BOOM
That was the sound that echoed through the entire arena like a crack of thunder. The ground beneath Cassian's feet exploded,Dust and debris shot into the air. The force of his launch was so powerful that it left a crater where he had been standing just a fraction of a second ago.
And then he was gone.Not gone in the sense of disappearing, but gone in the sense that the human eye could barely track him anymore. He moved so fast that he became a blur. A streak of yellow light shooting across the battlefield.
Within seconds, he had closed the distance between himself and Kai, kai who was still walking forward, Like he was taking a casual stroll through a park. His bandaged eyes faced forward. His hands hung loosely at his sides. He didn't seem to care that Cassian was charging at him with the speed and force of a freight train.
Cassian stretched out his hands as he reached Kai. And then he punched one,His fist shot forward like a piston.Two another punch it was faster and harder,three it was another,And then it became a storm.
Hundreds of punches, All happening simultaneously all at once. His fists moved so fast they became invisible. The air around him felt it. Each punch carried enough force to shatter steel, even to break bones.
The sound was like a machine gun going off on rapid relentless unstoppable mood.
But Kai didn't bother as each punch came toward him, something else appeared.Paper walls they materialized out of thin air, forming instantly between Cassian's fists and Kai's body. Each wall was perfectly positioned. Perfectly timed, they caught every single punch without fail.
Cassian's fists slammed into the walls over and over again. But they didn't break. They didn't crack. They didn't even bend. They just absorbed the impact like it was nothing.
It was the same result as before. No matter how many times Cassian attacked. No matter how hard he hit. The walls were always there always protecting Kai.
Cassian bite his teeth. His arms were starting to ache. His breathing was getting heavier he couldn't keep this up forever.
He leaped backwards, his feet skidding across the dirt as he landed several feet away. He was breathing hard now really hard. His chest heaved up and down. Sweat poured down his face, dripping onto the ground which evaporated,His body was shining with yellow essence energy, but he could feel it draining real Fast.
"I've sacrificed a lot for this," Cassian said to himself. His voice was quiet it was almost a whisper, But there was frustration in it and anger.
He looked at Kai, who was still walking forward like nothing had happened. Like Cassian hadn't just thrown hundreds of punches at him.
"And yet I can't seem to get through those walls that are manifesting," Cassian continued, clenching his fists now . "How do I bypass those? How do I"
His thoughts were interrupted by a sound, a beep It came from his wrist from his Chrono Gauge,Cassian looked down and what he saw made his heart sink.
[Chrono Gauge: Critical Alert Cassian]
[Health Point Deterioration Detected]
[Current HP: 60]
[Draining…]
[60 > 59]
[59 > 58]
[58 > 57]
[Warning: Mad Titan Technique Side Effect Active]
[Essence Flow Overload Detected]
[Body Strain: Extreme]
[Time Remaining Until Critical Failure: Unknown]
Cassian's eyes widened but he wasn't surprised,His health was dropping on its own. Every second that passed, another point disappeared. The Mad Titan Technique was eating him alive from the inside. His body couldn't handle the strain. The overload was too much.
He needed to finish this fight. Now before his health reached zero. Before his body gave out completely.He had no choice.He took a deep breath pushed the pain aside. Pushed the fear aside and then he moved, but this time, he did something different.
He didn't charge straight at Kai. Instead, he started running in a circle around him. His feet pounded against the ground in a steady motion. Faster and faster, each he step took kicked up dust and dirt.
He circled Kai once, then twice,then three times. His speed increased with each lap. Soon, he was moving so fast that his body became a blur. A streak of yellow light circling around Kai in a perfect ring.
And then something incredible happened, after images appeared,copies of cassian himself. Perfect duplicates created by his sheer speed. They formed one after another, filling the circle around Kai. Ten copies, Twenty, Thirty, Forty more and more until it looked like there were dozens of Cassians all running at the same time.
It was impossible to tell which one was real.The crowd gasped. People leaned forward in their seats. This was something they had never seen before. Cassian kept circling the dusty cloud grew thicker, swirling around both him and Kai like a tornado. The after images blurred together, creating a wall of motion it was a ring of confusion.
And then, one of the after images broke formation, It charged at Kai from the left. Its fist pulled back, it was ready to punch.Kai's auto defense reacted instant a paper wall appeared. But just before the after image's punch connected, it vanished. It reverted back into the circle, disappeared into the swarm.
Then another after image broke formation. This time from the right another punch aimed at Kai's head and another paper wall appeared.But again, the after image vanished before impact.
And again and again and again,The after images kept breaking formation. Kept attacking, Kept disappearing. Some sent punches, Some sent kicks, Some feinted left,Some feinted right, It was pure chaos.
Kai's paper walls kept manifesting. But they were appearing in the wrong places too slow now too late. The auto defense system couldn't keep up. It couldn't track which Cassian was real. It couldn't predict where the next attack would come from.
Kai's vision was destabilized. His normally perfect reaction time was failing. The after images were moving too fast, There were too many of them. For the first time since the fight began, Kai's defense had a weakness and cassian saw it.
The real Cassian broke through the cloud from the right side. Not with his fist this time. He jumped into the air, twisting his body mid flight and he rammed both of his feet directly into Kai's face with every ounce of strength he had left, the kick connected, the sound was like a gunshot, the impact sent Kai flying. His body shot backward like a rocket, propelled by the sheer force of the assault, He flew across the arena, his body spinning through the air twenty feet. t hirty feet,And then he hit the wall.
The collision was catastrophic. Kai's body slammed into the stone wall with such force that the entire section exploded. Bricks shattered dust erupted into the air. The wall crumbled and collapsed, burying Kai under a mountain of rubble.
The entire arena shook from the impact,Cassian landed back on the ground. His legs were shaking, his breathing was heavy as well. Sweat dripped from his face like rain, His body screamed in pain every muscle ached,Every bone felt like it was on fire.
But he was smiling, a wide grin,a genuine smile it was
"Yes" Cassian shouted, raising his fist into the air. "I got him"
His voice was loud and filled with excitement.
"I knew it" he continued, his chest heaving. "I knew that his auto protector is capable of tracking any living thing with movement. So I overwhelmed it, I created so many after images that the walls couldn't tell what was real and what was fake. I made it fail"
He stared at the pile of rubble where Kai was buried, His smile widened.
"Now all I have to do is finish this."
The crowd erupted. People jumped to their feet. Some screamed others clapped wildly. The energy in the arena was electric.One man turned to the person sitting next to him, his eyes wide with excitement. "Did you see that? I mean Cassian is unbelievable"
The other person nodded frantically. "Yes Yes, he is,I thought the kid was untouchable, I thought no one could land a hit on him!"
"Me too, But Cassian found a way,He actually found a fucking way"
All around the arena, conversations like this were happening. Everyone was buzzing with excitement. This was exactly the kind of fight they came to see.
Up in the commentator's box, the commentator grabbed his microphone with both hands. His voice exploded through the speakers, shaking with excitement.
"INCREDIBLE,ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE,CASSIAN HAS DONE IT,HE FOUND THE OPENING,HE OUTSMARTED KAI'S AUTO DEFENSE, HE USED AFTER IMAGES TO CREATE CONFUSION,TO OVERWHELM THE SYSTEM, AND HE LANDED A DEVASTATING BLOW"
He paused, catching his breath. His hands were trembling.
"THE WALLS ARE DOWN,KAI IS BURIED UNDER THE RUBBLE,IS THIS THE END? HAS CASSIAN DONE THE IMPOSSIBLE? HAS HE DEFEATED THE BOY WITH THE FORBIDDEN LIBRARY?"
The crowd roared in response, some cheering and chanting,screaming Cassian's name.
But then, as the excitement reached its peak, something changed.The air grew cold, it was heavy, like someone had sucked all the warmth out of the arena.
The cheering began to die down. People stopped clapping. They looked around, confused.And then they felt it, a presence it was dark and overwhelming.
From the pile of rubble where Kai was buried, a massive dark aura erupted. It burst outward like an explosion, spreading across the entire arena in a wave. The air itself seemed to darken. The light around reduced.Everyone felt it, the fear , the dread. The overwhelming sense that something dangerous was waking up.
Even Cassian felt it. His smile faded. His body tensed. His instincts screamed at him. They told him to run. To get as far away as possible, but he couldn't move. His legs wouldn't obey, he just stood there, frozen, staring at the rubble.
Up in the royal stand, Lucian leaned forward slightly. A small smile played at the corner of his lips. He took a sip from the glass in his hand and chuckled softly.
"He's an interesting kid," Lucian said, his voice calm and amused, Down below, something began to happen.