“I got you!” shouted stefan3B.
DG, startled by the assault, summons energy in his right palm and quickly swipes stefan3B, changing the course of his dash and forcing him to miss. stefan3B quickly stops his way by stomping hard into the ground, then turns around to him and dashes once more, spinning with his sword once before slashing him. DG can’t do anything but block, as he's still confused about stefan3B’s sudden power-up. stefan3B slams his blade into DG, he easily breaks his guard and knocks him on the ground. Once DG touches the ground, bright yellow cracks appear according to the direction in which stefan3B attacked, then a split second later explodes, shaking the ground wildly and releasing very large energy bursts, blowing DG away a great distance. DG lets out a groan as he stabilizes himself midair, then lands down safely visibly damaged, his expression changing to one of anger and amazement.
“How the hell did this chimp manage to deal more damage in one strike than all of the explosion devices of the being?” said DG in his mind.
stefan3B was slightly relieved that his enemy takes quite the damage from his weapon, however, he knew perfectly what happens if he lets his guard down even for the slightest moment, and so he starts thinking of a plan on the spot.
“I need something quick, I need something to confuse him, it's clear that he has never fought anyone like this before, I need to end this before he gets used to my way of fighting.” said stefan3B in his mind as well.
stefan3B summons several light orbs around him, then smacks them with his blade, launching them straight to DG. He manages to block some of the projectiles by enhancing his hands and feet with dark energy, however, he is still dealing slight damage to his body. stefan3B decides to rush him again, but this time, he rushes as well, both of them clashing together. DG manages to kick him in the chin using his knee, then he spins and kicks him in the face upwards, knocking him up to the sky. Then DG summons a black orb in his hand, which gathers dark energy from the ground. After charging it for a second, he throws it at stefan3B, who briefly takes notice of this and regains control. Once he sees the orb fly towards him, he charges up his blade with energy, making it glow yellow, then dashes fiercely through it, piercing it with a slight struggle. He hits the ground diagonally and slides across it, looking straight into his eyes.
“He must have gotten used to me already, I'm screwed if he can read my moves. He really seems trained, I can't deny, his level of combat exceeds mine.” said stefan3B in his mind before releasing a slash energy projectile, but, right when it was supposed to collide with DG, he vanished and reappeared behind stefan3B, whose expression changed instantly into one of fear together with a slight gasp.
“Is this all that the mighty Temple had to offer?!” exclaimed DG before grabbing stefan3B’s head and smashing it to the ground violently.
“He was not that strong before, he was not that fast before, what's going on, what's going on… Wait… It's his element, I remember vividly, Andrew got significantly more powerful when I fought him, and this guy gets around a fifth faster and stronger just from some scratches…” said stefan3B in his mind as he tried to struggle out of his grasp.
From out of nowhere, a fire spear enchanting with a swirling thunderbolt rapidly hit DG in the back, stunning him and forcing him to release stefan3B. Once freed, he quickly performs an upwards slash into DG, then spins and kicks him directly in the stomach, pushing him away. stefan3B pants and locks on DG once more. DG is startled by the assault of the random attack. He looks behind him and sees Ares, Darius, and Radu behind the rock. Panting, he suddenly clenches his teeth as his eyes widen in rage. stefan3B realizes that he spotted his friends, and so he doesn't hesitate to run towards him and engage once more. He goes for a slash, which almost hits DG, but right before he'd be able to take the hit, he parries the attack and attacks stefan3B with a left punch. stefan3B takes the punch in his face and is knocked back once more, sliding against the ground. He groans as he rubs his forehead a little, then rises up again.
“Calm down, calm down, they're trying to drive you crazy, don't let yourself into their games, they're just kids, calm down, you got this.” repeated DG in his mind, which helped him calm down fully.
“I must finish the small ones before I get to the bigger one.” said DG to himself before dashing straight to the rock.
“Uuhm, guys? I think he's coming towards us-” said Radu sheepishly, not before being interrupted by Ares.
“Oh, shut up, you dirtsack, I can see that too.” said Ares with a rougher tone.
“What are we gonna do? stefan3B is down.” said Darius.
Ares clenches his teeth and gets on top of the rock, then summons his fire spear and flourishes it, then dashes straight to DG.
“Is he mental?!” shouted Darius.
“Nah, I can't sit here and watch it, let's go.” said Radu.
Once DG saw Ares rush towards him, he charges up another orb in his palm, ready to strike Ares right in the face. Radu takes notice of this and quickly raises several ground barriers in front of DG, which he foolishly rams into, confusing him and canceling his attack.
“That mole actually did something useful this time!” said Ares in his mind before kicking DG right in the chest, pinning him to a dirt wall raised by Radu.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
He takes no time to wield his spear with both of his hands and push it into his skull, but, right before contact, DG catches the spear and snaps it in his hand, then blasts Ares away with a different blast of energy, which compresses in his palm and stretches instantly, strongly throwing Ares off of him and then jumping back into his palm. He rolls backwards once on the ground and stops his movement by gripping his hand against the ground. He summons yet another fire spear and spins it before throwing it at DG. This time, when he caught the spear, Ares detonated it right in his palm, causing great burn damage to his body.
“Yes! He nailed it!” shouted Darius.
stefan3B gets up from his rubble and sees Ares taking on DG.
“What's he doing, oh my…” said stefan3B before standing up and sprinting once more.
stefan3B stabs the ground as he runs and drags his sword through the ground, which leaves a sparkly yellow trail behind him. Once he gets relatively close to DG, he swipes his sword upwards and shouts, “Take this!”. The energy trail causes the ground to progressively blow up, quickly launching a powerful attack at DG.
“What the-” but his words were cut short as the storm of dirt suddenly covered him whole.
stefan3B backs off and watches for anything new to happen. Beneath the dust and soil, DG loses his mind completely.
“No, I did not sacrifice everything just to be buried alive by an Ivy League scholar! Control tower! Release them! All of them! Now! Forcefully! Raid this place! I don't care about it anymore! I need to see their heads right where I'm stuck right now!” shouted DG before pushing away all the dirt at once with a barrier of dark energy. Suddenly, from the cube above them, hundreds of shadow elementalists phase through the cube slowly, once they're fully out, they slam into the ground instantly, leaving a trail of shadow energy behind them. However, they were 5 kilometers away from them. Ares, Radu, and Darius are completely lost in what is going on, as they see the count of shadow elementalists not stopping increasing and hundreds and hundreds of more elementalists emerging from the cube above them, around the same spot.
“He… Has… Prepared an army…” said Radu to himself, close to trembling.
“H-hey… We can… Still beat them… Right?... I mean… We're pretty strong ourselves… Hehe… Heh… Oh my…” said Darius, who already started soaking himself in sweat.
DG doesn't lose his frown and quickly assaults stefan3B, dashing into him and grabbing him by the shoulders, then spins vertically and launches him forward. stefan3B manages to easily regain his posture and slide on the ground. DG keeps the rush going and throws a kick reinforced with dark energy. stefan3B manages to slash at the perfect time to counter the kicks, the impact being strong enough to push both of them. stefan3B flourishes his sword as his blade charges up with energy, then launches five slash projectiles, automatically aiming towards DG. DG manages to dodge 3 of them, but he gets directly hit by the 4th and 5th, allowing stefan3B to get close and deliver another slash. DG enhances his hands with dark energy, but his attempt at parrying the attack is futile, as stefan3B easily pierced past his strength. However, DG manages to duck out of the attack, only having his palms slashed by the wrath of the hot blade. stefan3B takes no time to let out a groan, then punches DG in the face and pushes him to the ground with his fist. stefan3B then backs off and summons dozens of light projectiles, which rapidly target DG the moment they're summoned. DG gets up and spawns a small energy shield, he creates a shadow of himself to seem like he's standing there, but in reality, he was running towards stefan3B.
“You may have some combat experience, but you'll never expect my tricks!” said DG with a great smile on his face and widened eyes.
DG rushes towards stefan3B, but the moment he strikes him, his entire body flashes away. DG’s eyes quickly widen with despair as he realizes that he was fooled by his own trick.
“No way…” said DG in his mind.
stefan3B was right behind him, wielding his sword with both of his hands. Then, with a mighty force, he slammed his sword right into DG, knocking him down to the ground with great power output, causing a small earthquake in the process.
In the meantime, the cat barely got out of his cyborg suit, panting. He looks around and sees stefan3B and DG fight wildly. He smiles slightly as he sits down on the ground.
“Heh, that's my boy~.” said the cat to himself.
He quickly gets up afterwards and sees Ares in the distance. He waves his little paw at him. Ares quickly notices him as well, due to the cat's white fur in contrast to the gloomy gray atmosphere present at that time.
“Hey, boys, I found the cat!” said Ares before rushing towards it with flame blasts.
“The cat?...” said Darius to himself.
“Yeah, the cat… Whatever a cat is… Aren't cats like… Human things?” said Radu.
“I dunno… But it looks fluffy and cuddly to me.” said Darius, a bit less worried.
Radu pauses for a second and looks at Ares bringing the cat to them.
“Whatever that thing is, it has dangerous amounts of information, that's for sure.” said Radu in the same worried tone.
It takes less than 4 seconds for Ares to come back with the cat.
“Hey, what's up?” said the cat.
Darius is completely addled upon seeing the cat up close, but he doesn't say anything.
“Do you… Perhaps… Got any new plans?...” asked Radu in a shy manner.
“No, but what I do have is information.” continued the cat.
“Such as?” asked Radu.
Ares sighs and sits down against the rock with his hands behind his head.
“Be quick, I gotta help that dumbass win.” said Ares.
The cat looks at him with his side eye, then sighs and looks back at Radu.
“So, basically, I found out more about elementalists. Elementalists are split into ranks based on their evolution. Low rank, the rank at which an elementalist has barely unlocked his element but can cast it anytime. Middle rank, a rank which is achieved during deadly situations as a last resort power up.”
The moment Darius hears the words “last resort, power up”, his eyes widen a little and his eyebrows raise.
“The next rank is high rank, you upgrade to this automatically when you're physically strong enough. However, that's not the final rank.” continued the cat.
All of the three boys’ eyes suddenly widened.
“Wait, what do you mean?” asked Radu, confused.
“Heh, this might actually be interesting.” said Ares with a smile.
“The following rank after high rank is the grandmaster rank, which is obtained when the majority of the elemental populous of that specific element platonically love a specific elementalist.” said the cat.
Everyone is confused, as they did not really understand anything from it.
“So, basically, all I need to do to obtain this ‘grandmaster’ rank is to be friends with all fire elementalists?” asked Ares.
“Basically, yes. Kind of. There can only be one grandmaster at a time, they are also 250 times stronger than a high ranker.” continued the cat.
Silence surrounds them for a brief moment, but not before being broken by Radu a few seconds later.
“Wait… How would you know that-”
But the cat stopped his sentence midway.
“Also! Something that I realized is that there is a rank lower than ‘low’, that being ‘null’. The best example is stefan3B.”
“Tsk, of course…” said Ares to himself in a low tone.
Radu starts growing suspicious of this specimen and its intellectual capabilities, but as long as it's on his side, he tries to ignore it.