Not wasting any time, Yasha immediately reached for the wooden stick in front of him. The surface was as cold as the last time and he felt the number “One” etched into its body.
After confirming that he would fight one last time before the final match, Yasha glanced over to Areth and Levi, trying to read from their faces who would be his next opponent.
Areth seemed to notice Yasha’s gaze, as he turned to Yasha at the same time, staring straight into his eyes. His eyes purveyed a bone-deep arrogance and disregard for life, something that Yasha knew all too well. The corners of his mouth then slowly formed into a malicious grin.
After seeing this abhorrent ‘grin’, Yasha was sure that Areth would be his next opponent. With this thought, a rush of excitement immediately spread through his body, his blood flow accelerating. Yasha immediately felt an enormous amount of energy being gathered, ready to be unleashed.
The splitting pain from his veins and meridians was completely ignored. The previous fights had already made them porous and extremely strained, the short time between the fights was not enough to repair the damage done.
However, ever since Yasha witnessed how Eleanor was tortured on stage, he entered some kind of berserk mode, a strange equilibrium between control and insanity.
It was not comparable to the absolute takeover of the Asura blood, where Yasha had no control whatsoever, but it could also not be said that he was fully in control right now. Yasha was instead driven by primal thirst for battle that could only be quelled by obliterating his prey.
In that stage, it seemed like all the good plans he formulated before and during the tournament were non-existent. At this moment, the only thing in Yasha’s mind was to crush Areth and trample on his body.
For the first time, Yasha felt like the heavens were being kind, letting him fight against Areth, to truly quench his thirst for battle.
Levi on the other hand witnessed the short exchange between Areth and Yasha, but he could not care less about their dispute. He had no idea where the animosity between those two came from and he did not want to know.
Meanwhile, the judge once again raised his voice, “The two of you that received the sticks with the numbers, enter the stage once more!” As the sticks were distributed randomly, even the judge had no idea who would fight during the next battle.
After seeing that Yasha and Areth stepped forward, he had to swallow hard. Why… Why does it have to be those two lunatics?! Alas, I guess it was to be expected after their last confrontation. I just hope that their keep their tempers in check…
“In the next fight, Yasha of the Hunlua Clan will fight against Areth of the Nameless to advance to the final against Levi, who received a pass and automatically advanced.”
“The fight starts now!” The voice thundered through the coliseum, the previous discontent completely vanished from his voice. Now, only the excitement for the upcoming battle remained.
Yasha and Areth had no time for verbal confrontation, as the battle immediately started. Reaching for Destiny Devourer, Yasha exploded with energy and strength, the stored energy and pent-up emotions erupting in full force.
Seeing Yasha recklessly pushing forward, the crowd sighed. If they had learned one thing from Areth’s battles, then it was best to stay away as far as possible from that boy. In the eyes of many, Yasha was sealing his own fate. Many sighed because the fact that Yasha managed to reach the third round and was only one fight from entering the final, was simply incredible. A nobody like him that no one had heard or seen before managed to get so far. But now, it seemed like this journey was destined to fail in the next moments.
Contrary to what most thought, Yasha knew exactly what he was doing, whereby it was more accurate to say that his instinct knew exactly what it was doing.
Areth’s smile on the other hand widened, as he saw Yasha rushing towards him. Unnoticed by everyone, a thin needle had appeared in his right hand. The needle’s body was entirely white, nearly translucent and was about a finger long.
Fiddling with the needle in his hand, Areth simply remained at his position, awaiting the onslaught of Yasha.
Filled with berserk power, Yasha had the need to vent and focused much of of his energy in Destiny Devourer, granting it glowing edge. While pushing those enormous amounts of energy into Destiny Devourer, Yasha was surprised for a second, as Destiny Devourer was like bottomless hole with an insatiable thirst for more. No matter how much energy Yasha poured into it, Destiny Devourer effortlessly absorbed it and transformed into for its use.
The result was a sword glowing in an eerie black light with razor-sharp edges. Reaching the area close-combat area around Areth, Yasha circulated his spiritual energy according to the first stage of the Life Sword that he deciphered himself.
For the time since the battle started, Areth finally made his move and raised his hand that held the needle. With a clear ringing, the needle collided with the colossal sword, and even though these size of these weapons was miles apart, the needle managed to deflect Destiny Devourer.
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Though a bit shocked, Yasha recovered immediately and launched his next attacks, clashing with the needle countless times in a matter of seconds. Swinging his sword and launching one attack after another, Yasha had to admit that he took a liking to the constant rush that filled while battling. The feeling of his sword clashing with another weapon, the constant dodging and searching for openings.
Before the tournament started, Yasha would never have thought that he would develop a certain knick for battling, though it was unknown how much of it came from his current berserk state.
They moved and flashed around the whole stage countless times, not giving each other an inch. Through this constant assault, Yasha managed to prevent Areth from moving around the stage like a specter, his usual approach in the previous battles. This caused the wide smile from Areth to falter slightly, clearly not expecting Yasha to put such a fight. After the first minutes, they seemed evenly matched.
The crowd was at first baffled, but quickly recovered and was delighted to witness such a match. This was what they coming for, an exciting match between the finest of the kingdom. Although the previous battles had been exciting, in many fights there had been a party that was stronger.
This stalemate continued for some time, until Areth finally managed to stab Yasha with his needle, managing to draw blood for the first time this battle. The smile on Areth’s face immediately grew wider again. The moment he acquired this drop of blood, he immediately broke away from Yasha, stored his needle and started to form his strange hand seals, while mumbling some unnoticeable words.
As the needle stab was like a mosquito bite, Yasha did not realize that Areth finally got what he needed to operate his weird spells from the Compendium of Blood Magic. Seeing that Areth separated himself from Yasha, Yasha first thought that Areth reached his limits and had to take a breath, but before he could push forward, Yasha suddenly froze. Overcome by a strong sense of danger, Yasha immediately ceased moving and concentrated on controlling his blood flow. This actions was done purely on instinct. Yasha had no idea why, but this sudden sense of profound danger prompted him to stop everything and focus on his breathing and do his best to calm his blood.
Confused by the sudden turn of events, the spectators held their breath. Barely anyone knew why Areth suddenly backed off and why Yasha froze on spot, not moving an inch.
The sense of danger intensified many times, the longer Areth formed hand seals. This resulted in a weird scene, where one person was frozen mid movement, while the other person stood still on the other side of the stage, performing hand seals.
A few seconds later, a red glow suddenly appeared between Areth’s palms, the smile on his face getting wider and wider.
Still frozen, Yasha immediately calmed down, taking a deep breath. Then he felt an invisible force entering his body, directly bypassing his protective layer of dark spiritual energy, something he had never expected. From his short time in the cultivation world, he managed to glimpse into the abnormality that was the dark spiritual energy. It was something that went against common sense and logic, but this force still managed to directly push through, as if it did not exist in the first place.
The invisible force entered his blood circulation without encountering any resistance and latched itself onto the blood like a parasite.
The familiar sensation of loosing control over his body then emerged, which caused a hint of panic to arise. As if disgusted by this emotion and seemingly provoked that another force, and in the eyes of the Asura blood even pitifully weak one at that, the already active Asura blood then exploded with power, crashing into the invisible force. However, it suddenly seemed to have thought of something and immediately withdrew the berserk power, letting the invisible force latch onto itself.
Still smiling, Areth suddenly spat out blood, while getting as pale as paper. Shocked, he stared at Yasha. What was that just know?! For a second it seemed like I would loose control of his blood? This never happened before! Once I manage to finish the Blood Control Spell, nobody can resist!
Though he regained control, this slip up caused him to form the hand seals with even more fervor and intensity, pushing his power to the utmost.
Bewildered, Yasha could only witness the countless changes inside his body like a bystander. Even though he could not truly ‘see’ what was happening, he still felt the short clash between the Asura blood and the unknown force.
Why did the Asura blood suddenly stop resisting, is it not powerful enough to ward of this stranger power?
Feeling the sudden increase of the invisible power, Yasha grew frantic. He felt helpless, as his only hope at this point, the Asura blood, suddenly retracted its power, which completely went against its nature. Immobilized, he could only hope that Areth ran out of power.
As if answering Yasha’s doubt, the Asura blood returned and exerted a mighty suction force. It was like a beast that opened its gigantic maw to devour its prey.
Once again surprised by the sudden turn of events, Areth spat out buckets of blood and immediately after slumped down. Areth saw the world before him twist and turn upside down, after which he heard an ear-splitting roar, followed by a shadowy silhouette of a person covered in beautiful scarlet-black scales and clad in an armor as dark as the night sky. His field of vision then became black.
After he opened his eyes again, Areth was greeted by a pungent smell of blood and decay. Blood flew in huge rivers around him, flowing down mountains of corpses, like countless veins that spread through the world. A shady mist hung over the world that underlined the stifling atmosphere. Nine blood-red moons hung in the sky, like giant eyes presiding over the world beneath.
Not far in the distance, Areth saw the silhouette of the being from before. The moment his eyes landed on the silhouette again, a primal fear emerged from deep inside of him, a feeling he had thought to have eradicated a long time ago. His body began to tremble uncontrollably and his legs were getting weak. A profound sensation of death washed over him, while terror appeared in every fiber of his existence. He suddenly regretted underestimating Yasha, only realizing now that Yasha hid a dark secret. Something way out his league and even beyond the power of the Nameless Sect — he was sure of that.
The silhouette slowly turned around, before Areth could see the face of the silhouette, he collapsed, as his consciousness was consumed by fear. He closed his eyes, accepting his fate, wishing for death.
After nothing happened for what felt like an eternity, he opened his eyes again, only to see a gray sky. Soaked in sweat and still shivering, he remained on the ground.
The coliseum now was completely silent. Completely baffled, the spectators and even the elders in the VIP lounge stared at the stage with their mouths agape. From one moment to another, Areth suddenly cried out loud in agony, grabbing his head, while smashing his head on the ground, only to cease everything and lifelessly laying on the stage in the next moment. From start to finish, it looked Areth had everything in control, so this ending was more than unexpected.
Now, everyone had the same question: What the hell happened?