Arc 6. A seemingly endless loss
Road to a Hero:
Three Chances in Another World
Chapter 74. The Dragon's flame, burnt out
Now consumed within the Dragon Flame, he runs through Prometheus instantly. But because Prometheus can heal he turns his sights to Lazarus. Out of all of them, he’s the most durable, possibly one of if not the most durable person in the world, so if he wants to do ever-lasting damage, permanently wounding him is how to do it. Lazarus attempts to defend himself with an ice wall, but before it can even begin to form, Lincoln’s leg has already hit his face and sent him flying toward the front wall of the castle. Right as he smashes into it before he can be knocked back any further, he grabs him and punches him upward. Even if only two punches were thrown the damage resulting was immense. The first hit that knocked him into the wall sounded like a jet reaching mach speed, resulting in the wall stretching and exploding like it was elastic, crumbling the front wall four floors up. Then the second hit destroyed the entirety of the first and second floors, but more are to come. Now that they’re in the center of the castle, they continue going up. Lincoln hits him with ten strikes a second while also kicking up against the air, acting like a missile flying upward. Each time they get through a floor it crumbles and the next follows. These punches were the strongest this domain had ever felt; the floors combusted from the force, the ground erupted from the pressure, and the castle walls shattered to pieces. Prometheus had never seen something so dastardly, so ridiculous, so unbelievable. Kioshi had greater feats of course but that was because she was a living god, but this man was a demi-god in nature. Kioshi wasn’t bound to the normal limits of this world, the same limits Lincoln is, but he’s still able to do this.
Every fifth punch a rib cracks and with every ten strikes a limb does the same., Lazarus has focused all of his power on keeping himself together by any means. He condensed ice as hard as steel around him and used his mana to create a defensive aura, but Lincoln was still going. In ten seconds Lincoln had hit him through every single floor, and once again he had more to offer. At this point one of Lazarus' horns had been hit off, and the space around his right eye was dented, and because of his larger stature, four out of his forty-five ribs had been blown off. But with the eclis illuminating the blue-flaming Lincoln and the dark purple-glowing Lazarus, he was soon to be hit back down. Because of the speed Lincoln traveled the massive building had yet to fall, so Lazarus was in for a second round. This time Lincoln aimed down, kicking upward to send Lazarus through each floor once more until they reached the end even faster this time. The power resulting from the sudden crash to the ground caused the earth beneath them to rise and shoot off, creating a massive crater around the entire building. And of course, this caused the building to fall on itself, being destroyed entirely.
This inability to catch up puts Prometheus in the potion to only reflect on what’s happening right in front of him, a god truly trying his hardest with nothing to hold him back. His friend is in Parel, with the only hope being the only thing he can do, but something does stick to him in his ever-moving mind.
Prometheus: “He’s on a time limit.”
Lazarus can feel the fear of the spirits themselves floating away, awoken and afraid. His right eye, his only working eye, glows a bright white color, shining down on this so-called “Litch”. Prometheus attempts to step in while Lincoln’s in his sights, beginning to cast a spell, but even faster than the blink of an eye, Lincoln rushes through Prometheus faster than he could think, turning him into a bloody paste, and returns to his stance behind Lazarus. Of course, Prometheus reforms his body, though Lazarus isn’t so lucky. As Lincoln charged head first, slamming hist fist against Lazarus head. This cracked it while also sending force and wind wildly snapping and warping. This barrage of blows continued, sending Lazarus flying around struggling to recover. Promethues tried to rush in and aim his hand out with curupted mana flowing straight to it but stop and gasped. Black blood poured from his mouth, straining and restraining him.
Promethues {I've over used my magic...my soul is wilting...}
Lazarus blasted out his ice without thought. Lincoln blasted through this with slashes of his arms. This generated so much pressure that Hell bent to fist his power, his command of strenght. Sending that blade of wind crashing through and crushing Lazarus and everything around him. Having his face slammed into the ground before getting drug across the ruins of the destroyed castle. Thrown through rubble, bashed and smashed by his fists, and sent flying and falling far away. Lincoln continued to pour his strength into stopping Lazarus, avoiding the broken Serverus and immoral Prometheus.
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Lincoln {If I do this...if I take down the most resilient of them, then Ryo will be able to finish the job. I'm not too good against spirit types like these guys, but punching works as long as you're strong enough!}
But he has been in this form for less than ten minutes, and it was already ending. A few of his flames begin to flicker around his right arm, allowing him to see the horrid sight of his arm. The muscle has been burnt down, looking like burnt skin roughly placed over an old skeleton's decayed arm. The internal mana he was erupting and pouring out of his body was gone, his strengh burned away and leaving his body without it. The arm, shattered and unusable, which makes him think that his entire body could be like this. His flames begin to die down, though he forces them to keep going, to keep burning away at his faded body. With a quick glimpse around him, the broken castle, eternally wounded gods, and an almost closed crack in the sky, he knows it’s time to leave.
Lincoln {Healing magic can only do so much, and Prometheus's crew of failures are too far gone to be healed back to maximum strength. But I need to leave…I need to tell everyone what went down here.}
His body being taken like Musashi was an issue, or it would have been. As Lincoln prepared for this by unleashing everything on them no matter what happened, keeping his body broken and unusable to them. But Lincoln wasn't just going to give up if he didn't have to.
Now Lincoln has a new goal, to get to the crack in the sky. If he did it any earlier he could have made it in an instant, but his flame is fading. He begins to run toward it, leaping up the remaining back wall of the warped castle to get high enough. While he’s doing this, his adrenaline begins fading, along with his strength and senses. And on top of that, this strange stretch of stone that had yet to fall begins to do just that. This allows the ever-diligent Prometheus to finally catch him off guard, slicing through his side with a sharp bit of the wall. It should have pierced into him, but due to this immense weight loss as well as the death of what skin should have been left sagging, it goes through the flame to graze him. Even so, with his years of experience, it takes him till he reaches the roof for him to even notice he has been struck. It was a mix between the pain being a bit low, and permanent nerve damage. Though at the home stretch, his flames have almost fully gone out. As he begins to run, his armor falls off bit by bit, as it’s been destroyed by his flaming mana. His final technique had burnt out, as all of the eternal mana he had cultivated throughout his life had run dry. It had all happened extremely quickly; sixty-two years of stored-up power had run out in just under four minutes. Then with one final leap, he puts all of the mana he had remaining into his leg, launching himself toward the almost closed portal. Prometheus arrives from within the ground, having flowed through the stone to get here. He turns the remaining bit of the castle wall into a fast moving spear moving at a breakneck speed to reach Lincoln.
Lincoln barely reaches the portal, with his leg still in the way. Now it would have been chopped off, but that last bit of mana had overwhelmed his decayed body, turning it to dust right as it closed on it. Prometheus is infuriated, but he quickly goes to find his defeated friends. First, he puts a healing spell on the half-dead Lazarus, though a dark magic healing spell is much different than the normal version. Instead of using mana to speed up the healing process in a certain area, the entire body, or a wide range without the aging of the body, a dark magic healing spell pieces the body back together. It's much slower and more egregious than the normal spell, though dark magic isn’t meant to help others, or attack others, it was a price, a curse. It was a contract when used, not in the literal sense, but using a spell would inflict pain on others for pain on one's self. It was a sadistic as well as almost masochistic way of fighting, especially the fact it would even inflict damage on one's soul.
Now when he found Severus, he was in a much dire state surprisingly. He had deleted back to his base form, mutilated, and on the verge of death. Lincoln's punches were so strong that they broke through the skin, forcing it back, and creating a ripple of damage. His supernatural abilities and slight healing factor were things keeping him alive, so Prometheus cast another healing spell, also using his ability to heal the body. But like his dark magic, his ability to heal was closer to aging the body until it had fully healed, but Severus is so old it almost kills him. Now with a small bit of life left, he runs around the castle's rubble, trying to find a life for him to transfer his soul into. But only Julius, Smolder, Yoru, and Ganga appear, who all surprisingly survived the conflict.
Prometheus: “THIS IS IT!?”
They all quickly get down on one knee, trying to please their lord.
Ganga: “I’m sorry sir, but everyone else has been spread thin…or is dead…We don’t have a body for him to rest in.”
Prometheus looks at all of them, panicking as letting these people in front of him die is too much of a loss. The new king of Valatrositce, the mother of all of the powered Sect members, the older woman who can make an army given time, and the son of a God of War who can also take control of the area with his lava. He’s forced to stare at his dying friends, about to force one of them to take his soul. His eyes move to Ganga, but right as he’s about to take hold of her, he remembers someone very important. He slides his foot across the ground, causing the unconscious body of Rosemary whom Lincoln was unable to rescue to emerge from the ground. A large smile emerges on his face as he begins to approach her, which may seemingly be the end of her life.
End of Chapter seventy-four