Chapter 21: Power
BOOOM!
“What was that!? Cole!?”
The blonde boy placed a hand on the frightened girl’s back, holding her closer to him, and even more tightly. He could feel her breathing start to get manic but he hushed her worries with the warmth of his chest.
Cole was actually quite nervous too, but he was determined not to show it.
Unfortunately, the rapid sound of his heartbeat gave him away, as the girl pressed her face closer to his heart.
Cole knew nothing about romance, and he was quite dense with such things too, but in the end that did not stop him from feeling the unknown emotions he was currently going through.
The feelings were abstract and incomprehensible, but they made him feel…lighter? In such a tense and heavy situation he could actually feel such a…light feeling?
Her breath equally warmed him through the linen cloth, and his face started to turn red as blood gushed through his bashful expression.
…That was when Yela started to worry, for Cole’s heartbeat didn't seem to calm down, but only started to get faster.
And oddly…sometimes it even skipped a few beats too?
‘Oh gosh! He must be more nervous than me! I hope he's okay…’ The clueless girl thought to herself, totally unaware she was the main reason for his erratic heartbeat.
WHOOOOSH!
Then suddenly, intense wind assaulted the group. Surging drafts swept through their bodies and faces, assaulting them like storm winds.
Something just flew past them!
The people around the couple started to get anxious. Numerous hearts threatened to beat out of their chest, and not in a good way either.
If they found out that one of the two monsters just landed near them too, perhaps their hearts would also skip a beat, or even totally stop.
Sweat beaded down from their bodies as they swung their heads left and right, looking for that cursed source of light.
Ironically, they did not look for the “light within the darkness” to receive such things as safety, or vision, but they instead searched for it so that they could avoid the damned thing.
Now, there was no doubt that the lights were quite beautiful. The dragon children's veil hid most of its beauty, but the people could still see a series of glowing golden lights traveling gracefully through the air, and elegantly through the crowd.
The only problem was that the beautiful lights brought not blessings, but pure bloody carnage. Wherever it passed, it brought agonized screams, sounds of snapping bone and exploding flesh, and of course, a flood of blood and guts.
So what if the lights were beautiful? They were an omen of fear and death, not a source of safety and security.
The golden lights were a harbinger, of two bellicose beasts who had no regard at all for human life.
As the two monsters fought, the lights would sometimes glow or shine brighter, illuminating the nearest surroundings.
Those that got to see them up close were few, for not many were lucky enough to survive such a close encounter.
The few that did however, wished that they could somehow erase the flash of brutality from their memory. For that brief flash of a moment that the lights illuminated their surroundings, people saw a vision of hellish gore and inhuman savagery.
…Woefully, it was these very lights that were now approaching them.
THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!
The golden lights came down, and pulverized a path through the crowd once again.
Screams and cries filled the pitch black darkness once more. The wails were long and drawn out, it felt the same as when pigs squealed as they were butchered.
THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!
The glowing lights moved elegantly through the darkness— it was mesmerizing. All around it however, bodies hit the ground like rain.
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Bones broke, and flesh was thrashed and smashed around— Balon was quite literally bulldozing through the crowd to get to Zan.
The worst part yet, the light was getting brighter and brighter as it reached its destination. The shining lights started to illuminate the grotesque storm of blood that it paved. First, its nearest surroundings, then the area ten feet around it, all up until it reached its very brightest point, where it illuminated half of the arena in its incandescent light.
Cole’s group suffered, having to watch as the storm of blood and flesh rapidly approached them.
They could not react— they could not do anything. Balon was already upon them.
The outer circle of short-lived friends were eviscerated by the force and heat of his dragon fist.
The boy and girl who were intertwined with each other, watched their final moments, together, in front of the shining golden lights.
In romantic fashion, they would be buried together— their very bones melding and fusing into each other from the extreme heat.
…Perhaps their souls would do the same in the afterlife.
They hugged each other tighter, and as they closed their eyes, the bright dragon fist fully extended.
BOOOOOOM!!!
Hurricane winds swept through the crowd, causing them to be launched away.
Debris assaulted Cole and Yela but slowly they opened their eyes, realizing they were not dead.
Instead, what they saw in the first moment they opened their sight again, was something truly captivating.
They did not know what outer space looked like, but in front of them was a luminous swirling galaxy.
Golden shining light floated in the center, and in Zan’s hands, spirals of energy spun in a centripetal manner, affecting Balon’s light, and causing illusions of lost and detached radiance.
An array of stars shined in the background, and for a moment the star crossed lovers saw a few of them connect into constellations. They were beautiful, graceful, divine constellations resembling flames, dragons and phoenixes.
Slowly, the golden light dimmed and the galaxy faded away, the stars died and what remained were glowing embers of their existence. Momentarily, a muscular back was revealed to them. A small hand, cleanly cut off at the wrist, rested on his shoulder. Long red hair danced like flames on the back of his neck, slightly reaching towards his back.
Then suddenly, the boy and girl felt sucking wind on their backs.
No— not just them, but many of the people around them could feel as if air was being suctioned into a single point in front of them.
BANG!
In the next moment, the glowing lights suddenly left their field of vision. When they looked up, they saw it again high in the sky.
Zan manipulated the spiraling energies, carefully controlling the impact and direction to launch himself into the air too.
As he did, he switched the spiraling force in his fist to a centripetal motion. The spiraling energy that initially refused to submit, now forcefully condensed into each other, over and over again.
The energy was already so powerful simply remaining inside his body, but he found that once inside, he could no longer condense it. It flowed through his body wildly, and he found no other use for it but whole-body empowerment and fortification.
Deft and masterful concentration of the spiraling energy was out of the question, limiting his combat capability.
…Not that it mattered since he lost control of it in the first few seconds.
Although…once he regained consciousness…he found odd traces inside his body. Traces of the energy moving through a myriad of certain pathways, in a brilliant manner of technique.
This was way too strange. Zan…really had no idea how he used such an ingenious technique while he was unconscious.
…But he would leave aside the mysteries for later, and focus on the current battle he wae facing.
BANG!
The red haired figure released his attack onto his opponent, and the glowing lights warped into a falling meteor heading towards the ground.
BOOM!!!
A crater was left on the stone with Balon in the middle.
The young man laid in the stone for a moment…before dusting himself off and getting up.
Zan disappeared from the skies and reappeared in front of Balon. A condensed spiral of wind and energy struck his opponent right in the chest.
Swirling spirals concentrated in Zan’s feet in advance, moving as soon he struck, and reappearing at a different angle for another strike.
Zan kept this momentum as he pummeled his opponent with odd angled but powerful strikes.
The youth seemed to have become a master who had practiced the technique for years before.
Flying and dashing through both sky and ground, the red haired figure looked like a magic bullet that suddenly changed direction and momentum over and over.
Stopping in midair before dashing towards another location, he riddled his opponent with earth shattering strikes and yet…Balon simply took the blows as they were.
Strike after strike, Balon’s body rebounded from the impacts and ragdolled. He was thrown around in the same way a child played roughly with a toy.
He rolled back over and over, covered in stone, dust, and filth, and yet…he got back up, every damn time.
Did he feel no pain? Was his body that strong? Did Zan’s strikes mean nothing?
…Granted, Balon genuinely felt the power of each of Zan’s fists.
Each was surprisingly as destructive as his own strikes…his own strikes using his imperfect dragon art that was.
Not a perfected one— to be specific— this could be seen through his incomplete dragon manifestation.
…Which to be fair, already boasted quite enough power among the top factions. Balon was, after all, of the royal dragon lineage.
Unfortunately for Zan…Balon’s blood— his scales— his draconic body of pure supremacy— simply outclassed the “normal” human being in front of him.
To conclude, there was a massive gap, the size of a canyon, between Balon’s offensive capabilities and the natural bloodline toughness of his body.
Zan kept a cool head on the surface but deep within, he was frustrated. The energy inside him was not unlimited. The constant intake of vital energy he had within the healing pod was virtually almost all used up. By the time he regained consciousness he had less than a tenth of his energy left.
He was going to lose. For the first time…he was going to lose! Not ten against one, not twenty against one, he was going to lose in a one on one battle!
Indignation and resentment welled up in his throat, his chest, and his heart.
Zan took pride in his fighting genius, it was one of the only things that he had left, and he would lose that too!
In his rage the red haired youth grabbed Balon’s foot and unceremoniously threw him.
BANG!
Blood, muscle, and bone exploded…but it was not Balon’s.
No…it was everyone else's.
This time, Zan was fully conscious of what he had just done. He looked towards the crowd to see the gnarly, malformed individuals screaming and crying, as moans of pain assaulted his ears.
For the first time, he lost focus on his opponent. He lost focus and took a better look at the pitch black darkness.
Spiraling energy entered his eyes, and his eyes started to bleed, but he did not care. All around him was blood, mashed muscle, tendons, and sinews. All around him was brain matter, dead bodies, cripples, and those who bled out on the floor waiting to die.
Zan stopped for a moment to stare at his rough, dirty hands. The blood that bled out of his eyes dropped like tears on them, staining them red.
“I thought you threw me out of the vicinity to protect these ants.”
“...I guess not.”
A grimace shown on Zan’s face.
“What is that expression? This is simply the way of the world.”
“The strong rule and the weak are thrown around by our mere wake. I’m sure you know this too.”
Balon’s fists tightened. The dragon claw manifestations shined brighter, and the constellations on his body activated.
The underground was illuminated once more, this time revealing the entire arena.
“Prepare yourself. Clarity has taken hold of you once again, and as a worthy opponent, I would let you witness true power before your death.”