1020 AD, 1st Month of 12, Heiankyo, Japan, Planet Sky

A week had now passed, making it the third week of the month and the fourth week since Uehara had been rendered unconscious. Right now, he was sparring with Volkarin and the combat was fast-paced.

Unfurling a scroll in front of him, a large ice wall blocked a giant fireball that Volkarin had sent in time.

“Good. Now prepare a few more sets of scrolls while trying to keep your distance from me.”

Pulling a scroll from the much larger scroll on clipped on his back, he began using his finger to script the characters for monkey-dog-tiger-pig (concept-water-fire-fusion), which would result in a flame tsunami when unfurled again. Scripting a couple more characters on a few more scrolls, he continued to avoid his father’s continuously unpredictable attacks.

Sometimes, earth spikes covered in lava would come out the ground or flaming-thunder would rain from the sky.

Quickly unfurling another scroll, an obsidian dome covered him when lightning ice-spikes began to rain down from the sky.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

With the ice spikes breaking like glass, Uehara began punching the obsidian, resulting in multiple brick-sized blocks of obsidian blazing towards Volkarin. Blocking all of them with a finger, Volkarin smiled when he sensed Uehara appear right above him.

Appearing right above his father, Uehara was already on the fusion hand-sign when he blew out an ice-cold dark-coloured flame.

“Very impressive.”

A hand reached out and grabbed Uehara by the throat. It was only then that he noticed Volkarin was covered in a golden barrier.

“You used darkness and the temperature aspect of water. I used fire and light to combat you. Really impre-”

His words were cut off when ‘Uehara’ suddenly turned into hundreds of slips of papers that exploded in front of him.

Far away from the explosion, the real Uehara was glaring at the scene with bright golden eyes that looked like slits. With his body covered in a blazing fiery aura and his hair as well as his skin having turned golden, he was in his fire-sage transformation. Flickers of golden lightning occasionally flickered around him, indicating that he’s utilising the deviant element of lightning as well.

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[That’s my first trick gone. Fortunately I was able to buy enough time to assume my sage transformation.]

With such a large explosion, Uehara would be sure any opponent he faced would’ve died by now. Unfortunately he knew he couldn’t beat his father that easily. He also didn’t choose to follow up because he knew how insidious his father was when it comes to traps. Knowing his first trick was gone, he hoped to take advantage of how Volkarin had restricted himself to his level, hence why in his hand, a swirling mass of raw water and fire chakra encompassed in nature energy was forming.

Without an intermediary like air or earth between them, the elements were one step away from exploding. Learning from his mistake before, Uehara had turned his failure into his first ever signature attack.

Hoping to overwhelm his father through pure speed and firepower, he kept his eyes and senses peeled for his chakra signature or life-force signature. Spotting his father, lightning covered him before he vanished.

Volkarin had emerged from the explosion with no scratch on his body. The dense bone shield that was erected in front of him withdrew back into his chest.

[That was a very ingenious attack. I should reward him-]

Before he could ponder on his thoughts any further, Uehara appeared in front of him and in his hand was a sphere the size of a melon. Although the size was small, Volkarin could sense the attack had enough power to level an entire city, which was not good news for him in his heavily constrained state. And since Uehara was too fast for him to dodge, he only had one option.

[I’ll have to use it this time.]

Stretching his hand towards the rotating golden sphere in Uehara’s hand, a purple-black vortex appeared in his hand and devoured Uehara’s technique in a flash.

“?!”

Uehara was initially confident that he even if his father was covered in obsidian armour, he could break through his defence. Even if he couldn’t “kill” him, he could severely injure him. Everything was perfect and Volkarin wouldn’t even be able to dodge.

It never even entered his mind that his technique would vanish without a trace. With how flabbergasted he was, he couldn’t even maintain his sage transformation due to complete loss of focus. It has to be mentioned that even if he was asleep, he could maintain his sage transformation. So for him to lose it means his mind has completely stopped functioning.

His expression became blank. He couldn’t even begin to make sense of what had happened. One second his attack is about to land and then almost immediately, it vanished from existence.

Uehara truly felt like crying. His all-powerful technique vanished like a candle flame in the wind. Looking at his empty hand. A single tear flowed down his face.

He turned around and walked away. When he got to the single humungous tree in his mindscape, he laid down curled up into a foetal position. As a former assassin, he had seen and endured many things. He’d broken the will of many and many had tried to break his will. Even when he reincarnated, he kept a strong will. Whenever he fought the chakra beasts on Aokigahara, he never gave up even in the face of death. Even when the chaotic orb containing water and fire exploded right in front of him, his will never broke.

Yet when he saw how his strongest attack vanished without a trace, depression instantly hit him. An attack that could’ve at the very least destroyed a city, vanished like a fart in the wind. If Volkarin was his enemy, Uehara would’ve washed his own neck and gave him his blade.

Looking at his father who was walking over to him, he only had one sentence in his mind that he truly wanted to say at that moment.

“I hate you dad.”