Arson didn’t know why, but he wanted to punch his cousin in the face. So much in fact, that he wasn’t using his Scythe, nor did he use his Living Hands offensively.
He was so enraged that he almost decided to use the first ever dead art he ever learned, but remembered how Reaper favored the stances, and that keeping the conjured Gestalt form in the depths of his mind and soul became far harder to manage the more of the palm art he’d learned was used.
Arson scanned Moriarty with his Overlay just after he charged the young man, and was surprised by what he saw.
Name: Moriarty Eco
Height: 7’11"
Given/Registered Age: 20
Registered Bio: Third son of the Eco line. This manipulator of earthen elements has been perceived as the next great
Renaissance man of the current era. A true builder of architectural marvels and more.
Registered Skillsets: Earthen Manipulation. Minor Gravity disruption. Minor Time & Space Manipulation.
Personally known info: None
Threat Level: Maximum* Level 0 individuals have no chance of faring well in a direct exchange with this Overlay user.
Cultivation LOR*: 3.7
I wonder if that is his real level?
Arson didn’t care that the young man was seen as powerful by the system. He instead found himself wondering what triggered his Overlay’s ability to read a Cultivator's level, or Cultivator LOR, which his Overlay indicated meant Cultivation Leveled Overlay Rank. And Arson knew his would read 0.1 if anyone managed to be able to scan him.
He is annoyingly evasive. Should I use mana? Arson found himself more and more afraid to use magic, mana and anything involving Uni-Vare. The System's consistent restriction on his already sealed capabilities gave Arson the urge to remove himself from the realms of magic completely. Yet his already favored Living Hand Constructs, and his weapon required various mana types to grow.
Arson knew the changes to his Living Hand Constructs wouldn’t be the last things in his growing arsenal to be upgraded, as his scythe’s new handle was one he wouldn’t replace for anything. A choice he’d made, yet he enjoyed the now gauntleted Jill and Jane. The pair had armored themselves, a fact that made him miss his original Living Hand Construct the most.
I hope you're okay, Jack. It’s a little more dangerous without you covering my back, little buddy.
Arson shook the thoughts free of his mind and focused on the battle in front of him. His cousin was attempting to close Arson in smaller and smaller domes made out of steel infused marble. Arson was truly under duress without the use of mana, as his cousin’s own elemental hands were much larger and far more numerous than his available extra appendages.
He grew even more annoyed when Moriarty began to create larger domes, conjuring elemental hands within the domes interiors. This forced Arson to push his mental focus to a maximum, as well as the limits of his body without the use of mana.
By this point, he’d nearly been grabbed three times by one of the massive hands, on top of the domes nearly enclosing around Arson a handful of times.
With each attempt Arson was forced to dodge, vault over what felt to him like the reaching grip of giants; or if necessary, kick off the palm of one of the giant hands that rushed toward him for a burst of speed. These tactics worked flawlessly at first, until Arson realized he was being guided toward a specific point and froze at the wrong time.
“Got you by the tail, you rat!” Two ends of a dome smashed closed around Arson’s ankle and he screamed in pain as his momentum carried him crashing into the top of the dome that had caught him.
Before he could escape the dome that had both crushed his ankle and tightened around the limb, Arson was yanked bodily upward by a giant hand, blood flying free of his nose and face. He was dazed and his head spun, but Arson refused to use mana, feeling betrayed by the energies of Uni-Vare. He roared and his defiant cry was snuffed out by the hand smashing him through the dome he’d been caught by. A repeated thud could be heard, and Autumn even screamed for her cousin to stop.
By this point though, Arson had resigned mentally that he’d lost the fight. He was barely conscious, but managed to laugh as giant fist rained down on him, making his cousin even angrier as Arson passed out, the savage beating continuing.
…
“I told you that you were trash, can’t believe I wasted my time coming here to listen to a bloody rat,” said Moriarty.
“What have you done, Mori?” Autumn tried to leave Xani’s side, but the white haired girl caught her by the wrist, whispering something to Autumn before she could move any further. It wasn’t until Xani jutted a chin in Arson’s direction that Moriarty even thought to look back at his opponent.
The two flying hands that accompanied his cousin strangely enough, floated just above Arson’s body. He’d been forced to fully occupy each of the hands as he fought Arson, but hadn’t noticed the pair fly back to him after Moriarty’s last attack.
What the sparks… shouldn’t his silly skill have stopped working when I knocked him out?
Arson began to laugh. A deep laugh that shook the ground around Moriarty. A dark and menacing voice emanating from his cousin’s body.
“Why do you fear power so? I can show you what we are, what we are supposed to be,” said the dark voice. Only for Arson’s own voice to come out of his body next in response.
“You cannot show me anything that I don’t know intimately about myself already, Reaper. Just let me sleep,” said Arson before the dark laughter returned.
“I can show you the sides of yourself that you wouldn’t dare bring into the light. I can show you—“
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, shut it down, and defend me if anyone approaches while I sleep,” said Arson. Moriarty couldn’t tell what was happening, nor could Xani or Autumn. The two girls had further distanced themselves from the area of the platform that had been destroyed by the boys' fight. A mess of large hands and various domes lay scattered around Moriarty and Arson, and Moriarty didn’t like the oddity of what played out in front of him.
Then Arson sat up and Moriarty knew something was off. Arson’s once glimmering star filled eyes were now completely black. The reddish brown of his long and unkempt hair, now black and straight. He looked directly into Moriarty’s own eyes, and the young man couldn’t help but look at his aura through his earthen vision once more, and gasped at the changes he saw there.
“With pleasure,” said the dark voice that came from Arson’s body. The now black aura that filled Arson’s body held a spiraled siphon that drank in everything around the young man, and a gush of mana poured into his body as he levitated to his feet to stand, the seal on his hand beginning to glow violently.
“Autumn, what is this?” Moriarty looked over to see two shocked faces, unable to speak as the killing intent that came from Arson now was enough to suffocate them both, making them temporarily incapable of doing anything.
“Please tell me that you are threatening my life…” stated the voice Moriarty now assumed wasn’t in fact his cousin, but a demonic possession, or fractured piece of his mind speaking rather than Arson himself. How correct Moriarty was, he would never learn.
“I nearly killed you, or my cousin once already. If you try me a second time, you may die here, rat…”
“So… yes, you are threatening me, or should I say you have threatened Sovereign and have plans to end my life?” Silence filled the area, as Moriarty reevaluated the situation. He had beaten his cousin easily yes, but now…, something in the young man’s demeanor set off alarms in Moriarty’s mind. Almost as if Moriarty could feel the excitement rolling off his cousin in waves.
I am an Eco, no low-born rat is going to put fear in my heart.
“Ending you here will be a favor to our family,” said Moriarty, his raised hands bringing the birth of two elemental earthen hands from the ground. The limbs made from marble infused magically with steel enough to flatten a small hill twice over looming over Arson’s head.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” The black eyed young man, darted toward Moriarty in a flash of movements. A scythe appeared in his hand, and immediately started to spin.
“This trick won’t help you, rat. No weapon, nor—“ A black liquid formed a gauntlet made of unfamiliar material down his cousin’s arm, a black liquid that distorted the little light offered in the area, so much in fact that Moriarty was forced to look away momentarily, his earthen vision hyper sensitive to attacks with mana disruptive qualities at their cores.
An intense wave of killing intent washed over Moriarty’s mind and soul, and he knew he needed to defend himself from whatever was to come.
Marble infused with any minerals Moriarty could find in the nearby area were pulled to surround him in a moment, a fraction of a blink that took longer than his attempt to raise his arms and block.
Armor that made Moriarty look like he was a lean muscled Golem appeared in a twist of minerals and elements, then four meters of defensive might were unleashed instantly. The spinning blade of the scythe his cousin held went high, arced toward his head after Arson threw the weapon in a curving angle directly toward his neck. Moriarty was able to block the weapon, its edge not sharp enough to cut through his armor. Regardless, the power behind the throw and the momentum of the wildly spinning blade bounced once, twice, three times off the exterior of his upheld arms, feeling like three haymakers from an opponent as mighty as his own father.
Then the punch came. Arson appeared in front of Moriarty, and punched out with the hand wreathed in dark conductive waters.
One of Arson’s armored hands caught the weapon as it bounced away. While the second one drew Moriarty’s attention just long enough for Arson to completely close the distance by grabbing his ankle in a death grip that made it an impossibility for Moriarty to move freely.
Moriarty knew that the blow coming was in fact as strong as his father's own. A strike comparable to a fully grown cultivator approaching his prime. He’d tried to lower his hand fast enough to block, but even as his hands moved, so did Arson’s strike. An uppercut weaved through his guard, and sped toward his gut so precisely, Moriarty felt he’d just watched Arson take aim at his gut before he could truly process what was happening.
Moriarty flew through the air, skidding to a halt as his legs finally touched down slightly, before his back bounced off the main tower he was there to help fix.
Before he could even land entirely, in the breath between his back leaving the wall behind him, Arson appeared in a flash again, his new speed filled with alacrity. Moriarty gasped in surprise, and Arson spartan-kicked him.
The sound was explosive as Moriarty’s armored form smashed through the walls meant to be indestructible to Cultivators their age and level. The already broken structure, caving in further under the duress of centuries without maintenance, and the massive tree that now used it like a potted planter, was surprisingly strong. Yet Moriarty knew then…
Sitting in a classroom, destroyed by time and his crash landing, Moriarty knew…
I may die here if I don’t do something!
“I don’t remember the Lord ever saying that I couldn’t kill all who threatened him as he slept. He needs to be more specific if he wants that, you know, the demons are in the details …” Arson stepped through the hole Moriarty’s body made, and pulled up a hood over his head made of rippling shadows, his black eyes now encompassed by a galaxy of stars that seemed to be being eaten by his irises while they spiraled toward the center of his face. His entire upper body now harder to see and focus upon.
“You are worse than scum,” yelled Moriarty. True fear leaking out of his mind and soul in waves. Energy that now fed his opponents, both his cousin as he slept, and the Reaper that used Arson like a deadly puppet.
“This must be what you do. You call a Lord, nothing but street trash, and now you refer to me as what exactly…”
“I call you the bottom feeding demon that you are!” Moriarty tried to stand up, glancing down to see his armor dissolving with each step Arson took while Moriarty struggled to rise properly. Conductive waters, turning the armor into raw energy that flowed through the air toward his cousin.
“I am fear born of beings' apprehension long before demons were born, and am still in my infancy as far as power, might, and even knowledge, and you feel me to be a mere creature of sin and darkness… No… I’m far beyond the limitations of anything born with those simple titles,” said Arson. His constructs floating in the room behind him as if needed, fanning out to either side of him after dropping his scythe across his shoulders.
“You are nothing but an incarnation of filth, you rat—“ Moriarty’s words were cut short, as Arson lifted his weapon in the air once more. The fan mechanism triggered, seemingly more deadly than the last time he charged it to attack with. The same blackened water surrounding the blade of the weapon with deadly energy.
“Move, Moriarty, Move!
“I would say it's a pleasure, but you honestly bored me, I wonder how much longer the lord is going to play with his food in these realms before the heavens call him to claim their price,” said Arson further confusing Moriarty with his ramblings since Arson been knocked down by him; what felt like to be just moments prior.
Would I even make it out of the area if I ran?
Moriarty hadn’t meant to glance toward the exits in the room, but fear and adrenaline slowly ripped him of his senses, and clouded the patterns of his training that would have prevented him from making such a rookie mistake during contact.
“There is no place you can run that my power doesn’t touch, no corner I can’t see, no end I am not dedicated to exploring. You will not survive this if it is up to me… rat.”
“I am no—“
“Rat?” asked his cousin with a chuckle.
“Not to the Lord, who tried to treat you as an equal while you looked down on him, no, but to me… you are nothing but food,” said Arson with his lips poked out slightly, sucking in the armor as it dissolved more into ambient mana; Moriarty less and less able to focus on the skill.
“Autumn!” Moriarty raised his arms to cover his face, the thought of summoning elemental hands stripped from his mind like, unwritten notes wiped from a Holo-screen by an impatient teacher. The only things left in his mind dread, and turmoil.
“Welcome to your end, Moriarty Eco…!”