**Present. The Crimson Dragon's castle**
Raeyn bolted toward Milo at an incredible speed. Not only had she been a blur, but her figure and movements began to distort from Milo's point of view.
Her red gas, which she used to cause explosions, was also being countered nonstop by Raeyn like she was swatting flies. It got to the point where even if one of the blasts did hit her, she came out of the smoke and debris without as much as a scratch.
Milo's last attack was from the air as she swung her massive club down onto the tower they were on; a direct hit with nowhere to hide or dodge. The blast itself took out the beams from the floor below, causing the floor below them to shift down one level. Milo flipped down from her height in the air and waited for the smoke to clear, seeing if she had defeated her enemy.
The walls from the lower floor were still standing, blocking the view of Ryo's quarters now. Nearby Crimson Dragon Knights and Blue Phoenix Knights on the lower level there with them were had been caught in the impact of the fallen ceiling, some of them with minor injuries, and others not so fortunate.
With her scythe, Raeyn blew the smoke away as she strolled casually along their incredibly decimated battlefield—cindered and wrecked beyond recognition.
"Why… Why, why, why, why, why!! Why are you still standing!? And how are you unscathed!? What kind of madness?—" Milo screeched. She was so annoyed that her polished and perfect-seeming purple hair with blue streaks was now a mess from all the scratching she had done throughout the battle. She was irritation incarnate.
Raeyn, with her purple and yellow eyes, gave back her cold and dead calm stare. No small talk was entertained at this time.
It was then, Milo forced her hands together into a hand sign.
"Gas Reaction Magic: Frozen Death."
The aura around Milo began to thicken, then in an instant, blew out from all around her over the surrounding area. Engulfing the battlefield whole in a white gas in a matter of seconds.
From where Raeyn stood, the white gas blew past her, fluttering her silver and purple hair against its winds as it blasted by.
"Let's see how you handle this spell, you bitch!" Milo shouted from a distance.
Nearby, an eaglehawk had flown a little too close to the battlefield. When it breathed in the white gas, it froze over and crash-landed on the battlefield just yards behind where Raeyn had been standing, shattering into pieces from its fall. Nearby, Crimson Dragon Knights and Blue Phoenix Knights in the vicinity had also breathed in the white gas. Each one froze in place where they were, encased in shards of ice.
Raeyn, however, continued to breathe in the air normally. And Milo, immune to the negative effects of her own gases, observed her, awaiting her demise. But Raeyn's expressionless face had said it all.
"It's already begun, but why still? Why is she still standing there unaffected?" At closer inspection, Milo observed Raeyn more intently, who stood there in the same stance and cold stare. Unmoving. Still, not frozen.
She was most certainly breathing the white gas, but instead of the cold, it seemed to be heat that emanated from her. Her porcelain skin sweated as she breathed out hot air from her mouth and the cold around her seemed to stop just before her bare feet.
"You seem a bit disheartened. Is my presence bothering you, Blue Phoenix?" Raeyn finally spoke to her. The tone in her voice the only cold that was present among the now frozen landscape.
Milo twitched a brow and bit her lip in agitation.
"You're probably wondering why, no matter what you do, it seems your gasses are not affecting me," Raeyn went on, "Actually, it is… Just not in the way you think."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I guess I'll indulge you one last time. You're not winning this battle anyway…"
Milo ground her teeth, enraged and insulted. She swung her club to her yet again, yelling, and causing a shockwave. The chemical reaction caused an ice wave, forming large ice shards on the ground as they traveled in Raeyn's direction. When it reached her, she swung her scythe down and shattered the wave instantly. Melting afterward. Milo saw the heat from Raeyn's scythe all the way where she was.
Acting like nothing happened, Raeyn continued to explain as Milo remained in agitated state.
"My ability is Contrary magic. Whatever happens to me, or the things I choose to be affected by my magecraft, has the opposite effect, contrary to what would normally happen. Your gases, for example… The one that slows your enemies makes me faster each time I breathe it in." Raeyn readied her stance while she spoke and bolted toward the large shards of ice that Milo laid before her.
"The second one that nulls your enemies' magic, enhances the effectiveness of mine." She went on as Milo began swinging hysterically in Raeyn's direction, yelling continuously and grunting with each swing. Larger, spiked glaciers of ice formed, layering on top of each other, redecorating the cindered area they fought on into frozen ice plains. Raeyn continued staying true to her bolted path as she shattered each glacier of ice that spiked out toward her in a blink after passing.
"The third, the one that causes chemical reactions in the air, igniting it—simply nullifies when I make contact with it…"
The glaciers piled on endlessly, unforgivingly now, creating towers of ice. Stopping her finally, Raeyn's foot got caught in the ice. It spread throughout her body, encasing her in a tomb of ice instantaneously. But just as quickly as it happened, the ice tomb began to crack and then melt. Her body heat and slight movements alone were enough to break her free from being frozen within it.
The ice shattered and fell off each side of her as she walked elegantly out, like an angel, melting the ice around her thereafter.
"And fourth," she said as if all that had not just happened, "this ice gas—actually heats me up instead. Luckily, the ice you're creating around me is helping regulate the temperature within my own body. And on top of that…" She proceeded her bolted charge toward Milo, shattering all the ice glaciers in her way continuously. She was so fast that it even rivaled Brand's top speed at this point. The air contorted around her as she sped; none could even breathe if she passed by them. In front of her now, Milo, with terror in her eyes, beheld this anomaly of a human being named Raeyn, a mere step away from her now. That focused, stern, beautiful face of hers was the last thing she witnessed as her last words echoed in her ears.
"When it comes to pain, the more painful it becomes… well… Let's just say, I can feel it no longer."
Stepping just inches away from Milo with her long, bare porcelain leg and bare foot, her scythe retracted all the way over to her left, clinking as she readied her swing, and wrapping her with its extendedness. She swung and drew its slash so harshly that even color disappeared by its mere descend onto Milo.
The impact twisted Milo in place, causing a tornado around them, and wiping away the ice glaciers. It shattered the ice that encased some of the knights around them, releasing them from their frozen stasis. The gasses, as well, were also being sucked up by the tornado and blown upward and away into the open sky above.
The spectacle lasted for a drawn out thirty seconds. And when it ended, Milo was in the air, unconscious as she landed back on the battlefield. The only one left standing now was Raeyn and her large scythe.
"For once, I'm grateful for this outfit, Ophelia, or rather—lack thereof, because… It's extremely hot right now," she said to her sister as if she was there with her. She stretched out the collar of her white crewneck, revealing her sweaty collarbone. It was the most of an expression she's made since her arrival.
Hehe, you're welcome sissy! Ophelia said back as a thought in her head.
To which Raeyn closed her eyes blew out a relieved sigh.
At this time, the winner atop one of the towers of the Crimson Dragon's castle, adjacent to Ryo's quarters, and the battle between the two 2nd Executives was Raeyn of the Black Wolves.
***
**Back at the Wolves Den**
Large, emergent shadows engulfed a section of trees within a grove just past the clearing of the Black Wolves' steampunk home, spreading like wildfire.
Birds and animals of all kinds flocked away from the anomaly as it whipped around like massive, black tentacles.
As the shadows made contact, they bound and crushed whatever got caught within its wake completely and without mercy.
Nash stood in the midst of it all. His slick back yellow-orange hair fluttered from the gusts that the rampaging shadows caused as the animals scattered past him.
"Man… This guy is serious. Forbidden magic?" He thought of Ophelia and Raeyn at this time and scratched his head as he continued, "But this is different. Theirs was on accident. This was not. Purposeful use of that kind of magic,"—his back muscles flexed, moving the large wolf tattoo on his back with his slight movements, arms crossed—"is something a real man would never do."
Right then, his comm pinged and he sighed as he slowly, reluctantly took it out and checked the incoming message. He scrolled back to the previous ones to get a hold of the situation at hand happening within the Valley Kingdom. The shadows whipping and slamming onto the ground and trees around him all the while.
As he read the messages in the Black Wolves group chat and the last one that had just been sent through, it was a message from Havoc, Come on, Nash... Today's the day, right?
He sighed and was about to reply, but right then, a shadow tentacle shot right at him, wrapping him whole within it.
As it tried to crush him, it pulsed instead and then with one quick flex...
SHATTER!
The black bonds broke, revealing Nash unscathed and unbothered with his comm still in his hand.
"I'll just call him later..." he said dispassionately as he threw his comm back in his pant pocket. "Gotta take out the trash first."
He focused his light blue eyes and glanced a great distance to where his target was, among a thick protrusion of those shadow tentacles.
He dashed forward toward it, dodging other tentacle strikes, and hopping from tree branch to tree branch as he drew closer.
When he found a better view of it from above, he stopped himself on a large branch of a tall tree. Large as it was, it still groaned when he landed atop it.
"There you are."
Like a wild beast, Henza looked up at him. He resembled a mangled demon figure, lanky and with long white hair that seemed to flutter from his own aura alone. His eyes and mouth were distorted as he found Nash with eyes so blank, it neither held malice or any other emotion for that matter. His sole purpose now was to destroy. Unequivocally destroy.
He had become unaware of his actions as he had been moving away from the Wolves Den—unconscious for that matter.
He raised a slow hand and shot it forward, unleashing a volley of shadow tentacles toward him.
Nash hopped backward from the branch as he used his hands to catch him and use the momentum to swing himself and over to a branch below on the same tree.
When he landed, he pushed himself off and onto another nearby tree; the tentacles destroyed the tree he was once on all the while.
Hopping from tree to tree, the tentacles followed behind, crushing each one he came from last as if swallowing the trees whole. Henza remained in place like a patient beast the whole time, snarling at Nash as he circled him among the branches, letting his tentacles do all the work for now.
Trying to find a good opening, Nash swung himself down to the ground. Before his feet landed, he adjusted his position in the air and used his feet to shoot himself toward Henza, using the bottom trunk of the tree to propel himself, drastically uprooting it from his reposition.
He flew at Henza with a readied punch as Henza did the same with a shadowy one of his own, and their fists clashed.
BANG!!
The impact caused the air to ripple. And the black shadows that covered Henza's fist shattered from the touch of Nash's. Fist still engaged, Nash pushed through and caused a ripple of shattered bones across Henza's right arm upon impact.
Henza's arm flew back, mangled and broken, but in an instant, reshaped back instantaneously by the sheer bonding aura around him. It was almost like an auto-cast at this point with how thick the density of aura was emitting out of him.
He then swung a wave of shadow over Nash, whipping him away a few feet.
As Nash flew away, he noticed his arm was covered in those black aura rings. These were much denser than the one that wrapped around him earlier. So dense in fact that it shattered his arm without a moment's notice. His face held no emotion, for just as quickly as it happened, the sound of a clock gonged, and his arm was whipped back into place as if it had never happened…
The shattering of both their arms in that consecutive moment was a display of power all on its own.
Six left… More than enough. He thought to himself as he looked at his hands and felt himself adapting.
When he focused back to Henza, he was now facing upward.
His shadow tentacles curved up toward the sky. His arms were out and curved inward, hands flexed. From above him, a black orb began to form, condensing unendingly into a single black cluster.
When it was finally the size of a small ball, Henza faced forward with it in Nash's direction.
"Well, that's gonna hurt," Nash said as he readied himself and Henza unleashed the orb, becoming an enormous blast that enveloped him.
FEEUUUUMM!!
He crossed his arms to block, futile as the motion was as the blast covered him from head to toe, sending him flying over half a mile across the forest. It lasted for about eight seconds before finally petering out.
Henza relaxed his position and his shadow tentacles settled as steam seeped out from his mouth.
The smoke followed the cindered landscape, leading to where Nash was now.
From far across the forest, Nash lay contorted in a crater that spread out with him at its center. His limbs and body twisted, contorted beyond recognition from the blast as two of his fingers rested gently atop the dirt, contrast to the mangled mess he had become. One would assume he was dead, however… that didn't seem to be the case.
The sound of a large clock gonged once more, as its long arm struck. It pulsed like a heartbeat on top of Nash's disfigured body.
Right then, his body reformed itself instantly, ignoring its previous disfigured state, improving as it did. His muscles flexed and he stretched his arms as he became whole, sitting in the middle of the crater he found himself in with a knee up and right arm over it.
"Damn it. Five now. But it's fine," he said to himself.
As he got up and dusted himself off, he sensed Henza nearby.
When he found where he was, he was in the sky with yet another black orb fully formed in his mouth, ready with another direct blast just above him.
FEEUUUUMM!!
The blast enveloped him once more, expanding the cratered spot Nash at the center of, and turning this once forest into a wide-open dirt field. Another eight seconds of meandering blast.
Something of this caliber would have decimated the Wolves Den ten times over if hit directly...
When the debris finished showering, and the smoke faded enough to see, there was a figure in the middle standing upright, still and unwavering amidst the fluttering dust and particles.
The sound of his gunmetal-cuffed chains echoed as they settled from the aftermath of the blast. His arms to his side, hands in fists, he looked up at Henza suspended up there in the sky.
"Sorry. Not gonna work again." Nash said.
He crouched down, one fist to ground, the other hand to knee, in a squatted position. A shared stance between him and Greed. He shot upward, shattering the already cratered ground below him, and bolted upward toward Henza. He pushed himself off the air in multiple directions, the trail like an upward lightning strike as he zigzagged and jumped off nonexistent walls in the sky, meeting Henza where he was up there.
His eyes glowed red, and his face was a shadow for half a second in what seemed like slow motion. His fist connected to Henza's gut, causing him to fly higher up at a staggering pace. He then grabbed his ankle before he could get too far and used the momentum to flip them both multiple times, gradually gaining speed. They flipped in the air until Nash finally let him go, shooting him like a falling star onto the ground and into the dirt battlefield.
BOOM!
A massive shockwave emitted from Henza's landing crash, spreading the dirt field even farther. The crater was about a few kilometers wide now as the two anomalies proceeded to create this new clearing within the forest.
Though just as quickly, through the smoke of the blast, Henza shot out from the side and dashed out at an insane speed. His features looked more demonic as he ran like a wicked beast with his shadow tentacles fluttering behind him.
Nash fell from his height and adjusted his body to lead with his head, straightening and controlling the direction of his fall. He followed Henza as he ran, meeting him adjacent in the air like some jet.
His shadow tentacles shot up at Nash, but were ineffective as they made contact with him, bouncing off his pristine and muscled canvas. When Nash found a good angle, he adjusted his body once more and faced his feet toward Henza, knees to chest as he pushed off the air above him, crashing into him from where he flew.
They fumbled on the ground a few times until Nash had a good grip on Henza's head, holding him down to the ground and dragging him while still running at top speeds. The shadow tentacles stabbed the ground behind them, pulling Henza out of Nash's grip as he shot forward ahead.
Nash pivoted and threw a punch, landing a strike to Henza's face.
BANG!
The sound pulsed as Henza whipped backward and Nash threw another punch but was caught instantaneously with his claw of a hand.
From the catch, Nash began feeling a burning sensation from his caught fist as it began spreading throughout his arm.
Shit! Nash thought, suspended there with Henza.
He attempted to throw another fist, but Henza caught that too, spreading his arms apart and burning him all the while. Skin burning like molten lava; it spread like leprosy all over his body as he began to resemble a burnt corpse.
Henza then began pulling Nash in opposite directions, ripping him in half like paper as his body continued to melt. He growled and roared as he tore him in half entirely.
He twitched his head and made crackling sounds as he piled Nash's halves over themselves afterward.
His white, long hair continued to flutter there as he resembled a Demon from his past. Ironically, the same one that killed his brother, now bonded forbiddingly over the outer layer of himself.
As seconds passed, that same large clock gonged in Henza's ears once more. The long arm sound struck again as it pulsed on top of Nash's marred body, piecing itself together again, healing the burns he received all the while as it happened in a matter of seconds like he had rewound.
"Four left, by the fucking Keeper… and what was that just now? A second ability?" Nash pondered, ignoring his enemy in front of him, "Yeah… I get it. You bonded a Demon's spirit over yourself with that Forbidden magic. No wonder you're losing control."
Henza snarled feet away from Nash's face.
"Don't worry. It will all be over soon." Nash replied.
Nash's ability was Adaptation magic. His body was able to adapt to any magic ability or physical damage cast or used on him, even if it managed to kill him in the process. His ability was a Condition type that was in constant auto-cast called Nine Lives, so he was able to adapt nine times only. Unlike other magic abilities, Condition types cannot use incantation spells. Much like Raeyn with Contrary magic—another Condition type user.
He could also force an adaptation if he chose, like sacrificing one of his Nine Lives to adapt himself again after his last adaptations: doubling, sometimes tripling or quadrupling his resistances while enhancing his physical properties as well. But only as much as his body would allow. It was for this reason he had dedicated to training his body excessively during the times he was inactive for two weeks at a time. That and another reason that prevented him from having a normal life...
Doing this let him reset his "Lives". And with each Life used, if used strategically, he became more and more unstoppable each time. He was known as the "Tank of the Black Wolves".
Adapted now, Nash stood up slowly as Henza watched him with those lifeless white eyes, still twitching all the while. He dashed toward Nash in a blink, disappearing from sight. Nash, doing the same, took a few slow steps before disappearing completely and following suit.
They bolted, meeting halfway, and clashing their fists and claws multiple times against each other. The burning from Henza's palms was ineffective against Nash now as the flashes from the heat sparked off his muscled body.
They caused fireworks from their high-speed attacks and lit the area around them in cinders. Nash was now just as fast as Henza—if not faster.
Fist after fist was thrown from Nash's side and claw after claw slashed from Henza's. The dirt field they continued to fight on continued to crater from underneath them, but they did not waver in their advances. The intense close combat scene and their constant back and forth lasted for a good thirty or so seconds until Nash had completely overpowered Henza.
His attacks were slower, and he was not even blocking anymore. The auto-cast bonding rings Henza used to protect himself with had been utterly obliterated, leaving his body unprotected and his bones shattering. The bonds were unable to reestablish. And his magic could no longer keep up.
Every bone was broken from the shoulders down. All the damage he had taken since the start of the battle with Star and Brand had finally caught up to him.
Henza staggered, smoking from the intense battle, and began to fall backward. But just as he was about to hit the ground, Nash caught him by his tattered collar and held him suspended there for a few seconds as he said, "Though you may be an enemy, you're still human. I have my reasons, and so do you. I'm sure if my life played out the same way, I'd have resulted the same as you are now."—gently resting him onto the ground, he placed his hand onto Henza's heart and the sound of a large clock gonged, pulsing over Henza this time instead of himself—"It's because of that, I'd want someone to show me mercy at my lowest, too." He stood up straight as Henza remained there, sleeping sound and his body beginning to regulate from all that damage, "That's what a real man would do, at least."
Nash had force-adapted Henza's heart to support his body while he lay there unconscious. With all his broken and shattered bones coursing all throughout him, there was no way he would last any longer as he was without Nash's magic. He stopped bleeding temporarily and his heart began beating slowly, stabilizing his lifeforce.
There at the outer forest and fields of the Wolves Den, the winner between a heavily burdened Vice Captain of the Blue Phoenix Knights and another of the Black Wolf Knights, who had just woken up, was Nash—2nd Ace of the Black Wolves.
With Raeyn and Nash concluding their battles, two more matches were brewing at the Crimson Dragon's castle: the one between the two Grade 2 beasts, Havoc and Ulrich, and the one with the wanted Vice Captain Ryoku versus the mysterious 1st Exec of the Blue Phoenixes, Kiki.