Chapter 12 - Part 2: Prime Awakening
On another part of the Iceland, Loryx and Eryth stood still, having heard a voice echoing across the entire field. They couldn't place it.
"Who is shouting at the top of their lungs?!" Eryth said.
"Did someone survive?" Loryx said.
"We didn't see anyone else coming."
"We need to find out quickly."
Then they heard something behind them.
Heh...! Heh...! Heh...!
The controlled breathing of a Shadow Energy user - a sound that means the person is pulling their power into alignment. Loryx and Eryth both recognized it the moment they heard it. Before they could think further, the sky turned black. The pressure in the air increased to something abnormal. They turned.
Kai had stood up.
His body - which had been torn apart - was whole again. His gaze was directed downward. His pupils had disappeared. The dense aura of Shadow Energy rising from him moved with a kind of intent that didn't feel like an ability so much as a fundamental change in what he was. He looked larger. The airflow around him had turned violent, visible, pushing outward in every direction.
"Wow," Eryth said. "The dead boy seems to have come back to life." He wiped blood from his fans, unhurried.
Loryx wasn't laughing.
"What is happening?" he said, genuinely shaken. "How did he stand up?" He paused. "Does this mean he also has Prime mode?! This is supposed to be exclusive to Shadow Entities." Another pause. "We have to stop him. Now."
He tried to move closer. The wind pressure around Kai stopped him.
"Should we also enter Prime mode?" Loryx asked.
"You know what?" Eryth said. "I told the truth earlier. You really are a coward. Why are you so scared of your own enemy? Give him a little chance."
"Are you insane?! How can you say that right now?!"
Eryth turned to face him, suddenly irritated.
"Who is saying nonsense?! Do you know nothing about Prime mode?! We are not some newly born weak Shadow Warriors who can gather Shadow Energy into our souls in the blink of an eye."
"I know that," Loryx said. "I'm asking if any power in your Iceland can help us control our Shadow Energy faster."
"Honest answer - no."
Loryx and Eryth stood helplessly and watched from a distance.
Scene 4: Prime Awakening
Elsewhere in the Iceland, Aya lay trying to hold herself together. Then Shinsei's voice reached her.
She was shocked. The person who had forbidden them from ever using the Ultimate Shadow Form was now ordering them to activate it. And she wasn't sure it would even be enough - not now, not against what they'd already faced. But she trusted Shinsei. She closed her eyes and lay flat on the ice.
Her breathing changed. Something shifted inside her - a storm that had been sealed, and now couldn't be stopped.
She opened her eyes.
Intense black Shadow Energy swirled around her body. Every wound was gone. Every trace of pain - vanished. Plasma Tonfas materialized in her hands. Aya looked at herself for a moment, then at the destruction around her.
"The time has come to take revenge for every blow."
She ran. Then realized she could teleport. She kept teleporting until she reached the battlefield.
On another ice shelf, Morys and Caphen were dragging the wounded Rai across the ground, his blood trailing a line on the ice behind them. Then they heard the voice too.
"Who is shouting?" Morys asked.
"Probably the old man," Caphen said. "The others must have gone to deal with him."
"They still haven't finished him?!"
Rai's face changed. A sharp smile appeared on his lips despite everything. His breathing started - slow at first, then building. In the next moment, the poisonous ice that had been blocking his healing shattered from the inside and struck Morys and Caphen simultaneously. A terrifying storm erupted with Rai at its center. Both Shadow Warriors were thrown clear. They stared at him, completely stunned.
Shadow Energy rebuilt Rai's flesh from the wound outward. A golden aura swirled around him. His axes returned to his hands.
"Sorry," Rai said, and he was genuinely smiling. "I can't help laughing when I think about what's coming for you."
"Not again!!" Caphen said.
Morys said nothing. He drove his Trident into the ice. The entire ground around them turned black.
"Abyssal Thorns!!"
Hundreds of thorns erupted from the ice in every direction.
"Ruby Rose!"
A massive rose-shaped shield rose from below Rai and absorbed every thorn as it came. The moment Morys's ability finished, Rai detonated the shield. The area turned crimson. Ice shattered in every direction. Morys and Caphen flew back and crashed. Rai walked forward to finish it.
After giving the order, Shinsei stood quietly for a moment. Then he saw Daryth and Ildar approaching him cautiously.
"Now the tide turns," he said.
He summoned Fist of Extreme Pressure's blue aura into both hands and clapped. The explosion was contained and precise. Daryth barely survived by using his hammer as cover. Ildar was launched. When the smoke cleared, Shinsei was standing in a different quality of stillness - the red light of his Fist of Harm had grown denser, spreading up past his wrists, covering to his shoulders. Daryth understood. He tried to run. Shinsei leaped from behind and drove his hand straight through him. He pulled back, kicked Daryth far, and summoned Pneumo Fists in both hands. He moved forward toward whatever remained.
On the main battlefield, Loryx and Eryth were still observing Kai and calculating. Shadow Energy began swirling in Kai's hands - forming the legendary weapon they had heard of but never seen: the Composite Sword. A long blade with multiple smaller blades connected by chains. The moment it fully formed, the violent wind pressure around Kai suddenly cut off.
Loryx saw the opening and attacked. Kai blocked with the Composite Sword. Loryx's Naginata struck one of the chained blades - the shockwave sent Loryx backward, but Kai didn't move a single step. In the next moment, Kai swung the Composite Sword. All the connected blades separated and shot toward Loryx simultaneously. Loryx drove his Naginata into the ice and created a poisonous wall in front of him. Kai's blades detonated it. Loryx was thrown back again.
He stood. Kai advanced slowly.
Then Kai stumbled. He still couldn't fully control the power flowing through him.
"You're fast," Loryx said, not even looking at him. "But still raw compared to me."
He planted his foot - the ice beneath it froze solid - and pointed the Naginata forward.
"Extreme Speed!"
From a distance it looked like a green light rushing across the Iceland. He was almost on Kai when -
Aya teleported in and kicked Loryx in the face.
Loryx slid across the ice for hundreds of meters. Before he could stand, Aya teleported again and struck him with a spinning Plasma Tonfa from the left. He slid further. She teleported to attack once more - but this time Loryx predicted it. He drove his Naginata into Aya's hand, pinning it to the ice. Using the embedded weapon as a brace, he leaped to kick her. Aya bent under it and teleported away instantly.
She stopped at a distance. Loryx healed. Aya healed her hand. Both of them looked at each other across the ice.
"Oh, so you also managed to enter Prime mode," Loryx said, after a pause. "But I will still win."
"We'll see," Aya said.
Before she finished, Loryx charged.
Aya defended and fired lasers from her Plasma Tonfas. Loryx moved through the gaps between them at a speed that made the dodges look effortless. Aya teleported as he closed the distance. They came at each other without pause - a green light and a sky-blue light colliding and separating and colliding again. They moved so fast they were barely visible. The surrounding ice was shredded by the shockwaves between them and thrown into the air. The time it took for those ice shards to fall was enough for Aya and Loryx to exchange ten or twelve blows. A sphere of compressed air had formed around them from the pressure.
Finally, they hit each other with full force. A massive explosion launched both of them in opposite directions. Loryx controlled himself by scraping his Naginata along the ice as he slid. He paused - then charged again. He was moving so fast he left no visible form, only the ice parting on either side of the path he cut. Before Aya could stand, Loryx drove the back of his Naginata into her armor and launched her upward. He leaped after her and struck her again in the air. As she fell, he hit her repeatedly on the way down. Her body wasn't being cut apart, but the accumulated strikes left it heavily wounded. Each impact from above created a deeper crater when it pushed her toward the ice. When she finally found a moment to react, she teleported into the sky.
Loryx was inside the enormous crater below her.
Hundreds of lasers shot from Aya's Plasma Tonfas and descended toward the crater in an instant. Loryx looked up at them coming and gave a cold smile.
"This girl probably doesn't know that I have been the nightmare of laser users before."
He read the gaps between them and began moving upward through the rain of fire, closing the distance. When he was halfway between the crater floor and Aya, she pulled both Plasma Tonfas together.
"Finally," she said. "You fell into my trap."
She drew every trace of surrounding Shadow Energy into the tonfas and converted it entirely into laser. Then released it - not aimed, but spreading across the entire sky like a cloud of light raining downward toward where Loryx was. He tried to dodge. Too many - he pushed through instead, ignoring what he couldn't avoid. The lasers that landed burned through him. The cloud carried him down into the crater and slammed into the ground below. A massive explosion filled the entire area with sky-blue light and vapor. When the vapor finally cleared, the lasers had melted through the thick ice of Iceland all the way down to sea level. A massive crater reached the water beneath. Loryx was floating in it. The lasers hadn't dissolved his body - but they had scorched all of his blood. He had no strength left to move. He was sinking, slowly, deeper into the water.
Loryx was defeated.
Aya landed. She stood for a moment - sometimes looking at herself, sometimes at the destruction. Then she broke down and cried. Her body had healed, but the pain hadn't gone anywhere. It was still inside her, in every part she'd had to push through. Unable to hold it back any longer, she lay on the ice and let it come - waiting for it to pass, trying to regulate her Shadow Energy with her breath.
Across the Iceland, Kai and Eryth had been pushed to the far end of the field by the fighting.
Kai was on the ground when he suddenly stood. Eryth sat a short distance away, watching.
"You finally got up," Eryth said. "I thought my attacks had finished you even in Prime mode. I was worried. Now I can give you another painful defeat."
Kai stood. Eryth rose.
Eryth waited.
"Come," Kai said. "Hit me. Are you afraid of my teleportation? Don't worry. I'm not moving."
Eryth waited a little longer.
"Fine," he said, irritated. "I'll come to you."
He teleported close and swung his fan. Kai had predicted it. He caught the fan in his right hand and delivered a kick. The shockwave launched Eryth across the ice.
Eryth stood. Immediately, Kai's Composite Sword came down on him. Eryth defended - even without moving, his feet sank into the ice from the force. He teleported close to Kai again but didn't attack. Kai understood the read - he created a rotating circle of blades around himself. Eryth defended against it, leaped onto the edges, and rose slightly.
"Frostbite Surge!"
He tried to kick Kai. A blue aura appeared on his foot. Kai dodged. Eryth's foot hit the ground and the resulting explosion turned the ice beneath it into clear glass-like material. When the smoke cleared, Kai looked around. Eryth was far away - the ice Kai had been standing on had shifted away from the explosion without Kai moving at all.
Eryth extended a finger to measure the distance.
"Perfect," he said - then cleared his throat and called out: "Your version is quite strong and fast. So now it's time for me to become-"
Kai attacked before he could finish. Eryth had already teleported behind him.
"-Serious!"
He began striking Kai without pause. Kai was knocked back. When Eryth attacked again, Kai caught it on his Composite Sword, backflipped, and counter-attacked. From that point, neither of them held anything back. Every strike cut through the air. The battle continued for a long time. Massive waves of Shadow Energy rolled around them. Kai's attacks hit the ice and sent it flying upward in sheets. Eryth failed repeatedly to fully counter or escape Kai's strikes - he had been dismembered and healed many times over.
Eryth understood this couldn't continue. He threw both fans simultaneously. Kai leaped and dodged left. Eryth teleported through the gap left by the dodge and began landing strikes on Kai without pause. Then Kai grabbed Eryth's hand and yanked all the chained blades close in one motion. Eryth tried to swap positions with Kai using teleportation. It didn't work. Both of them became entangled in the chains.
"Your weapon is good," Eryth said. "But not as good as mine."
His two fans flew in from behind Kai and struck. Kai lost his grip on the Composite Sword. Eryth froze the chains to the ice and shattered them, then kicked Kai far.
"3rd and Final Round: Abyssal Hailstorm!!!"
Dark clouds gathered directly above Kai. Massive, sharp, dense chunks of ice began falling from them.
"Yes," Kai said. "Final - but for you."
"Shadow Step!"
One step at the speed of light. He passed through Eryth's body in a single slash, cutting him into pieces, and vanished. Eryth tried to locate him - then noticed a small black dot appear beside him.
Before Eryth could react:
"Umbral Singularity!"
Every piece of surrounding ice, every fragment of matter - and Eryth himself - were pulled into the dot. A mountain-sized sphere formed, dense with Shadow Energy. Inside, everything moved at tremendous speed. Eryth was thrown against the ice of his own ability and the natural ice of Iceland repeatedly - torn apart and forced to heal himself fifteen, twenty times in rapid succession. Outside, Kai watched.
He thought it was over.
Then the sphere began to freeze from within. It built and built - and exploded.
Kai was launched backward. The area filled with thick fog. Inside the fog, he saw Eryth. Eryth had become very weak. His healing had dropped to the level of an ordinary Shadow Entity - not gone, but slow. And yet he still moved forward with the intention of delivering one final blow.
Kai recognized it.
"Tortural Blade!!"
Nothing happened.
Eryth stood up, and despite everything, managed a smile.
"If you don't mind," he said, "I'm going to steal your healing ability."
At that moment - a giant ring appeared at the edge of Iceland. Moving fast. Massive. Growing larger as it came, cutting through the ice on its path toward them. Eryth spilled his blood on the ice. Sharp ice pillars rose from where it fell. The ring grew and came and grew. Kai understood what was happening. He took a massive leap. The ring passed beneath him - shattering every one of Eryth's ice pillars - and continued directly toward Eryth.
"Hey - no-"
The ring crushed him. Eryth lay torn apart on the ice. He couldn't heal fast enough. He was finished.
Kai stood in the quiet that followed. He let himself rest for a moment - just a moment - then went to find the others.
On another part of Iceland, Rai and Shinsei were sitting on the unconscious bodies of the Shadow Warriors they had defeated. The exhaustion and silence between them said everything. Then they heard it - the sound of Kai's Tortural Blade splitting the Iceland in two. Rai looked around, unable to place what had just happened.
"We have succeeded," Shinsei said. "Both Shadow Bosses have been defeated."
"How do you know?!" Rai asked.
Shinsei said nothing. He seemed somewhere else in his thoughts.
Rai looked at him.
"Forget that. First tell me something. Why did you hide the power of the Ultimate Form from us? Why did you forbid us from using it? If we had used it earlier, this fight would have been so much easier."
"You won't understand," Shinsei said. "We should never have had to use this. We should have fought better without it." He paused. "We may regret this in the future."
Rai said nothing, but something in him tightened. He looked up at the sky. It was getting dark - they had fought through the entire day.
"Let's hurry. It's getting late."
They stood and walked until they found Kai. He had already taken the key to the next gate from Eryth. To his right, a massive chasm split the entire Iceland in two from where his ability had run its course. A little further, Eryth lay badly wounded, healing at his own slow pace. They found Aya not long after - she had been carried far by the fighting and was sitting on the ice. When she saw Kai, Rai, and Shinsei, she rose.
Together, the four of them turned and began walking back toward the Gate.