The incessant sound of cackling radiated down the spines of everyone: Tanjo, Regashi, and even Lord Phoenix. The blue rifts in the air that surrounded the jet-black-haired teen were visibly volatile, managing to completely repel Lord Phoenix's invisible barrier that forced Tanjo to motionlessly levitate in the air, a feat that neither Regashi nor the teenage boy himself could achieve.
Tanjo did not know what to make of the new power; it felt so foreign but so alleviating. It was obvious that the boy would be incredibly inexperienced when using it, potentially doing more harm than good during his initial uses—but the possibilities of what he could learn may be as endless as they are lethal.
"What are you doing, boy!?" Lord Phoenix strained with gritting teeth and balled fists.
Detaching his gaze from the floating fissures, Tanjo stared down the masked lord.
Brimming with hope, Tanjo flexed his hand, charging his entire right limb with his Aura Amalgamation, and thrust his arm forward—*KRRSH!*—causing a rippling beam of blue rifts to clash into Lord Phoenix at impressive speeds.
The masked lord's body was once again momentarily inert as he bounced off the ravaged ground painfully, only to eventually regain balance and stand tall.
'Woah…' Tanjo marveled at the power, slowly retracting his extended arm. 'He wasn't even able to slip by it!'
"As cool as that was, I think you just pissed him off even more!" Regashi breached the boy's stupor of amazement with a yell, making Tanjo lift his blue eyes upward to gaze at the masked lord in question.
Grumbling incoherently, Lord Phoenix glowered at the presumably brotherly duo before him, his ire making an unstoppable resurgence within him. Afterward, he tapped into his new abilities once more, his body shaking as he started to release a guttural shout that pierced the heavens.
"ENOOOUUGHHH!"
It was not a moment later when the entire land around Tanjo and Regashi began to shift, tearing itself from the earth with loud rumbles and violent quakes. After a minute, more land than anybody could see was floating into the air, rising to the planet's atmosphere.
"Regashi! This is too much land that we can just let go into the sky!" Tanjo hollered frantically, his stance slipping with every shake of the ever-rising ground.
The brown-haired prince narrowed his eyes, hopping between floating masses of land. "You don't think I know that!?"
With haste thrumming within his heart, Regashi dashed toward Lord Phoenix, his sight clinging to his rival. The ground was practically transformed into platforms, which meant that the prince had to successfully jump over several mounds and weave past numerous spikes that jutted out from the side of the torn ground just to get close to the masked lord.
However, once Regashi had made his highest leap yet, he had a full view of just how much land was lifted into the air:
All of it. Every foot of land in the nation of Adonai, along with Shanti and Zebulun, is being picked up by Lord Phoenix almost as easily as plucking a flower from a soft bed of dirt.
"Tanjo!" Regashi called out to the boy far behind, hoping that he would be heard. "Use those ripples to throw Phoenix off!"
And, fortunately, Tanjo had picked up what the prince had commanded through his heightened hearing, courtesy of his Aura Sense which enhanced every sense in his body.
"Got it!" Tanjo complied quickly, molding the rifts around him into a straight line, slowly acclimating to using such power.
Back with Regashi, he had finally arrived a few feet before Lord Phoenix, being forced to evade more tendrils of magic that were created from all four Aura Senses. Next, Regashi lunged forward audaciously, his right hand encompassed by his red Aura Sense, threatening to sear the masked lord.
Though, to directly quote Regashi's first thought, he was shit out of luck.
His hand had phased straight through Lord Phoenix's face, emerging out the back of the masked lord's skull. The prince quickly adjusted himself behind Lord Phoenix's back.
'Then let's hope this works!' Regashi bit his tongue before crying out: "Tanjo, now!"
*KRRRSHHH!*
Similar to before, devastating rifts that defied most, if not all, physics rampaged through the distance between Tanjo and Lord Phoenix. In order to prevent himself from mirroring the same embarrassing moment of letting the boy's attack clash with his body, the masked lord hastily conjured a red shield.
"GRAH!"
But the attempt was fruitless, as the rifts in space warped the red barrier and tackled Lord Phoenix like a barrage of lightning, his body writhing in pain and vulnerability.
Immediately after, Regashi capitalized on that vulnerability.
"Got you!"
With immense force, Regashi planted a potent red Genso-Kyu into Lord Phoenix's spine—*BOOM!*—discharging a beam that imminently blasted through the masked lord's body, leaving a massive hole in his torso.
That was the first time Regashi had taken the initiative to swiftly kill Lord Phoenix, his long-time rival. But never before had Regashi been given the incentive to perform such an act.
"You'll… have to turn me to atoms if you want to kill me…!" Lord Phoenix gasped, his groping voice seeping through clenched teeth.
With anger, Lord Phoenix spun around and grabbed Regashi's face, turning and tossing the prince away with utmost force.
Luckily, it was in Tanjo's direction and the jet-black-haired boy caught Regashi mid-air.
"Are you okay, Regashi?" Tanjo asked instantly, briefly tearing his gaze away from Lord Phoenix.
The prince inhaled sharply. "Don't move your focus towards me, I pissed him off even more than you did!"
"That doesn't seem like a difficult thing anymore!" Tanjo shot back, reverting his gaze to their opponent.
The hole in Lord Phoenix's torso healed itself, making the masked lord seem like an immortal, perhaps godly being without the capability to die. It was challenging and nightmarishly horrifying to watch such a corrupt man utilize so much power.
The masked lord grunted as he spoke, "Any chance you had to kill me is gone… Regashi."
Suddenly, a sphere of complete darkness materialized into the air in front of Lord Phoenix. Glancing at it repeatedly, both Tanjo and Regashi had learned what the ball of darkness was as it began to sweep up the space around it, absorbing even light itself.
"I harness more power than what you can comprehend…!" Lord Phoenix started to raise his voice, blood seeping from the eye holes in his mask.
Tanjo and Regashi stumbled backwards, fearing what was amassing before them.
"In essence… I am a god!"
It was a black hole, one that had spawned from Lord Phoenix's own hands.
Tanjo's eyes broadened as a revelation snapped within his mind. "Regashi, I think I've figured out what grants him all these powers!"
"Then say it!" Regashi demanded anxiously, fear inducing his gaze.
The jet-black-haired teen parted his lips as he answered: "He can control space and everything inside it! Or something close to it!"
"What!?" Regashi exclaimed, his mouth agape.
The boy brushed past the prince's shock. "Think about it: he can control anything physical, manipulating and bending it however he wants, but he can also conjure every Aura Sense and now he's made a literal black hole!"
Unable to find the boy's claim dubious, Regashi wasted no time accepting the spatial manipulation theory as factual. Besides, Lord Phoenix was in fact capable of creating a black hole—an actual region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that not even light can escape it—and the masked lord made that with just his two hands.
"Too bad I'll have to put an end to such ingenuity…" Lord Phoenix spoke angrily, his voice hoarse. "But I am more than elated to wipe out such weakness!"
With one tiny push, Lord Phoenix forced the black hole to fly toward Tanjo and Regashi, the force of the dark sphere refusing to let go of both of them.
Regashi braced for the worst, beginning to feel as his body was close to being ripped to shreds. He shut his eyes, expecting to never open them again.
*KRRRSHHH!*
Opening his eyes, Regashi witnessed Tanjo expelling as much of the blue rifts from his body as was physically possible for the boy—and, surprisingly, the black hole was being slowed, the gravitational pull it wielded diminishing slightly.
"Nrnhg!" Tanjo spewed saliva past his lips, straining his entire body.
Lord Phoenix observed with hatred. "Fruitless!"
With a simple thrust of his arm, the black hole continued its journey forward.
Tanjo applied even more force to the rippling cracks that surged through the air, his lightning-like power that has been scrutinized to distort anything it touches, clashing with the black hole. It was like nothing anyone had ever seen.
"...Stop! Stop this!" Tanjo pleaded, feeling his feet slide on the floating ground below him.
Lord Phoenix also applied more force, his jaw clenching underneath his fox-like mask. "Not… until you're dead!"
The battle of power had been prolonged for an unknown amount of time, with Tanjo experiencing indescribable pain every second of the way. He may have been granted a new power, but feeling it strum throughout his body felt like a hellscape spawning within him. It hurt really bad, in short.
"RAAAHHH!" Tanjo howled, not quite giving up just yet.
The rifts in the air grew thicker, and the cackling sound that stretched through the area loudened exponentially. The black hole eventually started to falter, its gravitational pull flickering out of existence every few seconds, and the size of the dark sphere gradually dwindled.
*KABOOM!*
Then, once enough power was poured into the middle of where the two had clashed, a sporadic implosion of rifts in the air and condensed winds shot out in every direction, the event being too large and enveloping most of the planet in destruction as collateral damage, undoubtedly ending all life on Earth.
XXX
Tanjo's eyes shot open, looking around sharply.
He was no longer on the planet, and the first person he saw was the God of Time, Kronos.
"So," Kronos said monotonously, "you destroyed your first planet—whether that's good or bad is up for you to decide."
XXX
Forgive the abrupt ending, but I feel it is both slightly comedic, an easy entry way to proceed, and just a good transition into what I desire when developing this part of the story. So, now that the alternate dimension's planet is destroyed, what now? Why did Kronos pull Tanjo out from the implosion? What happened to everybody? Dead? Alive? Stay tuned to find out!
Have a Great Day!
Peace - Cr1ticalz_