Burn, the oisseur of all-out warfare, always had an impressive repertoire. This had always been the case all his life. Whether it was unleashing brute force or res to underhaactics, he never failed to eain.

  Today was no exception.

  “Done,” Man said after she finished carving her entments, as if she had just painted a masterpie the metal griffin. Turning to Burn, she upped the ante by bedazzling his armor with more entments than ever before.

  As she worked, whispered spells and touched his armor’s entire surface, embrag him pletely with her magic, Burn stood still. She was nearly finished when Burn got an idea—

  “What about you carve entments into my body?” he asked.

  Man raised her face, her eyes widened, but then helplessly scoffed, “Yes, of course I , my crazy darling.”

  The suggestion of having entmeched directly onto his body surely could only be described as crazy. But as her initial shock morphed into tance, she thought, well, why not add 'human entment' to her job description?

  The man smiled, knowing that it was unheard of—something that was meant for objects rather than living bodies. Surely it could render his body irreparable, not to mention the risk of failure, but this was a way to go all out.

  Signing up for a magifused tattoo session was half a good and a bad idea, depending on how you look at it.

  And he was right. The process was unbearably painful as the a letters started to carve themselves into his skin. With Man as the enter, the letters even started to embed themselves into his flesh, then his ans, aually into his boructure.

  She had never dohis to a person before, but she embraced and improved the idea of engraving entment magic directly into someone’s body.

  This feat, which might only be achieved by the masters of their crafts after years of researd experimentation, was done in mere seds by the bination of Burn’s sturdy, Force art-enhanced body, and Man’s millennia of experiend Vision art uanding.

  "What's ?" Burn asked. "They're about to start. Are we ready?"

  "Yes," Man replied. "I'm going to heal you by borrowing God's holy energy and buff you with prote and increased attack power using my Vision. I'll do it simultaneously, but you don't o protect me. Just focus on the fight."

  "Got it," Burn blinked on subtle amazement and nodded.

  Fighting alongside the Infinity Witch, arently also doubled as a Saint, turned out to be a hell of a—no, a heaven of a luxury. A fug divine edy of a cheat.

  "I will now ask you," Man tinued, "do you need me to provide support attacks? I do offensive spells on the side too."

  "No," Burn answered. "I don't want them to be distracted from me."

  If they decided to pi anyone else, this world would go kaput in the blink of an eye. How b would that be, right? Man uood, realizing Burn was all geared up to soak in every blow they threw his way.

  "Alrighty then..." Man closed her eyes. "Let's kick this off, shall we?"

  "Raise that sword sky-high and brace yourself for some diviLC."

  Burn arched an eyebrow, questioning if a non-believer like himself was even eligible for this. heless, he hoisted his sword toward the heavens. Lo and behold, a ginormous halo—a giant of light materialized in the sky.

  As Man's essence began to disperse into the surroundings, her physical form melted into pure light, yet miraculously retained her attire, shape, and face.

  Suddenly, all of Burn's body entment-induced agony vanished, and he found himself glowing from within.

  "O Divine, bestow your healing touch upon my beloved son of man—wipe away his hurts and woes as my chosen one," Man beseeched. "By the power vested in me—"

  BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAST!!!

  "—I dub thee my Padin, my first holy knight."

  ***

  “3% output! Go!” Rudolf screamed—

  BLAAAAAAAAAAAAST!!!

  Here es the world-endi energy, all focused iraight liargeting the man in the ter of that blinding of light. Cue the absolute whiteout—just when you thought you'd seen it all, the whole woes blind again.

  The bst that was supposed to create a big enough crater in the po make it colpse into itself was absorbed into the of light as it mimicked Burn’s energy-swallowing teique.

  While the grand pns of obliterating the p with a colossal bst, only to have it sipped up by the of light like a fanergy smoothie, Burn was also surprised himself.

  He felt the weight, the overwhelming pressure. He took it all in. But there was no pain. There was no difficulty—nor strain.

  So this was what they called God’s blessing? Or was it just… Man?

  Post that blinding blitz, his body epped up. The energy he sucked in was kind of lukewarm, not the scorg-hot mess he dealt after fag Dirk. The blinding light did its disappearing act, and voi!

  His golden eyes peeked behind Man’s fingers, which shielded him from blindness with her hand.

  “Our turn, Caliburn.”

  Burn charged forward, leaving Man in the middle of the slowly rotating of light. Raising his sword to almost breag the speed of light towards the dire of the invisible ship, he felt another bst ing.

  And he was correct—

  BLAAAAAAAST! BLAAAST! BLAAAAAAAAAAST!!!

  “0.02… 0.04… 0.1… So it’s not human. Artificial intelligence?” Burn muttered as he ented on the precision. Atop his metal griffin, he maneuvered skillfully around the pattern of the bsts, not only deciphering its algorithm but also throwing random feints of his own attacks.

  He had absorbed enough energy after all.

  SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!

  “Just like that, you invisible rat—be where I want you to be!”

  ***

  BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

  DANGER! DANGER!

  “Turn off those fug noises! What are you doing?! Hit him! He’ll go dowually!” Rudolf yelled.

  His subordinates couldn’t even put their behind properly in their chairs, their entire weight ooes, their faces refleg horror.

  One of them tracked Burn, helplessly trying to capture his blurring image with their camera as the trag AI failed to differentiate between their enemy and a streak of light.

  As the fight—or the game of cat and mouse where they kept ging the role between who was the cat and who was the mouse—tihey realized more and more how absurd it was to try and face a literal star eater with mere algorithms and artificial intelligence.

  But the AI kept updating. It kept processing impossibly broken data of the man in the camera—whose as defied logid predi.

  “It’s weird. His hair is slowly… turning golden…!”

  “What is he? Super S*aiyan?”

  The small quips betweeactical officer and the co-pilot were enough to make every crew member actually involved in the fight grin. It was just priceless to mao crack even the most stoic faces among the creere actually doing the heavy lifting.

  Well, of course, they were all part of the cream of the crop, handpicked for the Junior Fleet Admiral of the Alliance, after all. And when it came to battles, they practically had more stripes than their esteemed leader.

  Slowly, they started to enjoy the fight itself. This liween life ah was not to be crossed, but they couldn't ignore how close it was to their necks, reminding them of what they had fotten after joining the elite ranks.

  This was a real fight.

  Just beyond the illusion of their uable reputation, there was a window separating them from the reality that they khey were going to die.

  In front of them stood death himself, ahey smiled back at him.

  Oh, how glorious their endings would be!

  But among those with the wisdom of their own fates, there was oh blissful ignorance.

  Rudolf screamed in fear, "Fet it! JUST DESTROY HIM! 6% OUTPUT!"

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  Pumped up!