The pope's sword was ready and he began to slash downwards toward Himkeo. Everything happened in an instant as the power of 2 tier 10 titans were about to clash with each other.
The pope expected to directly hit Himeko but to his surprise felt her presence disappear from in front of him and appear behind him. Himeko had taken advantage of the ability to teleport with fire and was able to instantly move around the room as long as there was a spark of flame.
The pope was able to quickly turn and strike where Himeko was but the same thing occurred. Himeko kept teleporting around the pope making sure there was always fire in the room to teleport to. Unfortunately, Himeko was unable to get close because the pope's reaction speed was too fast leaving them in a stalemate.
During this time the pope had been looking through his skills to break the loop. After finding the right skill he activated it through his system. Suddenly a ball of darkness appeared above him sucking in the flames like a black hole.
Himeko quickly teleported to the other side of the room with a bit of flame she left as a backup.
Because Himeko had transformed fully into a phoenix, she could no longer speak but instead, let out a loud screech.
"I wanted to make you a human pet, not an actual pet." The pope let out a smirk and his little joke pissed Himeko off.
'Tch, this bastard really needs to burn in the deepest part of hell, if only I didn't do a full transformation I would love to give him my words of encouragement.' Himeko could escape but because of her pride and pure hatred, she could not let herself leave without putting up a fight.
'If things don't look good I might have to use that.' Himeko had a way out of this predicament if things got worse but her pride would not let her leave.
Himeko's head suddenly began to hurt as the memories of her torture ran through her head. She was having a hard time focusing on the battle as her will to resist started slipping again.
The black hole remained in the air while sucking away the fire, making her teleporting strategy useless. The pope then pulled out the Eden of control and began to slowly walk toward Himeko.
He had managed to sever the connection with Himeko, allowing him to become the owner of the cursed object. Taking advantage of the object's power, he tried to put Himeko under his control but due to how weak it was and how long it takes, it was not enough for Himeko to fall.
Himeko felt the pope trying to take control of her but thanks to the cursed object's limitations it only gave her a headache.
"Too bad, looks like traditional ways are always the best." A glint of insanity filled the pope's face as he vanished from where was standing.
Appearing in front of Himeko he swung his sword straight down aiming for her head.
With barely any time to react and no way to teleport, Himeko managed to just barely avoid his sword. However, because of the dark magic that ran through the light blade, dark tentacles came out of the blade grabbing a hold of Himeko.
With Himeko being restrained, the pope managed to grab her by the neck. The pope's hand started turning black from the searing heat, but nothing mattered to him as he strangled the phoenix in his hand. The feeling of bloodlust was slowly taking over him as all he wanted to do was squish the bird's head.
Himeko struggled to breathe, yet even with her increased size, she still couldn't loosen the pope's grip on her neck.
'You don't want to kill her do you?' A female voice rang out in the pope's head causing him to let go of Himeko. The bloodlust had slowly receded and he was back to his normal calm state.
'Almost lost myself in battle again.' He looked up to the roof for a moment before looking down at Himeko who was struggling to regain her breath.
The pope had crushed her neck making it very hard to breathe and leaving Himeko on the verge of falling unconscious.
"Looks like the almighty Himeko has fallen again, what a shame. Surely it is just easier to submit to me?." The pope squatted down and grabbed Himeko's head pulling it close to his.
"I have the right collar just for a disobedient little Phoenix." The pope pulled out a red collar which was fitted with a black gem in the centre.
Himeko recognized the black gem and fear began to fill her mind.
The black gem was a taboo item created from dark magic, the potential of which is known to every person of power. It was even listed as an item that needs to be destroyed on sight as its capabilities are what made it so dangerous.
The black gem itself was able to extract the mana core of a person, permanently disabling their use of mana. Himeko, seeing this gem, knew she had no chance of surviving and activated her hidden skill.
Slowly the flames of her body grew brighter and brighter creating a blinding light that even the pope couldn't look at.
"This bitch, what is she doing now, how hard is it to just kneel before me." The pope was becoming aggravated and the bloodlust was coming back.
The pope felt his grip on her suddenly vanish as well as her presence.
Suddenly the light vanished and Himeko was nowhere to be found in the room.
The pope instantly began to use all his skills related to sensing mana and people but was unable to find anything.
"You can't be fucking serious." The pope was in disbelief as there had been many magic circles around the dungeon preventing teleportation and the destruction of the room.
The pope continued to search around the room but the more he looked the more annoyed he got till eventually he snapped.
The entire stone room which was reinforced by magic circles began to crack. The pressure exerted on the room increased by ten folds causing the room to almost fall apart. The magic circles that surrounded the room were preventing the it from caving in on the pope.
Because they were deep underground not much was felt above ground, but all the people working for the pope underground were subjected to the intense pressure and ended up passing out.
'Calm down dear, no need to get worked up, she couldn't have gone far.' The same female voice rang out and with its soft tone was able to convince the pope to let up the pressure.
'You're right she can't be far, once she is collared she is going to have to go through something worse than hell as punishment.' The pope was able to calm himself down a little but unless he got results the chances of an outburst were high.
'Now go, she must be outside.' Listening to the voice the pope quickly headed outside to search for Himeko as well as a way to let out his anger.
**
Somewhere out in the wild amongst some mountains was a cave that was blocked off by a metal black gate that possessed the golden symbol of the Ado family. The cave was surrounded by dead nature with no signs of life to be found. Above the cave resided a volcano which explained the dead landscape.
The gate began to slowly open revealing a blinding light from within the cave. After some time had passed the light had diminished leaving the cave in darkness.
Inside the cave was a small altar and on that altar was a tiny orange bird.
This orange bird looked like a tiny phoenix but it did not possess its iconic fiery look.
The gates that were opened slowly began to close, shutting out any light. The cave became dim and the small orange bird stayed in its slumber unmoving.
***
"When the hell will we arrive at the next city, I need to buy some ingredients and I don't want to be eating instant noodles for the next couple daaaaaays." Elysia was acting like an impatient child and Shaman could not help but be reminded of her little sister. The continued complaints annoyed Shaman, but reminiscing on her sister brought back memories.
"Oh shut up, we will get there eventually." The sudden flashback had also caused Shaman to answer as she would to her sister.
"I- sorry." Elysia could hear the annoyance in her voice and apologised straight away.
Shaman let out a sigh and patted Elysia letting her know it was okay.
"We should almost be there so just hang in there for a bit longer, plus it's hardly been a day, don't tell me you used all of our stock back in the dungeon." Shaman wasn't sure why Elysia was complaining as they should have a rather big stockpile of food that Elysia can cook.
"Aha about that, I may have actually brought recipe books rather than the food itself." Elysia slowly put as much distance as she could between her and Shaman.
Shaman sat in silence for a moment before finally responding.
"El-ys-ia~~ I think you have some repenting to do." Shaman turned her head to Elysia with a smile.
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