"What are you trying to hide?"
Abhi's words echoed throughout the endless space, shattering the false veil of a cooperative attitude between the two.
Nameless looked up to the sky, a subtle grin appearing on his face. His vision stayed unfocused, yet his words were straight to the point. "So you don't trust me, huh?"
Abhi didn't answer, nor did he move his piercing gaze. His right hand slowly but firmly clenched into a fist.
A few seconds passed, and he continued speaking uninterrupted. "Well, everything I said is true. All of that happened, and I was quite lucky indeed. Believing it or not is up to you."
Abhi shook his head with a dark grimace. "Oh, I certainly do believe what you said to be the truth."
He tilted his head slightly, looking at him from the side of his eye. "Then why do you think I am hiding something?"
"Because the most dreadful of the lies are hidden between the truth," he said while still lying flat on his back.
Nameless giggled a bit before saying, "Guess you caught me. Like they say, better to be a smart fella rather than a fart smella—"
Suddenly he moved, swiftly changing positions to swim directly at Abhi. Nameless was swimming at a completely inhuman speed, seemingly gliding on the ocean surface.
'I have to get him first, who knows what threat he has in store.'
...
Abhi widened his eyes at the swift soul approaching his body with malicious intent. He quickly switched from his position to float perpendicular to the ocean surface.
The distance between the two souls wasn't great, but even with the speed of a shark, Nameless needed a few seconds to cover the distance. He careened across the ocean, leaving rumbling splashes and ripples behind with every stroke. A murderous glint shone in his eyes.
...
Looking into the eyes of the approaching opponent, Abhi momentarily shuddered. But suddenly, his gaze and vision grew equally cold. His body let go of the tension and relaxed all his muscles. He closed his eyes and ignored the approaching danger, the freezing dark ocean waters, the eclipsed sun, and the world as a whole.
But as the moment passed, he opened his eyes, radiating the same glint as Nameless's. Abhi strongly clenched his fist and straightened his hand toward the enemy.
...
Nameless didn't let Abhi out of his sight for even a moment. He looked at the raised fist of the vibrant enemy, unfazed. But then shuddered after a noticeable change happened in the enemy's illusory soul body and the illusory fist pointed directly at him. He flinched hard enough to slow down for a moment before returning to top speed.
'I have to… I have to kick his neck to dust before he snaps mine.'
...
As Abhi aimed his fist toward the swiftly approaching opponent, something changed about his illusory soul body. His noticeably vibrant body quickly started to dim, and the vibrant light within flowed toward his fist like a liquid.
Abhi took a deep breath in and uttered a single word, "STOP!"
...
As soon as Nameless heard the commanding word, a chill ran through his illusory soul body. Yet, his murderous eyes did not change—only grew more intense.
He saw Abhi's entire body dim to the point it was as translucent as his own. But all of that light travelled to a single point: his fist. His fist was progressively becoming so bright that it seemed like a star had manifested in the enemy's hand.
...
Looking at the slightly dazed Nameless, Abhi said the same thing again, "For the last time. STOP!" This time, the words echoed throughout the dimension even harder.
Abhi contemplated for a second but then sighed heavily and opened his clenched fist. All the light accumulated from within his entire body erupted out of his fist. The light shot forward like a beam at the approaching opponent.
...
Nameless gritted his illusory teeth and looked up. The beam of light had instantly travelled directly a few meters above him. The light whirled and swirled in the air like a liquid, but in the next moment, it took a solid shape and form.
The light shaped itself into a literal 3D manifestation of the word "STOP!" Exclamation mark included!
The last thing Nameless saw was Abhi slamming down his illusory and now dim right hand into the water. As if reflecting it, the 3D light manifestation suddenly plunged down at great speed as well, hitting Nameless right in the back.
Nameless grimaced in pain as his limbs flew up. He submerged deep into the dark waters along with the Light Manifestation. His screams became muffled underwater.
...
"I was ready to talk, you idiot. We didn't have to drop down to this," Abhi said, breathing heavily. As a soul body, he didn't need to breathe. He was easily floating atop the dark water like a weightless object. But his soul body instinctually performed the reaction of breathing heavily to symbolize exhaustion.
He quickly calmed down and examined the depths of the water to look at the drowning stop sign—still clearly visible through dozens of meters of dark water. But suddenly, Abhi blinked, and then... his eyes widened.
...
As Nameless plummeted down the deep dark ocean, he tried his hardest to resist. Moving his body to shake off the Light Manifestation, making desperate yet useless attempts to levitate—nothing worked.
Seemingly, he gave up. His limbs flailed up, fluttering in the cold and wet descent. His entire body went limp and seemingly unconscious.
A few dozen seconds passed in tranquillity, with the only sound being the muffled noise of the displacing water.
Then suddenly, the white colour of Nameless's translucent soul body started to brighten. In the next moment, the speed of his descent to the ocean floor increased significantly, as if the new change to his body helped the Light Manifestation's task.
He slowly opened his eyes with newfound vitality. With a new and far more vibrant body, a confident grin appeared on his fluttering illusory lips.
'So, that's how you do it. If I focus on a desire to gain mass, I can extract the energy from somewhere deep within my soul and saturate it within my body. Being deep within the water certainly has its own benefits—it would've been far harder to realize the weight manipulation of my body if I was always just floating on the surface.'
The brimming light within his soul body swirled like a liquid and travelled toward the body's left side—instantly brightening it and dimming the right side. Nameless's soul body looked like two vertically cut pieces of two different beings: a bright and a dim one glued together.
The 3D Light Manifestation continued pushing down. But due to the sudden shift in weight between the two halves of the body, Nameless's soul body abruptly twisted and rotated—making the Light Manifestation slide off of it and start rotating itself while plummeting deeper into the depths of the dark ocean.
Nameless made good use of this opportunity and started swimming upward. As he did, the light within his soul body progressively dimmed to its previous translucent state.
The loss of energy made his body far lighter, and the buoyancy of the lighter body against the dark water helped the already swift Nameless get propelled upward even faster.
'LESS GOO!'
...
With widened eyes, Abhi watched this scene unfold over a hundred meters below the ocean's surface. He quickly flipped his arm and brought it up.
As if reflecting his movements, the 3D manifestation of Light—"STOP!"—followed. Moving at great speeds, it chased the ascending soul body of the opponent, but the opponent was faster.
...
With only a few meters of distance between himself and the Light Manifestation, Nameless reached the surface of the ocean.
Tearing apart the tranquil and still ocean surface, Nameless's face emerged. His eyes instantly locked onto Abhi, with a wide and sinister grin below.
Due to the momentum from ascending, Nameless flew even higher up, launching into the air—well, the airless space above the ocean surface.
'Only if I had enough time to get rid of this wetness, I could levitate and show this bastard what I am capable of!'
...
Abhi raised his right arm even higher. Finally, the Light Manifestation flew through the water and propelled into the air—towards Nameless.
Abhi locked eyes with Nameless, expecting to see a frown. To his surprise, the slowly cascading soul... laughed.
Feeling a chill run down his illusory spine, Abhi raised his hand even faster and directly pointed at his opponent. The Light Manifestation accelerated and flew toward Nameless with greater speed. However, the proceeding chain of events did not go as planned for Abhi.
Somehow Nameless simply stepped on the ascending Light Manifestation and used it as footing to launch himself further up into the air—in a particular direction—toward Abhi.
The action wasn't smooth, though. The impact from using the speeding Light Manifestation as a stepping stone jerked the nimble soul body so hard that countless drops of water shuddered off of him.
More so than that, Nameless launched himself in a way that his entire soul body spun around at an incredible speed as he flew higher up. Spinning made more drops of water get thrown off of him, causing him to leave a trail of shimmer droplets behind.
Abhi strained his neck to look up and silently watched the flying soul. A frown grew on his face as time flowed forward.
'What is that bastard trying to do?' he sighed and continued his train of thought. 'I know he used the Light Manifestation to propel himself, but still... Isn't he going a bit too high? Even if he excreted all energy from his body and made it as light and weightless as possible, this much ascension should not have been possible. What in the world is he planning to do?'
He called back his Light Manifestation just to be safe. The "STOP!" signs got disassembled, and the figments of light that remained—merged back into Abhi's right fist.
Nameless kept spinning and leaping higher and higher. As he reached near the peak of his leap, though, he closed his eyes. Soon light started accumulating within his soul body again, making himself heavier.
///
Abhi looked straight up and saw an abstract yet unforgettable sight.
An angelic silhouette of pure light floated at the zenith, shimmering raindrops falling from its graceful form, creating a trail of brilliance. Behind it lay an eerie backdrop: a circle of absolute darkness, encircled by a halo of crimson inferno.
The sight harmonised in contradiction so well that it left Abhi speechless. He felt unmovingly mesmerised yet unshakably scared.
'Is he... it's a he, right? Who cares? Is Nameless trying to go back into the damn moon portal of the eclipsed sun or what? What's he gonna achieve by escaping into the damn portal of the abyss? Did he lie about what existed on the other side of the portal? Did he know my abilities and planned all along to fool me into unknowingly helping him?
'No way! That plan would have too many variables for a person like him to go with it. Also, the story he told did sound true. I'm sure of it! He was only hiding some things, not lying. But then, what is he doing so high up, exactly above me near the portal?'
As these thoughts reverberated in Abhi's mind, his face paled—well, as much as a being almost entirely made of pure white light can pale.
'Is he trying to fall straight down on me?'
Fortunately, Abhi's suspicion turned out to be wrong. Nameless just went inside the moon portal and escaped into the abyss.
Or so he thought…
Before Abhi could even sigh in relief at the momentary delusion, the silhouette of Nameless careened out of the portal with tremendous speed.
Abhi looked up in horror as a hint of realisation reflected in his eyes.
'Fuck! This dude said it himself: if you force your way through the portal to get to the abyss, it will pull you back to the Nightmare Dimension with great force. He is CRAZY! He did not just use that thing as a trampoline to pounce at me. For fuck's sake!'
Looking at the approaching meteor of a kick he was about to receive straight to his neck, Abhi swam. He swam as fast as he could to get out of the range of the lethal attack. But the approaching opponent was just too fast and too accurate.
It just wasn't enough...
But just in the nick of time, his eyes sparked with an idea. He briefly glanced at his brilliant fist, then opened his hand to extract its light. He wanted to manifest a barrier—a wall.
But it was useless. A relatively smaller manifestation, such as the 3D "STOP!", took time to form. The time it took to form was minuscule, but in a critical situation like this—it felt like an eternity.
And the question was: even if he could form a complete wall and use it as a shield, would it still be enough to counter the lethal attack coming from the heavens, augmented by the illusory gravity of the portal? Who knows.
Abhi didn't have time for such dreams—or delusions. As his wall was forming, he looked up and saw the murderous smile of the soul without a name, just a second away from crushing him under his meteoric fall.
But before he could…
Abhi simply kicked the half-formed wall and used it as a platform to propel himself far farther than he could have travelled by swimming alone. Not just that—while swiftly slithering away, he pointed a fist at the approaching danger and rolled out it's middle finger.
A smirk appeared on Abhi's face.
As if reflecting its creator's actions, the light manifestation itself changed shape and, nearly instantly, grew a sharp spike on the top of its wall.
"Good luck kicking that, b*tch," Abhi's lips curved into a smug smile. He folded his hands behind his head and kept going backwards in the water.
He expressed a carefree pose to mock the loser—or so he thought.
Then something happened that defied logic so much, that Abhi simply refused to believe it.
Just before Nameless smashed into the spiked wall, he... he double-jumped.
As if an invisible trampoline had appeared between the spiked wall and Nameless's quickly descending soul body, Nameless's meteoric fall abruptly slowed down, then grew static, and finally sprung back up—towards Abhi.
Abhi's jaw metaphorically dropped to the floor—well ocean floor. Nameless looked at him with a devious grin and said, "You're not the only one who has a special ability, dipshit. Power of Levitation, baby!"
Even though Nameless lost most of his momentum due to the double jump, he still carried more than enough force in his kick to hurt Abhi really badly. And that's exactly what he was going to do.
Nameless flew in an arc after the double jump, bending his knee to release it at full force for a devastating stomp—onto Abhi's horrid face.
Before Abhi could even think about his next move, they came face-to-face, and it was as if time slowed down.
Nameless kicked as hard as he could, aiming to crush his enemy. But just before it landed, Abhi managed to take his crossed arms from behind his head to the front of his face. Attempting to block the devastating kick and reduce some of the damage.
Finally, their illusory soul bodies collided and then–
The world went white.