At speeds faster than the naked eye could trace, Nox and Balam collided. The ground below them cratered, as Nox's saber struck the blessed scepter of balam.
' That's no ordinary scepter' Nox leant back as the sharp tip of the scepter passed overhead, leaning back and placing his hand on the ground before kicking upwards in a sort of backflip, the tip of his boot slamming into the gargantuan Gungan's chin.
He bounced back up to his feet, leaping toward Balam who shook his head free of the tingling sensation running through his body.
His sabers scream roared, as e slashed left, right, horizontally in seemingly random directions. Yet each seemingly corresponded and followed the last. In the circular chamber where this staunch guard had stood for hundreds of thousands of years, Thunderous screeches echoed through the chamber. Old power blessed from the unknown collided with self-driven power.
One stood on religious belief that his foe was, but an avatar of darkness long forgotten, the other, the seeker of more than he should have been allowed to know.
Mad cackles resounded between the high pitch screeches of their weapons colliding, all the while Scyva stood at the side, recording everything for future study.
This wasn't some battle of Sith and Jedi, religious battles conducted through thinly veiled excuses. No it was a duel of force users who identified with neither but own beliefs. One who had never been, and another whose shackles had shattered.
Throwing his opponents scepter wide, Nox's offhand suddenly came forward, single finger pointing at Balam's face. Within a fraction of a second, conjured through nothing but hate given form, a red bolt lurched from Nox's extended finger in the blink of an eye. It stung the air as it sailed past Balam, whose head had moved out of the way. The red bolt travelled onwards to strike the bubble barrier as their duel continued. Old savage mastery met tailored and practiced blade strokes.
They danced around a small circle at the center of the room, using the force to enhance their capabilities. Despite the sheer strength displayed by the two, with the platform underneath cratering and warping like liquid butter, their strengths weren't equal.
Balam found that despite his strength, he could not force Nox's arm to waver no matter how much force a stroke of his scepter contained. Nox's water like movements circled the increasingly concerned Gungan, his black a vibrant flash of black light the Gungan was hard pressed to counter. Nox ducked a punch to the head, reaching up and winding his own arm around the Gungan's extended fist.
" You should understand it, feel it " Their battle seldom paused except for this very moment, as Nox rotated and hurled the warrior over his shoulder with strength his body shouldn't have, followed up by three separate bolts of superheated lightning that struck the flying Gungan before he crashed to the ground and rolled several meters.
" Your stagnation from standing here, guarding whatever it is you think important enough to stand sentinel for" Nox's approach was as slow as it was mocking, as the now very badly singed Gungan growled as he picked himself up from the floor.
" It truly is pathetic, allowing yourself to fall in such a way" He crossed the distance once more with a single bound, spinning and thrusting his blade at the Gungan's head.
Rolling away, Balam leapt up and swung his blessed scepter again, beginning a new furious exchange of blows that distorted the air around their movements.
" HAAAHAHAHAHA" Crackling joy burst from Nox's maw, enjoying the sheer disparity between their strength as it became increasingly clear the longer the duel extended on for " YOUR WEAKNESS IS MADE BY YOUR OWN FICKLE HANDS YOU PATHETIC CREATURE "
His booming laughter ruptured Balam's ears, a thunderclap exploding from Nox's mouth who continued to reign blow after blow down from all angles, bouncing around, leaping left and right, summersaulting overhead and swiping down at the Gungan's head which was blocked as Nox landed behind the towering beast.
Suddenly and without warning, Nox leapt out of reach of Balam's scepter, hands raising once more as thundering surged toward his fingertips. Sensing the buildup of power a fraction of a second before it was unleashed, Balam raised his blessed scepter up and imbued himself with a force shield in preparation of what was to come.
But nothing could have prepared him for what followed.
In a flash of white bright enough to blind, space bent shifted, threatening to be torn asunder as power unleashed surged from Nox's fingers in a barrage of released energy it was more a constant wave than any single bolt of red superheated lightning.
It struck his force barrier with the force of a crashing starship, driving his feet back several paces as the thunderous crack burst his eardrums. Spots of black blocked his vision as bolt after bolt caused his arm to waver. Even with his force shield, it gave minimal resistance as lash after lash struck him and his weapon, carving burning streaks of lightning into his skin. The shield lasted a single second before shattering entirely, his smooth skin blistering and burning as the lightning not only hurt him physically but seemed to sap the very strength and force from his body. Patches of skin charred and fell away. All the while his foe laughed, as his scepter fell away to the ground at his feet, his own screams echoing from his mouth.
He lost track of just how long he was forced to endure, seconds, minutes, time seemed to blur in the face of agony. Until finally it ceased, with the ground he knelt upon being almost entirely molten orange. His begging reached his ears even before he realized he spoke. His eyes trailing up the boots of the man who was now standing over him, looking down upon him in much the same manner the beautiful oma-oma had once done in her glistening splendor.
" You don't have to fear, pathetic creature. Just know, in your last moments, your act of guarding whatever is in that chamber, was nothing but an act of ultimate futility" Nox grabbed Balam by the head, as searing pain erupted within every sense of Balam's being.
Fingers sifted through his head, as his eyes became bloodshot, ears began to unleash a river of crimson, and his brain began to liquify. Nox tore every scene, every memory he had ever experienced, his very power.
Everything that Balam was, was being tore from his vessel and devoured, consumed by the dark creature that stood over him the victor.
And as the last memories of his earliest days were taken, his last hallowed screech of pain echoed throughout the chamber before he fell away to the ground one last time, dead.
..
' interesting ' As the flashes of foreign memories embedded deeply within his mind, Nox felt his brow thicken as amongst thousands of years of memories blurred together in a darkened sludge. One memory stood out. A woman draped in stars, glowing light as green as Scyva's lime-colored lenses, Stood, seemed to stare not at Balam, but through to his self.
" how ... interesting " He could hear her through the memory, even half a million years old, he could feel her looking upon him, into his eyes through time and space " when ... are you "
Not only was she seeing him, but for a moment, he felt as if his mind was not his own, as someone looked through his eyes into the room beyond before receding back into the memory.
" I don't know when you are, but I look forward to meeting you my child" With that Nox's was freed from his forcefully entranced state, stumbled back in what he felt to be abject terror.
Sweat ran down his brow as Scyva approached, confused at his sudden shift in demeanor.
" Let's ... let's go see what's in the next chamber, and then we need to go" He picked himself up and marched to the open chamber door at the opposite end of the room, seeing only one final chamber seemed to be at the far side of the temple.
That's right, this wasn't some long lost city, it was both a temple for the Gungan gods, and a prison.
A prison for what exactly, A single chalice of blackened liquid moving with life of its own, radiating decay and destruction as if it sought to consume the force itself.
He felt it reach out through the force the moment he approached, a powerful and near limitless wave of consciousness that wanted nothing more than to pierce his mind and take control. It was only with sheer instinct and reflex that Nox's fingers unleashed bolt after bolt of searing lightning on the chalice.
a terrible cry that shook the entire chamber erupted from the chalice, distorting the bubble barrier around, raking against Nox's mind before finally going silent as it burnt away into nothingness.
With a piercing headache, Nox shook his head, rubbing his brow while turning to Scyva.
" I would like to leave now " And so they departed for the surface, with nothing more swimming through Nox's mind that to discover exactly what the hell he had just almost been neutralized by.
' it seems, the galaxy has far greater depth than i initially realized' Momentary fear gave way to excitement. A new ladder to climb had been revealed, but before he even considered that, he needed to know just what he was about to put himself up against.
... CHAPTER COMPLETE...
I HOPE YOU GUYS ENJOYED THIS QUICK CHAPTER , LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU GUYS THOUGHT OR IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS FEEL FREE TO ASK , I LOVE HEARING YOUR FEEDBACK