"What are you?" Vox asked, straightening his stance.
"How about you come find out?" Ren replied, his grin stretching wider.
The sun was almost gone, twilight clinging to the edges of the sky. The air was unnaturally still. The shattered trees stood motionless like silent witnesses. Nox remained kneeling, stunned at Ren's sudden change of demeanor.
Shuri held her breath, bracing for whatever was about to happen.
For a moment, the world seemed to stop.
Then Vox dove headfirst into the crater, straight at Ren.
Ren's grin only sharpened. He slid his hands from his pockets, moving with an almost lazy grace.
BOOM! Vox's fist slammed downward as he dove.
Ren caught it overhead with his palm. The ground beneath him split apart, cracks racing outward as the force drove him deeper into the crater floor. Dust and stone exploded upward, choking the air.
Still pressed down by Vox's strike, Ren twisted, seized Vox's wrist, and flung him sideways. Vox slammed against the crater wall, bracing with his legs at the last instant. The impact dug him into the rock.
He turned back, just in time to see Ren already in motion, driving forward with a vicious punch. Vox blocked with his palm, the collision hurled him upward. The shockwave shattered what remained of the ground, forcing Ren to leap through the hole after him.
They emerged ten feet apart, framed against the fading light.
Silence.
For three long seconds, no one moved. Nox and Shuri didn't dare even breathe.
Then Ren appeared like a phantom in front of Vox, his knee slamming into Vox's face.
BOOM! Vox shot skyward like a missile, tearing through the air.
Ren bent his knees slightly, then launched upward, faster than the man he had just sent flying. In a blink, he was above Vox. His fist hammered into Vox's chest.
CRASH! Vox plummeted back into the crater. The earth convulsed beneath the impact, the crater itself screaming as it split wider.
But Vox erupted upward again, driving a knee into Ren's chin mid flight. Ren reeled, his body flung higher into the sky. Vox caught his leg and slammed him down.
BOOM! Ren cratered the ground where Vox had been moments ago.
Ren sprang out of the pit he had just carved, dusting himself off as if nothing had happened.
Goosebumps prickled over Shuri and Nox's skin.
Ren tilted his head toward Vox, his grin curling.
"Ready for round two?"
"Hmph." Vox scoffed, eyes narrowing.
Ren blurred forward, his feet barely whispering against the ground. His fist cut through the air, Vox slipped aside just in time. The blow missed by a hair, but the crater wall behind him detonated into rubble from the sheer force.
Ren swung again, left fist arcing in a seamless motion. Vox blocked, but Ren's right hand strike flowed instantly into an elbow crashing against his shoulder. At the same time, Vox's own hand slammed into Ren's gut.
The ground quaked beneath them, vibrations tearing through the earth.
But both men were smiling, as if the blows were little more than warm up taps.
They broke apart in perfect sync, retreating two paces.
Then an eruption of fists.
Their arms blurred into streaks of motion, too fast for the eye to follow. Every impact ripped the air apart, shockwaves scattering dust, leaves, and stone. Even Nox couldn't track the strikes, he and Shuri were forced back by the pressure alone.
And then perfection in symmetry. Both raised their right hands at the same time, fists meeting in the center.
BOOM!
The world cracked. The earth split wide, the forest reduced to splinters. Nox's crater expanded fivefold in the span of seconds. The blast flung Shuri and Nox like ragdolls, hurling them against stone walls. The air screamed with the echo of their collision, like the ground itself was howling.
Nox staggered to his feet, his ears ringing.
His face was pale with horror.
He remembered Raizen's words during training: when you fight with fists or blades, to maximize the strike you lace it with iora. You regulate how much you pour in depending on the strength you want.
But here, he felt nothing. Not a trace.
These two monsters weren't using iora at all. No abilities. No powers. Just fists. Just raw, impossible strength.
The thought twisted his gut. If this was their base level, what would happen when they finally unleashed iora, what would happen if they used their abilities? His stomach turned cold. To face a Demon Lord, he would need to reach this.
And yet Ren and Vox stood untouched. Not a bruise. Not a drop of blood. As if the last minute of devastation had meant nothing.
Vox lifted his right hand, extending his index finger toward Ren. At its tip, a bead of shadow flickered to life, dense and heavy, black as a starless void. It pulsed, warping the air around it.
Ren reached calmly into his pouch. When his hand emerged, he held a small marble like sphere. He poured iora into it, and instantly it latched onto his palm, glowing with a brilliance that rivaled the moon overhead. The light swelled, golden and alive, humming with restrained power.
For a heartbeat, both spheres seemed to drink in the world around them, swelling, hungering.
Then they launched.
Gold and black streaks tore through the air and collided.
KRAAASH!
The impact screamed like a dying sun. Light exploded outward, a storm of energy devouring everything in its path. The crater didn't just rumble, it howled, as if the land itself was breaking apart.
Nox and Shuri's instincts screamed. They tried to run, but their legs betrayed them, too weak, too slow. The wave was already coming, a tidal surge of annihilation.
They froze, hopeless.
And then Ren was simply there.
One moment he was across the battlefield, locked in the storm. The next, he was beside them, scooping both up with casual ease. With a single leap, he cleared thirty feet of open air, moving faster than sight, faster than thought.
To him, it looked effortless. To Nox and Shuri, it was impossible, inhuman.
Behind them, the explosion swallowed the crater whole. Fire roared up the giant fig tree, wrapping its ancient limbs in a funeral pyre. The night blazed like day.
Ren landed lightly near where Soren and Gelly lay unconscious. Dust fell from his shoulders as if he had just gone for a stroll.
Vox was already, there waiting, untouched by the blast, his cloak rippling in the storm's fading heat.
Ren set Nox and Shuri gently on the ground and stepped forward, grin sharp enough to cut.
"Ready for round three?"
Vox shook his head, a rare flicker of respect flashing in his eyes.
"No need. You are who you claim to be."
He straightened his stance, voice carrying a promise.
"Next time we meet, I hope neither of us has a need to hold back."
His gaze flicked toward Nox and Shuri.
"And I hope those boys under your care grow into something mighty. Strong enough to stand at your side."
A black mist bled from his body, curling around him like smoke. Within seconds, the night swallowed him whole.
Gone.
Ren clapped his hands together, brushing off invisible dust.
"Well, that's that."
He reached into his pocket and drew out the three rings he had stripped earlier. One by one, he slid them back onto his fingers, the faint gleam of metal catching the moonlight. His grin dimmed into something almost boyish.
But when he turned, his eyes caught the glow of the burning fig tree.
The enormous trunk was ablaze, its branches collapsing under the fury of the fire. Sparks rained like meteors across the ruined crater.
Ren's smile faltered into an expression of mourning.
"Ah, hell. That's… not good."
He turned back toward the group, face caught somewhere between sheepish and childlike.
"So… what do we do now?"
Nox and Shuri didn't answer. They sat where he had dropped them, mouths slightly open, their silence saying more than words could.
They had just witnessed strength beyond reason.
To Nox, Ren was a living mountain, something impossible to climb. If this was the level required to face a Demon Lord, then his own dream of confronting the red haired bastard who took his mother felt like sand slipping through his fingers.
To Shuri, Ren wasn't just strength, he was opportunity. A door, wide open. If someone like him could exist, then maybe, just maybe, there was a way out of the nightmare Serus had built.
Behind them, Soren and Gelly lay unconscious, untouched by the chaos, as though gods themselves had sheltered them.
Ren tilted his head, scratching the back of his neck, eyes wide in mock confusion.
"Uh… do I have something on my face?"
For the first time since the night began, Shuri and Nox shared a single thought.
What an amazing multicolored haired idiot.