Rivers of the Night

As the blade fell from above, it felt to Raan as though he was stuck in some sort of dream. He never believed that such a thing could happen, because it didn't make any sense.

A Quasi Gold Mancer pushing him to this point, suffocating him to this extent?

Why could Theron seem to use his Laws endlessly? Where was the fatigue? Where was the weight on his soul? Where was the cost? What was ahppening here?

If he let that blade of water cut him in half, he would truly be finished. He would never reach the Divine Realm, he would never climb up the ranks of the list and prove why he deserved to be ranked much higher, he would never be able to achieve his dreams as sit as Emperor of the Tyre Imperial Clan.

Raan's eyes flashed with a deep, reddened light. His hair danced and the ribbons of red that coated him in an illusory glow, his Echo amongst Echoes, flashed.

All of a sudden, they extended from his body.

Since Theron was pushing him to this extent, he would just have to treat this like a true life and death battle. And maybe, he should have treated it like this from the very start.

He was no Gold Mancer and this was no Silver Mancer. He was no prince and this was no commoner.

They were two cultivators, each with their own goals, their own aspirations, their own lust for blood and victory.

Trying to hold back for the sake of his face, the sake of his stamina, the unwillingness to push himself beyond the brink…

That wasn't like him.

That wasn't Raan Tyre.

Raan unleashed a roar that shook from the very core of his diaphragm. The ribbons of red around him exploded with life, forming long streams that seemed to connect with the skies.

Raan's actual size didn't change, but it felt like he had grown larger than life, his Laws exploding out from within him.

There seemed to be more than a dozen, but what was more shocking was that they worked together so seamlessly that it was difficult to tell the exact number, as though they were teetering on the very edge of fusing into one.

Streams of crimson fell from above, layering atop of one another in illusory and reality. Their attacks sometimes fused, sometimes vanished, and sometimes did neither, standing in silence as though to wait for Theron to make just the slightest hint of a mistake.

Raan slashed out with two claws, meeting Theron's blade from below.

Sparks flew and his claws ground and shook. His toes curled and their claws pierced into the ground, shattering the land and forming a crater as he was pressed down.

And then his counter attack began.

When he decided that he didn't care about anything other than victory, he truly forgot about everything else.

All he wanted was Theron's head.

Theron flipped through the skies, a bit shocked that his blow had been blocked, but not enough for it to change his heart rate or the expression on his face.

There was a deathly stillness in his eyes, but he had only just landed on the ground when Raan was already before him.

The ribbons that coated Raan's body seemed to be absorbing the sunlight, streams of Light Mana pouring in as though he was some sort of plant. With a single flicker, one of them wrapped around a tree and sent him propelling forward as though he was on a highway of light.

It hardly felt like he was just a LIght Mancer anymore. The way the Mana Control, the Laws, and the Spells were melding into one made it difficult even for Theron's mind to keep up.

How did a Light Mancer before this of all things?

But the time was too limited to think. Raan was already before him, his body streaming into one combination after another.

Fists, sweeping kicks. Claw strikes and descended chops. He didnt' seem to have a martial arts style, because he had consumed them all.

He was well and truly like a sponge, absorbing everything that came his way and reflecting it back to the world.

BOOM!

A heavy strike landed on the top of Theron's shoulder and he felt like his collarbone would have shattered beneath the pressure if not for his inner armor.

But he was still pushed down to a knee, a second swift kick coming for the side of his head.

He hurried to blow and he felt his forearms cracks until the pressure, his grip on his weapons loosening for just a moment before his eyes flashed and his grip tightened once again.

He sprawled across the ground so fast that his shoulder, then back, then backside ground up dirt and grass.

Slamming a palm against the ground, he pushed him himself upright for only long enough to see Raan swinging from the clouds above and descending like a monkey from a tree.

His ribbons only reached up higher and though it wasn't true flight, in a battle like this one it might as well have been.

Streams of steaming heat came from Raan's lips as he roared again. He spun in the air, leading with his heel as he became a spinning wheel of sharp gold.

Like a guillotine descending from the skies above, he cut through the air, the Mana, the savage winds, his heel appearing right about Theron's head in a flash of unbridled brillance.

In that instant, all of the ribbons, all of the other Light Mana, even the destruction itself seemed to vanish.

Raan was putting it all into this one, singular attack, leaving it all out on the battlefield.

He poured his very heart and soul into this strike, the pounding pressure of his blod against his skull being a reminder that he was alive, that this was what he cultivated for.

The gap was overwhelming. If not for a difference in stamina, had Raan fought like this from the very start, it would have been obvious who was the superior between the two.

And then the attack fell.