Soon, two more tails emerged, then another four. I had eight tails worth of power and in one final push as my eyes went blank, I released all of it.
The barrier shattered as a powerful shockwave destroyed the entire building. A huge column of red light was seen piercing the sky. I flew high up. At that moment, I felt a massive amount of mana appear right near me.
"Found you."
I couldn't react in time before a punch to my face sent me flying all the way into the nearby mountains. I tried to get up only to see a womanly golden figure come rushing to me. I quickly managed to use my arms to block but...
*Crack*
I felt them break as they caved in towards me. Fractures appeared on the mountain as I got sent deeper into it. Soon, a barrage of punches came in. I got angry.
I pushed her away as I quickly followed up and rammed a ball of chaos mana into her. She blocked it but it managed to push her back.
The sky turned black as heaps of darkness attribute fireballs started raining down. They had a misty miasma of death on them. They fell in such large droves that she had no choice but to make four tails and use them to protect herself from the onslaught. She frowned.
"Damnit!"
The time limit for the Darkfire Rain was running out soon and I wouldn't be able to use any other type of word magic for atleast 300 seconds. Since I was borrowing the world principles, I could only utilise them for a while and depending on the amount I utilised, the cooldown I could manipulate the world principles to use word magic again could vary from 3 seconds to a whole day depending on the phenomena I caused. I clenched my fist.
"I'm not going to go down quietly!!!"
A burst of chaos mana surrounded me as I released my ninth tail. I prepared a balls chaos mana in my hands and fired multiple blast of mana. At that moment, a burst of golden mana surrounded her. She opened her eyes and the blasts vanished. She smiled.
"I assumed you'd be much more powerful than this Isaac."
I vanished.
"Don't belittle me."
I was too fast for her as I punched her in the gut and hit her with a double axe handle on her back. I extended my hand downwards while using the other to clasp it.
"AMON CANNON"
I shot a golden blast and landed a perfect hit into her back. I watched as the dust slightly cleared. It was quiet but then she suddenly appeared and punched me. I couldn't block in time as I was sent flying upwards. She attempted a follow up with an attack but I quickly blocked it with my tails. I entered into a close combat match with her as we exchanged lightning fast moves in the air. Streaks of blood red and golden yellow flashes were seen across the sky as we repeatedly knocked into each other, trying to gain the upper hand. We were evenly matched in strength. We ended up in a stalemate as we gripped each other's hands. I swung my tails around to hit her with them but she powered up, releasing an explosive wave which repelled me. I recovered to see her sprouting nine tails also. I smiled as I activated the 6th stage of my Kansatsume on both my eyes as they looked like a 6-petal lotus. Both of us powered up as dazzling chaos mana emanated from us. The area around us quaked at the immense pressure we were giving off. Both of us charged at each other at unimaginable speeds. Our clash sent a shockwave that shook the entire region. We proceeded to exchange a flurry of blows at each other. Hands, legs, tails, nothing was not utilised. Our exchange of pointers was so fast that our skin began to burn and scrape off from the friction. We pulled away from each other as we naturally healed in an instant. I finally asked.
"Who are you?"
The woman laughed.
"Those damn spirits really are powerful. They can wipe out decades worth of memories like it was nothing."
At this point, even I began to have my doubts. I began questioning myself about whether everything I knew about the spirit world was fake all along. Then, memories started slowly appearing in my head.
*BU-DUM*
I began feeling immense pain in my head as I clutched it in pain. Green mysterious characters appeared on my forehead. I then heard a mysterious voice.
"I'm sorry but we can't allow you to remember."
It felt like a giant's hand was crushing it. Soon, an ice-like barrier surrounded me and I began feeling even more pain. The memories began slowly disappearing however, there was one that wouldn't disappear at all. It made my heart wrench, even though I couldn't figure out why. I cried out as I watched the memory.
"No No No No No NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!"
I kept seeing repeating images of a young woman dying in front of me...again and again and again. She always gave of a weak smile before her head would be crushed by another woman with white hair and nine tails. I had no idea who this woman was but I felt a strong connection to her. I became infuriated.
"Why can't i move??? JUST MOVE!!!"
Everytime I see the images of her on the ground, I can't bring myself to move at all. No matter how much I try to tell my body to move, it won't listen to me. The anger in me swelled at my own weakness. I remembered my past life where I couldn't even bring myself to fight back when I was on all fours being pissed on by my own classmates. I screamed.
"WHY WHY WHY WHY?!?!?!?!?!?!?!"
My own weakness became apparent as the images of the girl dying continued to replay in front of me. It went on over and over and over again. That weak smile saying everything was alright was the last thing I'd see before I'd hear that horrid cracking sound of her skull being crushed as her blood started seeping into the ground. I had to watch these images replay for hundreds of times. Soon it increased to 1,000...4,000...7,000...10,000....15,000 and so on. I finally broke down at 99,999.
"Why? Why did it happen???"
Tears came out.
"Everything is my fault. If...if only I had never been greedy...if only I had never started that war. None of this...NONE OF THIS WOULD'VE HAPPENED!!!"
I gripped my head in frustration as the emptiness of the void around me began to swallow me.
"Yes this is your fault."
"You're the reason she died."
"If she never followed you, she wouldn't have suffered such a horrible death."
"Your greed caused the untimely death of a prodigy."
"If only she had never met you."
"~"
"~
It went on and on. Self-doubting thoughts filled my mind.
"I thought I had changed but...did I really just remain the same?"
At that moment, the void began to disappear as multiple images appeared. All of them contained different events of my life where I was happy.
"HAHAHA! I TOLD YOU HONEY! THAT'S OUR BOY RIGHT THERE! I MEAN LOOK AT HIM!"
"Hey did you hear? The young master of the Blake household destroyed the Rodias Family. He's helped us poor folk a lot by doing that."
"Thank you thank you thank you my lord!!! Us brother and sister swear to serve you wholeheartedly as part of your Black Familia!"
"I know the type of terrible people my father and brothers were but I couldn't do anything. I could only watch as hundreds of people died by their hands. I didn't have the resolve to do anything but you did Lord Isaac. You resolved yourself to do what I couldn't do. This is why I, Alma Rodias, swear to dedicate the rest of my life to serving you Lord Isaac."
"WE GREET LORD SHINOKAGE!"
"I've been taking care of you since you were a kid but after witnessing the things you've been doing, I've reached my limit. I can't bring myself to see you as a child anymore Isaac."
"Let me say it Isaac. Regardless of everything, what people call you or what rumours are spread about you, I will always be by your side. It doesn't matter what you do because I know how you are. I know the you the world doesn't know off. Even though you don't show it, you always worry about your own weakness. That is why I am here. I will be the strength that you need. Now and always. No matter what happens or how far apart we are, I love you...Isaac. And I always will."
I clenched my fists and stood up as I released a primal scream.
"GRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
An overwhelming amount of chaos aura surrounded me. Soon, the memories the spirits implanted in me began to encroach me but I now knew which were real and which were fake. I pushed through as I summoned more of my power but I could feel my mind being suppressed even more.
"Is this really my limit?!?! No! I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT!!! LIMITS EXIST TO BE BROKEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The barrier shattered as violent waves of mana surrounded me. Suddenly, I heard a woman's voice in my head.
"What you're about to do now goes against this world's principles. If you continue now, you will upset the balance of power in this world and the world principles will try to restore balance by killing you. This means even the spirits themselves will have no choice but to kill you. Are you sure you want to continue."
I smiled.
"The whole reason for my existence is to gain power."
The flashback of Ashley's weak smile appeared in my mind.
"I never want to feel weak again. If the world gets in my way, then so be it. I'll destroy it."
"Even the spirits who've raised you for the last thousands of years?"
"I can't forgive what they've done to me. I've realised I simply exist as a tool for them to use to keep the balance for them. WELL NO MORE!"
The voice giggled.
"You truly are worthy of having the blood of my Vermillion Race. Show the world the power of the Vermillion Phoenix. Awaken your bloodline with your pure will."
I opened my eyes and exploded in violent torrent of golden red mana. The world itself shook as I transformed. The sky became dark as thunder clouds formed. Soon, multiple lightning bolts struck me repeatedly as I was undergoing my transformation. Karina immediately flew away from me and headed straight for the city. She passed by Ashley and Maria who were watching me from the city walls and landed at the city centre. She put her hand into the ground and erected a golden yellow barrier that surrounded the entire city in a giant circle. Ashley and Maria rushed to her.
"What's happening Karina?"
"He's breaking through the limits of this world but it's becoming quite hard for him since the world principles won't allow it."
"Wait. What do you mean exactly?"
"He's on the verge of becoming too strong for this world to handle so it's trying to suppress him."
That's exactly what was happening. I was being struck my lighting multiple times, causing my mana to temporarily go into disarray, interrupting my transformation. I laughed.
"You think you'll stop me from achieving my goal?"
I gathered my chaos mana for one final push.
"WELL YOU'RE WRONG!!!"
My tails shook violently as blinding light emanated from me. My hair spiked and grew slightly longer as it turned black with streaks of red in it. Black lines started appearing on my body and my pupils became blood red with a black outlining. My tails were still that of a fox's but they became quite thinner and had a feather-like fur instead of just fur alone. A black red aura surrounded me. It signalled the completeness of my transformation. Streaks of red lighting appeared around my body at spaced intervals. I frowned as I clenched my fist.
"Not enough."