NOVEL NEXT Chapter 93: Earth Meets Sky
It could not be said to be a duel.
True, there were only two effective combatants fighting, and the grounds they fought on were indeed those of an arena. There was even an Elder on site who could serve as the necessary arbiter. By those accounts, the battle could technically be defined as a duel.
Yet, only a deranged idiot would call it such.
Faced with the collision of such titanic might, no words could describe the battle. It was as if the rage of the earth had risen to assail the heavens themselves.
Jets of magma blew skywards, colliding with giant hands of pressurised air condensed into crushing fists and palms. Stray streams of fiery death and scything wind smashed into the stadium stands, forming pools of feasting fire or gorging out entire swathes of seats into devastated trenches.
What few of the audience who remained sought cover, employing their myriad Divine Arts — not for glorious martial purposes, but as desperate last-resorts to escape the accidental discharge or wayward blast from the brawling elemental giants. Had any of their standing been less than the Tempering Realm, they would have surely died by now.
More gales. More scythes. More whirlwinds. In never-ending numbers did the sky itself fall upon the giant molten beast. From the tiniest cuts to the most deliberating of slashes, wounds mounted upon the infernal furnace as the funereal wails of the floral woman lashed, aiming to destroy her opponents piecemeal by piecemeal.
Yet the volcanic beast was no mere prey to be idly slaughtered. Tendrils of cooled iron broke from the surface, smaller copies of the original maw beast. Long and sinuous, they whipped the snarling air with terrifying force, leaving clashing sparks and molten droplets in their path. The very air was assailed, weakening with each pass as the overwhelming heat distorted its ability to shape itself into lethal blades.
They appeared equally matched, for a time. The molten wyrm of iron and flames was terrifying to behold, but it had not landed a single wound on its petalled opponent, whose pale skin and golden flora remained pristine and unmarred.
Then, the volcanic beast spoke once more.
"Ahhh, that scent… Though I have no eyes, I recognised that gentle stench…" When the beast spoke, the entire stadium shook. Moreover, every soul — even the gathering crowd outside the arena — felt a feverish pain in their brains, the words infesting their minds like rusty nails. "A mother for kindly processions… I greet you, once-Goddess of the Funereal Whirlwinds."
A woman's voice, no less haunting or human, echoed in the winds. "Botulvorn…?"
"No. No longer." The guttural words of the Beast came out like a snarl, yet they almost felt kind. "I am… something less. Something more."
The winds faltered. The weight and heat of melting steel proved too much. The barrier of hardened gales broke. Fire and metal fell upon the giant form of the woman, spearing tendrils of crackling steel into her limbs and torso.
The tentacles pulsated and bulged with unsightly veins as they injected a heavy volume of molten rocks and iron into her flesh. Blackened sores soon erupted from her bulging skin, and though no scream or flinch of pain was witnessed, no one could miss her pain in the faltering winds.
"Divine strength has long left these lands…" the Beast growled, amused and excited. "Though we are but shadows of our former selves… Let us remind these humans… why our existence was once feared…"
The Beast's laugh was a haunting thing, heard by all in the stadium and beyond. "Try your best… not to expire too quickly…"
~~~
Jun woke up to the world ending.
There was the usual headache that came with using the [Headless Impure Resurrection]. The disorienting blend of spiritual imbalance and recovering mental faculties was highly unpleasant, doubly so when he had rushed the process in a bid to reduce the delay by even a single second. The desperation of the situation had demanded no less.
He did not regret it, but as the deafening sounds of roars ruptured his newly formed eyes and ears, Jun could not help but wonder if it might have been better to stay dead for a little longer.
"Get up!" Shao was screaming — though it was not fear that tinged her voice, but rather unadulterated excitement. "Open your eyes, Jun! Or you're going to miss it!"
"Gragharkk…," Jun croaked out. His body was in agony. His regeneration kept getting interrupted by sonic shockwaves and blistering heat. With great effort, he forced his turbulent qi to cycle, drawing forth a vast amount of ambient spirit energy from the air…
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Wait. The air… why was it so rich?
Jun opened his eyes and beheld madness.
Rather than one, there were now two titans occupying the arena. The giant woman was still there, though half of the flora wreath on her head was being savaged by clumps of melting iron beasts. Her body now bore multiple blackened sores, dripping ichors of thick, volcanic-like sludge.
Those wounds… They almost looked infected.
The other creature… Jun didn't know what it was. It held some passing semblance to a Plague Leech born of the Blighted Bog — the swarming tendrils and chimeric slug-snake body were a familiar nightmare he had once faced during his years of exile near the Purple Mountain — but the winged flesh-plates of obsidian fissures and half-casted rivers of metal were new.
Also, it was talking to the giant floral woman.
"This poison… A brew most infernal!" Its jovial laughter sent chills down Jun's spine. "My gifts… no longer cultured in rotting flesh… but forged in fiendish crucibles instead!"
"What… How?" Jun coughed, eyes transfixed on the sight before him.
"Your Young Master was hiding one hell of a surprise this entire time!" Shao laughed madly. The two — no, three, the unconscious Young Master was tucked under her arm — of them were no longer down in the glossy, heat-vitrified sands, but rather upon the destroyed stadium seats. "If I knew he had been packing away something like big, I might have asked for my lady's permission to take him for a ride! No wonder she's obsessed with him!"
"Can you… not," Jun wheezed. The superheated ash in the air affected his breathing, but while his lungs and nose suffered, his spiritual mediums were thriving. There was so much qi in the air that it was almost comparable to being in the presence of a putrefying corpse god.
"That's a Plague Leech, right? How did he even kill that thing anyway?" Shao loudly asked, her voice nearly drowned out as the volcanic beast slammed itself bodily against the giant floral woman. "Wasn't the last time the Young Master allowed into that shit-swamp when he was fourteen? And why can it talk? Your Sect summons don't do that, right?"
"I don't know, and I won't ask," Jun spoke through gritted teeth as another roar threatened to rattle his newly forged teeth out. "Just be glad we are alive… It looks like it's almost over…"
The giant woman's wounds were mounting. Its wind strikes were getting weaker, while its form appeared to be diminishing as the vomiting magma beast spewed and injected yet more molten sludge into its body.
Somehow, she still found the strength to speak.
"Traitor… Crow, Sanguivore, Minos… You had betrayed them all…" The woman's words were whispered in the winds, audible despite the screeching clash of metal against metal. There was no accusation in her tone, only neutral realisation.
"Betray?" the beast chuckled. "I merely remained loyal… to my mercenary nature."
"And yet… You, too, died with them, one thousand years ago…" This time, something that could have passed for sorrow made its way into her voice.
"True. A poor gambit, on my part. Such is oft the case…" The beast sighed, melting body bubbling in spurts of fire. "Minos was always a poor loser… He would not let me have my victory, even to his dying breath…"
The winds were finally dying. The screaming gales and razor winds gave one final, forlorn screech before they dissipated. The qi flooding from the giant woman was fading. "I'm tired…"
"Then rest." The volcanic form of the Beast, seeing its triumph, was also releasing the last of its qi. "The dead… should not have to exert themselves for the living."
"But my lost children…" Her voice, barely audible, spoke fearfully. "So small in their coffins… Who will guide them? The world outside… Too cruel…"
"... They will find their way. Humanity has no longer need of us…" The beast's voice was kind and forlorn. "Rather, they never had any need of us… We only ever barred their path…"
The body of the giant woman slumped. At once, her entire torso began degrading into the same starry black sludge that formed up her body. The golden bloom that made up her head dispersed into a thousand rising petals, floating away into the open sky in a river of floral blossoms.
The battle was over; the giant woman's existence reduced and destroyed by molten fire.
The beast, now void of an opponent, turned to face the trio.
Jun froze. Shao eagerly bounced forward, rapt with attention.
"Inform the child to summon me more often, if he can," the beast instructed merrily, its jovial tone at odds with its monstrous maw or rasping voice. "I am quite fond of this form… and of the novel brews I may craft… Who knew the Sword Saint's Divinity would pair so well with my own?"
"You can talk," Jun numbly said. "That should not be possible."
"Hmm… To quote a certain Devil…" It rumbled. "Who are you to know… all that exists beneath Heaven and Earth? Allow me to part with you… a line of worldly wisdom…"
Despite his fears, Jun's heart thumped in anticipation. Shao looked ready to burst into excitement.
The beast raised a dripping tendril… and pointed it at the Young Master.
"That one expired about two minutes ago from the stress. I suggest cutting off his head immediately to invoke the Crow… Lest that expiration becomes permanent."
With that, the fires of the beast winked out. Its entire body froze as the dripping magma of its form instantly cooled and solidified, leaving nothing behind but an enormous mass of metal and black rock.
Silence stretched for several seconds before Jun snapped out of his stupor and looked at the Young Master.
He was not breathing.
"You didn't notice he keeled over?!" Jun shouted in disbelief.
To the female disciple's credit, she immediately formed a clawed hand and lopped off the Young Master's head. Shao's expression was sheepish, even as her cheeks paled. "Might have been distracted… But still, better late than never?"
Jun's venomous tirade didn't stop even after Feng returned from his dreams to the land of the living.