Chapter 38: The Battle of Volken: Part 2
Yami, Zack, Thomas, Orphzus
The two middle-aged men stood on the empty gray bridge, both brimming with demonic energy in their fists as they stood in their stances and waited for the first move silently as the dark ocean crashed into the supports. Orphzus took the lead. His long white hair billowed up as he dashed towards Yami to deliver a jab which was then gracefully pushed aside. The two combatants fought swiftly with their fists and legs. So fast any normal eye shouldn’t be able to track them and both were equally matched as they parried and retaliated against one another.
Yami then broke the cycle, he parried, then ducking low and pointing his right hand at the king, he extended two fingers out.
“STASIS!” The silver-haired man’s gi briefly pulsed with rich green energy, furthermore, his attempt to deliver a kick down to Yami was thwarted as his clothing refused to move along with him. It was as if the king had frozen in place, though his exposed body parts struggled against the fabric as he gritted his teeth in frustration. Yami lowered himself further and delivered a fierce kick upward, angling toward the king's chest, followed by another hand sign from Yami, pointing to the king once again.
“RESUME”. The gi pulsed green once again and Orphzus received the force of the kick immediately, sending the man off his feet and several feet back from the surprise of the delayed impact. Yami used the momentum of the kick and his hands on the ground to spring himself toward Orphzus to deliver a sidekick as a follow-up.
Orphzus quickly recovered from the first kick, using his hand to skid across the stone and keeping his body low to avoid Yami’s follow-up move. With a sinister smile, Orphzus grins and grabs ahold of Yami’s leg from his missed attack with both hands. With a swift movement, Orphzus pivots and hurls Yami toward one of many supporting towers lining the strict-looking bridge. Yami gracefully recovers and lands on the stone of the tall tower, using demonic energy to soften his landing which is followed by Yami grabbing onto a slit in the stone to keep himself from falling.
Orphzus takes the opportunity to place more pressure on Yami before he can recover, breaking into a sprint and leaping toward the tower. As the king soars in the air, he quickly summons The Sword of Nevan to his hand. The blade forms quickly as a short saber covered by cloudly pink crystals referred to by Yami as his “Offensive stance”. Orphzus grabs the handle, reading a stance to strike as he soars in the air toward Yami with a sinister grin while the crystals of his blade phase into reality one by one at an accelerated rate.
Yami quickly evades the oncoming slash from the king's blade by jumping from his foothold in the stone. The slash cuts clean through the wall of stone just like paper and the narrow tower begins to collapse. Both Yami and Orphzus enhance their bodies with demonic energy, allowing them to maneuver across the falling rubble quickly and use them as footholds to ascend as the king chases down his prey, all the while the rumbling of the building collapsing begins to grow louder.
As they reach the top of the falling rubble, Yami flicks his right finger out towards a piece of descending rubble.
“STASIS!”
The chunk of stone stops abruptly and becomes weightless, followed by Yami landing and using it as a foothold, preparing himself for the king's oncoming assault as he looms over the sleeveless man with a sinister grin. They engage in hand-to-hand combat once again, exchanging kicks and strikes as they both fall within the falling rubble. As the tower finally reaches the end of its descent - crashing into the ocean and smashing onto the sturdy cobbled bridge - It throws up water from the sea, as well as dust and smoke from the vast amount of stone crumbling to pieces. From the thick smoke left on the bridge, two silhouettes emerge slowly, parallel to one another before revealing both Yami and Orphzus walking out together, completely unharmed and unfazed by the unfolding events. They both turn towards the devastation of the collapsed tower, now left only as rubble and a break in the pattern of the many towers lining the bridge.
“My architect will send you the list of coin you owe,” Orphzus says with a smug tone, accompanied by a sly grin.
“What?! I din’nae even get a quote?!” Yami replies turning to Orphzus as he mockingly acts appalled he has to compensate for the destruction.
The four members of Red Wings stand atop the battlement amazed at the fighting prowess of the two combatants. However, Thomas was less amazed, more like he expected this type of outcome, and was waiting for how things would unfold as he sat on the edge of his seat in anticipation, though he still respected both fighters' skill.
“Incredible,” Maya uttered breathlessly as she brought her hand to her chest. “I've never seen someone move with such strength and agility,”
“Their punches are so loud, they keep making me jump,” Said Jane unevenly as she looked down upon Maya in the hopes she could win a hand of comfort.
“Yeah, demonic energy is something else,” said Thomas as he looked onward at the battle calmly. “It pretty much lets the user enhance anything about their body, lets them do anything better. It's completely different to magic and lets them do and survive things they really shouldn't,” explained Thomas.
“They barely even used their relics,” pointed out Zack as he shifted nearer to the walls to get a closer look.
“Of course, they wouldn’t, they were just testing the waters.” Said Thomas as he turned to Zack. “Each of them knows the other is extremely dangerous. One wrong and move and it can go very bad for either one,” explained Thomas
“How did Yami stop the king like that? I thought only his devil ignition could stop people, doesn't the relic just stop objects when he uses it normally?” Asked Zack
“You’re right, Yami can’t stop people. Not even his devil ignition can, it only slows them down a lot so it makes it look like they're not moving. I think what he did was set his Timekeeper on Orphzus’s clothes. So while Orphzus can still move, it doesn't matter since he’s trapped in clothes that won't budge,” guessed Thomas as he folded his arms.
“Wow that’s so clever!” exclaimed Jane overtly.
“That’s Yami for you, He’s…creative to say the least,” Thomas replied unsure of whether it was a good or bad trait to have.
“What about the relic Orphzus used?” asked Maya “Was that Nevan?”
“Yeah,” confirmed Thomas, “From what Yami has told me, The blade has two states, offensive and defensive. Offensive was the one he just used, where the blade looks like a saber coated in crystals and is supposed to boast stronger slicing power,”
“And the defensive mode?” asked Jane leaning her glass form down as she became slightly interested.
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“The defensive mode is where he draws the true, weaker blade from the crystals it's formed in,” Thomas explained keeping his eyes on the battle. “Yami tells me the crystals break apart and form one large crystal that Orphzus can use as a shield that he controls with his thoughts. It’s one more thing he has to keep on top of but the crystal is rumored to block even the most powerful cannons,”
“Really?! Can Yami break break it?” asked Zack,
“Probably, but it takes a lot to do it. Afterward, he has to force demonic energy back into the blade to form the crystals again which renders it useless,”
“How was Yami able to access all this information?” asked Maya,
“Yami fought this guy a long time ago,” interjected Jane
“Really?!” asked Zack as he spun around in shock.
“Yeah, but they were both inexperienced according to Yami, he said something about their fight being interrupted by Gheptiza I think,” Maya grimaced upon hearing his name and clutched her hands to her chest, grasping the sleek fabric of her black dress. She quickly pushed those thoughts aside and peered out on to the bridge with everyone else.
“Is it really safe for us to be this close?” asked Zack.
“Honestly…no, Devil Relics are…weird. I’m sure you can agree with me from what you've seen. They do things that just don’t seem right, but we still need to be here.”
“In case Yami loses?” Asks Zack wearily.
“It's hard to say, they're pretty even right now, but really, this fight is gonna come down to their…”
“Devil Ignition?” Maya interjected.
“Yeah, brace yoursleves!” Thomas said as he ended his voice in a command.
Both Yami and Oprhzus stood across from one another on the bridge with the tower’s destruction now completely settled. Only specs of dust remained as they were blown by the winds of the sea.
“Fancy cutting to the main act?” asks Yami with a smile plastered across his face.
“Gladly,” Orphzus replies with a smug self-asserted smile.
“DEVIL IGNITION!” both fighters yell at the same time as they form their respective poses and hand signs to enter Devil Ignition. The entire area floods with demonic energy, so much that any normal person wouldn't be able to stand amongst the show of power. The atmosphere and the ground itself exuded screams and rumbled as the combatants remained completely unphased with grins across their faces. Yami successfully opens Timekeeper's jade bubble that quickly envelopes Orphzus and the surrounding area, with the aforementioned man, closing his palms to form fists and meeting them together just below his ribcage in an upside-down position. With both Devil Ignitions opened at the same time, both effects and conditions of the Relics activate immediately. So while Orphzus may be trapped in the crawl of Timekeeper, Yami cannot freeze time, so he needs at least a fraction of a second in real-time to execute any sort of action after using Timekeeper's bubble. The same applies to Orphzus however, whatever the condition of his Relic may be, it will take immediate effect and anything else he wishes to apply will then need to be executed afterward, the same way that Yami still needs time to execute additional moves after Timekeeper has opened.
Yami looks at the hand signs made by the king as they stand across from one another in the dark green void of Timekeeper and realizes that Orphzus is not shifting into a Devil like other relics. In that moment of using his Devil Ignition, Yami realized that Orphzus was using different hand signs from the ones he remembered the king using to enter Devil Ignition with Nevan in their first encounter.
Shit…so he does have another relic. Thought Yami. As the immediate effects of each fighter ignition took place, Yami’s next move was intercepted, as the Timekeeper bubble immediately shattered in a giant burst of green ethereal energy, followed by Yami being staggered upon being knocked out of Devil Ignition.
“It was destroyed from the outside!?” exclaimed Zack as the four of them looked on in horror at the sight of Yami being immediately overpowered with his stance broken.
“What was that thing?” Asked Jane as the question trembled out from her glass dome.
“I don't know,” Stammered Thomas “Whatever that creature was, it just shattered the outside of Yami’s bubble with ease,”
“You saw it too then? It was like a demon just appeared out of nowhere and then vanished immediately,” Zack exclaimed
“I did too, but only briefly,” Maya agreed
Shit, so Yami was right about him having a second relic. Thought Thomas regrettably as he grit his teeth and steeled himself to endure the everchanging tides of the battle.
Orphzus grins grimly at Yami as he sees the man’s Devil Ignition destroyed, his posture broken, and his face wide in surprise as the green ethereal energy soon dissipates into nothing.
“Tough luck,” the king adds smugly before summoning Nevan to his hand. The black-robed man dashes towards Yami and before the sleeveless man can react, Orphzus begins to dash and dance around his opponent like the wind, delivering slash after slash across his body and splaying blood everywhere, With only a black blur and his evil grin visible from Yami’s sight.
Whatever that Devil Ignition was…he got rid of it as fast as he entered Devil Ignition. Thought Yami as he endured the onslaught of slashes. Why did he no keep his Devil Ignition up? Devil Ignition costs a bloody arm and a leg, getting rid of it that quick is just daft…did I miss something? I did’nae see it, but I could sense the giant source of demonic energy appearing and then disappearing. More slashes met Yami’s flesh and he soon became a dark, deeply blood-soaked mess. Dos’nae matter, My Relics are better, Ma technique is better, I’m the strongest man in Elden, and I've got a better reason tae win than HE does!
Amidst the onslaught of slashes from Orphzus’s crystal-formed blade, Yami quickly recovers his posture and uses his palm in a quick but firm motion to deter the blade away from him, splitting open his palm in the process, but bringing the fight back to a hand to hand contest.
So even when Nevan is drawn for maximum attack power, his technique of enhancing his body with demonic energy makes it impossible to slice anything vital. Orphzus accesses, followed by dismissing his blade, causing it to disappear in a mist of pink demonic energy, and enters close-quarter combat with Yami. The slashes across him are shallow Comments Orphzus as he looks across the drenched figure of Yami while they duel. It's like trying to slice into a piece of frozen meat. That’s quite impressive that he can still maintain that level of control of demonic energy across his body, despite just being knocked out of his Ignition.
Seizing the moment of Orphzus switching to different combat styles. Yami quickly flicks his shredded fingers out, pointing towards the king swiftly.
“STASIS!” placing the gi worn by Orphzus in a lock of time, in tandem, locking the white-haired man in a struggle, as Yami then follows up by delivering a barrage of kicks and strikes to Orphzus in what feels like a second. As Orphzus struggles against the fabric and tries to summon Nevan to his hand, Yami repeats the same hand gesture
“RESUME!” Upon his words and hand signs, the king of Vholeria is sent hurtling back across the vast length of Volken’s bridge as he receives every strike dealt to him at that moment in one consecutive burst of energy. The sound of all the force directed resembled three cannons fired next to one another, due to the strikes all resuming their intended purpose in that instant. The king grinds harshly across the cobbled road, with parts of his skin being torn off from how violent the friction against his flesh is.
Orphzus eventually comes to a much-needed stop and raises his hand to his face, feeling that half of his skin is peeling away and embedded with small stones and dust, as blood drips onto his hand. Additionally, his eyes moved to his arms which were also met with the same fate. The king only smirks which turns into a winced grin at his condition, followed by his gaze returning across the bridge to see the barely visible outline of his opponent striding closer.
Yami walks tall, like a man who can’t feel pain as blood drips from all over his body. His facial features are barely visible from the matted and viscous blood pooling in the shallow slits of his wounds. The dark-haired man flexes his fists open before exhaling deeply.
“Aye, better to fight over there. I’ll tear you and your castle apart,” Yami states coldly as the blood-soaked man walks confidently to the mangled king.