The scythe descends slowly, a looming beat following as well, seizing the breathe of everyone. Ichikawa had died even before death arrived, he was only just awaiting his mode of exit and he was sure it was either by his head rolling of, or his heart being carved out.
The scythe's drops finally as it rests on Aion shoulder, Aion removes his hand from the handle and stretches it at Ichikawa.
If the eyelids were strong enough to make sounds, there would be an orchestra of blinks ringing out as everyone was utterly confused and surprised.
"Hey come up, I think I hit you a little bit too hard." Even Ichikawa forgot he had difficulty breathing as he just dazedly stared at Aion's outstretched hand.
"We're fighting for privilege, not for lives. So I can't allow you to die." Aion said comfortingly as Ichikawa finally raises his hand out to reach Aion's.
Grabbing hold of his hand Aion pulls gently, lifting up Ichikawa up then he uses his second hand to hold him by the shoulder as he cautiously helps him up.
Standing on his feets, gravity seems to be more heavier than he remembered, it felt like an extra weight was pressing down on his and it was proving difficult to breath and even his chest tightened painfully.
Aion places his hand on his chest locating the place his fist had crushed in earlier. He feels around it and sees the place had sunk in and there was even a jagged edge almost piercing through his skin.
"Allow me!" Aion asks, but Ichikawa stares at him suspiciously for a while before he then nods his head in acceptance.
Receiving his consent, Aion places his palm on Ichikawa's chest and through it his shadow slithers it's way inside his body. The shadow rummages around and Ichikawa could feel the movement of a strange substance in his chest and after few seconds the shadow stops and retreats back, coming closer to exiting his skin.
Aion used the shadow to pick up every bone fragment that was shattered and even the ones that had pierced places they shouldn't, then he places them all back at the collarbone and rearranges them to how they were, fixing them back like he was solving a jigsaw.
After he arranges them back making sure he didn't miss a piece, he uses his shadow to cover the part that was broken and he pours in his flames through the shadow.
Ichikawa's eyes widen as he feels an unbearable heat appear in his chest, it was just a little heat from the flame but he was sure he wouldn't be able to survive that small heat, not to talk about the real flame.
'What sort of high grade flame does he have, it's hotter than even the flame breath my dad dragon has. Who is he exactly?'
The heat of the flame welded the bones together, and joins it in place also the muscles nearby were slightly singed and the bleeding from being pierced by bone fragments stops.
The shadow retracts and enter into Aion shadow, Ichikawa could feel the instant difference as he is able to breathe well now, and his collapsed chest was risen back up.
His collarbone was perfectly identical to the other one and the only difference was that one was bruised purple while the other wasn't.
Aion brings out a piece of meat and a multicolored light appeared but only for a second and after that a aroma of oil and juicy meat spreads out.
"Is that a leaf-tailed Kinkajou meat, how did you get that. They are rare delicacies." Ichikawa surprisingly asks as Aion hands him the meat.
"I just hunted it, there is nothing special in that." Aion watches as Ichikawa almost gobbled the whole piece, but he stops and just take a sizeable bite then he keeps the rest inside a light steel spatial ring decorating his right index finger.
"Thank you, but no thanks. Make sure you use the rank well and also get some good treasures in there." Ichikawa bows and leaves the rock entering into the crowd below while Aion brings out a cookie from one of the cookie packet he had, and starts munching on it.
Since it.is just a stamina cookies, he only felt revitalized but not healed, there was still slight soreness in some places but they were all bearable.
Everyone expected Aion to also get down the rock and join the long waiting list of those with ranks preparing for the gods field, but as he got to the edge of the rock he stopped.
"I Aion, surrender my rank to Meriel and lose my privilege to her!" He turns back and walks to the center of the rock again. Finishing the cookie, he dusts his hands and wipe his mouth clean.
"I AION! CHALLENGE THE THIRD RANKER FOR HIS PRIVILEGES!" Aion voice echoes out for the second time within the hour but this time no one dilly dallied around as in one particular region, people could be seen clearing path and it continues like that until the path reached outside the group and a person walked through.
It was one of the guys shown earlier, the third ranker. He held no weapon nor artifact but above his head is a sword too faded to be physical, and it begins to split into another as he climbs the rock, from one sword to two, from two to four, from four to eight, then it stops at that.
The third ranker was equally a star qualifier amongst the fifteen stars, and he was well known for being a deviant. His sword creating ability was one of the well respected abilities.
There were some swordsmen that dedicated their lives and paths to the way if the sword, and they trained with the sword day and night. Even when there was nothing else to be learnt about the sword, they still kept learning and learning and learning.
Mostly all of the first swordsmen back then had a common goal that the way of the sword doesn't just end with the sword, they all believed thee was something greater beyond it, but sadly most couldn't continue with this path and many dropped it, stopping their understanding and cultivation of the sword at the point they were at.
Only three had continued, and they were able to continue simply because their cultivation was high enough for their lifespans to exceed the thousands.
These three had trained and even came together to train, that was until they finally discovered the unique special ability, one of the numerous hidden laws under the heaven, the law of intents.
Everything known about intents today was founded by those three, which is why even until today sword is the most favored weapon and path that most tends to follow, because the founders of intents had done so by following the way of the sword.
Killing intent, pressure intent and weapon intent, were part of the many more varieties of intents, and as it is intent was simply the manifestation of thought to reality.
Intent became the goal of many warriors in the path of weaponry. As after the founders discovered intent, it was easier for everyone else to do so as the founders made guides for everyone, but over the years the guides had been lost and the few remaining were fought over by different clans.
Only few intent masters have been made ever since then and it was calculated that if things went as they were, then they might recede into an era where intents didn't exist.
So when some deviants started showing up, with the abilities to manifest weapons, they were hailed as geniuses sent by the heavens to save the law of intents from extinction.
Those deviants that could manifest weapons followed a similar path to intent manifestation but it will still take centuries for any regular deviant to fully understand their ability talkless of using it in another way.
The third ranker was slightly different, just at the age of nineteen he had already shown great understanding in his ability and is able to manifest up to eight swords, and is even showing signs to be able to complete his ability in maybe the next eighty years.
So his clan and few other clans in alliance with his clan all recognize him as a once in a century genius.
Also back in the competition for the 'night of the amateur', he was the one that was thought would win as only him was able to hold off three of the fifteen at the same time, but the rest figured if they let him he might win so they all decided to beat him out first but none would have thought he had a wisp of sword intent, and he chose to explode it, causing the defeat of all fifteen but since then he hasn't been able to increase his cultivation of sword intent.
His main reason for fighting for the slot into the gods field is because he has a hunch that he just might be able to learn and find something to help his intent cultivation because of one of the gods that died inside that was an intent master.
He faced Aion with a dark expression and a threatening expression.
"I might have to ask you to step down."
...