Tristan swung at his father, who stepped inside his guard and placed a hand on his back. No matter, Tristan had taken blows from tier three earth kern elites, Shadow Fist could not hope to generate as much force. Then something pulled. Tristan’s essence moved against his will, slowly at first, but gaining speed.

The familiarity of it shocked Tristan out of his anger and he lashed out to drive his father back, “Consumption, how do you have the force of consumption.”

The feeling it gave Tristan was identical to the dark elementals that came out of the mine. He lacked a reserve of essence at the time, so he had not directly experienced it, but he had felt it through his weapons. At that time he had to constantly fill up the reservoirs to stop the blades from breaking.

Now it felt like something wet was being sucked out of him. It felt wrong, in a way only something vampiric could be. He narrowed his eyes at Shadow Fist, who somehow had the force of consumption. Great, supposedly so did Tristan. Only he had never seen a sign of the essence. Decay had a visible component that he could somewhat control, so where could the consumption essence be hiding?

Shadow Fist seemed surprised, “You know of my technique?”

Tristan decided it was high time to fight with his brain instead of his emotions. He made his way forward slowly, keeping an eye on Shadow Fist’s hands. A mental argument was going on in Tristan’s mind. One piece wanted to go in and smash his father, that was his emotions talking. The other piece wanted to get siphoned by consumption a few more times to figure it out. In the end, it was not a decision, he could punch the lights out of his father at any time, however experiencing consumption was not something he could easily come across. At least not safely.

So he did something he had never tried before, he fought while also inspecting his kern. It decreased his capabilities substantially, though he compensated by adding more force to each strike. He did not want Shadow Fist to change tactics, Tristan wanted the only response he had to be his force of consumption.

Shadow Fist weaved out of the way of several punches and kicks before slapping a hand on Tristan’s stomach. He watched as some of his essence was sucked out of that area. It was very similar to how one would absorb essence from an artifact. Tristan had seen both Eve and Bruce do it several times. Could Shadow Fist use people as artifacts? Probably not, there had to be some cost or limitation, otherwise, dark elementals would all cannibalize each other to rapidly grow.

Tristan decided to test the limitations. He went after Shadow Fist again, the technique was odd, it was theoretically dangerous, but it only removed about a twentieth of Tristan’s essence stores each time. This time Tristan loaded his hand with metal essence. He had practiced keeping decay nearly saturated, then removing all the essence he could control from around it. Preloading the decay made it more accessible for a smaller essence price when he actually needed it.

One of the loaded black pieces of decay moved through his kern and towards his palm. It made contact and his palm started cracking like old parchment. Shadow Fist struck again, but this time Tristan was faster, he slapped the hand aside, surprising his father. The pain reduced as some of the essence was siphoned away.

The decay alloy consumed more than five percent of his reserves, so some remained. He flicked it at Shadow Fist. The man smirked as if to say those tricks would not work. Once the blood struck, his expression changed, it stung like acid after all. It ate through clothes and skin until it ran out of essence. Several red sores were left behind.

“What kind of trick was that,” Shadow Fist asked with uncertain eyes. He was unknowledgeable about forces, he probably had no idea what other ones were out there, “Was it the same as mine?”

“No,” Tristan said, then he thought about what decay actually was. Decay felt ancient, as time was the inescapable destroyer of everything, it would render everything down to its base state. Tristan wished he could feel Shadow Fists kern, to see how it reacted. The reason was that consumption was how one broke something down into its base components and processed it for energy.

That trick had just put Tristan down around sixty percent of his total essence reserves. Shadow Fist moved in this time much more warily, unfortunately for him, Tristan could not let him be wary. He swung again, Shadow Fist taking great pains to avoid the palm that still had remnants of grey blood.

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Another touch, this one on his shoulder, and Shadow Fist took more of Tristan’s essence. There was a pulse, so fast that Tristan almost missed it. Everything that it crossed disappeared before the slimy feeling of something being sucked out. Why couldn’t he see it, all of it was happening inside his own kern?

After a few more strikes, Tristan was getting dangerously low on essence. At thirty-five percent, he finally figured out the very simple reason why he was not getting anywhere. He could not see or sense dark essence. That pulse was converting his metal to darkness, then drawing it in like he was an artifact. That was not right either, It was like his daggers, he was the reservoir and Shadow Fist the blade.

Tristan briefly wondered if Hadrid had planned for his tools to eventually become a teaching aid. He focused completely on his father, who was coming in again, this time side stepped and brought a back fist across Shadow Fist’s path. Of course, he evaded, but it let Tristan follow up with a stomp on his knee.

That was normally guaranteed to break the joint, however Shadow Fist evaded again. It did allow Tristan to lay a hand on Shadow Fist's shoulder. He tried to pull Shadow Fist’s essence like he was an artifact. Nothing happened. Shadow Fist jumped back while Tristan stared in confusion at his hand, why did it not work? He had definitely gotten a metal, consumption alloy.

Shadow Fist looked from his shoulder to Tristan's palm, “You’re trying to copy me! It’s not possible, I tried teaching the previous Elder of the Forest Caldera.”

That surprised Tristan as the head family, aside from Shadow Fist all had fire kerns. Fire also had easy access to the force of consumption. That meant that the Elders weren’t as ignorant as they seemed to be. Though not knowledgeable enough to succeed at learning forces.

“You will not be able to succeed, forfeit, and submit,” Shadow Fist droned on.

“Oh, shut up,” Tristan grumbled.

Learn forces. Shadow Fist could not teach it because he did not know how he had achieved his own force. Tristan’s was Alloy, and it allowed him to mix other forces to gain a force he did not ordinarily possess. So how to mix metal with hunger when he had no consumption essence? Shadow Fist approached again and managed to get off a leg sweep. It lacked the force to actually knock Tristan over, but that pulse came with it.

In frustration, Tristan threw a wad of essence at it. What else could he do? Then the essence he lost returned, plus some. Tristan grinned when he saw this. It was much more passive than Shadow Fist’s consumption as it could only target things he could mix his essence with. Currently, that was limited to his own body, but that would change at a later time.

Right now it would only serve as a convenient way to resist some of the more invasive attacks. Tristan could not be sure it would work as well on anyone a higher tier than him either. Shadow Fist was much stronger than average, but he was only a little farther along in tier two than Tristan.

For now, it was a party trick, one that countered Shadow Fist. Most essences would only enter his body alongside a sharp object, so it was not something that he would do often.

Shadow Fist frowned, looking at his leg. He was wondering what went wrong. This time he did not get the burst of essence.

Looking at Tristan he asked, “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Tristan shrugged, “but you should ask, what am I going to do.”

Shadow Fist prepared himself, but Tristan was done playing around. He reinforced his knuckles, letting the sunlight glint off the now silvery sheen. With his attention distracted by the show of force, he missed some of Tristan’s other movements.

Blood started pooling in Tristan’s palm. The blood quickly turning from silver to grey. Shadow Fist was unaware because of Tristan’s closed fist.

Tristan attacked and his father evaded. Despite the years of tempering that Tristan had been through, Shadow Fist was still more skilled. Tristan was stronger, faster, and vastly more durable, he even had a ridiculous force that could incorporate many other forces. However, skill was what humans had always used to overcome those with innate advantages.

Unfortunately for Shadow Fist, skill could only mitigate surprises. One punch, which was narrowly dodged, contained that surprise. Tristan felt the decay hit its capacity, and before it could start dissolving him, he flicked his hand open. It scattered across Shadow Fist's left side in small droplets.

His clothing started rotting, becoming brittle and collapsing. This dose was at full power, the concentration of decay essence not being reduced by Shadow Fist’s hunger. Skin was destroyed and when it reached the blood, he finally activated his force of consumption, though the effort seemed to wear on him.

The effort came too late as Tristan was able to close in. He gripped Shadow Fist’s right wrist, the uninjured one, and drove his bloody hand into the wrist. When he reinforced his hand with metal essence, his bones became as forgiving as steel. The wrist broke, but Tristan would not release such good leverage.

Shadow Fist did his best to manage all the injuries he had received in the last two seconds. Unfortunately, that management of pain made him too slow to react when the hand that had broken his wrist slid up his arm. The reinforced back fist took Shadow Fist in his upper jaw, Tristan followed his backward stagger with a step and punch with his full body weight behind it.

Shadow Fist did not even have time to react before the strike landed. His consciousness fled. Tristan was breathing heavily as he stood over his father’s unconscious form. He turned toward Kale and nodded to the warrior. Then he trudged toward Lesly who had very wide eyes.

He smiled slightly, “Thanks, that was cathartic.”