**Volume 1: Awakening - [Full Awakening Arc]**
**Chapter 48: Caelus vs The Shadow Figure**
(The reason for why he is so angry and the way he speaks will all be understood in future chapters so, don't go saying why is he so dumb.)
"You brat!" the figure shouted loudly as he launched himself upward with powerful force, leaping high enough to reach Caelus's level. From his back burst wings woven of shadow and streaked with a toxic green glow, their span casting eerie light and shade across the fractured mind space.
His faceless head betrayed no expression, yet Caelus could almost picture the snarl that would twist a hidden mouth behind that mask.
The figure shot forward, with a tachi in his right hand, its blade wrought of dark energy, a sickly shadow-green mix that hissed as it cut the air. He slashed downward with merciless speed.
Caelus only smirked, slipping to the side as he said, "Is your face that ugly that you can't even show it to anyone?" he taunted.
'I will kill this brat. If only I could copy those butterflies, it would have been over. Why can't I copy them?!'
'My shadow affinity can let me copy anything I want but it can't copy these tiny butterflies when I can easily kill them if I wanted to, even when I try to devour them my shadow didn't give me any information about these things.'
"Sorry, you can't copy my beautiful butterflies. They despise your ugliness," Caelus replied, his voice sharp. He already figured out how the abilities of the shadows work.
Soon, the clash came with two tachis colliding, shadow-green against black-red, the impact reverberating like thunder through the mind space. Energy shivered outward, cracking the mind space. Both combatants released constant streams of their auras: Caelus cloaked in black-red energy, the faceless figure radiating a toxic green shadow.
Caelus and Faceless swung their tachi's diagonally downward causing both of them to part away as they flew back and without any time waste Caelus controlled his wings with difficulty as he rushed forward to faceless again.
Caelus is inexperienced with swordplay and also with these wings, but Caelus absorbed every motion, adapting in real time. He learned from each strike, his instincts sharpening with every exchange and he is using his soul mind to the fullest to learn proper control over his wings.
They darted through the air, wings beating furiously, red and green streaks carving the void. The mind space trembled on the brink of collapse, only to be saved by caterpillars that sacrificed themselves to hold the barrier together.
In the air of the mind space after a few clashes finally a changed happened with faceless enforcing his body with his shadow affinity causing wisps of smoke to be released from the sword and the hand, as if he reinforced the tachi several times the moment the tachi connected with Caelus's tachi, it sent Caelus away into the air, since this time faceless did a downward and Caelus whose speed was slow could only defend causing him to become defenseless the moment he got pushed back, the power behind that clash was so intense it sent him almost out of the mind space but he stopped himself with all his might and immediately flew around the air as he went up into the sky.
Caelus expression is not looking good but he is not showing it outside since it can show his weakness, right now Caelus is trying to learn the move faceless did.
Faceless surged towards Caelus and they are on same height in the air, and they clashed again only to send Caelus away from that place, he didn't go out this time because he was facing another side which is the left side which was different when he was on the right side. But he was near to go outside of the mind space.
In that moment Caelus instantly understood something as the caterpillars on the ground move towards to him at a frightening speed and covered his whole right hand and turned it into corrupted black-and-red veins etched across his skin, pulsing with molten crimson beneath pitch-black fissures.
The moment this happened he felt the strength in himself increased by several times.
And with this both Caelus and faceless are equal in terms of strength, he could increase his strength more than what it is right now but from instincts he is feeling he can tell he can't do more than this, despite there being over billions of caterpillars on the ground.
He flew up as faceless flew down and when he did a downward slash the slash didn't push him and then he understood.
'this... this kid also learned reinforcement. This is why I don't want to use my techniques I created, but I can't do anything if i don't use them I will only die when the time extends more than five minutes.'
'This mind space belongs to him, the longer the time goes on the longer the survivability I have will lessen.'
Mind space can only have one owner and a brain has this spiritual organ just like core, and mind space is the place where the owner of a physical body stays. Every living being has a mind space, but only an awakener can enter through fantasy means, so a normal human or living being can never do that.
Brain is just a tool for this mind space to collaborate with physical body and make physical body work.
A body with no soul operating a mind space means that body is dead and right now Caelus body is dead and that is physical body only not the soul, since soul is a mysterious thing that even everyone in this world properly doesn't know about it. Even faceless himself can't understand it.
"What cat got your tongue? Ah, why would a cat even want your tongue? It would taste bad and get disease if that cat were to eat your tongue." Caelus said as he lunged forward.
Faceless ignored the rage bait even though he was feeling angry inside.
'This brat... I am gonna have to kill him.'
It's already been two minutes, there is three more minutes.
Caelus clashed as he moved back and was on the same height again.
He spun a full circle counterclockwise as his tachi sweeping in a wide arc. The figure also did a full circle but a clockwise. They did this when they were both half way to move back from the clash they had.
Right now, they were both in sync with moves. The 360 degrees move hit each other as they produced clashing energy and neither of them stopped or move back rather they both are forcing strength onto pushing each.
Caelus is using his all strength on tachi to make faceless loose his momentum with making him fall down to the ground.
And faceless is also thinking the same thing.
Both tachis are in diagonal position and seeing Caelus focusing solely on strength, faceless gave smirk which was noticed by Caelus but it was late, as faceless released his strength as the sword collapsed to the ground and Caelus body due to putting all his strength started face down.
As faceless moved to the left as he made another tachi with his shadow and was about to pierce Caelus's back but then got bounced back.
The reason for it is the reinforcement, Caelus removed the reinforcement on the hand to the whole back.
But force still hit him as he fell to the ground at an insane speed that even a naked eye can't capture it.
The impact slammed Caelus toward the ground, caterpillars put their bodies under Caelus's body before he could hit the ground to absorb the shock and let Caelus not get any injury.
And they succeeded in it and before Caelus could rise from the ground, the figure dove at astonishing speed, a huge slash descending from top to the ground. Caelus deflected it with his sword, but the figure then conjured a sphere of roiling shadow and smoke, laced with venomous green light, and hurled it.
The ball streaked toward Caelus's chest. In an instant, caterpillars swarmed him, shoving his body aside. The orb struck where he had been, erupting into a colossal black-and-green explosion.
Caelus had no time to breathe. A touch of pure shadow materialized, already at his neck. Caelus in that instant made his reinforcement go from his backside as the reinforcement started to crawl up from his collar to his eyes. Corrupted black-and-red veins etched across his skin, pulsing with molten crimson beneath pitch-black fissures that bled shadow.
The shadow blade smashed against the armor and failed. Caelus seized the faceless figure's head with his right hand, his left fist crashing into the blank visage. The punch nearly flung the enemy away, but Caelus's grip held fast. He pummeled again and again, each blow fueled by fury.
The figure suddenly turned into a shadow as he vanished from Caelus's senses, and then sensing danger from his back, he saw a shadow figure in his shadow, and the shadow thrust a shadow sword that was filled with a green aura into his abdomen. The sword pierced through his abdomen; he couldn't shift the armor from his neck to his abdomen in time because he was late to see where the shadow figure went.
"Fuck." Caelus cursed under his breath.
The shadow then sliced the sword up as the sword sliced Caelus's body in half as Caelus's soul got split in half.
There has been no blood since this is a battle amongst souls, not with real physical bodies where it may cause bloodshed.
"This is what you get for being overconfident." The shadow came out of Caelus's shadow and said his words.
Caelus couldn't say anything since his body was cut in half and soul fragments started flowing in the air, but his hands were still working, so he raised his right hand and pointed his two fingers towards the shadow as he moved it to his left direction.
The Shadow looked to its left side and saw Caelus with a black-red mix aura flowing out of his body, with a Tachi made of butterflies at his waist and the corrupted black-and-red veins etched across his skin, pulsing with molten crimson beneath pitch-black fissures. He is sitting on a throne with his position upright on the throne with his back supported, showing a balanced but relaxed posture. His legs are crossed, with the right ankle resting over the left knee, giving a composed yet casual stance. His left arm rests naturally on the throne's armrest, while his right arm bends across his body, with the hand lightly holding his other wrist.
"Were you happy with killing now? Why the hell are you raging by talking dirty about your face? Is your face really that ugly? "Anyway, since you are happy, here is the gift for you," Caelus said, as he manifested a marble-like ball with the help of merging two caterpillars.
He flicked his hand, and that marble shot forwards, leaving behind a trail of red-black aura. The shadow figure, despite not paying attention to the marble, dodged the marble with ease as it landed on the ground.
But what Shadow didn't expect was that the marble would blast, and the moment the marble landed on the ground, the marble blasted, causing an explosion, and nearby there were no caterpillars nor butterflies; they were all gone before the blast had even started.
The shadow has a danger sense, but it didn't work and notice the danger for him before the blast happened because Caelus didn't flick the marble at the shadow figure with the intent to kill but rather just as a gift for calming down and killing his clown.
The blast caused a big explosion and hit the soul of the shadow. Despite him being in shadow form, where attacks can't hit him, he was hit by the explosion since these butterflies were of the soul element, and the shadow is a soul too. Even in shadow form, it is still a soul, so it got hit too.
The explosion was so intense it broke every part of the armor the figure got on his body, with fragments of soul starting to fly in the air. Before he could see the face of the shadow figure, the shadow figure covered his face in shadow armor, but he didn't do it for the other parts because he was out of energy to do it, and even to the end he is still covering his face as if to hide his face to the end.
Caelus, who saw this, found it interesting, and he threw two more marbles of the previous attack on both sides where he couldn't escape in time, and this time it was faster than before, and the shadow figure covered his face but let other parts of the body get hit, and due to that, he got weakened by a lot.
'Why is this guy trying so hard to hide his face? I need to find out; now that he is weakened by another attack, it is perfect for me to fight.' Caelus, the moment he got revived, got back his ownership of the mind space and has been suppressing the shadow figure's power with this mind space and increasing himself to the level of the shadow figure, and that is all temporary. After this battle, he would be back to normal, and with these butterflies he had, he would be able to fight back more easily.
Caelus got up from the throne made of butterflies as he rushed forward and sliced the shadow figure in half, with his legs standing on the ground and his upper body falling flatly on the ground.
"This reminds me of a Kit Kat person in an anime that Grandpa showed me. hahaha" Caelus laughed as he blurted out.
Caelus looked at the shadow figure and asked, "Hey, are you still there or not?" because this guy has not been speaking at all.
"I am awake, so you are about to kill now, right?" The figure asked Caelus in a low voice.
"Yeah, otherwise I would be dead." Caelus just answered back his question.
"Then kill me without me feeling any pain; that is my last request."
Caelus didn't care anything about the request and hit the shadow figure on the face with his fist, the hit so hard that the sound was heard all over the mind space. The shadow even growled in pain because Caelus forged a fist-type weapon on his fists with the butterflies.
"Shut your bitch ass up because of you guys I suffered a lot. Why do you think I would ever let you go?"
[End Of Chapter 48]