Chaos is the freedom for those inanimate, for those without a moral compass, for those without stakes.

Chaos is the natural state of the world, and with foreign energies of mana and the echo constantly streaming in and out of existence, the world will continue to march toward total anarchy.

Chaos can be described as inconsistent, insensible, or impossible.

This is a face of Zealot, a primitive evolution of his belief.

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The hero’s eyes analyzed the demon lord’s new body, and as he expected, it was a type of metal made of the echo which he had never seen before. The void black armour glowing a hue of red -- perhaps the blood still remembered by the air -- seemed to pulsate with power, ready to burst at any moment. His helmet was especially reminiscent of the demon king Satana, a dragon-like head with its massive jaw grinding the razor teeth. Reginn would need to take this situation as a life or death situation, especially with the tree still around…

Thankfully, in this state, Zealot’s instincts drove his actions, erratic and nonsensical. Reginn could use this to his advantage.

This time, Zealot was the first to attack, taking advantage of his unpredictability. The hero would need to focus heavily on the demon lord, but even he had to admit that the demon lord was much faster than him. His countermeasure was to use the mana around him to create a myriad of rings, each the weight of a mountain, additionally holding on tightly to restrict the demon lord. However, even such devices only slowed him down slightly and even increased the power behind his punches.

At his slowed pace, Reginn could finally enact his plan. He led the battle toward the giant tree, expertly creating metal orbs to redirect impacts. By the time he was pushed against the ivory trunk, his strategy came to fruition.

In his state as a wild beast, Reginn was able to create even more rings to restrain him further. However, this time the rings were not heavy and were instead controlled by Reginn. The hero used all his might to try and stop the demon lord’s punch in the middle of its track, succeeding in turning the battle into a tug of war. This was but a step in his grand plan.

After the hero calculated the exact trajectory of the strike, he immediately despawned the rings, returning them to their base element of mana. The punch went through just as Reginn dodged out of the way, the demon lord instead striking the Victory Aspect.

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There was a small pause before the world registered the true magnitude of the impact. After the initial shockwave that fluttered Reginn’s long red hair and loose clothes, a secondary impact -- the true force -- struck the tree again, causing the tree to slowly split into a million pieces with a thousand cracks creeping through the entire construct.

The tree eventually lost its stability in existence, and returned to its echo form, fading away. Now the battle could truly begin.

Reginn instantaneously appeared in front of Zealot where the Victory Aspect once stood, then revealed the gravitational ball he created. The sphere was powerful enough to rip the soil, insects and grass off of the ground, and upon impact, began to tear the demon lord into a single point.

Zealot was able to rip out of the state soon but was met with a flash of light, attempting to blind him. However, this was a blunder on Reginn’s part as the helmet helped protect his vision at all times, even enhancing them to near Reginn’s base ability.

Now the tide of battle had turned to the demon lord’s favour, the rhythm lost. Zealot grabbed the ground beneath them, and flipped the entire forest into the air, including Reginn. The various critters living underground, as well as an entire cavern, lay exposed.

However, before Zealot allowed them to smash onto the ground, he jumped into the air to pursue the hero. Reginn compressed the air beneath him in order to walk in the sky, then began to coat the exterior of his arm into a shield, inspired by Zealot’s current form. The atomic composition was identical as well, the only difference being that Zealot’s Chaos was blessed by the demon God.

As expected by Reginn, Zealot began his motion to strike him, the hero readying to block the attempt. However, through the mechanisms of chaos, Zealot instead chose to grab him by his arm and bite down with all his might into the mana-based armour.

Initially shocked, Reginn soon jumped down onto the ground, the debris still raining down on them. His arm felt a bit sore, the armour compressed around his arm, but Reginn could manage. Zealot landed atop Reginn while he was off guard, capitalizing on the opportunity.

The hero quickly pushed him off, flinging him to the other side of the open area.

The two then stood on each end of the zone destroyed by Zealot.

Both waited for the debris to finish falling in order to complete the battle, they could tell from the tempo of the battle.

Reginn began to gather all mana around him, his rough handling accidentally destroying many of them to his void body.

Zealot began sucking up all the blood he had in his mouth, revitalizing himself and strengthening his armour.

However, before they could resume their battle, a lone voice shouted from the sky, their form outlined against the sun like a heavenly agent.

“Stop in the name of law!”