Kayden ducked, barely dodging a vine that whipped past his head. He was sure his head would have gone rolling if that vibe had hit. He gulped slowly, understanding that things weren't going to be as easy as he thought they would be.
"You think it's that easy to get rid of me, The Blood Vine" Kayden heard from within the wraps of vines intertwined with each other, he turned and looked at Thane who had somehow managed to get up and found a safe spot to rest.
But he knew Thane wasn't safe for long, Kayden poured his essence into his feet, Increasing his base speed by threefold he shot himself forward towards a pillar, and as soon as he landed he jumped off again to another pillar.
The reason why he did this was simple, the vines follow the life energy that they sense and hunt it down, with Kayden releasing his base cultivation making his presence more dominant, he took the attention of Thane who had reduced his presence to almost nothing so he could circulate his essence to heal his internal injuries.
The vines barely kept up with his speed but they followed Kayden as he jumped from pillar to pillar, slowly he created a sort of web of vines, they completely covered the hall in their attempt to suck off the life force in Kayden, hundreds of vines shot out at him his every direction, Kayden had applied to a new skill to his arsenal.
By covering himself in his aura, he made it just so that anything that came close enough to disrupt the outer silhouette of his aura Alerted him immediately, making him dodge the numerous attacks that flew towards him, he couldn't avoid getting slashed and cutting in multiple places, but he was able to avoid any fatal attacks.
He looked at Thane once more, he hoped he had managed to heal a good portion of his wounds so they could retreat or think about something else to do, he looked back at the swarm of vines that had formed a web of vines throughout the entire hall.
What he had been waiting for had finally happened, he drew his blade covering it in the essence of lightning, he reduced the area of his essence around it, diminishing it to just about an inch from the surface of the blade, the aura itself rotated fast, insanely fast, fast enough to cut through steel as though it were tofu, Kayden set his eyes on the vines webbed across from him.
With the same application of lightning he had done to his sword, he did it to his body, this was the new skill he had learned but the drawback was that he couldn't maintain this skill for more than two seconds, but right now, two seconds of invulnerability was more than enough.
He took his stance, blade over his shoulder, his two hands tightened on its hilt, he saw the vines shooting forward towards him, sending the extremely concentrated aura surrounding his body, the speed and devastation it brought, these vines of Chaos were drawn towards it unknown to them, suddenly Kayden became a blur.
In a sense, he had lost his physical form, and in a sense, he hadn't. The vines shot through him but hit nothing but the wall behind Kayden, or at least that was what Thane had seen. In truth, Kayden had just become fast enough to create after images unknown to him. Such speed hadn't been witnessed in the Thunder Clan for at least a hundred years, and as such, the younger generation hadn't been able to witness such feats, all except Thane.
Kayden slashed his blade in a fraction of a millisecond, and the vines fell apart as though they were leaves. They burned and shrunk almost immediately as his blade touched them. He then looked towards the vines spread out across the room and moved with such precision and speed he had never known himself to harbor.
He weaved through the entirety of the hall, cutting and slashing at all the vines he could find, the more he swung his blades the more he felt the strain at his core, his peculiar core, he had known what he was doing was only possible because of the nature of his core.
He slashed through every lingering vine in the hall in less than a second, all Thane could see was a blue light, and suddenly, all the vines that his eyes could follow exploded in a flash of energy and fell to the floor, dead vines, dried of their strength.
Kayden charged up his essence even more, this was going to be his finishing move, this was the limit of what his body, soul, and unique core could handle, he bombarded the rotation of his essence into his sword many times over adding layers upon layers, he coughed blood as he did this but that couldn't stop him, it wouldn't.
He was within mere steps from the body of vines that clustered in the hall, his last attack, he poured everything into his, all his essence, strength, concentration and will, the length of his sword aura grew many times more, extending his reach to six feet from the hilt of his blade.
He planted his right foot on the ground and swung with his torso, with every morsel of strength his body could handle without breaking apart, he slashed at the clump of vines cleanly, the vines themselves weren't aware they had been cut, the building in which both Thane and Kayden stood in hadn't realized it had been severed clean in half.
For a moment time paused for Kayden as he slowly fell to the ground, he saw the ground moving up closer to him, or was he falling to it, he didn't know, he couldn't understand, a hand reached out to him, grabbing him by his collar, Kayden was limp, robbed of all his strength by that final attack, he felt a gentle tug as Thane pulled him away from the clump of vines back towards the wall.
"Aargh"
They both heard an inhumane screech from the depths of the vines, as though it came from someone within yet not it, a scream so feral and inhumane it made their ears bleed, suddenly Thane watched at the upper half of the hall began to slide off itself, as though it had been cut cross-sectionally in half and so was the cluster of vines, the top half of slid and fell off completely, turning into a bunch of dead vines, blackened and burnt, the same could be said about the lower half that still stayed implanted on the floorboard.
Thane stood up, leaving Kayden on the ground to rest, he had to know, to confirm if it was finally over, he walked as close as he dared to The Blood Vine and looked inside, but he couldn't find the body of Lyda, without a second thought he ran back in the direction he had come front, towards Kayden, he summoned a fireball by pooling his essence together and shot it towards the wooden wall just beside his friend.
The wall exploded in a torrent of splintered wood, Thane reached Kayden, listed him up as he would a baby, and jumped through the hole he had created in the wall, as soon as his feet landed on the cold know, he felt a certain rumbling, coming from the depths of the ground and he knew he was right.