The moments Aric ended his statement, Ryujin suddenly noticed that all the wind in his immediate vicinity had vanished.
"Shit!"
His blurted in horror, as hithe cogs of his brain spun into overdrive, thinking of a way to avoid or prevent Aric's attack from dealing true damage.
He thought of using his Chaotic Steps to evade, but Aric had already anticipated this reaction, and thus, summoned four little compressed tornadoes around them.
"Nowhere to run, heh?" Aric sneered.
"Then you can taste this!" He bellowed.
Bang!
Aric planted his fist into Ryujin's chest with reckless abandon.
However, the moment his fist landed, he felt as if he had hit something like an overly sturdy balloon.
Apparently, Ryujin had managed to coated his body with a mixture of mental energy and Qi, just in he nick of time.
However, Aric didn't waver or falter, and neither did he let back. Instead, a cone of sharply spinning wind spun to life over his entire arm, and began to drill into the energy coat on Ryujin's skin.
[Elemental Art; Wind Style - Drilling Tempest!]
Bam!
Aric pressed his fist deeper into Ryujin's chest, leaving the latter to helplessly witness the wind drill ripped his energy coat apart, before his fist collided with his chest!
Crack!
The heavy blow clattered Ryujin's ribs, causing a spine tingling crack to resonate across the open area like echoing thunder.
Rip!!!
Ryujin was blasted into the tornado behind him, the sharp winds shredding his clothes into confetti, and lacerating his skin, even as it flung him into the distance like a used and valueless ragged doll.
Ryujin's blood roiled and circulated out of control, forcing him to spurt out a fountain of blood that splattered all over the snow.
He crashed into a tree, the impact causing the wounds all over his body to flare up with an intense stinging pain, and begin to leak blood.
_____
Ryujin swiftly flipped to his feet before launching himself at Aric once again.
Their battle raged heavily, the atmosphere groaning in discomfort as the intensity of their exchange rose to new heights.
Neither of them yielded an inch, even as their bodies continued to blur and collide with reckless abandon.
Gradually, Ryujin's resilience began to increase, absorbing the besring that Aric successively doled on him, as he steadily studied the latter's every move.
With each passing second, his counters became sharper, his dodges swifter, his attacks more devious and penetrating.
Aric gradually found himself losing the initiative, and it didn't take long after for him to notice he and Ryujin had entered a tight stalemate.
He could not even find a single opening on the kid, let alone launch an attack.
Ryujin's defenses were sealed shut as his prediction Aric's moves reached a peak.
Sometimes he would intentionally reveal an opening, luring Aric to take a bit, and the moment the latter fell, he countered with a vicious fingerbpoke that aimed at a fatal accupoint.
Aric had suffered sug attacks twice already, and thus began to go on the defensive; a decision that didn't escape Ryujin's senses.
The latter instantly switched techniques from finger style to overlapping fists, even using overlapping shocks when he overwhelmed Aric into revealing an opening.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Ryujin pummeled the latter with a flurry of nerve bursting punches, each one more powerful than the last.
Aric was stunned and caught off guard by Ryujin's sudden spike in aggression, he faltered successively under the latter's relentless assault.
Soon enough, he realized that Ryujin had taken control of not only the battle momentum, but even his own moves.
Ryujin repeatedly forced him to move and react in certain patterns that created a opening, but before he can capitalize on the opening, Aric would either glide out of range or falter his defend the opening with a wind art.
Slowly, Aric began to tire out, and upon looking at his opponent out, he realized that the latter seemed to have a little more to spare.
They traded heavy blows and haemorrhaging techniques for almost an hour before Aric's endurance finally faltered, creating a opening Ryujin's metavision almost foretold.
With a surge of strength born from accumulated pain and hammered determination, Ryujin plunged an Overlapping Shock into his opponent.
However, the moment his fist landed, Ryujin saw the latter reveal a cunning grin before revealing a shary rotating ball of compressed wind (rasengan-esque) hovering over his palm.
"Elemental Art; Wind Style - Vacuum Blast!
Bam! Boom!
Both attacks landed almost simultaneously, sending the duo hurtling through the air in opposite directions.
Blood sprayed like fountains and debris exploded like fireworks as both of them dealt heavy damage to each other.
Ryujin tried to swiftly jump back to his feet so he could head over and labd a finishing blow; however, his legs refused.
His muscles shuddered, forcing his laps into a wobbly African dance, as a wave of weakness washed over him.
'Shit! I'm scraping at my last ounce of stamina, and my pent-up fatigue is catching up to me... Tch!' He thought to himself, blaming him body for being too weak.
'My Focus Qi is running in empty and as a result my Vital Qi generation has slowed to a crawl... I must end this battle with this final charge.'
With that, Ryujin's Focus Qi latched onto all the atmospheric Qi within the span of his mental sense, drawing them towards his position and kicking up a vortex of Qi Plasma around him.
His weakend nodes greedily absorbed these Qi Plasma, before beaming them into his bloodstream like an X-RAY laser over bones.
Ryujin's blood heated up and roiled, as they tunneled into his heart which then pumped them out with a vigorous thump that siunded like a muffled explosion.
A surge of adrenaline mixed with heat energy surged through Ryujin's vessels, charging every cell in his body as he snapped his eye open and let out a guttural roar!
Aarrrghhh!!!
Aric froze in his fear, his heart shuddering as they skipped beats intermittently. He clutched his chest trying to get his breathing under control.
His soul cringed at the aura leaking off Ryujin's presence; it felt and tasted like a mix of battle and killing intent, urging his instincts and reflexes to make a run for it.
'To make me feel this way... You're finally going all out, unh?' He thought to himself as he watched Ryujin erupt with a new found strength.
"Good! Let's end it with a final stand!" Aric yelled in defiance as the fear aura chipping at his will vanished with a puff.
"Wrath of the Wind Spirit!" He bellowed as dozens of compressed tornadoes whipped to life all over the area.
It seemed and felt as though a wind god was about to dole out a catastrophic judgement upon Ryujin for having blasphemed.
Ryujin gathered every ounce of generated power within his body before sparing a glance at Aric who was struggling to control the crazed chaos he had created.
Then as if coming to a tactic understanding, they both initiated their final moves simultaneously.
"Elemental Art; Wind Style - Wind Kamikaze!"
Aric yelled as he lunged at Ryujin with his compressed tornadoes in tow.
Every inch of breeze within a 40 meter radius were swept along with him, accompanying the latter on his quest missions of mutual destruction.
As Aric initiated his final move, Ryujin had felt every air around him vanish, making it seem as though he had been teleported into a vacuum.
However, rather than fret, he simply focused on his own attack.
"Mixed Arts; Merged Styles - Yama's Touch!" He spoke softly as everything around him became an immobile chaos.
Nothing happened physically, but anyone who stepped within Ryujin's 30 meter range at the moment would fee an invisible force throw their body system, mind ad soul into utter disarray.
It was a technique that merged all seven of his techniques with his murderous aura and the condensed it all into a single finger.
~Doof~
The duo lunged towards each other with little to no sense of self preservation, and then collided like two dying star that had crossed paths.
Kaboom!
A rippling shockwave of obliterating power exploded forth from there point of collision; expanding rapidly like an inflating sphere of destruction.
This devastating sphere of wind and mental energy snapped, broke, shred, splintered, crumbled, and ground every single matter it came in contact with.
Boulders, wood, snow, moisture, dust, air... Everything was whsiked into oblivion in the face of this ball of death.
In fact, the visage of the two hotheaded idiots who had created it could not even be seen from the outside.
The rampaging destruction and commotion raged on for a whole solids minute before it's cloudy residues began to settle down.
A silence descended into the area. An entire 50 meter radius of the forest outskirt was now as clear as an open field.
If one had looked at the forest from a bird's eye view, they would notice that it was now sporting a single eye.
Then in the next moment, the natural wind returned, gradually clearing the floating cloud of residues, as the visage of two shadows began to take form.
Then a minute later, the shadow finally solidified, and there, was Ryujin standing over an unconscious Aric, both of them sporting swollen faces, bleeding wounds and shredded clothes.
However, both there eyes were shut, and none of them seemed to be breathing.
Their life force signatures, unconformable... The outcome of the battle, unknown... The winning or losing final technique, undetermined...
No cheers echoed, no bards would sing of this duel. Only the wind whispered through the trees, carrying the scent of death.
As the minutes stretched into eternity, Ryujin's fingers finally trembled.
Haaannhh!
He gasped heavily before flooding his parched lungs with air.
He breathed in rapid deep heaves, looking to satisfy his entire body of its critical lack of oxygen.
Aric's final attack had rid the entire area of breathable air, and as a result, he had been forced to hold his breath all through...
Aric's brows twitched next before letting out a soft groan...
The moment Ryujin saw the latter open his eyes, he lost all the strength in his body, collapsing to the group as he frowned in unwillingness.
"How the frick are you not dead?!" He blurted in frustration, even as he struggled for air.
However, the moment Aric tried to speak, he suddenly felt a sharp pain throbbing in his left shoulder.
Trying to grab his arm in hopes as clenching the nerves and reducing the pain, Aric eyes widened in shock.
"W-wh-what happened to my arm?" He stuttered choking on the blood stored within his throat as he coughed intensely.
Ryujin didn't even know what to say. For one, he didn't know wat had happened either; his vision had blacked out the moment the sphere of destruction expanded.
Secondly, he seemed to have used he little strength he had gained to vent his final shout if frustration, and as a result, lost consciousness shortly after.
Aric struggled t dipped his other hand into the pocket of his shredded trouser, managing to bring out a round brownish pill which he swallowed.
Shortly afterwards, his bleeding stopped, his pain subsided, and he gained a little bit of energy.
He dragged himself across the bare ground as he approached Ryujin and placed his head on the latter's chest.
Upon discovering that the latter's heart was still beating, his own sipped a beat, and after a few minutes, his expression changed as he seemed to arrive at a decision.
He took out three black pills and threw them in different directions, albeit equal in separated distances.
"Rest," he murmured, as he fell to his back.
"We'll heal together." He added, falling to a deep slumber himself.
And so, on this unspectated battlefield, even as the sun dipped in the distnce and the stars blinked to life; a one-sided decision was made, and two enemies became allies; survivors and victims, bound by fate and bloodshed...