Nara flew high into the air and followed after the attacker that he had tossed into the sky. The enemy was soaring through the air before he came to a steady stop and remained airborne as if he was using some kind of skill or magic to float there. A moment later, he dived straight towards his enemy and pulled his arm back before unleashing it upon reaching his target.

Seeing this, the War Titan pulled his own arm back and unleashed it at his attacker. The two fists collided in mid-air overlooking the Mardana Kingdoms’ capital, causing a powerful shockwave and a great wind to blow in all directions. This startled everyone on the ground and alerted both Zen and Valerian about the battle.

“What the heck?!” Zen exclaimed, looking up at the sky where the battle was taking place in alarm.

“He’s fighting someone,” remarked Valerian as he squinted to see whom the War Titan was battling against.

“Damn! And I specifically told him not to draw attention to himself!” Zen said, looking very frustrated.

“So, you think you could sneak your way around our capital?” Asked a voice from the front, and the two turned to face in the direction the voice came from.

Two people stood there with grins on their faces, immediately letting these two know that they were there to attack them.

“You were already detected by our boss, so what’s the point in trying to be sneaky about it?” One of them asked with a chuckle.

“Yeah. They might as well have been ringing a bell saying they were here and all from the way they came into the capital,” said the second person, and the two of them laughed.

Zen clicked his tongue in frustration and replied, “I see. So, your boss could sense our arrival. That means he’s pretty powerful.” As they looked at him with sinister smiles, he coughed and asked, “That’s great and all, but quite pathetic on his part to send you weaklings against the likes of us, right?”

“Weaklings?” The two repeated and turned to look at one another before turning back to chuckle at him. “You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourselves into.”

The Phoenix Emperor was trying to get some information out of these people, but it seemed like they were aware and did not oblige. This meant that he and the Storm Titan, including the War Titan who was engaged in another battle, must defeat them and get answers from them afterwards.

“Alright. Since you want a battle, we’ll give you one,” said Zen, and he immediately got into a battle stance.

Valerian remained in the same position as before and looked on coldly at the two attackers, who were grinning sinisterly at them before taking fighting stances against the Phoenix Emperor and the Storm Titan. Up in the air, the collision of the two fists pushed the two warriors back much to the War Titan’s surprise.

“What in the…?” Nara reacted with surprise.

“Surprised to get pushed back?” His attacker asked with a smile. “Don’t be surprised. It no longer matters if you’re the War Titan and if you’re a member of the Nine Pillars of Power. Your days of being the strong ones are now over.”

With that, he suddenly surged with power and unleashed his fist straight at Nara, who was several meters away. This action of trying to hit him from so far away startled Nara before a powerful force struck him across the face and sent him flying away. As he came to a stop and looked back, he saw the attacker doing another motion with his arm to hit him and just like before, an invisible force struck him in the stomach that hurt a lot.

“W-What the?!” Nara exclaimed, feeling a sense of alarm at the unexpected turn of events.

Like this, he kept getting beaten up from afar in mid-air while being unable to retaliate due to the heavy blows each attack dealt him. Despite this, he was able to keep a cool head and struggled to fathom what was transpiring that caused his enemy to be able to attack and injure him to this degree.

“I’m the War Titan, one of the Nine Pillars of Power! How can there be someone that could match me in blow for blow and even hurt me like this other than my fellow comrades?!” He wondered to himself with frustration.

He knew that something was not right because he could sense that his enemy’s energy levels were weaker than his. In fact, he was so weak that Nara was positive that the attacker was a Saint Ranged Warrior and yet, the attacks he was unleashing was that of someone equal to Nara’s power or even greater.

Getting fed up being on the receiving end of the attacks, he began to surge with power that caused a wild blowing wind and a shockwave to sweep towards and buffet the attacker. While he was distracted, Nara aimed both of his hands at him and began to unleash his own attacks at him in the form of force punches.

The attacker was momentarily distracted and missed Nara’s movements, which made him a sitting duck when Nara began firing his attacks. The first force punch slammed the attacker in the face, the next slammed him in the side of his shoulder, the third against his chest, the fourth hit him in the stomach, and the barrage continued to slam into him in this fashion.

A few seconds of firing force punches later, Nara stopped attacking and rocketed towards him to deal him more deadly blows. He understood that he could not trust his senses in this situation because it was making him feel lax despite his enemy being somehow capable of landing injury sustaining attacks on him.

“Lights out for you!” He shouted as he reached his enemy and put his hands together to slam him on his head.

As he brought his hands down, the attacker suddenly veered off to the right and brought his arm up to catch the attack. There was a loud cracking sound as the enemy’s arm was broken from the force of the attack, which made him shout out loud in pain before unleashing a kick at Nara, sending him back by a few meters.

The War Titan came to a stop and watched the injured enemy with satisfaction, but it was taken from him when he witnessed the enemy get surrounded by a green healing light. A moment later, the man began to move his previously broken arm and flexed it before turning to face him with a smile on his face.

“You certainly are powerful, I can tell,” he remarked confidently, “but you’ll never beat me like this.”

With that, he shot forward towards him at an incredible speed, taking him by surprise and landing a powerful punch to the face. Then he spun his body around in mid-air and delivered a powerful kick to the War Titan’s jaw. As he slowly flew back, the attacker righted his body and aimed the palm of his hand at his victim before firing a massive wave of destruction straight at him.

“D-Damn!” Nara cursed as he quickly brought his arms forward to defend as best as he could against the attack that enveloped him.

He flew through the air and came to a stop as the wave died down and disappeared, leaving him floating there with injuries sustained from the attack. It infuriated him that despite him sensing that his enemy was weaker than him, he was somehow getting overwhelmed without being able to put up a decent fight. It also did not make sense how his enemy was somehow able to get so much stronger so quickly and unleash such strong attacks against him.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Something here doesn’t seem right,” he commented as he felt he was missing something vital.

Just then, Zen and Valerian appeared sporting equal numbers of injuries on their bodies as him from whoever they had been battling against. This made it even more absurd to think that two titan ranked warriors and an emperor ranged warrior were being pushed back to this degree by complete strangers.

“They’re somehow able to get stronger as we keep fighting them!” Zen exclaimed in frustration. “It doesn’t make any sense!”

“I agree,” said Nara coldly. “It’s almost like they are getting their newfound energy from somewhere.”

“Somewhere?” Zen asked, blinking in surprise as a flash of realisation dawned on him. “Of course! They’ve been absorbing our energies!”

“What?”

“Think about it! Each time we output more power and energy, they couldn’t fight back initially but after some time, they were able to overpower us and even deal us these injuries!” Zen explained his reasoning, understanding that it was the only thing that explained how these weak attackers were somehow able to output such powerful attacks against them.

“Yes. It’s starting to make sense,” agreed Nara with a serious look on his face.

Just then, the three attackers arrived at their location with smirks and glees on their faces. Seeing the looks on their targets made them understand that their little trick had been uncovered.

“Well, it seems like our trick is already discovered,” said one of them with a laugh as if he did not care, “not like it’ll help you in any way.”

Nara gritted his teeth as he glanced at them as they laughed and muttered to Zen, “You got any ideas cause’ I don’t think fighting them head on is going to work.”

“Maybe,” muttered back Zen shortly as he glanced around at the three enemies.

Before they could say anything else, the three men aimed their hands at them with the intention of taking them down as one of them said, “Don’t worry, though. You’re more useful to us alive than dead, and our boss will make sure to put you to good use like the rest.”

“The rest?” Zen asked, becoming suspicious. “What do you mean?”

The speaker snorted and replied, “You don’t need to know, and you won’t know anything else once you’ve been put to use.”

With an evil smile, the three men gathered massive amounts of energy into the palms of their hands. The War Titan, the Storm Titan, and the Phoenix Emperor prepared to fight back. However, Zen had a plan and as the attacks came nearer, Valerian told him in a quiet voice.

“Now.”

Zen reacted instantly by clapping his hands and shouting, “Force!”

In an instant, a powerful barrier field formed around them and the three waves of destruction collided against it and stopped. They tried to push through the barrier protecting the three warriors inside but to no avail. As the three attackers reacted in surprise, Zen clenched his muscles and spread his arms out wide while shouting a single word.

“Reflector!”

What followed his shout was an immense release of energy that captured the three waves and diverted their aim before sending them right back at their casters. The attackers watched in shock as their own attacks came back and smashed into them, resulting in powerful explosions on impact as well as causing them to yell in pain.

“Nara, take them down with all you got!” Zen yelled at the War Titan in a hurry.

“Got it!” Nara said happily.

He surged with immense power and disappeared to reappear in front of the person that had been attacking him previously. Grabbing him by the head, Nara unleashed a devastating punch straight to the man’s head, cracking his nose and instantly knocking him out.

Tossing him aside to fall to the ground, he disappeared to reappear in front of the next enemy, whom he delivered a devastating punch straight to the gut before smashing him on the back, knocking him out and sending him crashing to the ground. Finally, he reached the third victim and delivered a powerful uppercut straight to the man’s jaw, sending him flying high into the air before coming down to crash on the ground.

“That was so much easier to deal with,” commented Nara as he and the other two descended to land near the unconscious bodies of their attackers. Then he noticed the large number of people that were looking at them with fear from some distance away before saying to the Phoenix Emperor, “Hey, Zen, what do we do about them?”

“Leave them be. We need to quickly get information from these people about their boss since we’ve been discovered,” replied Zen hurriedly, quickly using magic to wake one of the unconscious attackers.

It was here that he noticed something and pulled the man’s shirt down to reveal something that alarmed him. He was wearing a black coat that was metallic in texture beneath the shirt and it was emanating a strange aura that seemed out of this world.

“No way!” He exclaimed after recognising it, and the other two instantly reacted by readying for a fight.

“What?! What is it?!” Nara demanded urgently.

Valerian, who had gone over to check what Zen had seen. Widened his eyes in the same fashion as the Phoenix Emperor and said, “Booster Armour.”

“The… boosted… gear? What’s that?” Nara asked in confusion.

“It’s like the other ancient items; the Gravity Rings, Energy Rod, Weighted Rod, Amplification Rod and Suppression Rings. This one is something the user wears that allows them to absorb the energy of the other person and amplifies it in return,” explained Zen, to which Valerian nodded in agreement.

“W-What?!” Nara exclaimed, looking shocked. “How do you know that?”

“I… I’ve seen them being worn by people that attacked my Water Clan and were boasting about their equipment,” replied Valerian with a cold voice as a dark cloud formed on his face to hide his expression.

“I’ve seen records of these documented in the archives at the Phoenix Clan,” said Zen, who looked troubled. “This is bad.”

“How so?”

“This was once created by the Workshop Clan back in the ancient times, but they were growing powerful and arrogant and began to deal with the wrong people. So, the Phoenix Clan dealt with them and much of their technology and item were lost. Well, mostly lost while some were uncovered by accident such as the Gravity Rings and Amplification Rods. But still, to think something as valuable and rare as this to be used by not just one but by all three of them. I don’t like it.”

He had a “something is seriously wrong here” expression that made Nara very worried.

This was the first time the War Titan saw the Phoenix Emperor this serious, so he curiously asked, “Are you sure?”

“Definitely,” replied Zen without hesitation, “because it’s part of the training to become a Phoenix Emperor that I must do, and this was covered by one of the archives I had to read through. That’s why I could recognise this because this kind of magical material that seems out of this world couldn’t be made without our notice in today’s society.”

“I see,” said Nara, nodding in understanding and becoming concerned. “So, what should we do?”

“Why don’t we wear them?” Valerian asked curiously.

“No!” Zen immediately rejected the idea. “What if they contain some kind of control the enemy can use to attack us with.”

“Oh. That is a good point, sir,” agreed Valerian after understanding the problem they may cause.

“regardless, I feel like there’s something big going on here that we’re just not aware of yet,” said Zen with a suspicious look on his face.

This scene was being witnessed through a crystal ball by a sinister shadowy person seated in a dark room. He sighed wearily upon seeing his three henchmen quickly being taken care of with a hint of exasperation.

“I made a mistake. I underestimated the Phoenix Emperor thinking he’s fresh and wouldn’t be too hard to deal with. To make matters difficult, he’s discovered the Booster Armor and will surely suspect something. Things became tricky.”

He sighed in exasperation before rising off his chair and began walking slowly towards an entranceway. Through there, he walked alone for several seconds through a corridor in complete silence before walking into a large chamber. There were various things of unknown origin around the place but the main attraction of the chamber was situated in the centre of it all; a spherical glass container housing greenish water with what looked like something inside it.

The sinister figure walked closer to it and extended his hand out and placed it gently against the glass while peering into its contents before saying, “Wake up. It’s time.”

A moment later, from inside the gurgling light greenish water that hid whatever it was, a pair of eyes opened instantly with red vertical pupils like that of a monster ready to strike its prey.