Even Ann shivered for a second there. Just imagining hundreds or even thousands of those same eyes staring at her sent her down a rabbit hole of despair and loneliness. Though she was quickly brought out of it because of Ran's big mouth.
"Splendid! Simply divine! What a great story and very vivid too. Imagining countless of those very same eyes of yours gave me quite the scare you know. I can feel my blood boil as we speak. Tell me, how about a bout, Shall we?"
Ran, suggested, with his hands making a beckoning gesture. The universal sign of an oncoming duel! You heard it here folks, our very own Ran Ran has officially challenged the indomitable "Bob" to a standoff, duel, showdown-you get idea!
"Woah, woah… woah. You can't just…" Ann suddenly interrupted Bob's completely rational decision,"Ran, you idiot! Do you even know how strong he is?! A rank 8! Let me remind you of your rank… 10. Not even ran 10. You've never even used your sigil before."
"Uh, then how did I beat Willy then?"
Even Ran was confused about what he just said. It was like his unconscious mind urged him to fight Bob after processing all that data. His eyes could be seen slowly flickering between his usual amber color and a gentle pinkish-white.
"Because it was your awakening, fool! Sorry about that Bob, he's just a spoiled brat-is all."
"Sure where was I? Ah yes- you can't just start a fight when in a moving cart. Carl! Stop the cart. There's going to be a show soon!"
Ann was shocked yet again. So much she even widened her eyes in disbelief. She looked like a fish now with those eyes sticking out of her head. You could even vaguely see some red coloration and veins.
Ran, on the other hand, was slowly falling unconscious due to his disbelief. "Aren't you supposed to be a righteous and respectful young man?! You even bowed! What is this farce? Was it all a "show" to you?" Ran thought. His back was drenched in cold sweat. A rank 10 fighting a rank 8 for God's sake! He's definitely going to die now.
"Well might as well get it over with. It's not like he can kill me, right? Right?! But I have Ann on my side. Nothing can happen to me with her around. That's right, I'm also his brother so I shouldn't be seriously hurt… right?" Not that Ran said any of this out loud.
As the cart and all the camels came to a slow stop, the three stooges jumped out of the cart and stood about 100 meters from the rest of the nomads.
" let's get this show on the road, right, brother." His words were no longer questions as he immediately activated his sigil.
Instantly, his eyes became filled to the brim with bright and joyful yellow runes. So much in fact that you could barely see his eyes at all apart from some cracks here and there. It even spilled outside his eyes and trailed down his face like tears-all the way to the apex of his nose. He opened his mouth and unintelligible gabbledy-gook tones came out. Even his voice was an octave lower than it usually was.
And Ran was suddenly thrown into a daze. A wide smile broke out of his face and he seemed like a kid that was given candy. He was even looking at Bob with eyes full of thankfulness.
Thank you for the candy mister, what? You want me to go into your van for more candy… okay!
Seeing this, Bob walked towards Ran in a leisurely manner; as if strolling through a park. Just like that, Bob closed the almost 10 meters of distance into a single meter! He even grabbed Rans right arm. And slashed it with his sword! If that wound wasn't closed soon then he would surely bleed to death.
Ann, watching this, was worried. On one hand, she was supposed to protect him and she's literally watching him bleed to death without doing anything as we speak. And on the other hand, she was confident in her "master". Whenever she had beaten him at something when they were kids, he would complain and run off into a corner to cry. But the next day, he would come back and challenge her. And again the day after that. And again… and again. Eventually he would beat her once out of his own merit and his confidence would return, though she never let him beat her more than once. Thus, she thought he might bounce back.
And yet, Ran was just there, looking at his slashed arm and at Bob with that same innocent smile and thankful eyes.
Thanks for the cut mister! I'll cherish it forever.
But at that moment Rans sigil shone brightly. Still the same color, but that pinkish-white sigil was so bright it blinded Bob for a second. It was like it was over-exerting itself to stop Bob from Ran again. And that second was enough for the slash on Rans arm to disappear with pinkish-white sparks and reappear on Bob's arm-without him realizing it. Better yet, this all happened within the span of 3 seconds!
Splurt. Crimson blood could be seen flowing from Bob's arm.
"What?! Impossible! Brother tell me, quick, what did you do?" Ran did not respond, however. He was too busy acting high to make a response and just kept making the same face.
Ann was excited nonetheless. Even she wanted to see his sigil in action and it even crossed her mind to fight with him a couple times, though she never went through with it for obvious reasons.
But Bob frowned. With no information regarding his opponent, these things might happen again. So he stopped where he was and just stared at Ran for a while and eventually came to a conclusion. Using reasoning, he came to the conclusion that it was a reflection type ability! But he didn't know what kind. Was it limited to only the body or does he have a range. Argh this is so confusing! Well, there's only one way to find out.
Creating some distance of about a meter or 3 to 4 feet, he brandished his fetal organ! What was it? A god dang sword… made of glass!
Pfft. What can a hollowed out glass sword, with a gaping hole in the back, do? Well quite a lot actually. You see, while it is hollow, that doesn't mean nothing's in there. In fact, there is! Water.
With his organ in hand, Bob stopped his chant and stuck his finger into his mouth! Pulling out his finger, with a glistening substance, he lightly tapped the edge of the hole barely filled with water.
Subsequently, he began slowly sliding his finger across the circumference of the hole; suddenly, he shouted:
"Acoustic Resonance!"
During that time, Ran was taken out of his daze and looked around only to see a guy with a bleeding arm and licking his finger; playing with them on a glass stick. He shivered at the thought of a crazy guy closing in on him with a saliva-covered finger, while shouting. That thought didn't last long, of course, because one could suddenly faintly hear a slight melodic ringing.
At first it was just faint, like a buzz in one's ears, but in just a few seconds it grew. And grew… and grew some more. In just five seconds, it grew so loud that Ran's ears started hurting. Realizing the danger, he activated his sigil and the ringing in his ears immediately lessened to a mere slight buzz-it was still uncomfortable to hear though.
Bob, on the other hand, was shocked. While it wasn't completely unexpected for his resonance attack to be reflected-it was frightening to see how widely applicable Ran's sigil actually was. Ann too was taken aback. For a measly rank 10 to block an attack from a rank 8 and be so nonchalant about it too. Of course, she wasn't affected in the least. To her, it was like a hummingbird singing in the morning-pleasant, nothing more.
What both of them failed to realize was that Rans face was slowly losing color, like he was being drained of all his energy.
And Bob, as indomitable as he always is, continued to increase the pace of his sliding finger, raising its loudness by tens of decibels. At this point, its levels have reached over 150dB. This is even more powerful when using soul juice. With it, it's probably closer to 170 or even 180dB!
And as he raised it, he noticed that while his own hearing was hurting a little bit from rans sigil activating, it was nowhere to the effect that it was supposed to have on someone. Clearly, he couldn't handle the full force of his attack and was quickly using his soul juice to keep his sigil active; and consequently, reflecting most of the force.
"Ahh, Ahh!" Ran quickly broke out into full hysteria mode. Clutching his ears, he curled up into a ball-to isolate himself, but that clearly didn't work. Holding his ears did not much either so his ears even started bleeding. While his sigil was active, it could barely reflect 20% of the attack, meaning, with the use of soul juice, Ran has to face an attack of over 200dB at this point.
After a few seconds pass by, Ran figured he wouldn't get anywhere as his energy levels were quickly depleting and he wouldn't last more than 10 seconds. His vision was darkening and he could even see a faint light at the end of his tunnel vision-so he stood up and released his ears. Driving what little soul juice he had left, he deactivated his sigil as the attack was only physical; plugged his ears and hoped for the best. At least he won't faint or feel like his brain was turning Into mush.
While the Acoustic Resonance attack will start to assail the soul juice in his ears, it still had a better effect as Bob clearly wasn't bothered by an attack that only contained 20% of his full power. It was better to direct all that spent energy into defense, however little that is.
Even then, in order to beat his opponent, he had to bust out the big guns! Thus, tapping deep into his mind, Ran looked into this dark space. Eventually, after looking around for a bit, he felt something. Something extremely familiar. Reaching out into the darkness with his hand, Ran unexpectedly felt as if his arm had extended itself like rubber.
Back in reality, Ran could be seen holding on to a weapon and its aura was unexpectedly… not fearsome, actually.
No, it felt like it was alive!