Kalen's pov
He held his spear tightly while I stood opposite him with my guard up, I took in a breath and released it in order to loosen up my muscles as I waited for his attack but it didn't come, he stood there quietly spear in hand and in perfect form as if waiting for something, I almost found out what that thing was too late, as i closed my eyes for a fraction of a second in order to blink he struck aiming a jab at my skull thankfully even though my eyes were closed my senses were active so I moved my head to the side at a speed that would crack a normal person's neck yet still felt a cut on the side of my face one that had begun to spill red, with that he was off thrusting towards my head at twice the speed of thought but I managed to block the black blur several times albeit with difficulty, he had put intent into his attacks this time so unlike our previous exchange each strike bore the weight of a mountain so the best I could do was to redirect it with my blade, he suddenly switched to a downward slice which I managed to sidestep, quite lucky considering the ki that came of the last attack dug a canyon as it flew loose then I swung my blade towards his neck in that position he proceeded to pull his head backwards in time to have his sight covered by the ki that came off my blade and rend the sky, like a serpent my sword trailed in the air coming down towards his shoulder but he responded with the shaft of his spear, our collision caused a shock wave that spread cracks of the ground and sent us both flying in opposite directions but we righted ourselves near instantaneously pointing our weapons at each other and within a breath, we charged once more our resulting collision resulted in a shockwave greater than the one before but this time we didn't budge, instead we pulled back and seemingly disappeared, we began to take advantage of our surroundings dancing across the wasteland as whirls of black exchanging thousands of attacks,within seconds several craters and caverns dotted the ground punishing the land even more, although a small amount at least compared to the number we dished out met with our skin and made a mess of our clothes and bodies
'"ki body armament'"
we said simultaneously as resplendid blue light adorned our bodies as we continued to slash and tear at each other, neither giving in yet constantly adjusting to each others pace and control yet even in the middle of this mad frenzy for our lives both of us had dull expressions, hell one would think we were doing something as simple as eating lunch the way our faces remained uncontorted despite the ridiculous amount of pain we were in but in our eyes there was one emotion, one that overpowered everything else, the pain the exhaustion even the mental strain brought from the intense concentration we had in this fight, and that feeling was curiosity, we were both curious as to when the other was going to activate his Arcanum because if we couldn't beat each other with our fists or with our blades then that was the only option left, and in the end it was me,
"black imperial spear style ECLIPSE"
he had suddenly switch from his former spear style to one who's name made my heart bleed, a style all the soilders of the empire were trained in and one of the deadliest styles in existence, hundreds of thousands of ki blades burst out of his spear then combined forming a massive arc each of those blades was set to explode on contact, there was no blocking this and its range was too much to consider dodging neither could I counter it so with a heavy heart I said the words
'darkness Arcanum release'
out of nowhere pick black darkness spilled out formless for a breif moment before swirling into a funnel cloud and charging the ki blades, my Arcanum straighted into the point of a needle and ripped through the old man's attack like it was nothing, the sky split apart in a massive explosion that rocked our surroundings for miles and after several seconds it gave way to reveal an empty sky deviod of anything and beneath stood proudly a massive tower of black, Jurad floated beside it transfixed he reached out as if to touch it but pulled back within the same instant as if facing something holy I watched on deliberating whether or not this was some kind of elaborate trap but just before I decided to take the risk I heard him mutter
"royal black"
aww shit, I messed up, I really messed up, every citizen of the black empire had equal chance to awaken the darkness Arcanum but there was always a difference between the darkness belonging to those of nobility or rather the desendants of the 41 patrons(the first people to sweat loyalty to the dark god) and that of commoners, the difference was purity, the darkness summoned by commoners was like purplish flame rather than darkness only blackening at the edges while nobles had a black as pure as night the ones with the purest bloodlines seemed to absorb the light in the surroundings and that was what my Arcanum was doing right now
"a direct desendant but how, no forget that why, even with blood so close to our god, WHY DO YOU STILL REFUSE TO HELP ME"
he bellowed, I looked up and said with a straight face
'if our ansestors heard of what you were attempting they'd be disappointed'
I didn't fully believe that but I'd be mad to let it show especially I front of this crazy old man who was still undoubtedly still trying to get me on his side, his face twisted in rage as he screamed
"I WILL NOT TOLERATE SUCH BLASPHEMY, DARKNESS ARCANUM RELEASE"
and with that waves of purple and black spread out from him, they quickly coalesced into his ki as he used bestowlment, he sped towards me with a sound like thunder intent on killing me in his next swing but couldn't, I had used bestowlement as well and raised my sword, his full powered strike had seemingly failed to even make me budge but truthfully I had mitigated most of the force and sent the rest into the ground but he didn't need to know that instead I played it off as if I had taken the full force of his attack without a sweat, he was angry now so he was reckless he also couldn't fight with as much clarity as before something prioritised in black imperial style spearmanship and it was up to me to take advantage of it and I knew just the way to do it, I swung with force throwing him off my blade and letting him land a little ways away, he instantly turned and unleashed an attack
"black imperial spear style INK DRENCHED WAVE"
a slight smile was on my lips as a pitch black wave of ki came towards me, the tartarus ore was supplementing him in the areas he fell short, namely the limits of his lineage something he probably felt ashamed of so in order to push him off the edge even more I changed my stance, I let my sword fall towards my side as one foot came in front of the other as I pulled my hand back and gathered my dark infused ki while saying
'black imperial sword style DARK THRUST'
as I sent my blade forward a highly compressed spear of ki jetted out and slammed into the upcoming wave tearing through it and nearly turning the attacker on the otherside into a corpse with nothing but legs as it could nearly cover an entire body but Jurad jumped out of the way but not without shock on his face, he turned to look at me the slight smile I bore probably resembling demeaning smirk as I said
'I also know the black imperial arts in fact I'm much better at it than my sorak style'
it worked, his face turned red as if it had reached a whole new level of rage but all I could see was a a window, a window of opportunity one that would help end this fight once and for all for you see although black imperial spear style was one of the deadliest styles it lost heavily to one style from the same homeland and that was the black imperial sword style.