“This battle is meaningless. I won’t fight you anymore. And…I cannot join you.” I repeated to him, his body now stumbling over his blade. Whatever ability he activated, it seemed it was finally taking its toll on his physique. Large, unsteady gasps of air came from his crumpled stature.

“You…won’t fight anymore? Oi, don’t give me that bullshit.”His tone grew raspier and his aura oozed a killing intent that far surpassed anything I have ever felt. I guess this was what people called…true fear.

His head slowly rose, switching from its dangling stare fixed at the ground to a stabbing leer at myself. “You won’t fight because of a promise? Because your actions left the ones you cared about dead? Are you scared now? For the rest of your life, eh? Your meaningless, fucking life!? Well sorry, but I don’t give a shit about who died because of your incompetence, I don’t care how much you suffered, I don’t care if you wake up in the middle of the night hearing their blood-curdling screams. I could not give a fuck! So stop messing around. YOU…will help me whether you like it or not! I’ll beat it senselessly into you even if you don’t fight back.” His scarlet eyes spiralled like a lake of viscous blood manifesting through his experience.

“You can’t win and it looks like you’re about to collapse from mana exhaustion. Give up. I’m truly sorry, but I promised and that’s i—”

“So you promised not to fight? Even though that’s why they died? Move on! The past isn’t the present and it certainly can’t be the future, so move! For the sake of my goals! For the sake of my purpose!” He violently interrupted me, his hands becoming more animated and spit flew from his mouth. His sincere way of talking from before vanished. He became cold and uncaring. Like he switched personalities entirely.

He then abruptly tried to charge at me, but his eyelids shut heavily. This would be the end of our fight. His sword dispelled its emerald colour and returned to its mulberry pigment.

“Sorry kid.” I whispered before turning around slowly and hanging my sword over my back, staring at the grey blanket covering the sky.

“Oi…where do you think you’re going?” My head snapped immediately, sweat trickling down the side of my forehead. His body sprawled on the floor yet his mouth still moved. “Get back…here. I…command you!” His voice shrieked towards the end, but he then turned silent.

Rumble!!

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“Huh? What the?” The mountain began rumbling and the clouds began darkening all around us. A dark harmony devoid of colour filled the sky and only slimmer's of amethyst light seemed to dash and scatter in my field of view.

A burdensome, suffocating, tyrannical ambience manifested from out of seemingly nowhere, governing everything in its close perimeter, that including me. Its ponderous shackles which it placed on me brought me to my knees and the rumbling of the mountain only seemed to increase boulders starting to detach from the side of the mountain and causing them to fall downwards resulting in avalanches falling soon after.

“What’s happening? What is this feeling?” My head desperately tried to spin back to Eli’s direction only to realise my worst nightmare. His tattered arm, sleeve torn from his elbow down, pushed against the floor in a tremendous struggle. His argent hair smouldered by dirt rising from the floor and dangling before his eyes, covering all of his features.

“Oi. I said, ``Where do you think you’re going?” His voice repeated in a dead tone as he climbed back up from resting on one knee. His scarlet eyes twisted and adorning a tempestuous mix of amethyst and ebony. His hair is also dying from the roots, a parasitic black. A strange pattern began staining his uncovered arm, stretching in the exact same amethyst glow.

My body froze up immediately. All the saliva in my mouth dried nigh instantly and my limbs shook violently.

What’s happening? He shouldn’t be capable of that kind of power! Where is this coming from?

Thoughts seemed to drown out any other ideas I may have stored. Until I noticed a crucial detail.

“He’s not using any mana?” I fearfully proclaimed. I tried searching for a signature in his mana, but all of his mana seemed to have disappeared from his body. Or rather, been blocked off.

Nevertheless, I still needed to do one thing.

“Run…” I whispered and immediately took off for the grand entrance we originally entered through.

“Why do you still ignore me? I said, ``Where are you going?”

What? How can I still hear him from such a distance? My eyes scanned my near vicinity, only to locate the nightmare that had freakishly spawned right next to me. I instantaneously swung my blade in his direction and simultaneously conjured a massive ice pillar in his wake, but all for nothing. His figure rendered the mana completely useless, dissipating into ambient particles that seemed to be swallowed up alongside the rest of the mana in the area.

His movements were not wasted and his arm flew directly at me, missing by the smallest of margins, the air pressure from the blow severing the end of the cliff clinging behind us and opening a deep cut on my cheek. Crimson lingered suspended between us. Noticing this, I swung my hand through it, catching the residue on my fingers and swiping at his eyes with the tips of them, halting his vision.

I have to finish this in the next few blows, otherwise, I may not get another chance, I thought to myself, grabbing his hand and twisting it before collapsing my elbow into the point of his arm where his bones connected.

Snap!

No emotion seemed to escape him and his wild look seemed to only intensify growing largely more disturbing.

“Sorry, but I need to continue.” I apologised before spinning and delivering a quick blow to his solar plexus, followed by a sledgehammer of a kick to his liver and quickly closing the distance, exploding at his jaw with a vicious uppercut. Using his collapsing body's momentum, I catapulted myself into the air before amplifying his fall with my gravity and strength, collapsing him levels into the interior of the mountain.

“Phew…that should be good enough. Still. What was that?” I questioned, gazing at his injured body curling up into a foetal position, blood leaking from his mouth and his eyes and hair reverting to their original state, his tattoo also vanishing and the mana signature returning to his body.