Cameraman Never Dies

"Very well, I will show you the full strength of my principle then." Seraphis sheathed her sword and leaned forward slightly. Discover hidden stories at My Virtual Library Empire

Suddenly, her crimson eyes turned bright and started to exude a scarlet aura. The ground cracked involuntarily. (Of course, this was just an effect created by Judge.) She readied her sheathed sword, turning the hilt forward and gripping it tightly.

Judge did not stand there and admire the scenery, he conjured up a thick wall and teleported far behind. He wanted to watch what happened when his master went overboard, but he did not want to get hurt in the process.

Just as he was thinking about whether to create a clone of himself and play poker with it in order to wait for his master, the thick— dark wall shattered into powder, as if it exploded from with and not of an outside force. Judge gulped, now THAT was terrifying.

The crimson eyes devil came from behind the crumbled wall, "What? Don't tell me you got scared of that. You said nobody can die here so that I can go all out right?" Seraphis' voice felt ethereal, as if there were many Seraphises speaking at once. Judge knew this phenomenon, it was a sign of pushing one's psyche to the limit— this state would have a mindblowing end— literally, people's brains splatter when they push their psyche to its limit.

"Wow, you are really a brute," He quipped, half jokingly— half wanting to know whether she had gone mad. "That wall did not stand a chance."

"Kid you really should rein in your tongue, I am virtuous enough to not mind it, but there are some scary people." She still spoke in an ethereal voice, but the temperament was the same. Judge was sure his master had not lost control. Haa, virtuous she says! Maybe she has indeed gone mad. He lampooned but he felt like she was giving advice to a four year old, which he was but it still felt insulting.

"Alright, let us continue." Judge smiled as he drew more of the strange ether from his purple eyes. He put away the sword in his arms, he was best at guns, not swords, and this was not just training anymore.

"Here I come then." Seraphis leaned forward, the red sword was now dripping tiny droplets of blood. She solemnly sheathed it again.

Before their fight continued, the air around them got distorted— slowly, a sky and sun came into existence, and the ground turned into soil. They now stood on a rocky plane with trees and such, it looked like a forest clearing.

The judge's smirk grew wider while he watched the ominous aura around Seraphis intensify. He casually flipped his twin pistols, Golden Eagle, spinning them on his fingers. "Alright, Master. Let's see if I can keep up with your... virtue."

Seraphis was gone before he could blink. The ground under her feet erupted, sending chunks of earth flying like cannonballs. Judge barely had time to teleport before her sword, still sheathed, slammed into the spot where he had been standing. The air rippled, and the shockwave sent him tumbling mid-teleport.

"Whoa! You're not even trying to hit me, are you?!" Judge yelled as he reappeared, stumbling a few feet away.

"Of course I am," Seraphis said, Her voice sounded flat and uneven, but underneath it, there was a strong, powerful rhythm. "Just. the aftershocks are enough to keep you on your toes, aren't they?"

Judge growled something about "savages with swords" and pointed the two Golden Eagles at her. He unleashed twin streams of ether-impregnated projectiles. The bullets swirled in mid-air, curving unpredictably to flank her on both sides.

Seraphis did not move. She slumped sideways, her eyes flaming like twin furnaces. The bullets paused in mid-air, quivering in suspension.

"Cute trick," she said, and with a flick of her sheath, the bullets reversed course, speeding straight back at him.

"Oh come on!" Judge cried as he erected a barrier of glistening ether to serve as a rampart against the hail. They hit the wall of that and exploded, and he slid back through it several feet.

"You're going to try a lot harder than this, kiddo," Seraphis said, her voice was heavy like a sledgehammer. She moved forward, one movement at a time, each with a deliberate crushing weight.

Judge smirked at the added pressure. "Alright, let's turn it up then!"

The twin pistols in his hands vanished and he clapped his hands, the earth under their feet was now a gigantic chessboard. Immense chess pieces— knights, rooks, and pawns emerged from the earth, each glowing with a faint etheric light. The pieces moved as if alive themselves, converging on Seraphis.

She sighed. "A game? Seriously?

The first wave of pawns charged her, their stone bodies swinging heavy arms like battering rams. Seraphis dodged the first one easily, her sheathed sword slicing out to just annihilate it in one fluid motion. A rook rolled toward her, spinning like a top, throwing razor-sharp ether shards about. She leaped with finesse, vaulting over it and landing on cat-like feet.

Hope you weren't in the mood for this to slow us down," she said, flicking a stone chunk off her shoulder.

Judge laughed. "Oh no, not at all. That's just just warming up."

And with a snap of his fingers, the knights charged, their heads igniting with ghostly blue flames. They moved with unnatural speed, coming at her from all sides. Seraphis spun in place, her sheath cutting arcs of scarlet energy as it sliced through the knights like paper.

"Not bad," she admitted, stepping over the shattered remains. "But you're not really trying to hurt me, are you?"

Judge shrugged. "Nah, I'm just testing the waters. Besides…" He raised a hand, and the shattered chess pieces began to reform, melding into a single, towering knight with a glowing crimson lance. "…the best moves come later."

The behemoth knight charged, its lance tearing through the air with a deafening crash. Seraphis smiled, her crimson eyes narrowing. She came to meet him with her sheathed blade, and the force of their collision shot out in shockwaves, shattering nearby trees and flattening grass underfoot.

"Not bad, not bad!" yelled the judge above the din, his voice crackly with hoarseness. "But can you handle. THIS?!""

Again he clapped his hands, and the chessboard was gone; where it had stood reared a maelstrom of clocks and gears. The air grew full of screaming metal as great wheels and pendulums slew down to form a maze of rotating machinery.

Seraphis paused, eyes moving across the shifting maze. "A steampunk circus now? You're really full of surprises.".

Judge stood atop one of the larger gears, and his pistols had somehow glowed soft, golden light. "Welcome to my domain, Master," he said. "Good luck keeping up!

Seraphis smirked. "Oh, I don't need luck.".

She blurted forward, her trail smeared by the blur of motion as she dodged swinging pendulums and whirling cogs. Judge fired down at her, his shots rebounding off the machinery in unpredictable patterns. Seraphis deflected each one with her sheath, sparks lighting up the dim vortex.

"You're just stalling," she called out, her voice calm despite the chaos. "What's your real plan?"

Judge smiled. "Would you like to know?"

With a nearly dramatic wave of his hand, the gears shifted, closing in to ensnare Seraphis in a cage of grinding metal. She paused, looking over the closing walls with a critical eye.

"Impressive," she said, and with a negligent motion sheeled her sword. The cage imploded outwards in a glow of molten metal.

Judge sighed. "You're impossible."

Seraphis stepped out of the smoke, her sheath still dripping with that eerie red aura. "And you're predictable. Now stop playing games and fight me for real."

The judge leaned over a little. "Oh, you want real? Fine. Let's get real. Slamming Golden Eagle together, he collided them into one giant ether cannon. The irresistible power humming through it, and every second that was passing, made the light brighter. "Let's see if you can handle THIS!" he shouted, firing a concentrated beam of ether straight at her. Seraphis grinned.@@novelbin@@

"Finally." She drew her sword out of its scabbard. Scarlet blade ignited, its aura shined bright like the sun. With one single swing, she split the beam in half, the energy dispersing harmlessly around her.

Judge stared, his jaw hanging open. "Okay, that's just cheating."

Seraphis laughed, clear and unrestrained. "Lesson one, kid: there's no such thing as cheating in a real fight."

Judge sighed, lowering his weapon. "Fine, you win. But next time, I'm bringing two cannons. And that was some REAL talk about using your full strength, what happened, you just shut it off?"

His master nodded, "I could lose control and explode if it continued. And also, you clearly can't even handle the current me, why should I go overboard?"

Judge sighed deeply, as if he were an old Chinese philosopher rubbing his long white beard thinking about the answer to what life meant. The air around them churned again, placing them both back in the kitchen of the two-story house of Seraphis.