Chapter 12: Valiance
The gluttonous boy downed his food in a mad flurry, devouring all ten steaks, thirty slices of bacon, fifteen eggs, ten cups of rice, seven bananas, five whole carrots, three gallons of water and an extra three slices of chocolate cake that Zan requested.
“Okay baby~ It’s time to go~ ”
“Wait…I have to digest my food first.”
The mad doctor and the reanimated hand both gave him a…look, though in the end she relented.
“Mmm okay, I’ll give you thirty minutes…even though you probably only need five now.”
Zan heard three pairs of heavy footsteps approach the door even closer. He paid this no heed as he sat into a meditative pose. First, he looked at the reanimated hand on his left shoulder.
“...You’ve gotta help me. Or at the very least, you can’t let them take me so easily. I have no idea what she’s gonna do to me, and I don’t wanna become like those guys outside.”
To this, the hand responded by flipping in the air, and giving a thumbs up as it landed.
“....Okay…thanks.”
Next, Zan closed his eyes while crossing his legs, and then relaxing his hands on his knees. This helped him to increase his perception of the warm energy within.
The boy always knew that it was inside him, though he simply did not know what to do with it. That is, until the bald man showed him what he could do with it.
Actually utilizing it himself however, Zan learned that on his own.
Now many things changed. It was much easier to perceive, as the energy had grown in both size and intensity. Zan theorized that it was because he had not eaten this much before, and saturated his body to such a level with food.
He was correct, though what he did not know was that the technique he used had a double sided effect of cultivating the energy, while utilizing it in combat.
In other terms, the energy would grow denser and more concentrated in the heat of battle. Utilizing the technique in battle was his way of cultivating.
A monstrous technique indeed, though it also needed a lot of food or vital energy to cultivate it with…and also, the corresponding monstrous talent.
Zan started to drag his fingers in crescent and circular motions along the ground, vibrating his fingers, hands and arms subtly and minutely. The genius somehow figured out how to drag Earth energy into his body using just his fingers and hands.
Using this energy, he stored it in his body while indirectly strengthening his skin, muscles and bone.
The vital energy within his body and the Earth energy that he drew into himself melded within Zan, strengthening and mixing for the time being into a tough, vitalizing, empowering energy. The boy felt this, and was surprised by the effect.
Bracing himself for the fight to come, he proceeded with storing energy and strengthening his body for the short time that he had left.
…
Zan stood up from his meditative pose, feeling the empowering and formidable energy that coursed through him. These thirty minutes made him feel a power he never held before, and now he would be testing it out on three horrors. The eager boy was both excited and uneasy. The best way to describe it was that he was agitated, be it for multiple reasons.
“Okay~”
“Time to go...be obedient now.”
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“The last time you weren't and remember what happened.” Mila said sternly.
Like a kid being taken somewhere he didn’t want to go, Zan responded in the most mature voice he could.
“...I'm not coming out!”
A scowl appeared on Mila’s face.
“You’re not coming out!? Again!?”
“You’re really just like my son aren’t you? Servants! Drag him out!”
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Zan saw the first horror try to come through the door.
It was ten feet tall and at least four feet wide. The thing had horse legs and arms made of scales that ended with five sharp claws. The thing’s face had vertical pupils and…two mouths. One sewn up by thread and the other gurgling at him right below it. Zan had steeled himself but he was still taken aback by the sight.
BANG!
The horror clumsily bumped into the metal frame and stone walls around the door. Just like he thought, the things were too big to come in all at once. This was what he wanted.
Zan braved the creeping fear of the vile creation before him, he activated his legs with formidable energy as he beamed like an arrow shot from a bow. Transferring the energy once again, he covered his fist in it and launched a punch at the chin of the monstrosity. The monster’s head swung hard upwards from the devastating uppercut yet, gravity pulled it back down and the thing held no reaction, it did no damage.
Instead its second mouth gurgled intensely as a long gray tongue came out and whipped at Zan’s head. The red haired boy panicked but was able to barely dodge the heavy but rapid thing.
‘I never had to dodge a tongue attack before…’
Zan did not give up, its body was only halfway through the large steel door. Using the same process, he used his legs to constantly move with whirlwind force and his arms to rain down devastating strikes. The red blur delivered blow after blow on the monstrosity and each blow boomed and echoed through the room and the cave.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The strikes hit hard yet the gray stony skin of the thing before him, and his enormous figure conquered each of Zan’s strikes. It had already gotten through the front door, and it stood against Zan like an adult man to a toddler.
“Fuck…”
He looked around for the reanimated hand. Left and right, up and down, all around the room. Finally, he found that it was somehow hanging on the ceiling.
Zan didn’t really expect much from the hand, so he didn’t really feel anything from it doing nothing.
And then at that intense moment Zan was suddenly reminded of his childhood— years before he became fight king of the youths.
He reminisced about a particular heaven shattering battle between Zan and his friend, and five other children who wanted their super special play spot in the forest.
Zan fought the battle with heroic reckless abandon, just to see his friend watch from the sidelines.
“What are you doing!? Help me!”
“I’m preparing my special move!”
“Your what!?”
“HAAAAAAAAAAHT!!!”
The six year old boy charged up his special attack with all his might and force, gathering the primordial energies of the universe into one attack to release chaotic ruin and devastation.
“WIND SPIRAL FIST!!!”
Zan’s friend swung his fist at the nearest evildoer. The shout of his special attack garnered all attention on the battlefield, as they all stopped what they were doing to look over the destructive after effects of his special move.
The blow landed on the enemy’s stomach as he looked on in fear.
The territory taker’s stomach ruptured from spiraling winds and his limp body was thrown twenty feet into the air at an arc.
…Or that’s what was supposed to happen. The villain instead looked at Zan’s friend for a moment in brief silence, before conquering his fear and beating the absolute shit out of him. The five children then ganged up on Zan’s friend after, and started raining blows on him.
‘Ah, good times…’
At that very moment, the hand fell from the ceiling, intending to hit the thing’s face.
Suddenly in mid air, the brown, smooth and small hand turned gray, bulky and rough. It rapidly expanded from its small size into a four foot gigantic magnitude of a hand.
It landed on the thing’s head, covering it in its entirety. The thing swayed left and right, bashing into and cracking the stone walls around it. It sluggishly yet powerfully tried to grasp the gigantic hand on its head that was hammering him with blows using its free fingers.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The insane size of the hand and its powerful steel muscles mitigated the creature’s limited movement, its blows sounding out booms that vibrated the air with powerful force.
The monstrous thing fell to its knees yet somehow got a grasp of one of the fingers of the giant hand. Spinning and gathering just enough force to swing the hand off of its double mouthed head. The motion allowed it a brief respite…or so it thought.
Almost instantaneously a red blur appeared in front of its kneeling figure. Intense spiraling energy gushed around his right arm like a hurricane. His eyes were confident, resolute and valiant. Winding up his fist, he hurled it straight into the monster’s chest, right at the heart.
BOOOM!
A large explosion rang out as if a boulder had crashed into another. Cutting winds swept throughout the room, and into the deep darkness outside it.
The dust settled and a two foot wide hole, straight through the monster’s chest and heart could be seen. It was an extraordinary attack.
However…
Zan trembled in pain and absolute shock. Not only was his body totally depleted of energy and he was too exhausted to even stand, but his hand— no his arm took his immediate attention.
The fist he used to smash a hole inside the monster was white and red.
Zan could see the bones on his hand as torn destroyed muscle was left demolished on it. Four of his fingers, his knuckles, and most of his upper hand were simply bone.
The blood on them seemed to have dried from the hot impact but it threatened to come out again.
The bones he had left on his fist were cracked all over like a vase so close to breaking, and it was the same for his arm.
What Zan did not know was that if he didn’t make the effort to coat his arm in Earth energy before he made his attack, he would have had no hand to speak of, and his arm would have shattered into tiny bits of irrecoverable pieces.
Zan had seen many things such as war and death, but he was no seasoned warrior just yet. The trauma and shock he found himself in put him into a severe mental and emotional breakdown. His body was already shutting down, empty of both vital and Earth energy, so the result came obvious.
As he fainted to the ground, the last thing he saw was a beautiful brunette and an enormous gray hand running towards him.