Arc 4: What families entail
Road to a hero:
Three chances in another world
Chapter 48. Cracking
Up on the westernmost part of the wall, looking perfectly upon the currently erupting volcano stands Gray and Caesar. Caesar looks longingly at Gray's glowing white eyes. Pure rage and confusion transformed into a desire to win. The cloak of darkness’s charm starts to swirl with a bit of pure spiritual mana and it absorbs it. Gray sends the newly empowered cloak spreading farther than ever before, and gets much thicker. The cloak shoots at Caesar and grabs his arm, by wrapping around it. And with no input from Gray, the cloak rips Caesar's arm off. Caesar screams in pain, those same screams slowly turning into a hysterical laugh.
Caesar: “HAHAHAHA! GRAY DON’T LET SOME SPIRITS TAKE YOU AWAY!! I don’t want to hurt yah, since I was told to do this! SO KILL ME IF YOU CAN! DO IT!"
Gray's body pays no attention to Caesar's claims and begins to blindly attack. Slicing, breaking, biting, and tearing Caesar's body to bits. Every time it heals Gray just tries to kill him again. Again and again, destroying Caesar's body over and over, and yet he doesn't seem to feel any pain.
Caesar: “I’M IMMORTAL! BUT YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE CREATIVE, SO FIGURE IT OUT! DO WHAT I COULDN’T! FREE ME DAMMIT!"
Gray's mind is faint as if it’s no longer his for the time being. Gray feels something for a brief second, and then his mind flickers on and off over and over. But since it’s so faint he can’t seem to get a hang of anything. So he forces his body into the astral state.
Gray {Is…that…my…body…?}
Gray feels faint, barely being able to remain conscious. He focuses and sees his body fighting Caesar and the gory mess that it’s leaving behind while floating around in the air.
Gray {The volcano erupted...so that means Athens…is over. We lost.}
Caesar: “GRAY YOU IN THERE!? I know this looks bad but you gotta let me explain!”
Gray {The hell’s he talking about?}
Gray feels a sharp pain in his body, watching bits of his spirit fade.
Gray {Shit…Ryo said the longer I’m in the spirit state the closer I am to running out of energy and… I’ll die. Wait is that spirit mana?”
The longer Gray stays in his astral form the more he sees, and he’s able to see the spirits surrounding his body. Swirling into it and empowering him. With every physical punch landed on Caesar's body, a bit of spirit mana passes through Caesar's body.
Gray {I’m on a time limit…of like fifteen or twenty minutes…I gotta think…THINK!}
Gray flies toward his body and tries to force himself into it.
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Gray {What the hell’s going on with the cloak? I could never make it do this no matter how hard I pushed it. NOW GET IN!}
Gray gets inside his body, fighting off the spirits. Caesar backs off, watching Gray's eyes flicker white, normal, and white again. Caesar walks up to Gray and tries to console him, but Gray throws a punch right in the middle of Caesar's chest, sending all the spirit mana through its body. Gray then falls back and holds his hand tightly.
Caesar: “Ouch…felt something crack.”
Gray {Crack? Shouldn’t it have just healed? Am I thinking too deeply about this?}
Gray: “WHAT THE HELL CAESAR! WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS!? HOW DID YOU DO THIS…WHAT WOULD PROVOKE YOU LIKE THIS!?”
While Gray controlled his anger, pushing the mana around him as he tried to grasp it's power, Caesar began to talk.
Caesar: “I never told you the whole story of how I got here. Before I died…I was with a girl…the most beautiful, funny, and important woman in the world. Her name was Beth…and we were going to grow old together…but we were both struggling. We were poor, sucked at school, and could barely hold a job…so we both got super high, cut our faces, and were going to die together.”
Gray: “And you got here and she didn’t right?”
Caesar: “Yep…it took me days before I could move…my brain had to heal…my heart…I died over and over on the ground…then I was found by a strange-looking woman. She looked like a snake woman…and she had these sunken black eyes with bright white pupils. Similar to what happens to yours when you do whatever that thing is you do. They gave me a life, a place to live. A PURPOSE! You got here because you didn’t wanna live either. So why the hell are you so confused about joining?”
Gray: “Because I’m not a terrorist. Just because it would give me a path doesn't mean I would take it!”
Caesar: “YOU GOT LUCKY, YOU FOUND FRIENDS AND YOUR PURPOSE! Arthur told me about you and your journey…how you should have died a long time ago. And I’m not mad or jealous, I just want to come with US! JOIN US!”
Gray: “WHY ATHENS!? WE WERE GOING TO SAVE IT TOGETHER!”
Caesar: “I was going to…then Arthur said he wanted to wait. He met with Beauregard and when he saw you guys were here…he wanted it gone. When Peter told me about the explosives I stored some of it for myself and I sent some of my men to plant it.”
Gray: “So the Spartans are really just the Sect then Huh?”
Caesar: “Yeah…pretty much…”
Gray: “UGh…DAMMIT ALL!”
Caesar: “Look, Edward and Soku are super far away. And Rosemary, Julius, and Leo are high up in the air with Dema! They’re fine! I MADE SURE THEY WERE SAFE!”
Gray: “THAT’S NOT THE POINT! HOMES, PEOPLE, HISTORY ALL BURNED!”
Caesar: “THAT WAS GONNA HAPPEN ANYWAY!”
Gray: “YEAH BUT WE WERE GONNA PREPARE, MAKE SURE EVERYONE GOT OUT! NOT THIS!”
Caesar: “WELL...Well...Y’know they really talked you up. I hope you're as good as they say, I hope you can free me.”
Gray flows the enhanced cloak around his body, feeling the intensity.
Gray {This is so much stronger, and it’s moving like it’s a part of my body…and not just a weapon. I think the powers are fading though so I need to act fast.}
Gray grabs his mask with the cloak, putting it on.
Caesar: “You’re the man who without any training, was able to beat an empowered member of the Sect. You're a boy with god-like amounts of mana. You're the only man to be sought out for and trained by Musashi Van Helsing. You're the so-called personal grim reaper of the Sect and the now-named Phantom Knight. And I wanna see if you live up to the hype, SO KILL ME! BE THE ONE TO FINALLY DO IT!”
Gray stands still, focusing on his spiritual sense, trying to hold back the spirit state. The white glow peeks through as the black shell coats over it but cracks while trying. He releases the wrist talons, flows the cloak around him, and stares at Caesar with his black eyes cracking, showing the pure white light. Gray runs at Caesar and tries his hardest to summon the pure spirit mana. And with each hit he lands he focuses on Caesar's chest, Caesar tries to hit Gray, but the difference in both power and skill is staggering, leaving him unable to hit Gray. Every time he tries to do it Gray either moves out of the way, catches it, or the cloak does it for him.
Caesar: “COME ON! DO IT!”
Gray stabs Caesar in the throat to stop him from talking, at least for a second.
Gray {I can feel it…his OD cracking…all the way back to my first day in this world, when I was fighting Jeremiah the same thing happened to me. I overworked my OD to such a degree that it broke and I almost died. I was lucky Musashi got to me immediately. But nobody is coming for Caesar, and that’ll be his downfall. I'll kill him up here, and I'll work him to his limit. I'll forcibly break his OD, and take out the immortal solider. }
So Gray will use all of the stamina and mana he's built up control of to take out this lazy fighter. Because he didn't train himself or his abilities, his OD is just as strong, no, weaker than the average persons since his soul has yet to fully connect to his OD, similar to Grays current predicament. So only using his strength and his weapons Gray will use every bit of his power to kill Caesar and avenge the burning city.
End of chapter Forty-eight