The western outskirts of the capital turned into an absolute, rain-soaked arena of raw violence. On one side, the Crimson Card was locked in a world-shattering duel against the Blood Tyrant. But on the opposite side of the battlefield, a different kind of horror was unfolding. The storm howled, casting dark shadows over the mud where Grand Commander Kenon stood tall, his body violently shaking as the newly consumed flesh of Ruken's fallen arm began to aggressively alter his biological structure.
“Are you completely out of your mind, Kenon?!” Kiro shouted over the roaring wind, his deep voice cracking with a mixture of rage and ancient grief. “Look at yourself! Eating Ruken’s hand took absolutely everything from me twelve years ago! It fractured my mind, stole my humanity, and turned me into a rotting monster! It will destroy you exactly the same way!”
Kenon lifted his face toward the dark sky. He let out a low, chilling chuckle that rapidly twisted into a loud, manic laugh. He looked at Kiro, his blood-red hair matted against his skull, smiling like a literal underworld devil.
“I am feeling perfectly fine, Kiro...” Kenon whispered, his crimson hairs glowing with an unstable, blinding light. “No... actually, I am feeling absolutely great!”
With a sudden, violent crunch of bone, Kenon picked up his fallen steel sword using his newly mutated right limb. The parasitic black tendrils of the Tyrant's flesh aggressively wrapped around the hilt, fusing his skin directly to the metal grip. He swung the massive blade effortlessly, cutting a clean horizontal line through the torrential rain.
“Kiro... with this unweighted strength, I can finally become the true, absolute commander of the Blood Kingdom's knights!” Kenon shrieked, his voice vibrating with a terrifying dual resonance. He stared down at the gleaming edge of his weapon, his expression turning completely hollow. “No... I will only be the true commander once I have completely sliced down and surpassed the previous one. I will surpass you, Kiro!”
“Stop this madness right now!” Kiro roared, taking a solid military stance on the slippery cobblestones. “The power of that flesh is a curse!”
“No, it hasn't taken a single damn thing from you!” Kenon screamed back, his restraint completely snapping as he advanced with heavy, ground-cracking footsteps. “It was entirely your own fault that everything slipped from your fingers twelve years ago! If only you could have adapted to the environment, you would have been standing right here by our side! If you hadn't abandoned our sacred revolution just to hold a royal princess’s hand, things would have been perfect! The three of us... me, you, and Ruken... we would have been together until the very end!”
Kiro’s empty eyes remained bone-dry, but his chest heaved with a profound bitterness. “Does launching a continental war with absolutely zero reason mean adapting to you, Kenon? Look at the slaughter around us!”
“Zero reason?!” Kenon’s face contorted into a mask of pure, freezing venom. “Those empire peasants are devout followers of the Sacred Soul! They worship the very church that destroyed our lives! They framed us, hunted us, and executed our innocence! They all deserve to burn!”
“If you slaughter them, the church will simply find another group of followers tomorrow!” Kiro reasoned, his monstrous right arm subtly expanding as he prepared for the inevitable collision.
“Then we will march to their borders and destroy those new followers as well!” Kenon roared.
Kiro’s expression completely hardened in the dark storm. He looked at the unstable, jagged mana radiating from his brother and realized the tragic truth. He is way past the point of understanding anything. The parasitic power of Ruken’s flesh has completely destroyed his thinking. I have no choice left. I have to fight.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
Without a single word of warning, Kenon vanished from his position. He traveled with an explosive velocity, re-materializing directly in front of Kiro’s face. His mutated right arm swelled to twice its original size, launching a brutal, vertical downward strike meant to split Kiro’s torso in half.
The physical weight of that mana was catastrophic. Kiro didn't dare to block it head-on with his unweighted frame. Shifting his center of gravity, Kiro executed a rapid, low-angle slide beneath the trajectory of the blade.
The broadsword missed Kiro by a fraction of an inch, smashing squarely into the cemented ground. The sheer kinetic impact thunderously tore through the perimeter, causing the entire courtyard to explode. Chunks of concrete and sharp stone shrubbery flew into the air like lethal shrapnel, completely obliterating the surrounding warehouse fences.
Before Kiro could even reset his footing in the mud, Kenon aggressively rotated his torso, using his left leg to unleash a magic-reinforced sweep. Kiro crossed his monstrous, right arm to intercept the blow.
CRACK.
The concussive feedback violently launched Kiro backward across the courtyard. His heavy boots skidded through the wet dirt for several meters, carving deep trenches into the earth before he could successfully stop his momentum. A sharp, burning sting shot through his arm channels. The raw output of Kenon's strength was completely unnatural—by forcing the Tyrant's flesh into his unmutated body, Kenon was operating at a level of physical destruction that was nearly three times greater than a standard Chosen Stone.
“What’s the matter, Grand Commander?!” Kenon laughed maniacally, sprinting through the pouring rain like a feral apex predator, his blade trailing arcs of red lightning. “Why are you only running away?! Show me the charisma that led our vanguard!”
Slash! Thud! Clash!
The choreography of the battle turned into a relentless, terrifying meat grinder. Kenon launched a multi-directional flurry of lethal strikes, his blade cutting frantic lines through the storm. He swung his sword like a runaway iron train, driven by pure, animalistic ferocity.
Kiro focused entirely on a strict defensive perimeter. He did not draw a weapon; he used his immortal, grey-skinned hands and his dense parasitic tissue to parry, deflect, and guide Kenon's reckless trajectories away from his vital organs. Every single collision created blinding shockwaves that pulverized the cobblestones beneath their feet.
Kiro rapidly analyzed the combat variables. His swordsmanship is completely unrefined right now, driven entirely by raw emotional fury and bloodlust. But the sheer volume of his demonic mana is bridging the gap. Every time our flesh collides, his parasitic energy actively tries to crack my internal core.
Kenon lunged forward for a final, decisive execution, thrusting his blade straight toward Kiro’s heart.
This was the opening Kiro was waiting for.
Instead of stepping back, Kiro leaned his torso slightly to the left, allowing the cold steel of Kenon's sword to cleanly graze his shoulder tissue. Ignoring the pain, Kiro’s monstrous right hand shot forward like a striking viper, tightly clamping down on Kenon’s wrist like an iron vise, locking his weapon in place.
With his left hand entirely free, Kiro channeled the absolute limit of his physical phantom pressure, delivering a crushing, magic-reinforced palm strike directly to Kenon’s sternum.
STRIKE!
The concussive shockwave rattled straight through Kenon's chest, forcing his internal mana channels to momentarily collapse. Kenon coughed up a thick spray of dark fluid, his balance completely trembling as his footing slipped on the wet stones.
But to Kiro's horror, Kenon did not fall unconscious.
The parasitic flesh of the Blood Tyrant inside Kenon's core aggressively hissed, the black tendrils violently expanding out of his skin and wrapping tightly around his neck and chest to force his broken bones back into place. Kenon’s red eyes opened wide, completely filled with a manic, unbreakable insanity. He didn't care about the damage to his own body.
Using his free left fist, Kenon delivered a brutal, point-blank punch straight into Kiro's jaw.
The heavy blow broke Kiro’s grip, launching both brothers away from each other. They crashed heavily onto the wet ground, breathing heavily as the torrential rain washed the hot blood off their skin.
Kiro slowly stood back up, his empty eyes staring through the dark storm at his childhood friend. The battle was turning into an absolute fortress of attrition. He couldn't kill Kenon because of their brotherhood, but he couldn't stop him either.
“I have been maintaining my sanity for so long but looks like now I have to lose it Kenon witness the strength of destruction”
Kiro pointed his blade towards the heaven
“The lightning of devastation, bolt”
A huge spark of mana condensed in black lightning emerged from his body the mana crashed straight into Kenon and he fell unconscious
Kiro also fell to the ground
“Sorry Erik but I seriously need to rest”
And just a few meters away, the sky suddenly split completely in half with a flash of crimson lightning, signaling that Erik's main battle was about to hit its ultimate conclusion.
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