For as long as anybody had seen Lyze, they'd wondered very much what he looked like beneath the wraps of cloth around his eyes. People associated a multitude of reasons to his habit of hiding half of his face behind blindfolds. Some said it was because he'd lost his eyes or he'd been born blind, and as such completely cut off any spirit or desire of sight and used his hearing to get around, as many other blind people tended to do.
Him walking around with a walking stick which was actually a morphed Excalibur at the time did much to contribute to this theory.
But those who knew him well were aware that he indeed possessed sight, and more than that, his was sharper than any of theirs as he could even seem to see things behind him, or he could see an attack coming before it was even executed. Others assumed that it was because he was shy or he had strange or deformed eyes and he would hide that ugliness behind the blindfolds in shame.
Those that held that last opinion were right to a degree...particularly an eye-patched Goddess who was obsessed with his smithing talent.
Others thought that it was all a trick to make opponents drop their guard, and although Lyze had never actively used this tactic, he could not deny that it came in useful and would not hesitate to capitalize on it if it meant even the slightest increase in the chances that he would win quicker and sooner. And then there those who believed he faked blindness for more perverse reasons, which given the attitude of men in Orario, was an understandable assumptions to make.
For the time that Lyze had been an active adventurer, people had made their speculations and placed their bets on this very subject but very few had ever approached him on the topic, partially out of the awkwardness of the topic in case it did turn out he was a gifted invalid, and also because of the reputation he'd garnered for himself. Lyze did not have patience for disrespect and any offense made against him tended to be repaid back in full.
His words could cut just as deep as any weapon considering many of his verbal clashes with people in the past.
...
So the downed adventurers could not begin to fathom or contemplate a reason why the boy was now taking his blindfolds off. For certain he'd done it before in this journey but the pointed way he went about removing them made them think there was a deeper purpose behind it, like a hidden card he'd not revealed yet, as if something miraculous was supposed to follow.
They got more than what they'd hoped for.
For the moment those eyes opened, time seemed to come to a still for a moment as every adventurer there felt the weight of an incredible power crash down upon their very beings, on both their flesh and their soul as a strange, terrifying feeling emanated from the boy. It was not like the Darkness that rolled off of him whenever he took his demon form. That aura had at least had some sort of substance, some sort of sentiment or emotion to identify with when he released that dark power.
This new feeling was quite different, like an emptiness that seemed to be endless and abysmal when looking in....but poured out an infinite amount of force when following it out. And then for the very first time, they saw his eyes.
The adventurers' brows almost disappeared into their hair as at long last, Lyze's eyes were revealed. Two pits of black void that seemed to swallow you whole when you looked at them. Where the whites of his eyes should have been, there was only blackness, like there were no eyeballs. In fact, it seemed like his eye sockets were just two black holes swallowing in everything that was both in and out of their line of sight. And at the very centre of those two black holes shone forth purple glints that counted as pupils, which locked sharply onto the thundering monster rex.
Balor came screeching to a halt as the same sensations fell on it, and it suddenly felt very small, ironically, in the presence of this young boy who had been a pest to it for this whole battle. Balor had been as aggressive as it had been in its last offensive purely because of what that boy had been doing and upon putting Lyze at a hopeless disadvantage, the monster rex had internally cheered as it made sure to focus on the Loki Familia's greatest prodigy especially, aiming to devour him before everyone else.
But now none of that seemed to matter...nothing whatsoever seemed to matter. Friend and foe, grunts and big bads, adventurers and monsters, everyone alike felt absolutely powerless in the face of Lyze in this new revelation he'd sprung upon them. Every adventurer there suddenly felt all their life's hard work, their hours upon hours of refining their combat abilities, just melt away into the metaphysical mouth that the now released Chaos had opened. Because no power could stand up to this new force inside Lyze.
It could always be argued that technique and wit could defeat brute strength any day. But what if you were to be faced with power that could just overwhelm any defence and any technique because its raw strength was far too great to be circumvented? The older adventurers now knew the truth, just from their sight and their instincts alone...even if they spent a thousand lifetimes building their strengths and their skills and levelling up continuously, none of them would ever trump Lyzof Keele...he was in a realm of his own, a league so far above them, they could not even begin to dream of its height.
For he was now most truly and certainly, a higher form of life.
...
"...L-Lyze?" Finn gawped, the Pallum's mouth and eyes wide open for once in shock, horror, awe, reverence and a slew of other contradictory emotions.
For what other effect could Chaos have on those that beheld it? Contradiction was its purest form.
"I know you all didn't want me stealing the thunder again." Lyze mumbled. But even though his lips barely moved and he passed little air through to his vocal chords to produce the lowest volume possible, the entirety of the Moira Sands, the 49th Floor, seemed to tremble with his words, as his voice came from both everywhere and nowhere, hitting their eardrums and making them hear, while also speaking to them from within their own bodies as his speech entered their very minds. "But it seems I will have to take it again from here. You all rest...I'll kill the bastard."
It was as if his presence, his spirit, his everything had penetrated them all at once and he had seated himself in the deepest crevice of their mortal beings. And more than that, they all got to stand in the shoes of their respective gods as well...because now they knew a lie from truth suddenly with Lyze's hidden power flooding the area...and Lyze's words rang with complete truth and confidence. He knew he could kill Balor...they knew it, and Balor knew it.
He was the strongest...and it confirmed something Noir had long said about Lyze.
The boy was at his strongest always, when he was on his own.
"What is this?" Bara breathed as she could not tear her gaze away from his eyes even though they were not trained on her. It was as if she was both bewitched and yet in her own mind. "What's happened to you kid? What have you done?"
"I've taken control." Lyze said as his hair shimmered before turning a silvery white colour and a giant pair of wings formed behind his back, one feathered white and radiating with the Light of the Goddess Can, and the other a harrowing black dripping with the Darkness of the Demon Clan.
Once again, just like what had happened before in the 37th Floor outside the Colosseum, Excalibur which was stuck in the ground morphed again to match the state of its master. Cosmic gold designs melted away from the hilt and the crossguard resembled a pair of wings similar to the ones sticking out of the boy's back. Lyze held out a hand and gestured with a finger.
And as if reality itself was under his command and his to control, all the adventurers found themselves completely healed of their wounds and their injuries and the effects of Balor's magic removed from them, though they still retained their fatigue. But there had been no flashing warm lights like Lyze's usual method of healing, nor had any wounds closed up or bones knitted together. Lyze had simply willed it to be and it was...just like that.
Lyze then opened his palm out to the Holy Sword and Excalibur went flying to the hand of its wielder, the blade now longer and sharper than before.
"Lyze?" A small voice called out to him.
The boy looked down to see golden eyes stare back at him full of wonder, shock and mesmerisation. For a moment Ais seemed to freeze as he turned his gaze on her. But those same beautiful golden eyes of hers that he'd come to fall in love with just as he had every other part of her blinked as the girl behind them suddenly came back to her senses and she tilted her head to him worryingly.
"Be careful." Ais said, a hint of pleading to her tone.
"I will." He promised before he turned to Balor.
...
The Monster Rex finally snapped out of its own reverie as it acknowledged the very real danger it suddenly felt itself in and howled as it began crawling towards them at an alarming speed, thought to be impossible for a creature of its size as it hastened to take out this new threat before Lyze could do something...or so it hoped at least.
Lyze took a step forward before he just vanished. Balor froze as the boy seemed to disappear fast enough to be thought of as some kind of teleportation. But people knew better, as they'd seen him teleport before. And they'd not needed a millisecond more to determine where he'd gone as he reappeared on the ground behind Balor with both Excalibur and Geranos brandished in an outward slashing movement, his wings unfolded to the extreme as the feathers stuck out like razor sharp blades.
Beside the boy collapsed a large scaly object, thicker than an old oak tree and longer than most whales in the sea. Balor paused as it recognised its missing appendage before furious pain seared right through its left side and it shrieked a pained cry as blood came gushing out in water falls from its stump where the missing arm had been lobbed off. The monster rex grit its teeth as it lifted its other arm and tried to slam its palm right on top of Lyze, but it succeeded at nothing.
For with another implementation of Lyze's pure will, a spiked pillar of pure diamond rose up out of the ground behind the boy, and the monster's hand impaled itself right onto the pillar while Lyze flew out of there at a visible speed. Balor was too blinded by pain to scream at its new injury and instead stretched out its neck to bite the boy who simply just rolled out of its snapping jaws and span around in the air with his wings before unfurling both in the direction of the monster rex.
Black and white feathers rained down upon Balor like arrowheads fired at the speed of sound as they embedded themselves deep into the monster's flesh, before exploding into respective mushroom clouds of holy and demonic magic, filling the air with enough energy to make everyone's hairs stand on end. There was a difference though now between this battle and the last time Lyze had released Chaos in their presence. They were now shielded from the effects by courtesy of Lyze's temporary blessing and now they would not be knocked out unconscious to miss out on seeing their prodigy at his strongest.
Balor's scales, flesh and blood flew out all over the place as bits of its bones and meat fell out of its chest and belly and splatted on the ground. Out of the receding smoke now hung large ropes of intestines, bigger and more bulbous that some houses that the adventurers had been in and it was indeed no less than a gruesome sight. They could not imagine what kind of pain Balor was going through right now.
Its scream were now nothing more than garbled whimpers and heaving breaths, though still quite loud, as Lyze's brutality made itself know. Balor gritted its teeth through its agony and fired another magical beam at the boy suspended in the air. Lyze shook his head from side to side which was a stark contrast to his previous reaction this attack. Before Lyze had been scrambling to defend himself against this particular attack in fear of death, whereas now he seemed to treat it as nothing more than a toddler's first punch.
Lyze smirked, a mysteriously welcome sight to most as they now saw his expressions fully for what they were, his face no longer hidden behind his burdens. The boy held up a finger as the magical beam came to a pause right before him as the breath attack seemed to condense into a large ball of red magic above the boy's finger. This continued until Balor paused its attack, and its beam was now nothing more than a floating ball above Lyze's single finger.
"I'm sorry, is this yours?" Lyze asked sarcastically before pointing the attack right back at Balor and the monster found its own beam blasted right back to it with such force that its hanging entrails were roasted off and the pressure ripped its other arm out. Its remaining arm had been pinned to the ground by the diamond pillar Lyze had summoned, and so it had torn off right at the shoulder as the body was dragged back across the ground and pummelled into the dirt.
Lyze moved another finger about in the air, and the great spikes which had stuck out of the arms of the monster rex wrenched themselves free from the severed limbs and floated them in the air. At Lyze's will, they shot off like launched spear right into the exposed guts of the monster rex as it gasped loudly in pain. Another beam was charging up in its mouth in its desperation but one of the spikes speared itself right through the underneath of its jaw and broke out the top side of its skull, effectively wedging and sealing its mouth shut as it thrashed its skull about.
The stench of burnt, rancid organs filled the air as Balor's hanging and charred innards smoked.
Lyze flew forwards, grabbing the monster rex by the bottom of the spike that had stuck itself into the head and lifted the giant monster up like it weighed no more than a bag of rice.
"This is for Gareth." Lyze muttered as he lugged the body right across the many miles of the 49th Floor in an instant with his raw strength. Balor smashed into the opposing cliff on the other end of the Floor so hard that the cliff collapsed around it in giant mountain sized pieces of rubble while canyon sized cracks spread all over the floor and ceiling right up to where the adventurers were situated. The sound of impact came only a moment later as there was what sounded like a clap of thunder, or two mountains being smashed together.
Lyze had equalized the debt between the monster rex and the dwarf that Balor had rag-dolled.
"Let's finish this." Lyze said as he lifted his hand and formed the Sabazius sign. "{Cacophony of Chaos}."
The ultimate circumvention Lyze had found regarding Chaos's limitations on him. A brief moment where Lyze could unleash the full power of the ancient being and cut out a piece of reality, making it his own domain where the full power of Chaos would operate unchained.
The 49th Floor seemed to disappear completely as all living things there, adventurers and monster alike, were plunged into an infinite void of darkness where the only things they could see were each other. And then the screams began as Chaos began feasting.
As a mercy upon his friends, Lyze allowed them not to see Chaos's manifestation as an eldritch-like mess of abominations, lest he wanted them to go mad. But the monsters were not spared as the monster hordes were devoured by Chaos, regenerated and resurrected only to be devoured again millions of times a moment.
But none of them had it worse than Balor who found itself completely healed of wounds and injuries, only to have its flesh flayed and eaten clean from its bones. All the while, the pain receptions of those receiving the punishment were amplified, making sure on Lyze's behalf that the sufferers felt every moment of their torment, not least the of all the monster rex which had dared to hurt his friends. But it was not just the monsters.
Everything began to be devoured also within the Floor as the 49th Floor was stripped clean of all its terrain and its contents, becoming flat as a giant board as heavy damage was inflicted upon the Dungeon.
Lyze eventually had enough of it and held out his hands as silver fire began to leak out from his palms. Thanks to Chaos's reach, the will of power which had been using Lyze as a host spread the Origin Flame far and wide, covering the 49th Floor in an ocean of silver fire as it consumed the souls of the enemies of the boy. The monsters let out one final scream before their souls were ripped from them and fed to Lyze's own as sustenance for this battle, Lyze once again feeling a tidal wave of Excelia crashing through him. But he focused still, not caring for it.
Because none touched Balor, not as Lyze prepared a special attack.
Geranos glowed a bright silver light as it became almost as radiant as the sun as Lyze filled the blade with more of the Origin Flame than he'd ever produced in the whole time he had it, and it began to create heartbeat like vibrations in the air as the dagger gifted by Hephaestus absorbed enough primordial energy to level Orario in one swoop.
Lyze let go of the dagger as it floated upright in the air before Lyze pointed at Balor who was held up aloft by Chaos's many limbs as the ancient being exposed Balor and prepared the monster for the final blow.
"Kratos...Thymos..." Lyze said.
Suddenly, the primordial fire in the dagger burst out but transformed Geranos monetarily in a giant blade of silver fire, one that looked big enough to cleave the sky asunder. Geranos in this new mighty form flipped as its blade sliced downwards in the direction of Balor. And cleave something it did as it sliced a perfectly edged slash into the ground of the 49th Floor, miles upon miles long as it stretched from one end to the other.
Balor let out one last howl as it was sliced in two before it burst into white dust and Lyze siphoned away its life force into himself.
There was a blinding curtain of light upon impact and for a few seconds everyone closed their eyes as the magnificence of Lyze's power bore down on them before it all died down. The domain collapsed and they were all out of the void as they returned to the 49th Floor, in their previous places...only this time the environment was much different.
Stretching out before them was a vast flatland with something that looked like the Grand Canyon splitting the Floor in two as it led right up to the indent where the monster rex had been, only the wall there also had a massive slash in it. The air lost that empty feeling of bottomless power and everything returned to normal as absolute quiet settled upon the Moira Sands.
...
For a moment they all stayed quiet as they tried to wrap their minds around what had just transpired and what they had witnessed. They could not twitch or even blink, not as what happened just moments ago would suddenly feel like a dream or a hallucination if they did do any of those things.
They were interrupted by the perpetrator of all those things floating down to the ground in front of them, his eyes closed again as the presence of Chaos was gone again. Geranos in his hand again with all of its former power gone and Excalibur back to normal. No wings upon his back, no shimmering silvery hair.
The boy before them was as normal as he could be, as if he had not just unleashed god-like power a few moments ago. They were startled a bit as Lyze chuckled and opened his eyes again. They tensed, thinking that the same power would just come rushing out again and entrance them all when nothing of the sort happened.
They were met with normal, human eyes. White sclera revealed itself in a relieving unveiling beneath those eyelids, surrounding irises that were the most deepest purple they had ever seen in their entire lives. Beautiful eyes, they could not help but feel. And the centre was not glowing purple dots like before, but normal black pupils that held a light of youth an excitement in them.
They were suddenly short of breath as they realized what they were looking at.
Lyze's eyes were wide open, normal and youthful...with a dazzling smile that spread joy and happiness to the windows of his soul. For the first time ever, they were looking at a normal Lyze as his face was fully revealed.
He was normal.
"So?" Lyze rubbed the back of head as he smiled a toothy grin, while looking a bit nervous. "I guess I have a bit of explaining to do."
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