The Astral soul system

The wind in the arena suddenly started swirling violently as Gary's aura skyrocketed.

Within seconds the entire arena was filled by a huge green swirling tornado.

"The kid's dead"

"Finally,i was getting annoyed by it taking so long"

"Finish this loser, Gary"

Zen tried his best to keep his balance. This wasn't exactly what he had in mind , but it went with his plan so he just rolled with it.

"Theia, equip wind spirit ring"

Zen suddenly felt like the wind was having much less of an effect on him.

He didn't have time to focus on feels, he had to act while he couldn't be seen.

He slowly manipulated the wind that forned the tornado,not to make it smaller, but bigger and damaging specific parts of the arena and even the area outside of it.

The crowd was going wild and so was the referee.

"Is this it? Has Gary storm finally did it?!"

The air was electric as the audience tried to protect themselves from the wild winds.

"This is insane!!!"

"I didn't know Gary was this strong!!"

The density of the tornado lessened,so although it was still there, the audience could see.

From the stadium, Gary's maniacal laughter could be heard as he cursed Zen to die.

"Hahahaha! Fuck you! Guess who's laughing now? You're a corpse now!!!"

The audience all started clapping for Gary's victory. Everyone truly believed Zen was defeated, even the referee.

"And now! The winner, Gary storm is -"

"Weak"

Zen stepped out of a dust cloud, looking unfazed.

Gary growled and formed a ball of wind, throwing it towards Zen.

This time, Zen didn't dodge and simply punched the wind ball, completely stopping all its momentum and destroying it.

Zen finally went on the offensive, dashing towards Gary.

Gary grit his teeth. A funnel of wind appeared around his arm like a mini cyclone. He swung his arm and like a whip the funnel of wind extended, swinging unnaturally towards Zen who jumped letting it pass him.

Gary created multiple more mini tornadoes and swung that at Zen, trying to slam him with them, but he just kept dodging and running, and whenever he used a wind ball, Zen would destroy it like it was nothing and keep coming.

"You useless fuck! Why won't you die?"

Zen no longer answered him. He no longer had any reason to. He had only entertained Gary before to provoke him, now, that wasn't necessary.

"You're just a useless piece of shit without an ability!"

Gary yelled and released another mini tornado when a black hand grabbed it as it left his hand before holding down his fist.

Gary's breath hitched in fear, not because his attack had been stopped, but because this wasn't Zen's hand... this wasn't even a human hand.

"No ability,huh? What if we change that?"

Zen had stopped running and was stretching his hand towards Zen while a group of dark tendrils popped out of the ground and formed a monstrous looking hand that was mimicking the way Zen held out his hand to hold down Gary's fist

A visible black aura was coming off his body as his eyes began to glow.

The crowd was going wild.

"The fuck is that?"

"I thought he didn't have an ability"

"Cheater!!!"

Jeers and boos erupted from every corner of the audience that was sure Zen was cheating.

Meanwhile, Maximilian and the others were having different reactions.

"Fuck yes! It's about time" Xavier fist pumped the air in celebration.

Neo sighed in relief.

"I was beginning to think he wanted to finish it without the ability"

Diane and Zaria were completely shocked while the others were just pleasantly celebrating.

"Wait...if he could do this,why do the whole back and forth"

Maximilian pointed upwards. I'm not completely sure, but his ability either relies on or is stronger in darkness.

Zaria and Diane looked up and realized that most of the the lights directly above the arena had been destroyed completely and the ones still functional were only barely working.

Zaria's mouth was agape for a few seconds before a smile appeared on her face.

"Looks like you have secrets you still have hidden from even me"

A mini tornado appeared on Gary's free arm and he tried to cut the black mass holding his hand, but before he could do anything more black tendrils appeared from under him and grabbed his other arm.

"Huh?"

A small explosion of wind escaped from his chest, knocking the arms away. He tried to attack Zen but he suddenly felt something grab his feet. He looked down and saw the rope like tendrils wrapping around his feet.

"You've already lost"

Before he could retaliate, Zen punched him with his full strength while using charge, sending him flying.

Gary hadn't even landed when another tendril grabbed him and threw him towards Zen who delivered another punch, slamming Gary into the ground.

Gary started shaking as he slowly tried to pull himself up.

"Stay down"

Zen said coldly before putting his foot on Gary's back.

"Fuck you!"

Gary threw another mini tornado at Zen and took the opportunity to escape before attacking with a windblade.

Gary's speed doubled multiple times as he tried to create distance. Zen followed close behind, his gaze focused on that string. Something about it ticked him off, like it wasn't supposed to be there, and perhaps it was his instincts as an Astral, but he felt like he could get rid of it.

A dark energy started to gather in his hand as he readied himself. Gary had had just about enough of this as he gathered all the wind he could.

A huge tornado that resembled a drill appeared above him and with a scream that came from his soul, Gary launched it towards Zen, gritting his teeth so hard they began to draw blood.

Zen looked up at the attack and decided to meet it head on.

All the shadow tendrils he had summoned started getting sucked towards his arm and as they did the black light grew brighter, and although Zen couldn't see it,there was a touch of gold at the center.

His mutated eye glowed, having been revealed due to all the wind.

Zen didn't know what he was doing or how he was doing it, but he felt like this was probably the right thing to do,so at the right moment, Zen released all that energy and what came of it looked like the hand of the devil himself.

A pitch black hand,five razor sharp claws all each the size of two humans, and a ghastly black and gold aura that came off of it.

Both forces clashed, and although they seemed even for a few seconds, this only lasted a few seconds before Gary's wind was completely destroyed and the hand kept on charging towards Gary despite him not being the target.

The hand clawed down, not just at Gary, but at the string that connected him and Celia.

The visible golden aura around the shadow hand suddenly solidified as it touched the string, ripping it to pieces while sending Gary flying.

Before Gary could touch the ground, Four black tendrils came out of the ground, each grabbing one of Gary's limbs and holding him in the air for all to see.

Zen looked at Gary's face and saw he was still conscious. The rules said that someone either had to be knocked out or be forced to surrender.

Gary was in no condition to take any more hits so he wasn't going to do anything to him physically, mental damage was a completely different area.

"You know,i don't even care about winning this" Zen said to no one.

He suddenly turned to face the audience before continuing.

"Sometimes it's just about sending a message"

From the ground at the edge of the arena, shadows started rising up to cover both Zen and Gary who was currently crucified.

The last thing the audience saw was Zen brushing his hair aside to reveal his right eye.

Zen looked at Gary who was still fighting to break free and activated soul bridge.

His right eye glowed in three colors as he infused astra into it . This was the attack he had worked on with Theia.

This was the first time Zen was going to willingly utilize the eye of the destroyer since what happened in his childhood, hopefully he hadn't gotten too out of practice.

***********

"What the fuck is he doing in there?"

"It's been almost a minute"

"Shouldn't they stop this?"

The dark barrier slowly fell and what everyone saw caused hearts to stop temporarily.

Gary was dropped on the ground by the tendrils but something was wrong, he was different. He was shouting to himself in the panic as he clutched his head.

"Please! No! Stay away,stay away!!!! Have mercy, please don't kill me!!! I'll do anything, just stay away!"

Gary fell to his knees, still constantly begging and shouting.

After about a minute of this, Gary fell unconscious, foaming at the mouth while still twitching in his sleep.

The crowd that had initially been booing and jeering immediately went silent.

Zen turned around and started to leave the arena without saying anything. On his way out he looked at the referee.

"Gary is unconscious so I win. Call it"

"What?" The referee seemed a bit distracted .

"I win"

"A-ah yes,of course. The winner is Zen!"

Unlike with Gary,the entire place was silent as everyone was too shocked to jeer or cheer.

"I can't believe it"

"What just happened?"

"The kid's a monster"

"What did he do to Gary? Someone go help him!"

"Did you notice his eye?"

"His eye?"

"Yeah that freaky eye of his. It looks inhuman "

Zen ignored the pointless chatter and left the arena with his default look.

At the exit, Zen saw the others already waiting for them.

"You might have gone a bit too far" Maximilian said, looking at Gary's body.

"Ah don't let Max kill the mood. He's fine, and you were awesome out there"

Jade looked curiously at Gary.

"Is he really okay?"

Neo brushed it off and nonchalantly replied.

"He's alive, can't ask for much more. That's already a mercy"

Zaria walked up to Zen slowly and with a sigh.

"You won"

"Was there ever a doubt?"

"Never...i just didn't know you were keeping more secrets. You're gonna have a lot of explaining to do to the academy "

"I'm prepared "

"Can we talk once this is all over?"

Zen nodded. He didn't see why not.

Zen suddenly received a notification saying he had just recieved a huge amount of money.

He checked the sender and looked at Maximilian wondering what this was for.

Maximilian waved dismissively.

"Just take it. Trust me, that isn't even up to half what I made betting it all on you"

Zen received a few more notifications from everyone else.

"Just take it "

"You earned it "

"You're basically won it for me, this is just your cut"

...

Zen didn't bother trying to be polite and kept it all.

"Great. Now let's go enjoy some rich people food, I'm starving"

Xavier seconded Neo's statement.

"Yeah,so glad we don't have to eat Max's gross food pills anymore"

They all started to leave, but Zen suddenly felt someone watching him. Looking out of the corner of his eye, Zen saw Celia looking at him from a distance, and disturbingly,she was smiling.

She slowly mouthed to Zen.

"It's you, you're the one who has it. Congratulations dear friend "

Zen mouthed back.

"Get anywhere near me and."

Zen didn't finish his sentence, but his glowing eyes made his intentions clear.

With that, Zen ignored her completely and joined the others.

'i wonder if Aurora saw that '

***************

Meanwhile, outside.

A regular looking man in a suit was running out of the mansion as quick as he could.

"This is impossible, how can one of us be here,not to mention he's using one of their powers. He could be a traitor. I have to inform -"

The man suddenly stopped as someone appeared in front of him, blocking his path.

"Inform who? Don't mind me, keep talking" Aurora coldly said, stepping closer to him.

"A human? And I thought it was something serious. Listen human, what's happening right now is beyond you and this whole charade, get out of my way and I may spare your life"

The man seemed tired of keeping his disguise and just tried to wave off Aurora like a child but she wouldn't back down.

"Human? Unbelievable, I'm supposed to be in there congratulating my student but here I am dealing with a crazy person.

The man exploded.

"Don't test me! This has nothing to do with your kind. Defy me and death will be the least of your worries "

Aurora didn't reply. She was done talking and simply summoned her huge great sword that was even larger than her.

The man, realizing the only way out was to kill her, started to change. He started getting taller and taller until he was about five meters tall, the color of his skin began to change to an azure blue and it suddenly looked like his skin itself was alive as pure energy visibly moved across the surface of his body. Finally, his shadow disappeared.

"This should be enough,no need for me to transform fully to deal with a human"

The man brandished his hand that now resembled the claw of a beast and a large amount of energy started to gather at his palm and in a matter of seconds forming a ball of energy larger than Zen had ever created. Speaking of Zen,if he was here, he'd easily recognize this as soul gun.

Aurora tilted her head slightly in curiosity, similar to how Zen would. She gripped the hilt of her sword tighter, and suddenly disappeared from where she was standing.

The man suddenly stopped. His eyes lost focus and he fell to his knees. The ball of energy in his hand slowly started getting smaller until it disappeared completely.

"I... impossible"

Aurora stood behind the man,a strange crystalline object in her hand.

"This is your heart? It looks like a beast core"

The top half of the man's body suddenly slid off the rest cleanly, staining the ground in blood.

Aurora lost interest in the man, scrutinizing the core shaped to look like a human heart in her hand.

"Was he maybe telling the truth about not being human. Guess I should've probably kept him alive then. The rewards for alien species is insane, but that's only because their so rare after the arcade almost caused all the other sentient races to go extinct "

Thinking she had just killed some random alien, Aurora turned around to examine the corpse. Maybe she could still get the reward if she took the body back, but as she turned around, the man's body was gone. All the was left were the bloodstains on her sword and on the floor.

"There's no way he survived that, I'm sure i killed him"

Aurora looked at the resplendent crystalline heart in her hand and wondered what happened.

With a shrug she kept the heart in her pocket after cleaning it and started walking off.

"I should probably get someone to get rid of the blood... but that's not important,i want to see how he's doing.