neither, according to Skullius' knowledge.

But of course, the Hybrid Warmoth didn't know. Fulgardt was actually using something he (Skullius) already possessed, but had – unlike Future Skullius – yet to explore.

It was the ninth Seed of the Fruit of World Myths, Crude World Injection.

Five seconds passed by in a flash, and Fulgardt's Projection rushed back into his original body. The Immoral's eyes turned back to normal, and he grasped the sword his Projection had stolen from Skullius.

"Cute," he said as he appraised the Treasure. "Have any more weapons?"

Just as he'd destroyed the Malefic Gold Hand, he turned the sword black, and then to broken scrap. Another Treasure had been casually destroyed.

In a blink, Fulgardt stormed towards Skullius who snapped out of his macabre thoughts and brandished his sword to receive the Immoral's charge.

Fulgardt narrowed his eyes when he felt a pulse of Amras from Skullius. [Ruining Cutters] came raining down on him at express speed, cutting at every possible angle. But Fulgardt was Fulgardt. He warped, ducked, deflected, weaved, and leaped, avoiding every single one of them to reach Skullius.

"I thought you wanted to get all close and personal? What's this now?" he said when he avoided Skullius' immaculate sword swing, and grasped his wrist. "My patience thins even further, brat."

Skullius didn't respond. Instead, his nimbus did. It flashed merigold and a massive throng of Ju`wtte exploded out of it and blasted into Fulgardt. The Immoral defended himself with a shell of darkness, but the Ju`wtte persisted. It pushed him and the shell high into the sky.

As it did, Skullius summoned a double-sided dagger in one of his hands. It was the Tainted Lycan's Siphoning Claw, a Realm rank Wicked Treasure.

A wide blue hue dyed everything in front of Skullius, marking them for the Treasure's Absolute Wicked Property.

The Tainted Lycan Claw first highlighted all of its user's enemies, animate and inanimate, with the vibrant blue colour before making large poisonous claws violently burst out of them.

In the sky, Fulgardt released his shell when the throng of Ju`wtte fizzled out.

'An interesting element. It has a wealth of potential not too different from my darkness and light,' he thought, his eyes analysing the bits of the lightning as they faded away. He hadn't forgotten about his opponent though.

Skullius pointed the Tainted Lycan's Siphoning Claw to the sky. The wide blue marker rose from the ground and followed the Immoral.

Fulgardt scoffed when it reached him. He whipped his hand to the side and created a long spear using darkness. It had a winding shape, like a serpent, near its long, double-edged blade. How he swung the nearly three-meter-long pole was a wonder. It had a knob-like shape at its end. Fulgardt held it with two fingers and began violently spinning the spear like some berserk turbine.

He pointed the spinning spear towards where the hue from Skullius' dagger was coming from, and shockingly… he remained untouched by its marker.

While everything including the sky, and space itself was violently ripped open by sharp, poisoned claws, he remained safe. This was likely because….

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

Sparks exploded from the spinning surface of the spear, blocking the Realm rank Treasure's Absolute Property.

Skullius narrowed his eyes. He should have expected that much. He should also have expected Fulgardt's next move right then too.

And he did.

Turning sharply, Skullius' sword met Fulgardt's spear. The Immoral had warped behind him.

The Warmoth scanned the lethal weapon with his senses limning along its shape.

Was this Fulgardt's weapon of choice?

The Immoral grinned and withdrew his spear while simultaneously conjuring an oblong wad of darkness behind him. It did nothing to assault Skullius, but he couldn't help but keep his eyes on it at all times. It had a purpose, of course.

Fulgardt leveraged his spear on his shoulder and then jabbed at Skullius repeatedly, faster than the speed of light. Skullius blocked with both his sword and dagger, parrying and striking against the incoming blows to force some recoil between himself and Fulgardt. The Immoral ducked down, held the spear by the knob at its end, and swung it with the same grace as that which he'd use when striking with a whip.

Skullius blocked with his sword, but by the time a crisp impact rang with his block, Fulgardt had whipped the spear at him again and again and again and…

KWANG! KWANG! KWANG! KWANG!

Just as Skullius was getting comfortable with meeting each of the blows, a curved black blade suddenly hooked his neck and pulled him sharply towards the Immoral!

…!!!

The spear of darkness had abruptly turned into a kusarigama – a sickle linked to a chain. The seamless transition had caught Skullius off guard. He stumbled forward, and that was when the purpose of the oblong shape of darkness behind Fulgardt was revealed. It weaved itself into eight immaculate kunai that shot towards Skullius, impaled him at eight points, and started spinning rapidly within his flesh.

The Hybrid Warmoth gritted his teeth from the excruciating pain, temporarily stunned. He cycled more Amras through his body to reinforce it, but Fulgardt didn't give him a chance to recover. His kusarigama vanished just when he jabbed Skullius in the chest with a fist, struck him hard with an uppercut to the chin afterwards, spun, conjured back his spear of darkness, and drove into Skullius' chest!

But as soon as the spear bore through him, Skullius finally found the time to warp away. He healed himself midway through this journey and tried to control the dark kunai within him.

They resisted his control. He couldn't be their master.

'Dammit!'

A spear drove through Skullius again. He looked towards Fulgardt in the distance, shocked.

The Immoral's spear had elongated and curved to strike him where he stood.

Where it protruded behind Skullius, it manifested spikes that caught into the Hybrid Warmoth's flesh such that when Fulgardt made it shrink, Skullius snapped back towards Fulgardt who smirked in his face.

"I'm motivated to kill you now," the Immoral said.