PoV Will
"How boring. What was so urgent to make us come back immediately?" Setos complained while checking the surrounding area.
"Has Kane finally-" Joy seemed rather energetic this time.
"Don't even joke about it. You weren't there, so you wouldn't know how fucking terrifying he was." I immediately shut him down.
"Calm down, man; this world has most of its mana sealed away, and your chances of beating him here are much better than they were back then."said Joy.
He then started leaning on the wall right next to the portal.
"Should I check what's going on?" Joy asked the group.
"Go on if you want. I ain't stopping you." Setos said.
"Why did Daniel blame Chris?" I asked them.
"Is he slowly returning to his old habits now that—" Setos was then interrupted by Joy.
"I doubt it. This doesn't seem to be on the level of Oh no! Chris is using his power to cause trouble again."
"Then what is it?" I asked.
"Why are you asking ME? Do you think I know the answers or something?" Joy complained.
"Well, you're the one that stays at home the most out of all of us…" I replied.
"That-still! I was too occupied doing my job to really look after them." He tried to justify his laziness.
"Unlike most of you, I wasn't assigned a team to help me lead a continent, so I'm too busy roaming the streets making sure everyone is behaving." He said.
"But your ability-" I tried to object, but he quickly interrupted me.
"I get it! OKAY? I FUCKING GET IT! You overestimated the usefulness of my abilities. It has its own drawbacks. I overestimated it."
"You're no fun." Setos said to poke him a bit more.
Joy then started slowly using his aura to create a floating hand. He then used it to grab a bottle of peach-flavored tea from the refrigerator room.
"Want some?"
"No thanks." we replied.
A couple more portals appeared in front of us, and from them came Hollis and Areus. Areus's black hair could now touch the floor. He seemed particularly cheerful while Hollis was in bad shape. He was extremely pale, had massive bags under his eyes, had lost a ton of muscle, and was barely holding himself straight.
Hollis snatched the bottle of tea from Joy's hands and drank it all in one go, much to Joy's dismay.
"Do any of you know what's going on?" Asked Areus.
"Nassus, Kane, and Christian are on their way to release the first seal." The voice belonged to Hyung.
That voice froze up in the air. Tension started to rise as Areus and Hollis started showing their hostility toward Hyung. They had started releasing their mana into the air. They were laying the groundwork for an aura fight.
Hyung had come down from the stairs and was staring at us from the lobby.
"You really think you can threaten me like this?" He said this while getting closer to us.
"Have you really lost your mind?" Joy shouted to the two of them.
"His majesty's favor will not last forever. You should watch your back and make sure not to cross any lines. You're not the strongest one in the room right now." In a spiteful tone, Hollis said back.
"You think I care about what the likes of you think?" Hyung said it in his usual arrogant tone.
"I wonder what will happen once Kane regains his memories. Will he hunt you down? His dragon is not here to defend your sorry ass. This time he might kill you for real." Said Areus while squaring up in front of him.
This immediately shut down Hyung and got a strong reaction out of him. For a moment, his entire body trembled, and his eyes would avoid the gaze of Areus, but that only lasted for a mere moment.
Then Hyung started circling around Areus, sizing him up while also keeping a bit of distance from him.
"I know that you really respect Kane and our culture, but aren't you a little too disrespectful? Showing off your long hair to your superior,trying to intimidate him with your mana, calling out Kane's name just because that's the only thing you know can surely beat me."
He then grabbed Areus by the throat with his left hand.
"Do I really look like a joke to you?"
Areus then spat in his eyes.
Everything happened so fast. In a split second, Areus set the room on fire with his powerful aura and immediately started to attack Hyung, as did Hollis. Joy, instead, was trying to stop Hollis from joining the fight by creating a wall that separated us from them. Unfortunately, the wall made out of mana lasted for just a few seconds due to the heavy amount of aura already present in the air.
Areus had grabbed the arm that was holding his throat and crushed the wrist. I created some chains made out of ice and pulled away both Hollis and Areus. Unfortunately, they broke shortly after due to the sheer amount of fire that was raging throughout the building. Immediately after Hyung materialized one of the three spirits he holds, it was his weakest one, a spirit that can hardly maintain his physical form, and it looked like a fairy—small, dressed like a goth doll, with blue skin and long pink hair.
The spirit immediately began healing his broken wrist. In the meantime, he had summoned his weapons: a long katana and a glove with long, extremely thin strings attached to each finger.
'Do you really want to fight here?'
Areus also summoned his main weapons from his room, destroying most of the ceiling in the process; they were custom futuristic shields made specifically to amplify his abilities. One of the shields emitted some strange light from the sides that somehow was sharper than most blades, while the other one could turn into a cannon . The first one could also shapeshift into a massive blade, while the second was used whenever the enemy tried to create some distance.
I, on the other hand, was standing next to a corner. I had never actually moved from there. I was looking at those events unfolding in front of me without a care in the world. The thing that brought me back from that dazed state was Joy's scream for help.
"Setos! Go and stop them before their clashes start destroying the city!" I shouted at him.
'Fuck! I really am not paid enough to deal with this shit.'
Joy, in the meantime, had managed to lock Hollis in a stalemate. They had both locked hands with one another, and Joy was carefully stopping any attempts by Hollis to get rid of him. Like stopping his aura by matching it or using a spirit to counter Hollis's.
On the other hand, Hyung could barely keep up a fight against Areus, mainly due to the ability difference. Areus's ability is perfect for combat, while Hyung's is not. Because of that, Hyung kept dodging and weaving in the wrong directions, always failing to dodge Areus's attacks.
He ducked under a punch Areus threw at him, only to get hit by his left kick. He tried to get some distance, and Areus used the cannon. He blocked it by creating a wall of ice, then Areus teleported himself in front of him with the shield in sword form, almost cutting off his right leg with a slash upward that started directly from the ground. Areus created a mantle of flames to protect himself from the various strings that were aimed at his neck and, with the cannon, blasted Hyung once more.
'You should've predicted this, you idiot. Knowing what his ability does means nothing against him.'
Areus' ability allowed him to create illusions in the minds of whoever was against him. Those illusions could not alter the surroundings; they just showed him doing different moves and could not be negated by aura mana ki or borrowed powers such as those of spirits. Then he could also swap himself with the illusion every once in a while, making him a deadly opponent to fight.
'Unless you're prepared to fight both of them at the same time, you're bound to lose.'
In the meantime, I noticed Hyung was stealthily setting up his strings. As I tried to get closer to them, I almost lost my leg because of them.
He made them out of a special material he got from one of his hunts, and they could move around freely, just like snakes. At the tip, they had some special needles created to allow a better grip when he uses the glove to grapple around like a monkey.
I kept trying to fly towards them, but every time I tried, the strings tried to cut off my path and even went as far as trying to cut off my neck if I got too close.
Hyung tried to make a slash downward, but Areus blocked it with the right shield (swordshield), while the second shield had the cannon charging up. Then suddenly, Hyung dodged to the left and got immediately hit by the full blast of the cannon. He tried to back away, but then suddenly Areus appeared in front of him and almost cut off his left hand with the shield, which had already transformed into a sword.
Once again, Hyung made a weird move by ducking right in front of him just to get served with another blast from the cannon. This time, it had way less power but pushed him away by a lot.
'Now that I think about it, I think I forgot my equipment at HQ.'
I was powerless; in an environment with so little mana, an aura user like me can't use most of his techniques, leaving only body enhancement techniques as my only option while those two were teleporting around the city.
Hyung used the small break to form seven swords made out of ice. At the same time, he started using his weird ki to buff them and make them float.
Areus instead used his aura to create several explosions underground, and because of that, the entire building started to collapse.
I, on the other hand, had tried multiple times to get close, but every time his strings blocked my path or tried to attack me.
"Hollis stop!" I heard it moments before the building came down.
'We need to end this quickly before the first seal is released, otherwise…'
Otherwise, that huge amount of mana would allow them to use far more power in their little fight.
I blasted all the debris that had buried me and immediately started looking for them. They had started flying high in the sky. Sometimes they would crash into some building, and they would immediately go all out, causing many explosions and often making the building crumble down.
Hyung had started to use the flying swords to either block the blast or try to counter both the real Areus and the fake one, as there were always at least two swords ready to kill whenever he teleported mid-hair.
The fight had already started to escalate more and more as the two of them started to get faster and faster with each attack. Slowly but surely, Areus was securing his victory as his shield was slowly absorbing the aura emitted by Hyung's attacks and giving it back to him.
At some point, Hyung stopped flying away and instead flew towards Areus, hitting him with a flying kick at an extremely high speed. He managed to block the attack but was thrown back to the ground. He then teleported once more in front of Hyung, cutting off his left hand completely, grabbing the hand with the glove on, and teleporting back to the ground.
Unfortunately for him, Hyung was prepared and managed to pierce his chest three times with his flying swords before he teleported away.
I immediately created a wall out of all the debris on the ground to divide the two.
Hyung used most of his powers to heal his severed hand while dodging invisible attacks sent by Areus' illusion. Areus, instead, was charging up his cannon, ready to shoot a deadly laser. It effortlessly pierced the wall and almost hit Hyung in the head.
He missed, and the cannon returned to its shield form.
'He finally finished all the mana stored up.'
I immediately rushed in with the intention of stopping the fight when suddenly Joy joined the fight from beneath the ground, riding a dragon made out of ice. He was flying in a straight line towards Hyung.
I created some strings and tried to hold the dragon down. Hollis then jumped out of the dragon and started flying at maximum speed. I tried to use the strings to launch myself, but suddenly the ice dragon exploded, and all of its components started to form a barrier around me.
In a split of a second, Hollis managed to reach Hyung, and as both of them clashed their fists, a huge explosion ensued, with Hollis being the one pushed back against the nearby buildings.
I noticed that in that punch, Hollis managed to severely injure the spirit that kept healing Hyung, forcing it to retire and also impaling him with multiple ice icicles.
I, on the other hand, had just finished destroying the ice barrier and was now heading towards Hyung. The objective was to get a hold of him and throw him into some random portal so that the others had enough time to calm down.
He probably thought that I was also joining the fight, as he immediately attacked me. As soon as he noticed that I was getting closer, he sent his floating swords aiming mainly at my shoulders and knees.
I didn't even need to dodge, as suddenly Areus appeared in front of Hyung and punched him to the ground. Then he teleported to the ground and prepared a blade made out of his aura. Hyung did the same, and when they clashed, Areus lost an arm (his right arm), while Hyung had a huge wound open in his chest that went from his left shoulder to his right side (just a bit under the ribcage). Both of them were bleeding profusely, but only Areus was left standing.
From the skies, Hollis appeared once more, dropping down like a bomb while covered in flames, ready to continue the fight.
I then had to quickly stop Hollis from finishing Hyung off by blasting him away with a strong gust of wind.
"Are you really siding with him? Setos?" he immediately shouted.
"His powers are still needed in the golden order. Please reconsider this." I tried to reason with them.
"There is no mercy for traitors in the army!" He said this while summoning his black spirit.
His spirit was modeled after the image of a stealthy assassin in his mind. It had baggy, dark clothes, perfect for concealing weapons and hiding in dark places. It also had a piece of white cloth hanging in front of his face to conceal it. On it was written the word "Kushi".
'Fuck, I should've made a contract with a spirit back then.'
I tried to create some hands made out of fire but quickly gave up as there was no mana left to feed off of it.
'I can't use aura techniques lightly. Is there a way to safely end this?'
"Joy you, mother-" murmured Hollis before charging at me at full speed.
I created a wall of ice to stop him, and he tried to immediately jump over it, so I extended it to stop him. In the meantime, his spirit somehow found its way to my back and pointed a knife at my throat.
'When did he move?'
I immediately created a solid fire to protect my neck while also blasting the spirit away with another gust of wind.
I immediately started chasing down Hollis. He was also chasing someone. It was Joy. Apparently, Joy had taken Hyung's body and was running towards the portal that was still open under all the rubble.
"Hollis, for fuck's sake, you can't kill Hyung for now." I shouted at him.
Then, by a miracle, a dark figure appeared in front of Hollis to stop him. The figure tackled Hollis, lifted him, and then slammed him to the ground.
"Nassus, stay out of this!" shouted Hollis.
"I can't do that. The orders are a priority for now. Hyung will keep on living for the next 10 years, whether you like it or not."
Hollist then started screaming while trying to get Nassus off of him.
"We know– I know how much you despise him. I'm not asking you to forgive him. I'm just asking you to wait. After the promised 10 years, he's all yours, but until then, he must remain alive."
"That's bullshit, and you know it; they will never allow us to make justice for-"
"WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT ISN'T JUSTICE HOLLIS AND YOU KNOW IT!" He screamed back at him.