“I’ll wipe that cocky smirk off your damn face!” The Second Archon yells, their body becoming totally enveloped in golden energy that forms around them like plating, effectively creating armor on the spot, their gauntlets shaped like the claws of a beast.
“But you can’t even see my face.” One responds. “I can hear your damn smug tone!” With that, Two launches toward them, swiping with a golden claw. The First deftly ducks back from it, continuing to back away as more and more swipes are thrown… Not a single one landing.
Right as Two seems to have One cornered, the space around their claw shimmers for a moment and it's thrown totally off course, causing them to stumble.
“Lost your balance?” The First muses with a chuckle. “SHUT UP!” The Second screams in response, raising their other hand toward them as a sigil forms upon it. Moments later a beam of energy is unleashed, seemingly engulfing them. Much like last time though… When the energy would dissipate, The First would be entirely unharmed, space shimmering around them. Their blue eye glows brightly, only barely illuminating a smug smile beneath their obscured face. “I think that was a bit stronger than last time.” They say, raising their own hand to the Second Archon.
In an instant, they’re sent flying seemingly out of nowhere. They fly incomprehensibly far in the blink of an eye, entirely unable to react as another invisible blow rocks them, sending them flying to the side now. One suddenly appears above them, following their flight effortlessly. Two forms a golden barrier, only for them to be sent to the ground regardless, as if the barrier wasn’t even there. They bounce off the floor, coughing blood as their body struggles to hold itself together… Then a foot is planted against their head, pressing them back to the floor. In the next instant, One is standing beside them, hands in their pockets.
“Up up. I thought you’d perform better than this.” They say. Two slowly gets to their feet, staggering. They try to raise their hand toward them but in an instant, the space around it shimmers and the hand is shot off course, unleashing a beam into nothingness as the armor is blasted off of them, sent flying behind them as if it had been peeled off.
“Actually, I’d say this has been one of your worst performances… I haven’t even used my second Blessing.” The First Archon scoffs.
“Y-you what-?!” The Second Archon is cut off as the First’s other eye glows green. The next thing Two knows, they’re on the floor, their body battered and beaten. How utterly humiliating, they think… But soon, soon they will no longer have to stand for this humiliation! Once that boy has claimed the Zero Blade, and they can steal divinity for their own… They’ll be able to close the gap…
They’ll finally beat the only human in history to have earned Blessings from not just one, but two separate gods. The strongest human in history… Befitting of the First Archon.
The First snaps their fingers, and the walls of the Archon meeting room seem to reform, the two appearing right back where they had been initially. To all of the other Archons, barely a second had passed… But everyone there knows what just transpired. And, more importantly… Who won.
Without a word, the Second Archon presses the button on their medallion, disappearing from the meeting. And in that same moment, another flash of light reveals the Fourth Archon, who walks up to their chair scratching their head. “Damn bastard…”
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“About time you arrive.” The First says pointedly, sitting back down.
“Hey, it wasn’t my damn fault this time! I was busy sorting out the problems caused by a well known S-grade bounty hunter suddenly kicking the bucket!” The Fourth defends. “All cause of that damn whack jobs stupid experiment… Speaking of, where are they? They called this meeting right?”
The First nods. “They just left.”
“After getting put in their place.” Derlock adds, earning a few chuckles from the others. The Fourth grumbles… “Lemme guess, they were going off about their grand experiment or something again… What a stupid thing to call us here for.”
“He mentioned attaining godhood. This could be a revolutionary feat, should it follow through… I personally would much rather be kept updated on it, so I may make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.” The First says. The rest of the Archons whisper amongst each other for a minute, until the First stands.
“Regardless, I believe this meeting may now be adjourned. Goodbye.” With a flash of light, the First Archon is gone. The rest follow soon after, with only Derlock remaining. He flips his medallion around between his fingers, thinking. He can’t help but feel a little bad for Welnar… Just another pawn in the game of beings stronger than he could comprehend.
“Just keep pushing forward boy…” Derlock says out loud, before pressing the button on his medallion and disappearing.
…
Welnar swiftly blocks an elbow strike with his forearm, countering with a palm strike to the chest followed swiftly by an upwards kick to Charles’s chin, the two blows causing him to stagger and cough. “Hoo… You’re taking to this rather quickly…” He says to Welnar. He shrugs sheepishly in response.
“I guess I have a knack for this.” They end with the score 10-8 in Welnar’s favor… After sparring for the day is done, the head monk walks up to Welnar. “You’ve been assigned shovelling duty for today. You know where to find them by now I presume?” And he nods in response.
Welnar’s spent five days here now, at Glowrock Mountain alongside the monks… Honestly he’s starting to like them. Even if it seems like the head monk has been eager to assign him chores ever since he’s gotten here… Regardless, Welnar heads to a small shed, grabbing a simple metal shovel and getting to work. There was quite a bit of snow last night, and there’s still some left over from the morning shovelers.
In these five days though, Welnar has been hard at work at other things… He figured out that his scarlet shortsword allows him to open a pocket dimension, much like the one the Collector had. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have his armory… So chances are all the weapons he had in there are just gone. Welnar was kind of hoping to make a good amount of coin off of them…
Welnar has also figured out more of his mana’s capabilities. Or, more accurately… He’s properly learned what he had already done instinctually back then. Against the Collector, he had been overcharging his mana, rapidly increasing the flow of it through his body to increase his physical capabilities massively, even more than before… He decided to name this ability, which Monarch found a little silly.
Mana Charge. Welnar figured out that he can activate this in “stages” somewhat… Stage 1 of Mana Charge is a decent physical increase, with little drawbacks. Stage 2, even more physical power with a bit more damage to his body and drain on his mana… So on so forth.
Past stage 3, the damage on his body it caused became a fair bit more apparent. Monarch had a decent hypothesis…
“I think it has something to do with how ‘primal’ your mana is so to speak. It’s a lot more wild and destructive than most mana… When you push it throughout your body at such high speeds, it’s kind of like your mana is creating friction on your insides… Metaphorically speaking. The friction charges your body with power, but also corrodes it. The faster your mana flow, the stronger these effects… This ability could be quite dangerous Welnar. Be careful.” She said.
Welnar trusts her hypothesis, considering she can see mana much better than he ever could. And it makes sense… In a way.
He couldn’t bring himself to go past Stage 6 of his Mana Charge, where the damage really started to ramp up… But the sheer strength he felt was extraordinary. He felt like he could lift a whole house!
Besides all his testing of his abilities, Welnar has just been enjoying his time with the Glowrock monks… Learning their way of combat, mainly. Adding kicks to his repertoire will certainly be a nice way to mix things up. He’s already found his fists plenty serviceable though…
But there’s always been one thing burning in the back of his mind. Those three words… “Make them pay.” That’s the one thing he still hasn't managed to get anything about… What they mean. Who they came from.
Yet despite not knowing their origin or their full meaning, he feels motivated by them. He feels a need to push forward, for the next Heart… But… For now, he’s content staying and learning from these monks some more.
