As Zephyr walked, an ancient, viscous revulsion rose in his throat. That place smelled of stagnation. He remembered that feeling well... it was the weight of the Absolute.
"Order... order... ORDER!" he roared in frustration.
Zephyr reached out, and the ground responded to his command. One of those giant snakes, extensions of the hungry earth itself, shot like a whip toward the monastery and the monk guarding the gate. The snake hit an invisible barrier and, in a flash of impossible physics, was deflected to the side at twice its original speed.
Zephyr clenched his teeth, fury dilating his pupils. He stretched out both hands. Dozens of mud snakes and roots sprouted from the ground, converging on the monk. The old man, however, began to walk calmly. Each approaching attack seemed to hit an invisible corner of reality, sliding off the target like water on glass.
"An Akunoheya (A Room of Aku! [Japanese])..." hissed Zephyr.
He realized that the monk wasn't just defending; he had bent the space around him into a room of absolute order. Zephyr advanced, drawing his wooden staff from his sleeve. He became a blur of psychedelic light, colliding with the monk.
The first blow was deflected. Then Zephyr attacked from three hundred different angles in less than five seconds. The sound of the monk's staff deflecting was like that of a metal machine gun: Klin! Klin! Klin! Klin!
The monk remained impassive, deflecting each attack with mathematical precision. In one fluid motion, the old man captured the beam of light. The monk's hand closed around Zephyr's neck. Headbutt. Zephyr staggered, his brain banging against his skull. With no time to breathe, he was punched in the stomach, three times in the nose in quick succession, and a sharp elbow to the chin that exposed his throat.
The monk finished the sequence with the staff imbued with a golden aura right in the middle of his throat. The impact and pain acted as a trigger.
[Flashback]
A younger Zephyr is forced to kneel by figures in golden robes. A yellow seal is pressed against his forehead, burning his essence, attempting to "correct" his wild nature.
The monk gave no room for memory. "Art of the Staff: Yu Style. Three Additives," said the master.
What followed was an execution. In three seconds, Zephyr received three hundred blows from the staff, each focused on a different pressure point. The monk threw the staff into the air, grabbed Zephyr's arm, and pulled him violently toward him. Palm to chest.
The impact was an explosion of purifying energy that expelled the Dao from Zephyr's guts before hurling him like a rag doll into the darkness of the rain.
Thunder rumbled in the sky, but the sound of thunder was drowned out by Zephyr's dry laughter.
"That order... reminds me of the punishment of the Sentinels... hahaha!"
Zephyr slowly got to his feet, resting his hands on the soggy ground. Blood dripped from his mouth, staining the mud. He looked at the Monk with ancient hatred.
"It's you! My hunger... you put him to sleep, didn't you?!" he shouted, referring to the original Tyr.
The monk did not respond. His eyes, trained in the geometry of the Order, scanned the distance. He glanced at the mountain; the chaos up there was obvious. He realized: Zephyr's hands on the ground were not just resting; they were roots. Zephyr was absorbing the chaos of the mountain, draining the entropy of the Festival to rebuild himself in real time.
"I have to end this now," thought the old man.
The monk shot forward like a golden projectile. The earth beneath Zephyr rose like a seismic tsunami, a colossal hand of mud attempting to crush the master. The monk leaped, but Zephyr was already waiting for him with a straight punch to the face, sending him back to the ground with brutal force.
Zephyr gave no quarter. He began throwing wooden sticks from his sleeve, one after another. The monk dodged them with the precision of a clock hand, but the sticks came like a hail of bullets. The monk ran in circles around Zephyr, looking for the gap, the blind spot of that monstrosity.
Before he could react, the sticks that had missed their target glowed intensely. Explosion. Everything went white.
The monk appeared from above, breaking through the flash. He fell with a giant golden ethereal sphere in his hands, like an artificial sun.
"Ahhhhh!" roared the monk.
Zephyr reached out, attempting his absorption maneuver. THUD! Reality went negative for Zephyr. His biology rejected the attack. "Son of a bitch... I can't absorb it!"
BAM!
The impact was sharp and absolute. The shock cleared the rain from the area for a few seconds, creating a circular vacuum.
The monk landed, breathing heavily, feeling the weight of the years in his lungs. "Damn... I'm old." But the smile of satisfaction was there. "That guy is allergic to gold."
Zephyr rose again, but this time it was different. Traces of the golden Dao were etched into his gray skin like scars of light, weakening his connection to the ground. But to the monk's horror, the mark began to fade.
"As long as that chaos on the mountain continues, this guy will regenerate endlessly!" realized the monk, enveloping himself in an even denser golden aura. "His fighting skills are those of a Superior Master... if he were a normal being, he would have no chance against a Grand Master like me. But he doesn't break."
The Master Monk adjusted his posture. He struck the base of the staff on the ground one last time, and the sound was not a "klin," but a vibrational hum.
The golden rings, previously attached to the top of the staff, came loose. Instead of falling, they began to levitate and spin at breakneck speed around the monk's body. They were circles of pure gold, cutting through the air with mathematical precision, creating a sparkling force field that vaporized every drop of water before it could touch his skin.
The monk no longer looked like an old man; he was now the central axis of a gear.
"As long as those rings spin," thought Zephyr, composing himself, "I cannot touch the disorder if he is the very center of the Order."
The master looked at Zephyr through the rotating glow of the rings.
"Until dawn, creature," the monk declared. "Or until your essence dissipates."
"I have to hold out until morning... if the Festival doesn't end the world before then."