The golden flames and red lightning coalesced into a blooming cyclone. Suddenly, I caught a flash of light within as Cain hurled his spear at me. Crimson lightning trailed behind the weapon, slicing through my flames and forcing them to retreat from the combined might of his attack and the static aura that surrounded him.
In the end his lightning was stronger simply due to the fact that it was made of Qi and not essence. A drop of Qi was enough to cut through a wall of essence, but that didn't mean his aura hadn’t lost a bunch of layers.
I couldn’t do what Mr. Brutus did, so I created several platforms overlapping and lining them up in a row. Each one was positioned vertically at a slight angle. There was about 5 of them. Which was all I could manage in the short amount of time I had. The spear broke through the first and second. By the third I noticed it veering slightly to the left
I leaned to one side allowing the buzzing spear to narrowly pass me. I could have gone for a normal dodge, but I wanted to see how my platforms would hold up. The answer being not well.
As soon as the spear passed me, I fired a spray of mana bolts. Cain evaded what he could, while shattering what he couldn't. It gave me time to close the distance between us. I needed reach, so I chained three platform spells together altering the effects with intention.
Half way to Cain I drew a sword of pure hardened air. The spell circles overlapping one another to form the guard. Before I could reach him – with my Qi sight - I saw his spear coming from behind me.
I stopped and activated a Qi pulse not just jumping up into the air and out of the way, but performing a backflip and landing on a newly formed vertical platform. My caterpillar aura giving me the grip I needed to hang on the side of it.
I focused on giving my wind blade an aura and to my surprise it worked. As soon as his spear was back in his hands, I released a double Qi pulse and swung my transparent sword, bringing it down on Cain.
In a panic he used his spear to block me, causing my improvised weapon to crack, as it clashed against the shaft of his spear.
I reached out with my caterpillar aura covered hand and grabbed his weapon. Gliding along the shift I slipped up the back of his arm, but before I could strike he unleashed a burst of red lightning in every direction.
The energy expanded as it desperately tried to break through my aura. The sudden surge of power threw me off and shaved off a few of my layers, but I managed to land on my feet ready for the next attack.
“What kind of mage are you! You can't use aura! That's cheating!” Yelled Cain.
He was still the same asshole as before. This wasn't a game. It was a real fight. I took the opportunity to mend my aura and inject momentum, water, and earth aspects into my makeshift sword. The strike I got on his spear had cracked it resulting in it leaking wind aspects.
I also noticed it was to light to be used effectively as a weapon. Without the weight there was no real chopping power. That was where the momentum aspects came in. The water and earth aspects also added a little weight to it, but most importantly they made it more resilient.
I focused on powering the spells and reforming the blade as I spoke to my brother. “This isn't a game! I’m going to kick your ass for hurting her! I don't care how overpowered you are! I'll make it happen! I’ll make it painful!” I yelled.
It wasn't enough to just hurt him. I needed to humiliate him. Dismantle him, like taking down a boss with multiple phases. He was going to pay.
“What the hell are you? A cultivator? A mage? That's Qi inside you, but you also have a pretty good handle on aspects like a mage. You have to be a mage with aura spells. Your like some kind of trickster! You think tricking me will be enough! I’ll show you what’a real man can do!” Said Cain.
“You aint no real man! A real man wouldn’t call himself a real man! Dad never did!” I said as I added more layers to my aura. I was up to 79 layers now. I’m pretty sure that was a new record for me.
“Oh, fuck off! I’m the alpha here!” He tossed his spear at me, lightning crackling and trailing behind it. Instead of simply dodging, I avoided the blade and grabbed it by the shaft. Hoping my plan would work, I asked Aku for a favor.
The spear dragged me along. Cain controlled it making sure I hit every rock and tree — like road kill stuck in the wheels of an old pickup truck. It was painful, but I only needed a few seconds.
He raised his hand sending me up into the air. I kept going higher and higher until finally I got the confirmation from Aku.
As soon as the spear lost power, I threw it to one side not wanting it to accidentally stab me on the way down. I began to accelerate rapidly and was flooded with memories of when I fell out of the sky and the pain I felt when crashing through that roof.
Not wanting that to happen again, I quickly gathered up as much wind aspects as I could control. Then created the longest platform I could. It was about a foot wide and 100 feet long.
I slammed my caterpillar aura covered hand against it and began to slow my descent. The friction created almost lit the platform ablaze, so I gathered up the heat and injected it into my aura. By the time I got to the end my speed had slowed significantly, but not enough to hold onto the platform.
Instead, I undid the spell. Then reused some of the aspects to make a much smaller one. One I could stand on. I landed on it with a cat like thump. It took a second to catch my breath, but I used it to make a low powered chicken soup aura, healing my body of any cuts or bruises I'd gained along the way. It even got the dirt out of my mouth, fingernails, and underwear.
“Thank you! Thank you so much Aku! You’re the best!” I said.
As if invoking my quirky daughter a blue window popped up before me.
Princess Aku: Kick his butt papa! Uncle was really mean to Snowball!
Isaac: I know. I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. I should have done something right away.
Princess Aku: It’s okay. Uncle was bullying papa too.
The window closed after that. I held my wind blade up. It looked like the aspects I’d added in had made it pretty sturdy. It also changed it’s color to a ghostly steal blue. To reinforce it farther I began adding more layers too it reinforcing it with more aspects.
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At least one more layer. I didn't exactly have time to sit here and focus. The next issue was the fact that Cain still had loads of Qi inside of him. Meanwhile I was already down to around 70%.
What now. I looked down to where he was. It looked like he was trying to call back his spear. Little did he know it was un-enchanted. I wasn’t sure what it was enchanted with, but it definitely had some crazy stuff on it considering how shiny it was. Once Aku zeroed it out, the black material became dull and hollow. Almost like a dried up goat horn.
Considering he seems to rely on it so much this should be a big hit to his power. Of course he can always just pick it up and use it anyway. The way he spun it around and held it, told me he had some proficiency with it, but I wasn't sure on his skill level yet. I won't know until I actually fight him in melee.
So far the only thing he knew how to do was throw his spear, fire lightning bolts, and create expanding waves of static. He wasn't very versatile, but he did have a lot of destructive power to throw around.
I really wasn’t sure if I could win. The only thing letting me keep up with him was all the layers I’d built and the heat aspects boosting my speed.
He walked over and picked up the spear. Then glared up at me. I flipped him the bird causing him to scream in anger before firing a bunch of lightning at me. The blasts were huge and moved without much precision.
What kind of training did my brother do? Its like he was fighting someone way bigger than me. He would be good in a war. Taking out large targets, but I was small and fast. It was almost like he was pretending to fight a giant kaiju. I got an idea and decided to use falling to my advantage.
I fell back pushing off the platform right before his lightning struck my spell construct. Creating another platform I used my caterpillar aura to glide and speed up my descent. It was a bit like one of those speed bossing platforms in racing games. Only instead of the platform boosting me it was my aura pushing me forward — like the wheels of a car spinning on asphalt.
My brother fired blast after blast, but all I had to do was create platforms and use them to cling, glide, speed boost, block, and most importantly to change my direction.
“Stop moving and let me hit you!” yelled Cain.
I was nearing the ground, so I chained three platform spells together, creating a dense diagonal square. This one was different though. Its structure was much more flexible and resilient.
This resulted in a trampoline effect where the downward energy I accumulated was redirected into a long jump. I flew threw the air like a rabid homeless man and was about to bring, THE PAIN, to my brother when he unleashed another blast of buzzing red Qi.
That was fine. I quickly created a small platform vertically to my left side. Pressing my hand on it, I activated a small Qi pulse pushing myself about a foot away from the red lightning’s path. I could feel the angry static tickle the side of my head.
I positioned my sword for a strike. The momentum all coalesced into my next attack. Before my brother's lightning could end, I swung my wind blade just as he came in range of my sword.
My blade managed to cut several layers off his fuzzy aura, but no blood had been drawn. My momentum continued pulling me past him. With my caterpillar aura, I quickly pivoted performing a 180 before releasing another Qi pulse sending me right back at him.
My blade arched once more biting into his shell with far less force. There was so many left. That was when Cain spun around swinging his un-enchanted spear at me like it was a staff.
It was so fast that there was very little time to react. I had to hold my blade diagonally over my head allowing the spear to strike and slide off, missing me by a hair. I went for a stab extending the aura of my sword.
The tip hit Cain in his gut ripping through more of his layers, but no blood yet. Instead he was pushed back almost falling on his ass.
With his guard down I fired a spray of mana bolts in his direction. Each one breaking through at least one layer of his aura. The more layers I removed the weaker he was.
His natural strength was insane with his upper spirit body. Adding an aura multiplied it many times over. The only way was to whittle him down layer by layer until I could actually keep up.
The issue was I’d already burned through over half my Qi. It was crazy how much power I needed in order to maintain so many layers at once. Adding aspects on top of that burned through my supplies much quicker.
As long as I was fast enough, I could keep hitting him and avoiding his attacks. The Question was, could I hold out long enough for a decisive blow.
No matter what, I couldn’t let him recreate his aura.
-Yukio-
“You assholes did it on purpose!” I yelled at the 4 god-like beings before me.
“I didn’t want it either.” Whined Cosmo.
“The kid needed to wake up. He only has a few more hours before he needs to go home.” Said Master Brutus.
“It was actually my idea. If you want to be mad at anyone you can blame me.” Said Lorie.
“Come on Lore keeper! You know how sensitive Isaac is! What made you think this was a good idea! Letting that asshole burn Snowball! That had to be really traumatizing for Aku! She was having so much fun too!” I reprimanded.
“I didn’t expect him to go that far, also aren’t you the one that tore Snowball’s leg off. Don’t you think that was traumatizing?” Said Lorie.
“That was… okay you got me there, but it was wrong then and it's wrong now.” I said. The three of them looked like they were ashamed. While Ribdena seemed to have a fire dancing behind her eyes, as she watched the two brothers duke it out.
“Wow, that’s amazing! Did you see how Isaac boosted himself with those platforms! The dude looked like some kind of sonic character!” Said Pez.
“I really like that crazy fireball at the start of the fight. It was so bright and gold. The way the flames kind of bloomed at the end were gorgeous.” Said Riza.
“Yeah, that was cool, but have you seen Isaac's sword skills. He’s totally holding his own against that spear. That's crazy when you realize he’s a whole rank behind him.” Said Ron.
“That's because he’s overcompensating by going over the 50 layer limit. With that he can keep up, but it’s a major drain on his Qi.” Said Master Brutus.
“Over 50? But I can only do 9!” said Ron.
“That sounds really hard. How many layers does Claw have?” said Pez.
“Claw started with 50 layers. He’s down to 32 now. The guy managed to reform some during the fight, but Isaac hasn’t given him many chances to rebuild.” Explained Master Brutus.
“So is the piss baby gonna win?” I asked.
Master Brutus shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows. With the way the kid is draining his Qi, sparky might win. Then again, if the kid manages to take down enough layers, he could win. His magic doesn’t need Qi, so he might be able to do it.” Said Master Brutus.
“I’m happy we didn’t have to fight him. It would have gone pretty badly.” Said Pez.
“How dose he move essence like that? He’s like a mage.” Said Riza.
“He has to be a hybrid between a mage and cultivator. Didn't you see all that spell casting. Cultivators can't do that.” Said Ron.
“Of course they can. They just don't. Isaac will never be a master at spell craft, but he is clever enough to make the most of his skills.” Said The Lore Keeper.
“I want him….” Mumbled Ribdena. “How much do you want for him!? Ill give you 100,000 credits!” She bargained.
“Isaac isn’t for sale and besides didn’t you call him a weak whelp.” Said Cosmo.
“She also said he wouldn’t last very long.” Said Lorie.
Their words seemed to irritate the dragon goddess. She pissed me off so much. “You clearly don't understand what real power is.” I said.
This got a laugh out of the dragon. “Oh,. and you do? Don’t think just because you beat up a bunch of beginners that you know anything about strength.” she said.
“I might be young, but I know more about it than you do. You confuse cruelty with strength. Cruelty is nothing more than the tool of those that want to feel powerful. True strength comes from restraint. The only reason weaklings like you and Cain exist is because those who are strong show you mercy.” I said.
The dragon goddess let out a smokey breath. “Don’t think just because your goddess is here I won’t burn you to a-“ I didn’t let her finish pushing past Cosmo and Master Brutus. I got right in her face.
“Do it. I was ready to kill myself an hour ago. You don’t scare me.” I said meeting her gaze. I could smell the smoke coming off her. Feel her burning body heat. It was like standing next to a furnace.
“Okay, enough of that.” Said Cosmo wedging herself between us.
“Keep your children in check.” Said Ribdena
“You stupid girl. Do you really want to die.” Said Cosmo as she pinched me by the ear and pulled me away from the dragoness.