Volume 1: Path - [Full Awakening Arc]
Chapter 48: Caelus vs The Shadow Figure
"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.
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 his moves and those butterflies, it would have been over. Why can't I copy them?!'
"Sorry, you can't copy my butterflies or my moves. 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.
Though inexperienced with swordplay, Caelus absorbed every motion, adapting in real time. He learned from each strike, his instincts sharpening with every exchange.
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.
Caelus spun full circle, his tachi sweeping in a wide arc. The figure slid his own weapon along it in a skillful deflection, nearly catching Caelus's hand, but Caelus flared his wings and retreated. He shut his eyes briefly, a dark-red aura surging to engulf his blade in less than a heartbeat.
With a roar, he cleaved forward, unleashing a slash larger and heavier than the figure's own.
'This brat… He's learning too fast. If I don't finish him now, I'll lose. Wait, I am getting so angry all of a sudden. Calm down, calm down.'
"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.
The faceless one dodged hard to the left, narrowly avoiding the massive arc. But Caelus had planned it all, his strike angled deliberately to funnel the figure into that path. The moment the enemy shifted, Caelus was already there, blade swinging.
The figure barely caught the blow, steel shrieking as he forced Caelus back.
"Die, you brat." The figure was angry at the statement Caelus just said, as he shouted at Caelus.
He immediately surged forward, pressing his tachi against Caelus's, driving him down. The impact slammed Caelus toward the ground, caterpillars rushing to absorb the shock.
Before Caelus could rise, the figure dove at astonishing speed, another slash descending. Caelus deflected, but the figure 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. In desperation, he dissolved his weapon; its essence fused into armor crawling 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? Oh, and I will tell you how I survived till now too."
[End Of Chapter 48]