The ground shook and trembled beneath the clash of the two fighters as they traded blows with one another. Lyze charged up his fists as he ferociously assaulted his master, landing some blows while having some deflected. But whether he landed them or not, they did little to Nekros as the Transcendental simply allowed those blows to land so as to give Lyze a bit of charge to his {Combo Star}.
Regardless Lyze, was extremely frustrated as even when fighting a mere avatar of his old master, he still could not overcome Nekros's power and expertise. Nekros smacked one fist aside and flipped Lyze in the air. The boy tried to twist around in the air, a fireball forming in his palm as he tried to launch it into Nekros's face. But the man simply grabbed the hand and closed it over the fireball.
Nekros smiled as he tightened his grip harshly, the sound of Lyze's fist crunching and splintering as the boy yelped in pain. It was made worse by the fireball exploding inside that hand, searing the mangled flesh as Nekros punched Lyze in the gut. The impact created air pressure that cracked boulders scatted around them which had been uprooted from the ground in their exchange.
Lyze choked out blood and saliva as he tried to stay conscious even though he felt as if his own soul had been knocked out of his body and his mind went numb white with pain. Nekros did not let up as he pulled Lyze by that arm downwards, dragging Lyze's bare back across the gritty ground and tearing open the skin. He then rag dolled the boy into a wall, span around as he let go of Lyze and kicked him in the back, sending the boy rolling across the ground.
Lyze came to a stop, rolled out flat as he grit his teeth to bear the pain while holding up his hand. The flesh and skin was completely mangled with broken bones sticking out from beneath the skin, and the wounds were charred from the fireball exploding. Ignoring the alarm bells in his head, he focused the Flame and the hand regenerated, going back to normal.
He hastily stood up and wobbled a bit, but put his fists up in a guard position as Nekros fell upon him and threw a punch at him. Lyze responded in kind and their knuckles collided against one another, creating a blast wave which punched a crater into the ground beneath them. As Lyze's arm wobbled in the struggle, the pressure from their raw strength created craters within the crater as the ground outside of them cracked.
Lyze was already extremely worn out and tired from his fighting in this Floor and from the Variant monster earlier on. The last thing he would have chosen would be fighting his master, whom he knew fought in the most sadistic way when it came to testing Lyze's power.
It was the reason why Lyze was so desensitized to violence, why he had a habit of brutalizing his opponents before killing them. Because it was the way he was brought up in his training, it was the way Nekros had treated him. And here the same man was again, only this time it looked like Nekros actually wanted to kill him.
"You would kill me now?" Lyze spat, blood dribbling from his mouth where his lips were cut and swollen from the several blows he'd taken to the face already. "I've only just begun, and I've made so much progress. What have I done that you would consider killing me now?"
"What you're doing now!" Nekros said as he punched with his other fist. Lyze caught it in his other hand, locking them both in a handhold. "Where is your usual ferocity? Where did this softness come from? I trained you like a Spartan! You used everything you had at your disposal when fighting me, and yet you come to this world and you limit yourself."
"What the hell do you expect?" Lyze said as his legs buckled, the ground cracking beneath his soles. "There are other people here who could be hurt from what I can really do. You on the other hand will survive anything I throw at you and there was no risk of collateral damage in Valaron."
"If you're afraid of that happening, then it proves that you're still incompetent with your powers!" Nekros said as he increased the pressure and Lyze fingers began to bend backwards. "I taught you CONTROL, not abstinence! I stressed INNOVATION, not improvisation. And yet here you are, hiding away from what you can really do like an absolute coward!"
Lyze, upon hearing that word, roared in anger his veins flared silver in colour, and the Wellspring appeared in his chest once more. He then activated {Cratus} as silver flames flared around his body in an aura and his muscles bulged, the same veins and arteries bulging as they strained to pump blood to the suddenly inflated muscles.
"I've learned to love! To care! Just like you said I would! You think if there was a chance I could hurt them by unleashing my true magics, that I would use those powers?" Lyze screamed. "When will you stop giving me mixed signals?!"
"If there is a chance that these loved ones of yours could one day be in danger of an overwhelming enemy that only you had the capabilities to defeat but couldn't because you never learned how to control those powers, then shouldn't you do your damn hardest to make sure that you learned to do exactly that?!" Nekros retorted.
They both broke the hold for a moment as they leaned backwards, before they lurched forwards into the grip lock again. This exerted a burst of physical pressure beneath them that was too much for the ground to handle and the cliff split right in two underneath them, creating a deep fissure that reached all the way to the previous battle area.
The Loki Familia, who were rushing up to help Lyze against a master who had seemingly come back with malicious reasons, had been making their way up the ridges of that cliff, using them as pathways, but had to yell in terror and surprise as the rockface they were climbing suddenly split in half and many found themselves dangling over the abyss that was situated beneath the Colosseum.
The executives saw this as an opportunity however to make this whole thing easier, staying calm as by Finn's lead they entered into the fissure itself through the side of the cliff and began jumping up, rebounding between the two sides as they travelled upwards and out of the little canyon onto the ground that Lyze and Nekros were fighting on.
They were just in time to see Lyze roaring as he slammed ground shattering punches into Nekros's body, explosions of silver fire being created from the impact as the area shook. The strength of that punch even took Gareth aback as it looked to be even stronger than his own when he wasn't using his own enhancement skill.
A level 3 being able to punch harder than a level 5 was unheard of. Nekros shrugged the attack off though as Lyze landed a combo on his chest area before uppercutting him in the jaw. As Nekros's chin snapped back, Lyze pulled back his left fist, firing up the Flame even more as the silver vein pattern as well as the light in his chest shone even brighter, arcs of silver electricity worming around his forearm as he prepared his strongest punch yet.
He tried to bury that attack in Nekros's gut but to his frustration and disappointment, Nekros lifted a hand and effortlessly caught that punch without looking. The collision though sent out bolts of lightning in several directions. Riveria ducked out of the way as one bolt struck a boulder and burned itself right through like a laser to the other side before it went shooting off into the distance. The elf looked at the little tunnel in the boulder, the inside having turned to molten rock.
Nekros lifted a hand and fired a blast of telekinetic pressure into the Lyze's chest, crumbling every one of the boy's ribs as blood spewed out from Lyze's mouth and nose. The blast carried Lyze way in a flurry of limbs, rocks and dust as a mini dust storm was kicked up, and the boy eventually smashed into a large boulder. The rock was about as big as house but Lyze collided with it with such force that it burst into fragments and all came crashing down on top of him, burying him beneath rubble and dust.
...
The executives wasted no time in approaching Nekros. No talk was needed, all they saw was someone from outside the Familia brutalizing one of their own and to protect Lyze, they would act.
Noir reached him first, slashing at him several times in a complicated patters. Nekros didn't even look his way as he deflected the blade expertly with a finger, confounding Noir at his accuracy before he pushed the old man's sword arm aside and back handed him with a clenched fist, knuckles smashing a couple of teeth out of the old man's mouth and sending him flying.
Nekros tilted his head backwards with just minimal movement, smoothly avoiding a kick from Bara before tilting his skull to the side as Finn's spear rushed by his ear, originally intended to impale his eye. He lifted a knee to block Finn's fist, and clamped his teeth down on a blade that Bara slashed at his face with. He simply turned his neck to the other side, the movement being strong enough to lift the Amazon of her feet and fling her in another direction while he simultaneous kicked Finn into Riveria who was chanting a spell.
He then prepared for Gareth as the dwarf roared while swinging his axe down at him. Nekros evaded it and as Gareth landed on the ground, he elbowed Gareth right on top of his head. Gareth felt as if a hole had just been punched into his skull and his brain, and he was forced to let go of the axe. Nekros used the same arm to reach behind himself and grabbed the handle of the axe and pulled it.
He drove the butt end into Gareth's face, an audible crunch of the dwarf's nose being heard as Gareth's body went spinning in the air. Nekros turned and brought the axe around and smashed it into Noir's blade as the old man bore his ground, fighting against Nekros's superior strength. Nekros held out his other hand as he caught Bara by the throat as she tried to fly kick him in the face. She dangled there, struggling with her legs still kicking as he slowly started asphyxiating her.
Noir grunted as he held his ground, his sword struggling against the axe bearing down upon him. Nekros smirked at him as he stared the man up and down.
"So...you're the one who's been keeping my disciple's blade nice and sharp in my place." Nekros said. "I'll admit, you are good."
"That's odd praise coming from someone who deflected everything I threw at him with a finger." Noir rasped as the axe came closer and closer to his head. "But why? How could you treat your own student like that?! What could justify that kind of cruelty?"
"You would ask me these questions when you have known this boy for only a month and a half at best?" Nekros asked. "Whereas I raised him, and taught him everything he knows. I knew the best way to bring him up, and the best way to bring out his potential. So don't even begin to try and question me."
Noir finally stopped struggling and let the axe fly by him as he used a technique he observed Lyze use by spinning on his heel. He then brought his sword around to skewer it into the elbow of the arm holding Bara. Nekros however span the axe in his hand like it was a pencil and use the flat of the large blade to bat Noir away. Nekros then threw Bara into Finn who tried to ambush him.
Nekros then held out his palms as he caught the clenched fists of both Dain and Gareth as the two dwarves tried to double combo him. He pulled their arms violently across each other so he pulled them together so fast that their temples conked painfully against one another, making their eyes roll back.
By this point, most of the other members of the Loki had reached that area and were collectively closing in on him with their weapons. Nekros held up the two dwarves and used their bodies to smack away all the people who tried to jump him.
The tank team all raised their shields and collectively tried to charge him to drive him into a corner. Nekros chuckled as he dropped the dwarves in his hands and drew his sword from his back. He rushed forwards and swung it in a clean line across the shields, shattering the first ones and scattering the dwarf company completely, a resulting shockwave even carrying them off the cliff again.
Nekros held his sword out at the dozens of adventurers gathered before him, each of them sweating with trepidation at approaching him. Having seen the clash between him and their executives who seemed out of commission for the most part, they knew that even together they could not bring him down. After all they were low level adventurers.
Nekros snapped to attention and his fingers caught a slivery white arrow between them, arcs of golden lightning flickering around the shaft. Looking back in the trajectory of that arrow, he saw Riveria standing there with a bow in her hands. The Familia instantly recognised the arrow and quickly retreated as the arrow exploded in a burst of explosive golden magic.
The adventurers waited for the resulting smokescreen to recede, revealing an unaffected Nekros simply standing there with an unamused look on his face.
"I taught him to make those." He said simply.
"...Loki Familia. On guard!" Finn said as he pointed his spear at Nekros. The adventurers copied him and levelled their weapons at him, waiting for the signal.
"Before you start acting like chivalrous cavalry, why are you interfering?" Nekros said.
"What choice do you expect me to make, after what I just saw transpire between you and Lyze?" Finn asked in kind. "Such violence is unbefitting of a simple duel. I always wondered why Lyze was so militant and cruel when it came to battling other people. I believe I now understand why."
"If you think that was violent..." Nekros's eyes flickered over to the pile of rocks beneath which Lyze was buried. "...then you've got another thing coming."
...
The air suddenly became very cold as a dreadful, icky feeling came over the entire company. Not to say there was any positive emotion in the current circumstances but it felt like any possibility or the reality of the existence of positive emotions was completely sucked away as the already low light levels became dimmer.
A black, putrid mist began to leak from beneath the rubbles and started to permeate the air as each living being with the exception of Nekros instinctively moved away from the miasma being emitted. The rubble pile then exploded outwards as Lyze emerged roaring in anger.
Wisps and tendrils of Darkness flowed off of him as the Lesser Demon mark made itself a prominent presence on his forehead. Lyze then glared right at Nekros, breathing heavily as all his wounds regenerated. From behind his back emerged two large wings made out of the same Darkness.
"Finally brought it out huh, after all your abstinence?" Nekros said as he pointed his sword at Lyze.
Those that had not seen Lyze in this form before were taken aback at the stark contrast between the Lyze they knew and the one they were seeing now. Because unlike the beautiful white feathered wings of his Goddess form, these were wings made out of some dark magical matter that oozed with malice and...dare they say, evil.
Lyze then hunched over for bit before he jerked back, expelling all the dark magical energy into the air as it formed clouds above and completely sucked out all the light in the Floor. The only reason they could still see Lyze was because the dark markings on his body shone in its own way, in that they were darker than all the shadows cast by the cloud of Darkness above. And just like actual clouds, purple lightning flashed between the clouds, as if it were a storm but without any rain.
Of course, Lyze could have made it rain but the dark matter would have killed all that it touched, something he did not want to do.
Lyze held his arms out and breathed in deeply as he bent backwards as he opened himself to the clouds above again. The clouds swirled above him in circles, circling faster and faster as purple lightning spewed out of the hole they created before it all came crashing back down on the boy, like an upside-down tornado as Lyze was engulfed by spinning tendrils of demonic energy.
His body glowed purple as he absorbed all of the cataclysmic magic back into himself, even taking away the miasma from the air as he sucked it all back into himself. When he righted himself again, black coloured lightning crackled across his form as the mark on his forehead changed to that of a Greater Demon.
Nekros whistled at the display.
"God of War nerd. The tornado was a dead give-away." Nekros shifted his sword. "But I'll admit, I'm impressed. I didn't think you'd be able to unlock that form at will just yet. But apparently I was wrong."
"Enough talk." Lyze said as he called Excalibur to him. The Holy Sword which was still on the battle ground below flew up the cliff and into its master's hand. "Just fight!"
"One thing we finally agree on." Nekros said as he leapt forwards with his sword out.
Lyze flexed his legs and just seemingly vanished from view as he moved at speeds even the level fives couldn't comprehend. Finn was gobsmacked at what he just witnessed. It then dawned on him that Lyze had not taken this form ever since he was a level 2. But since then, the boy had levelled up and had grown much, MUCH stronger even after his level up in the duration of this expedition.
Excalibur and Nekros's sword clashed but Lyze loosened his grip on Excalibur and ducked under neath Nekros's arms as he withdrew Geranos and lit it with silver flames as the blade buried itself in Nekros's gut. The transcendental's eyes widened. Even though he had sent an avatar of himself to fight Lyze, he had not expected the boy to land such a clean attack.
The Wellspring of Origin came to life in Lyze chest again as bright orb glowed beneath the skin. He fired torrents of silver flames into Nekros's body as he started to flap his dark wings. Both he and Nekros flew off the cliff as Lyze began shooting in the direction of the Colosseum at comet speeds, leaving the Loki Familia behind on the cliff.
"Well played kid." Nekros said before he grabbed Lyze's body. "But you still haven't convinced me."
Their bodies collided with the top of the Colosseum wall, completely shattering that part of the structure as they crashed into the middle of the arena. The impact created a crater, and the shockwave killed every monster in the vicinity by splattering them against the walls and the giant steps as the entire Colosseum shook like an earthquake.
Both boy and his master disentangled themselves from one another as Lyze pulled out Geranos and stuck it into his belt, brandishing Excalibur as Nekros jumped back and held a hand over the wound, the gaping hole the boy had made in his abdomen, his hand tightly gripped on his bastard sword.
"Finally going to stop holding back now? There is no collateral around here." Nekros asked.
"Yes." Lyze said as he stood straight all of a sudden and the air became tense and heavy all of a sudden. "I'm not holding back anymore...{Holy Sword Excalibur: RELEASE!}."
A bright, silvery white glow began to surround the holy sword as Lyze's hair began to flow about like a breeze was blowing it up from below. Nekros felt a shift in Lyze's magic and complete state of being.
The first thing that happened was that Lyze's form changed. Out of his back sprouted two more wings but they completely changed. The wings on his right became a bright angelic white, while the wings on his left became a demonic black. The Greater Demon Mark disappeared from his face and under his blindfolds, cracks started to come down from where his eyes would be. The cold aura he excluded was joined by another more benevolent feeling as the two meshed together to form an aura that could not be put into words. It felt chaotic, uncertain of which side of the spectrum it fell on.
But it was POWERFUL.
"The Nephilim form." Nekros smiled widely, momentarily feeling a burning pride for his student in this unexpected turn of events. He had no idea that Lyze was capable of this. Because now it meant both Lyze's physical and magical attributes were boosted to to unprecedented levels.
But Lyze was not the only thing that changed.
Excalibur began to morph as the golden hilt faded away. The blade became more sturdy and defined and seemingly sharper. The cosmic designs on the grip disappeared as they were replaced by a red and white checked pattern. The hilt transformed into a set of wings. One wing was that of a feathered angel, while the other was that of a demonic bat. It was the sword that Arthur Pendragon got when he was transitioning into the king of Chaos, and the sword had represented an equilibrium between Light and Dark due to the Chaos presence in Arthur.
And if Lyze had it, it would be a perfect mirror representation of Lyze's current state of both form and mind...which meant...
"I learnt this when I created a Domain Expansion." Lyze said as he put a hand up to his blindfolds. "Ever so briefly, I glimpsed a state where the only limitation upon me was that of my physical body. But in such a state, even if it was time constrained..." Lyze removed the blindfolds and opened his eyes. Instead of the void pits that were supposed to be there, one eye was dark and demonic, and the other was alight with the symbol of the Goddess clan. "...I would be in harmony with Chaos. Now, it does not threaten to explode my body."
...
"You've partially awakened..." Nekros's smile became slightly mad in his glee. "...you truly have deviated... you found your own way!"
"I have chosen my own way." Lyze said as the Wellspring glowed in his chest as he activated the Flame of Origin alongside Chaos. "And I have chosen an eventual name...{Cratus}." Lyze's body bulged with muscle as his entire form now began screaming with raw, untamed might. "I will be more than just a king..."
"...you aim to ascend through the Falna." Nekros realized. "You have taken Kratos as your god name, and you will ascend into the Olympian pantheon through that name with Chaos as a basis for divinity...you're aiming to not become the King of Chaos...but the GOD of Chaos..."
"That's right." Lyze said. "There is no god named Kratos in this world, and the fact that the name was given to me through a skill means that this universe CHOSE me to bear that name. The Golden Armour only creates active sites on my soul to which the skills bind. And with the connotations of my powers, I will easily take Olympus's throne if any of them moves against me. For once, Kratos will become the ruler of Olympus, and I will realize that in MY person, with my ambitions...and in doing that, I will finally be broken free from you. You will have no Authority over me any longer."
.
.
.
"You mad bastard." Nekros face-palmed with a smile. "I aways knew you were crazy...but to think you were able to create a plan this elaborate." Nekros then looked up. "But unfortunately for you, even with such a scheme, there is one little hurdle you have to overcome in order to do that."
"And that is?"
"You will have to beat me to find out." Nekros said as he brandished his sword. "Come my apprentice...show me what you have learnt."
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