Kallavan stared him down from hundreds of meters away. As his words landed the air stilled, as did the waves of the ocean and the soft fluttering of the grass blades under him.
The shinsu in the air seemed heavier, making it difficult to breathe. For regulars, that is.
The chat only seemed to go by faster as millions of people joined in to comment.
And then, it started.
Booom!
Whiiirrrrr!
Hooooooo!
The shinsu blazed with the intensity of a volcano, exploding into the air and right towards Winston! The bright blue shinsu, mixed in with saturated colours of yellow and red transformed into an ignition of flames that spread out in the blink of an eye!
Winston almost widened his eyes. Almost.
Without any wait, the explosion appeared around him and blanketed him in the destruction within!
Boooom!
The hill that Winston stood on disappeared before anyone could react! The observer was hovering in the air still, a good few hundred meters away from the battle zone.
Kallavan stared at the blast zone for a moment. And then, he turned his head upwards.
"That was rude." A chuckle, accompanied by a mocking voice rang in his ears.
Winston floated calmly in the air, his wooden cane held over his shoulder and the other hand inside his pocket.
The hat on his head was gone, revealing the dark hair hidden underneath.
"An after image?" Kallavan whispered to himself.
"Bingo!" And along came the reply.
Kallavan snorted and clenched his fist.
And so, he attacked.
His figure rapidly dashed out, far surpassing speeds that the eye could follow and reaching the speed of lightning!
Whooosh!
In an endlessly small time, the entire distance between the two was traversed!
Kallavan adopted a stance mid air and punched out, the shinsu around him rippling with pressure!
Winston calmly stood on the air and tilted his body to the right.
Shaaaa!
Crash!
Shockwaves travelled into the air and turned the otherwise benevolent ocean into a tumultuous nightmare.
Winston dodged the attacks, of which hundreds were thrown in the blink of an eye! His movements, erratic as they were made it seem as if there were no bones in his body, allowing him to move however he desired.
One to his left cheek, another to the right side of his abdomen, another to his arm and another to his neck.
Hundreds of such blows rained in the air, each carrying a shockwave that shook all across the battlefield like an acolyte of destruction.
The mere aftermath of Kallavan's blows reshaped the landscape and stuck therein was Winston who still donned a smile.
As expected. Even the slightest graze from his hits can be lethal. I can't close the distance.
Vision; vistas of the immediate future, overlapped his normal sight as he predicted the next attack and moved accordingly.
He saw him move forward, as so he too moved towards him, shifting to the right. Next Kallavan would attack with a leg sweep, and so he ducked under it. He saw him descend towards him, and so, he leapt into the spirit world to appear above.
Everything happened before anyone watching the stream even had the time to react.
Without any delay, Winston retreated back. The cane he held in his hand had already long disappeared; to where it went and when it had happened were unknown.
"You're pretty strong!" Winston exclaimed with a slightly crazed expression.
His hand retreated into the void and pulled out a large blue needle. The 'Cerulean Tide 2.0,' as he had named it.
"I haven't had the time to test this out. So I'll just use you as a test subject."
Kallavan punched at him again, blowing a thin line of pressurized air towards his body!
This time, however, Winston stood his ground and stabbed ahead with his new weapon.
"Ignition!"
An effervescence of shinsu fulminated in the air, triggering a large explosion. Winston who stood his ground was instantly evaporated into hundreds of fragments of thin paper!
"That was dangerous." A whisper sounded in Kallavan's ears. His eyes widened and he attacked with his elbow, hitting Winston right in the chest!
However, just like the previous one, this too disappeared into fragments of paper.
Kallavan grabbed one of the fragments and stared at it.
"What's wrong?" Winston said.
The Ignition doesn't compare to even a normal blow from him... though that's to be expected.
"It seems you have some tricks up your sleeve. What was that? A protection spell?"
"Hmm. Guess." Winston chuckled.
Kallavan didn't say anything, only getting into a stance.
"Not much of a talker are you?"
Seeing Kallavan ready to attack, Winston also prepared himself. However, just when he did so, a strange premonition welled up in his heart.
Danger!
His instincts screamed at him from all angles, telling him to leap into the spirit world lest he gets swallowed up by the strange power that would soon erupt!
And so, he did.
Boooooooom!
A tsunami of pure power, a flood of light that enveloped the entire sky within it appeared in the battlefield. The short island that Winston had sat down disappeared into the air, leaving behind not even the dust from a single rock!
The ocean for hundreds of meters to come evaporated instantly and the steam dispersed as soon as it formed!
Winston leapt out of the spirit world, his left arm completely gone and dripping blood.
That was...strange.
Winston mused as he looked towards the battlefield.
There it was, a gigantic sphere of blue, yellow and red light that swirled around and around, never extinguishing and only getting bigger.
The attack had come out of nowhere. Winston felt the premonition, yet he was just a slightest moment too late to react. Something he hadn't expected would happen. The attack had only grazed his hand, yet it took his arm all the same.
"What's wrong?" Kallavan's voice spoke from within the sphere. Slowly, he walked out and Winston observed his visage.
There was nothing that had changed about him, yet everything had at the same time.
He no longer felt to be someone whose blows he could avoid with little discomfort. Winston saw it. If he got close to him, he would be hit. There were no blindspots around him, nowhere he could approach from as if Kallavan had seen every movement known to man and leaned how to counter it.
But above all, the greatest threat he felt from him was from a strange flame like energy that emanated from inside him. It appeared at the top of his forehead, appearing like a third eye and powering his fists which blazed with blue energy.
What's that? Winston thought.
"Why aren't you smiling anymore?" Kallavan spoke, his monotonous voice ringing out in his ears.
At that moment, Winston realized he had subconsciously stopped smiling.
On the other hand, the stream chat was going absolutely ballistic. The speed was still just as fast. No one was able to tell what anyone was even saying anymore.
Khun Maschenny Jahad chuckled and kept her Yellow May back into the inventory. It was not needed anymore. Kallavan would take care of the irregular and bring fear and reverence among the masses about the power of Jahad.
Though it was still sad that she did not get to kill him herself. It was quite regretful.
Winston looked at his injury and shook his head. Slowly, shinsu droplets began to coalesce around his shoulder and transformed into a fully functioning appendage!
"That'll do, I guess." He said.
"Useless!" Kallavan's yell was accompanied by an explosion of shinsu.
"Essence of Bravery! Transcendent skill-" Winston's hair stood on edge as he prepared himself for the upcoming attack.
"Atomic Explosion!"
White. Pure boundless white overlapped his vision as he activated flaming jump. The explosion of shinsu, the properties of which he was still figuring out burned through towards him, even beyond the spirit world!
Winston's eyes shrank into needles. His entire body was enveloped by fire that soon turned into ash.
Right beside the Corps Commander, Winston appeared again.
"That's enough." He said.
Boom!
Whooosh!
Hundreds of baangs were thrown around, becoming a mesh of shinsu that closed in on their location. Kallavan began to pummel Winston with punches, most of which he parried with his weapon and shinsu reinforcement.
Winston had not needed to use shinsu reinforcement for a long time, using only his physical strength to pull through most situations.
In this situation however, he was forced to use both reinforcement and the Diffusion Boundary, lest he gets obliterated with a graze.
A flurry of attacks went by both of them as explosions and beams of light appeared all around.
"Shinsu skill-" Winston spoke, flicking his wrist and thrusting the needle towards Kallavan's throat.
"Beam of Light- Murderous Thorns!"
As his voice sounded, the beams of light all around, formed out of hundreds of baangs that had been given their own 'life', to free them of his conscious control, dashed towards them! Then, they expanded.
The beams of light exploded into bushes of thorns that shot towards the Corps Commander!
Clang!
The thousands of thorns that had sprouted from the attack embedded themselves on his skin. And though each and everyone of them failed to pierce it, they held him in place.
Kallavan narrowed his eyes slightly. But then, they widened in surprise.
Bzzzz!
"Shinsu Skill- Beam of Light" Winston directly appeared behind him, holding a gigantic lightning spear in his hand and taking a hauling stance.
Maschenny who was watching in the distance widened her eyes.
"That's..." She whispered.
"Wrath of Lightning!" Winston exclaimed and threw the lightning bolt in his hand. The lightning instantly expanded to an ungodly size, slamming right into Kallavan without resistance who did not even bother to dodge.
Winston smiled, having anticipated the reaction.
Fwoooooooossshhhh!
Crack!
Cracks of lightning littered the air as the shinsu disappeared and so did the water underneath.
Kallavan stood still for a moment, lightning arcs on his body, stunned by the attack.
"That's it." Winston smiled.
Kallavan activated the Essence of Bravery and instantly recovered. But just as he did, he felt his thoughts beginning to slow down.
What...is this... He thought. His joints instantly felt as if they had been bolted to stillness and it took an eternity to form any cohesive thoughts. Even the instinct of attack, one that had been drilled into his very core took all too long to activate.
"Gotcha." And the Devil whispered on his ears.
However, the strange condition was not to last.
Boom!
His Essence of Bravery, his strongest power had activated by itself and proven essential in blowing him up.
It had reset him to his previous state.
Bam!
Boom!
Without a second of delay, he punched out and destroyed Winston Heath another time, or at least trying to. Winston disappeared in place, leaving an after image and reappearing another hundred meters away.
"That's wasn't very nice."
"What was that? That definitely has to be a spell." Kallavan narrowed his eyes as he, for the first time since the fight started, felt a genuine threat.
"Guess."
He gnashed his teeth, and instantly, the essence of Bravery exploded out. But before he could react, Winston extended his hand and flicked his wrist.
Immediately, a time that was all too fast for Kallavan to react, a blue light flew from his body towards Winston and merged with his body.
Huh?
Kallavan felt something. Something missing.
He looked towards Winston, and what he saw shocked him.
There he stood, the irregular. But on his forehead, there burned a strange blue fire. He emanated a strange aura, one that made Kallavan sure he would be hit the moment he got too close. Or perhaps he would be hit in the next moment, without even having the need to be in range.
"Let's start from the top shall we?"
~~~
A/N: Like three of you managed to guess right, so congrats I guess. I wasn't going to write this chapter since I have a fever, but a deal's a deal.
Tell me your thoughts on the fight and throw some stones.
Cheers~