The Telgradian had seen a lot of Elijah in this conflict. He had seen bursts of magical flames laying waste to everything they touched. He had witnessed the warrior carry himself great distances at unfathomable speeds. He had watched in awe as the beautiful marble underneath Shinsou’s very feet that made up this ancient Telgradian building cracked and shattered under the force of Elijah’s conjurings.
Now, however, the deceptively frail, gaunt looking Nanashi had entered the fray, and his counterattack was far more furious than Shinsou was expecting for a man of his apparent conflict-shy disposition. His opponent’s eyes were searing underneath the rims of his spectacles as he blasted a raging fireball directly at the Elijah-bound table and smashed it into a cloud of fiery, jagged wooden shrapnel. The world to the front of Shinsou was suddenly covered in a blanket of flaming timber hail, and all Shinsou could do was jump hard to his right to avoid the coming storm. He dodged the initial blast with athleticism, looking back to the relentless Nanashi, before realising that five other smaller white-hot flaming spheres were screaming towards his legs, incinerating everything around them.
Shit!
There were people in the world who often crossed the road and looked the wrong way and, before they knew it, a charging horse would be upon them. So, what would those people do? They freeze, and their life wouldn’t flash before their eyes because they are too fucking scared to think. They would just just freeze, and pull a stupid face. Unfortunately for the Telgradian, unlike Elite Optic, he was made of meat and bone, and he was no more capable of dodging those fireballs than any of the other stupid bastards caught in the road would be of escaping the trample of those charging horses. So, he did the only thing he could do.
He froze, and pulled a stupid face.
The volley of projectiles smashed with a violent intent into the marble mere centimetres in front of Shinsou’s rooted legs. The sheet of rock exploded in great orange embers, spraying volumes of white hot ash towards him and pulverising the tarnished floor into liquid magma. This time, the Telgradian was slow, and an upwards splash the size a fist landed low on his left foot. Shinsou flailed and pushed himself back as though some secondary force was coming from the ground behind him. The pain was agonising as he felt the leather of his boots burn to a crisp and then immediately feel as if they were fusing to his skin. With his remaining foot, Shinsou kicked hard at the heel of his left boot, knocking it clear. With it, a nine inch strip of seared flesh tore from Shinsou’s foot.
The scream of agony was lost in the chaos behind him. Nanashi, his goal achieved of slowing the Telgradian down, was already past him and preparing to attack Elite Optic. Desperately, Shinsou scanned about for any sort of plan. The world around him seemed to be blurring into a sickly haze, like an oil painting ruined by a water spillage. His joints ached where some of the wooden shrapnel had struck him and where he had impacted the cold, hard floor as he had dodged. Refuge, rescue, or relief from the pain of his burning wound was urgently needed, but none looked promising. Blood flowed in crimson torrents from his foot, dripping down his charred skin and forking down the front of his almost exposed metatarsal.
He could only think to do one thing with what power remained in his body. Dismissing his ineffective Enpera Suigetsu by mental command, Shinsou managed, slowly, to push himself onto all fours. His breath was laboured to the point of almost choking and his strength felt sapped from the temperature of the building and his nine inch wound, but eventually the Telgradian staggered to his feet, swaying like a rubber man before eventually steadying himself on two feet. His first steps were slow and small. He looked down to his right hand to see Enpera still somehow locked in his soot smothered grip.
This is it, my last chance. I’m going to put everything into this.
Shinsou closed his eyes, his cheeks red and searing and his eyes jaded and watering from the pain he was in. He raised Enpera, and slashed it across the air in front of him.
”Senkai Shinjitsu: Enpera Kurohitsugi!”
As Shinsou wobbled on the broken floor beneath him, a wall of air behind him began to shimmer like the reflection of the moon on a lake at night. Forking tendrils of black and purple convulsed and converged around each other to form a fifteen foot wide circular portal of black and purple energy. There was a crackling sound as the strange, phantom like mist of the void met the humid, uncomfortable atmosphere of the arena-cum-oven, the chemicals in the Citadel’s magic reacting violently and repulsing that of the void, but then in an instant the gateway was stable. Protruding from the abyss of darkness were fifteen thin, dangerous spears of dark matter, eight aimed at the hazy form of Nanashi in front of Shinsou’s eyes and the other seven pointed in a wide arc at Elijah. They all hung there with an ethereal hum as they waited for the order to attack.
Without even having to motion, Shinsou commanded the assault with everything he had. They shot out of the portal and wildly tore towards their intended recipient, forks of blue and purple electricity ripping at the seared air around them and scorching the surface of the remaining unscathed white marble floor beneath them as they travelled. Shinsou features were gaunt and frail, almost as if something had leeched the life from his body, and his chest rose and fell harshly. With his most powerful attack draining him of energy, the former emperor’s balance failed him. Shinsou’s already damaged foot gave way and sent him crashing to the floor, belly down.
Is this the end?
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