Laughing like man in a white jacket, Lieren watched manically as Scorpio glanced from him to the building atmospheric pressure pulsing with palpable malicious and divine intent, ready to crush all those in its way. It was so present that even the tiniest semblance of it is enough of a herald to its strength.
In fact, he could barely breath because of it. That and his two gaping wounds, one on his abdomen and the other on his leg. They were both bleeding profusely, but not as much as before. He could also feel his body beginning to recover some of the damage, albeit faintly and slowly. Still, it was a start. Any help is great help in the situation he had made for himself.
With a furious glare, Scorpio glanced at him like he was the most disgusting person in the whole wide world. However, he could also see something underneath that gaze, something more primal and personal.
Fear.
Lieren knew that feeling all too well. Possibly more than anyone, as far as he knew.
The angst teenager spoke with palpable malevolence, the bright glow of his lithe body gone like the wind. He said through gritted teeth:
"Damn cretin. You're going to kill us both."
He'd been saying that for quite a while now. But then again, he couldn't really blame the man. Death was a very possible outcome, after all.
If he failed, that is…
Covering his gaping wound on the side with his free hand, Lieren slowly stood up with a pained grimace and spat out a mouthful of blood, feeling the growing pressure push him down to the ground even more than before. It was such a crushing feeling that for a second he thought he was being pounded by a hundred giants.
Then, he remembered his own tall giant, Vesba the liar, and smiled faintly. It only lasted a second, though, as the pain of simply standing up caught up to him like a rushing bull, almost making his spine topple to the cold floor with one painful strike.
His laughing had long ceased, as even that simple motion left his lungs deprived of the precious air that littered the inside of it. Right now, even breathing was a chore. If he hadn't fortified his body, then he would have long been dead and lying on the floor as a mundane corpse.
However, the fire inside of him refused to give up, even if the person wielding it had long been broken. Looking down with a solemn expression tinted with pain and anguish, he said boldly, projecting his voice as much as he can:
"This is where you die, Scorpio. You and you alone."
The angst teenager glared and pointed his spear at him, holding it in a masterful stance that screamed skill and potency. He said with a warped face:
"Is that so? Well, I guess I might as well take you with me, then."
Then, he pulled out a small crystal the size of his palm and crushed it with a pinch, sending a wisp of mana away, into the wind. After a few seconds, it had fully disappeared, phasing through the walls and ceiling, toward its intended target. Scorpio continued with dark resolve, his eyes almost as sharp as the blade of his spear:
"It doesn't matter if I die, anyways. As long as my gauntlet stays safe, in the hands of my famiglia, and away from the likes of commoner like you, then I'll don't mind suffering the same, cruel fate. Besides…"
He shifted once, fixing his stance and holding the shaft of his spear with both hands. They were bruised an calloused from the amount of work and effort he had put into them.
In response to the Scorpio's sudden vigor, Lieren fixed his footing and balance, gripping his brilliant dagger in one hand and laboriously put himself into a crude imitation of a stance. He said somewhat jokingly:
"Besides what?"
At the same time, Lieren circulated Fortification throughout his body and pushed Enhancement into his bones, muscle, and nerves — especially his eyes. This was not the most efficient way he could have done this, not was it the best. Rather, this was the only way he could keep his body from breaking down and keep up with his adversary's strength without being pushed back… thought that in itself was just a gamble.
Who knew what powers the spear in the man's hand held? For all he knew, he might not even have a chance to fight against Scorpio now that he had pulled out — what seemed to be — his trump card.
Still, that didn't mean he was going to give up and await death. He was going to fight for his life and keep living, even if that meant the death of others.
Tightening his grip on his brilliant dagger, Lieren properly arranged his stance and lowered his center of gravity by bending his knees and dropping his shoulders and hips.
*flash!*
And then, the fight begun. For real this time. Scorpio's spear flashed once and Lieren's intuition brought his head slightly to the side, the razor-sharp edge of the masterful blade slicing his cheek and drawing fresh blood and dripped down his face like a crimson tear and onto the floor.
*shing!*
But before that could even happen, the spear flashed again. Scorpio fixed his grip in an instant with apparent familiarity and skill and swept into Aries' face with bloodshot eyes, the visible veins on his wrist bulging visibly.
However, his target had anticipated this and parried with his brilliant dagger. Its wielder was of a low stature and even shorter reach compare to him, but was as agile as could be. Twisting and turning, Aries' blade packed more punch than both it and its wielder seemed to possess, and swatted his spear away…
But only for the briefest of seconds. With a simple stance change, the man pulled his spear back in a flash and left half of its length behind him, holding it by the middle with one hand and the far back with the other. He had not blinked once.
And so did Aries.
Pushing mana into the striking blade, the brilliant dagger grew bright and more noticeable, its edges sharpening and its structure growing much more resilient in a second. As this immense boost happened, Aries quickly dashed forward with an explosive step that cracked the ground beneath and behind him like a web of lightning, pushing onward with glowing blue eyes.
The boy moved so fast he almost left afterimages, or it seemed to be. Moving like the ever-flowing waters of a river, Aries weaved through the barrage of deadly strikes Scorpio let out with a scream. His technique was nowhere near perfect, leaving various wounds and cuts all over his body, but strangely enough, never his vitals.
Except for the ones he already had, of course.
He parried some, as well, but nowhere near as much as the ones he chose in a split-second to dodge, instead. Aries simply did not have the resilience and strength to handle the shock and force of doing so.
Right now, what he need was not to stall, but a decisive strike. This was his greatest opportunity. Only a fool would turn it away.
Tightening his grip on the brilliant dagger's obsidian hilt, Aries swept across the air once, making Scorpio panic and recall his spear with a click of the tongue, then thrust it faster than what the naked eye could possibly ever follow.
Just like Aries planned.
With a momentary, victorious grin, the inquisitive boy recalled his own blade and dodge under the angst teenager's masterful spear, appearing behind him in a flash, his blade eager for blood.
"No…"
A look if utter horror and astonishment befell the man as he tried to recall his spear… bit it was already too late.
The brilliant dagger flashed once, much brighter than ever before. It carved through skin, flesh, and bone, into Scorpio's ribs and into it… until a furious, desperate burst of mana pushed his blade away crudely, carving into even more flesh as it went…
Away from Aries' murderous clutches.
His eyes grew wide as a crystal ball as the striking blade gradually lost its glimmer, arcing with a spin, drawing beautiful a line in the air.
The next second, however, he had already recovered from the initial shock of having his treasured weapon thrown away, dodging a multitude of lightning-fast thrusts from Scorpio's spear, slowly edging to the side, where his brilliant dagger was. There was an anguished expression on his face the entire time, as his wounds continuously kept him at bay, lowering his guard an waning him down gradually, growing more and more dire by the second. It was at a point where almost all other sensations had been crowded out in a sea of pain an silent suffering.
Still, he pushed on and on, past his limits. Past any human's limits. It was at a stage where it was easy to mistake him as a corrupted gremlin or amateurish devil. He didn't even look human anymore because of all the blood and grime on him, as well as his stubborn and slightly warped expression. He looked like some kind of manic monster, dodging each thrust with the liquid fluidity of a master of hand-to-hand combat and instincts if a wild animal.
*DUN!*
Just as he was but a mere couple of feet away from his brilliant dagger, a sudden throbbing assaulted his head, as if it was being hammered from the inside by a dozen monkeys. His head felt like it was being ripped apart and thrown all over, edging him closer to insanity.
"Guh! Wh— what is this…?!"
Falling on his knees with a loud thump, he fell over clutched his head and squeezed it tight, trying to overpower one source of pain with another. He truly had gone insane.
*crickcrickcrack*
'…Huh?'
And then, the feeling disappeared. Slowly, at first. Very slowly. It felt like an eternity of tireless waiting, making him teeter on the edge of insanity even more than the overbearingly crushing pain inside his own skull.
Truly, hope is the strongest poison of them all.
Drawing deep and unsteady breaths, he heaved for air and clutched his chest next. The tunic he had worn underneath was sticky with sweat and the simple blazer he had worn atop it was in tatters, a bedraggled phantom of what it used to be. If the designer who had conceptualized the attire and the tailor who had made the blazer and matching pants saw his current state, they would have surely cried on the spot and berated him with a barrage of insults.
But they weren't here. And so was anybody willing to help him. It was a strange feeling, being cold and alone, barely breathing and bleeding profusely. Almost at Death's Edge.
Aries' hollow voice rang through the deafening silence of his ringing ears.
"I… I have to get up. There is still much to be done."
Still, he wasn't willing to fold. Not just yet when he hasn't even gone all in. There were still cards left to be collected, and pieces to be claimed. The game was just beginning, and his tale has yet to be told.
"I'm not going to die here."
At least, he would have hoped so.
Looking up with a lonely expression, the boy who refused to give up closed his eyes and felt the crushing heavenly weight befall him like the hammer of a lightning giant, crashing into him, ready to crush his dreams into pieces.
With his eyes glimmering bright blue, he braced himself for impact, using his wild mana to its utmost capacity.
◇◆◇◆◇
A ghoulish scream tore from Scorpio's throat like some kind of ghastly specter, spreading all across the sunken room with a very heavy atmosphere. His brown eyes grew dimly as he pushed even more mana into it, laboriously trying to comprehend the seemingly effortless way Aries, the main famiglia contestant, dodge his masterful spear like some kind of fluid being. There were times when he even thought there were two of them, the smooth and flowing way the boy weaved his ferocious barrage reminded him of how a water elemental moved.
And yet, he found himself eliminating that image all the same. A prideful part of him wanted to reject that image with his all, and the other rational part just simply pieced one and one together. There's no way an elemental could be chosen as a contestant, even if one were group all the eccentric and manic houses together.
If there was someone even remotely capable of that, then they would be chosen as the contestant, not some mindless slave summoned for a specific goal. And even if by some miracle that they were able to catch one, considering the main famiglia's astounding military strength, then the process of convincing and teaching the elemental would take years to do. One simply didn't have the resources and time to do such a thing, even for the mighty Exousia.
Such a goal is simply to much for somebody — anybody to achieve.
Still, such thoughts were of no use to him right now. There was a fight to be had. A surprisingly difficult one, it seems.
'…I can't keep this up for long.'
As Scorpio made up his mind and prepared for a decisive killing blow, a sudden crushing feeling suddenly overcame his entire body, crashing onto him like a meteorite. His grip on the masterful spear waned down bit by bit, until the pressure inevitably caught up to his back, where various wounds and several broken bones and even some damaged ribcages was, making him lose his stability in a mere second.
Really, it was a miracle he was even able to use the spear for such a long time, which required the utmost resilience and steadiness from its user.
Scorpio was as tough as the very earth beneath him. Which he was now tasting as the crushing sensation hit him like a hundred rushing bulls. It was, with no exaggeration, a feeling comparable to being trampled and buried into the earth with one humongous step of a waking titan.
"No… not yet…"
Reaching for his spear with a desperate crawl, he found a familiar figure. It was small and frail, with no presence of strength — or even anything, really. It was as if there was thing in front of him, blocked by some invisible wall.
It was as if the boy did not exist at all.
And yet, at the very next second, the boy moved, reaching for the heavens as a mystical force circulated through his entire body, making him look much bigger in his eyes. And yet, the boy still felt like the small, insignificant being that he was. There was barely a change in sight.
And yet, he reached for the heavens, standing tall with a burning gaze, resolute to cut all in his way with his very own power.
But that last scene didn't reach Scorpio as his consciousness gradually faded away and into the empty void of unconsciousness.
A hoarse chuckle resounded.
"Sweet dreams, you lucky bastard. I guess I'll just have deal with this thing on my own, huh?"