Dion seeing the shadow wave, blurred to the side instantly, not wanting to risk it. The attack streaked past and struck the ground in the distance, carving a massive laceration into the earth.
"You fool, are you trying to kill me?!" Dion yelled.
Aric faltered taken aback by Dion’s outburst. "Its..." But his sentence was cut short as a wave of strings weaved through the air and shot towards Aric.
’Shit!’ Aric cursed as the strings appeared before his face almost instantly. He realized that Dion’s outburst was mainly to make him lose his guard.
Though surprised, Aric sunk into his own shadow in the fraction of a second and reappeared from Dion’s shadow, his rapier piercing towards Dion’s side at the same instant he emerged.
Dion’s instincts flared the moment Aric disappeared into the shadows. He knew definitely Aric would appear from his shadow, after all it was a habit Dion had noticed for a while now.
As Aric’s rapier inched closer to his body, a complex weave of threads suddenly materialized at Dion’s back, successfully blocking the sword.
But the moment Aric’s rapier made contact with the weave of threads, Aric fluidly vanished to the side, his rapier smoothly transitioning into a reverse grip as he dragged the sword towards Dion’s neck.
Shiiiiiiing!
A shower of sparks flared to life and a sound akin to that of a sonorous note rang shrilly in the air as Dion raised his own sword, making Aric’s blade skim off it.
Both of their moments blurred as they exchanged a flurry of attacks in high speeds attack using their sword techniques only.
Multiple shockwaves blasted through the air with occasional slicing waves each time their swords collided. Then suddenly, their moves and tempo changed, countless threads tried to pierce Aric’s body, while shadow spikes Rose up from the ground to turn Dion into a sieve.
Aric enhanced his rapier’s cutting power with aether and cut through all the strings aiming for him, while a complex weave of threads in a wall formation, and blovked the shadow spikes.
But at that same instant, Aric rematerialized from the shadow of the wall of threads with a wide grin on his face, his rapier cutting through each and every thread rapidly materializing to stop his sword to give Dion enough time to raise his own sword for a counter.
However, just as his rapier was short of striking Dion’s sword, Aric’s grin widened as his own rapier came to a stop mid air.
Meanwhike, Dion’s eyes widened as he realized what it was. ’A feint!’ he thought. But it was too late, Aric’s leg struck his chest so fast and unforgiving that Dion’s body rose off the ground and shot into the air.
Conventric waves burst out at the moment of impact between Aric’s boot and Dion’s chest. Aric than bent his legs as wings made of shadows rapidly formed behind his back in a fraction of a second. With one flap of the wings, the ground beneath his feet caved in as he disappeared from his spot.
Aric crossed half the distance between Dion and himself in an instant, his shadow wings cutting through the air like sharp blades. However, Dion had already recovered enough and reoriented himself.
The moment Aric reached him, Dion spread both hands, a myriad of threads materialized from them, shooting towards Aric.
Aric saw that and tilted his entire body to the side, seemingly successfully bypassing the strings, and flying up to Dion who had already lost his upward momentum.
However, the strings curved mid air, and latched themselves onto Aric’s shadow wings.
"Shit!" Aric cursed as he felt the wings being entangled in the threads. Dion meanwhile angled his falling form towards Aric, and both began falling through the air.
"You fool, release my wings or we’ll both die!" Aric cursed.
"Lies!" Dion retorted.
Aric dissolved the shadow wings on his back as both continued to fall towards the ground, but Dion still didn’t let go, his threads wrapped around Aric’s legs.
A few moments later, they both reached the ground, however, moments before they crashed on the ground, massive shadow wings exploded from Aric’s back once more, and with one big flap, their direction was overturned.
Aric then twisted and threw Dion off himself. In that same moment, shadows rushed towards his hand and formed a long rapier, and in another moment his wings flapped once more to chase after Dion.
Boom!
The sound barrier got shattered as Aric blasted through the air, reaching Dion in an instant. His rapier cleaved through space itself as it fell towards towards Dion’s neck.
<Spider’s weave>
For the first time since the match began, Dion resolved to use his new Zeta ability to its fullest.
After Dion took the fruit of the divine tree and successfully broke through to the Zeta- rank, he gained a new ability called spiders’s weave.
While Dion’s initial ability enabled him to output strings sharp and extremely durable strings from the tip of his fingers, his Zeta ability, Spiders weave, was on another level.
With spider’s weave, the strings didn’t need to be connected to his fingers. Dion could make the strings materialized out of nothing. Not only that, he could now make several complex weaves he thought impossible, like rapidly forming a wall to tank attacks and so on. Not to mention his control over his strings had increased exponentially.
However, the true ace of it all, wasn’t all these. Instead, it was when Dion unleashed everything at once, the full scope of spider’s weave.
The moment Dion tugged at the ability and fueled it with most of his remaining aether, a vast complex weave instantly took form around their immediate battlefield.
Aric whose rapier was inches away from Dion’s neck suddenly felt himself held in place. He was completely covered from head to toe in strings reminiscent of a mummy.
Even though Aric was visibly struggling, seen due to the tension in the strings, and the subtly trembling form of his figure, the strings refused to budge.
Meanwhile, Dion didn’t let his guard down one bit, he quickly summoned another sword from his spatial storage, and swung it towards Aric’s neck as fast as he could. He needed the commentator to interfere as quickly as possible.
Dion knew his last ditch attack had only worked because Aric was caught off guard, and not to mention the fact that Aric hadn’t used his Zeta ability one bit. Any delay, and Aric could decide to use it.
However, it seemed things weren’t meant to go good for Dion, because before his sword could reach Aric’s neck, all shadows in the area seemingly darkened, before they suddenly surged into Aric through the infinitesimal gaps between the strings.
In a cacophony of shockwaves, the threads broke into countless pieces as shadows burst outwards in an explosion, rushing up to conjure a gigantic version of Aric. The entire spider’s weave was torn to shreds like paper.
"Seven hells!" Dion cursed, looking at the colossus before him.
Aric’s Zeta ability was shadow absorbtion. He could devour or absorb shadows in his surroundings to increase his strength or turn into a creature of shadows. While in that form, he was virtually invincible until his aether is depleted. The ability was called; Shadow transformation.
Seeing the shadow Colossus, Dion knew it was over. If he still had enough aether, then perhaps he could have tried to tie the colossus’s legs and make him fall, after hall the bigger they are, the higher they fall.
But alas, "I forfeit!" Dion called out, accepting his loss.
"AND THERE WE HAVE OUR WINNER, THE MONARCH OF SHADOWS, ARIC TINUBU!!!!"The commentator announced, finally talking for the first time since the match started.
"As expected." Damon muttered up on the platform. He hadn’t for one second considered that Dion could defeat Aric.
He didn’t look down on Dion at all, but it was just that, Aric was just that powerful. Even in the novel, Aric was extremely powerful, not lagging behind Kaal, Namor, Ivis, and Fabian. Until he died a particularly gruesome death while shielding Alistair from the attack of a darkwalker later in the storyline that was.
But besides that, Aric would make an extremely strong powerhouse. "Dion’s new ability is good though." Damon mused thinking on how Dion was manifesting weaved threads or strings instantly.
Meanwhile, hearing Dion forfeit, Aric’s colossal figure shrunk down to his normal height and form. In moments, the shadows were nowhere to be seen, and Aric was back to his normal form.
"I still won at the end, didn’t I?" Aric smirked.
"Yeah yeah, you won." Dion drawled. He wasn’t particularly sad that he lost, he was just irritated that Aric would hold it over him for a long time to come.
**********
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