White flames burst from his blade and engulfed me in it. Fortunately, I could barely feel its heat. He took a few steps back and watched me in glee.

He was pretty agile given that I did not notice his footsteps and murderous intent. It was a certain thing in actuality since he was a trained soldier, a very experienced one at that.

"What do you think of my Aegis, kid?! It can produce fire." He retracted his blade into his arm. "To think there's another Aegis User here, and one that's not related to the Great Corporate United is beyond me." His grin faded instantly when I turned to face him.

The white flames that burned me felt nothing. I wondered the cause of it was as my body healed itself. Soon, the flames dissipated a bit and I looked at my charred flesh as it regenerated. It did not hurt even one bit. "...White flames?"

Hughes had a surprised look on his face. "H-How?! You must be screaming in pain right now."

I cracked my neck and tilted my head at him. "Screaming? In pain, you say?" For two whole years, that specific sensation was foreign to me.

My crimson tendrils launched at him and he blocked it with his white Aegis s.h.i.+eld. He lunged at me with dual Aegis blades from his arms and repeatedly slashed forward. My body moved backward as fragments of my Aegis crystals formed around me to defend against his attacks.

"Arghh!" He slashed downward and white blazes gushed from the blade violently. I formed a large, round s.h.i.+eld from my palms but the fire did not stop there.

The white flames devoured my Aegis s.h.i.+eld hungrily and went for my flesh. Instantly, my vision was blinded by a flash of light. I was thrown into the streets as my body burned in white.

"You think you can escape from my flames? Even Aegis crystals are no match for it," scoffed Hughes.

I scrambled to stand as my body still barely healing. The flames were like hungry beasts, eating at my flesh greedily and refused to let go of the food that their maws had caught. The smell of coppery, metallic components filled my nose. My scalp was burning, producing a charcoal-like odor. Awful, acrid smell later struck my head along with a terrible dizziness.

"Does it hurt?" asked Hughes mockingly. He formed a broadsword sticking to his right palm and pointed it at me. In a second, more white flames enveloped me in it as Hughes swung his sword at me, releasing flames after flames.

My body succ.u.mbed to it and I fell helplessly. The difference in fighting strength was very apparent just from that. He was a trained Aegis User while I only used my Aegis any way I saw fit ever since I could use it. Hughes could vaporize my Aegis crystals and his flames rendered me from moving too much. Just the amount of flames that he could produce from his Aegis crystals was baffling.

"For Aegis Users, being burned means nothing as their bodies can regenerate. But there's only so much that a human body can handle," said Hughes. He walked to me and crouched. His long, grey hair hung over his face as he checked my condition.

"Hey, you aren't dead, right?" His blade poked at my burning body a few times and he sighed. "You're boring. Well, at least I can take you back to HQ. Aside from Gheele Folami, there should be no one else possessing an Aegis."

When he extinguished his white flames to pick me up, my right hand immediately grabbed his face. Small blades punctured his skull and he screamed from that sudden attack. Two crimson scythes followed up with two slashes at his torso, splitting his body into different parts.

He was healed almost in a second and backed away from me with wide eyes. "N-No way. You should at least be half dead right now!"

My dress was all but ashes right then, so I had my Aegis crystals covered up my exposed body from my neck to legs. I stared at him emptily. "It does not hurt if I don't feel any pain at all..." I said.

"You're lucky I have unlocked your regeneration limiter, Ava," said my Aegis. "Any other Aegis cannot do this except for me since they follow the standard operating procedure. I'm not bound to it since I'm conscious."

My hand rubbed over my itchy scalp. It was back to normal. "But it will have a toll on me..."

"Yes. If you do not consume food in the next twelve hours, your body will shrivel from the overuse of regeneration," said Aegis.

"Understood..."

Hughes stood up and gritted his teeth. "This can't be! Don't tell me your regeneration even surpa.s.ses Lily's?! d.a.m.n it, I'll burn you till nothing remains but ashes!"

"I'll kill you..." I muttered.

Numerous blades appeared from Hughes's arms and sputtered white flames all over the streets. Everything around us was engulfed in Hughes's white inferno.

It had been a long time since someone was only focused on me like Hughes was. His green eyes flickered under the raging inferno.

"How long can you keep the regeneration limiter unlocked?" I asked Aegis under my breath.

"Fifteen minutes, a.s.suming you will not have your body burned like before. But if it happens again, at most, nine minutes."

Upon confirming what I could and should do, I produced three gigantic scythes from my back and descended at Hughes at high speed.

"That's not enough, kid!" Hughes concentrated his white flames in one spot and threw all of it at my scythes. Walls, lampposts, and vehicles a few meters around us melted slowly in the enormous heat.

My eyes widen at how hot the inferno was.

I tried to move my scythes away but it was quickly disintegrated by Hughes's flames. I could not instruct it to come back to me, so it was discarded.

Hughes laughed and formed gauntlets on each of his arms, blazes came out of it like large flamethrowers.

"This is nothing..." I ran towards the flames with my s.h.i.+eld and it struck me. But I pushed forward, determined to reach Hughes that was standing at the end.

"STAY PUT!" yelled Hughes.

I was overwhelmed by the flames but crimson sickles flew from my back and cut Hughes's arms.

"AUGGGHRRRRRRGGGGHHHH!" He screamed from the pain and looked at both of his missing arms. However, it regenerated as soon as Hughes turned his eyes on me.

The Aegis armor I had on me melted from his flames. I replaced it with a new one. The crimson sickles swerved in a circle and aimed for Hughes again.

"Don't you underestimate me, kid!" Two small, white cannons each protrude out of his arms and spat flames at my sickles. It melted away into nothingness.

"I'm actually having a hard... time against a kid." He shook his head in disbelief and resumed his glare at me.

I formed two crescent scythes that came at him but he burned them instantly.

My eyes managed to take a glance at the area around me. The gray roads were buried in white flames, and so did a few cars. Three two-story buildings had its walls melted a bit.

The ground shook so I looked at my feet. In a few moments, a white blaze broke through the graphite and swallowed me in it. I flailed around as it was hard to see anything in the flames eating at me. My heart pounded against my chest rapidly. I did not notice it before, but for once in those two years, I felt something else.

'Was it fear?'

'Was it anxiety?'

I did not know the answer. My emotions were mixed up long ago and polished into a weapon that cuts through any obstacles in my path. Right then, I was not so sure.

Indeed, that intense thumping of my chest was foreign.

"I will bring you to His Supremacy," said Hughes.

In a flash, he cut my hands and sliced my throat with his blade. I lost my balance and fell to the ground. The flames were somewhat manageable for a split second so I looked up to find Hughes's blade stabbed through my chest. More flames devoured me as I struggled to produce my Aegis crystals. I found out that the temperature of his gus.h.i.+ng flames alone impeded the formation of my crystals and his blade had me pinned to the road. I was unable to fight back.

'Am I about to die?' I thought. That situation was fairly out of my reach to do anything. The absence of pain made me unable to gouge the damage to my body at that point. And a.s.suming my regeneration at its peak could withstand the flames, it was only a matter of minutes before my body ran out of its gas.

"I will capture you, no matter what the cost," spat Hughes. His eyes already confirmed his victory in that battle.