Chương 52: CHAPTER 51 – Last Pull

"Have you finished?" The scientist murmured in his distorted voice, slowly stitching together the cuts across his chest and face. His skin had taken on a horribly pale and sickly tone, alternating with the numbers and formulae carved into it.

"I cannot tell whether this is the overload or the transformation…" Maliard thought, resetting his stance. Beside him, Lance felt an even more unsettling doubt. The image that had greeted him deep in the Institute's basement surfaced in his mind.

"Are those numbers similar to Nikola's?" Lance wondered, lingering on the faint pulses crossing the scientist's scars.

"Shall we begin, Lance?" Maliard asked, extending his arms before him rapidly. A pale halo spread from his skin until it covered him like a faint mist. The boy nodded, bending his legs as the air around him seemed to tremble." Schafft: Luft!" A series of gusts of wind released from his palms, cleaving the earth between them. An enormous cloud of dust rose into the sky, suddenly swept away by an eruption of force. Grayson rotated his head with force, trying to locate the two, but the battlefield was empty.

A hiss reached him from behind, followed by a second gust of wind. He tried to turn but realised he was trapped, confined by a cluster of invisible walls. A second hiss crossed the air, this time joined by a hum." Vergehen…" Above him, resting on nothing, Lance's figure was charging his arm with as much energy as possible. He prepared to lunge when he realised he was completely trapped.

"These two…" Lance shot toward him, his arm extending like a spring. The walls of air shattered, allowing Grayson to rise. Lance hovered in the air, his arm smoking and wrapped in a series of white bolts.

"Some trouble? Claustrophobic, by any chance?" Maliard appeared before the scientist, striking him in the stomach with his gauntlet. His shoulders collided with another air formation, sending him staggering. Lance followed from the side, driving his knuckles into where his liver was. He struck the transparent walls again, both of them kicking him with force directly into the stomach.

"Have they understood how my ability works?" He thought, rolling across the ground along with the shards of solid air. He lifted his head first, finding himself before his own faint reflection. He moved to touch it when a shadow appeared behind his trembling face. Lance bent his leg, an instant before crashing onto him. His sole drove into the ground, lifting the surrounding rock like a sheet." Entanglement…" Lance turned, clicking his tongue between his lips. Grayson extended his fingers toward him.

An incredible force seized his body, dragging him through the air. The boy's bones rotated unnaturally, fracturing under the torsion." Feuer!" A thin tongue of flame severed his arm, burning it so quickly the blood had no time to flow. The severed limb began burning at their feet, and within an instant the heat spread to his abdomen as well. The blazing blade had passed through his muscles and organs as though they were nothing.

Grayson's boiling blood stained Maliard's face, confused by the scientist's smiling expression." Kneel!" Maliard's legs broke almost instantly under that weight, forcing him to collapse to the ground. Grayson pressed a hand to his stomach, slowly stitching it closed.

"My regeneration really is becoming more exhausting. At this rate I risk dying." He studied his own blood and the numerous scars across his body. He raised his hand above his head, preparing to bring everything crashing down. Maliard lay at his feet, unable to move or direct his blows.

"Hey…" A hand seized his shoulder, preventing him from lowering his arm any further. He turned with a smile, meeting the bloodied eyes of Lance. His black arm was raised, ready to strike.

"You should stop underestimating us!" His right fist struck him directly in the face, shattering the dome of gravity. He immediately straightened himself, regenerating his cheekbone, but Maliard's hand anticipated it. A column of air lifted him a few metres, clearing space for Lance." Maximal Salve!" A single discharge of energy struck Grayson, enveloping him in a cloud of electricity and white light. Maliard fixed the sky above him with a wide smile, then immediately turned to Lance, lowering his smoking arm.

"He is evolving too at such a rhythm…" He turned his attention immediately back to the scientist, stretched out in the air. Their faces crossed for a second before vanishing into the night again. A white flash struck the ground, scorching the surface. A blue flash crossed through the light, passing for an instant near Grayson's neck, and turned to intercept Lance." NVM!" The arm clad in that dark matter and Lachesi's black scales collided in a ferocious eruption of energy and wind.

Both slid away from one another, Grayson raising his arm as Lance regenerated the flesh on his shoulder. The space between him and the boy grew slightly distorted, as though mixed with a series of invisible reflections.

"His entire body was suffering the consequences of Lance's blows... If he could land one more impact…" Maliard moved around them, closing in on Grayson in a pincer. A bolt of lightning shot toward the scientist, reflecting its light against the mirrors of air. A clear light devoured the blue flash, shattering the air. From the smoke emerged Lance, both hands extended toward him. A bluish cube appeared from the ground, sweeping the boy aside at full speed and shattering him like a vase.

Grayson's face filled with fury as he spun around with lightning speed.

"Another wall of air?!" Lance's face, covered in cuts, blood, and grime, smiled in the shower of solid air. Lance's strike collided against a further geometric construction, this time appearing as a disc only centimetres from his face. The surface fractured immediately, breaking apart the moment a blade of energy pierced it. The blow scorched the ground at his feet, forcing Grayson to focus on the numerous reflections and howls surrounding him." Ideal!"

A mass of cubes appeared at his side, shattering an instant later. In the distorted, sharp sound of shards being pulverised, he heard a tongue click and, a moment later, a second gust of wind.

"I understand. The walls are to keep me from accelerating, and the gusts are to help him chain his blows." Another of his geometric barriers exploded a few paces from him, striking him with a shower of bluish dust.

"But he expects me to keep defending…" All the shapes around him vanished, leaving him exposed against Lance. The boy's face was contorted in an expression of astonishment as the scientist smiled. The wind carried Lance toward him, unable to redirect his trajectory.

"What will you do when I attack you directly?" Lance's side lay exposed to the dark mass on his arm, rapidly approaching.

"Damn it!" The air diverted from the path of his fist, only an instant before making contact with his flesh, when without warning, Lance's figure vanished. He found himself in the air, lifted off the ground, with a burning sensation across his stomach. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"Can you not count, or do you have a memory problem?" Maliard smiled from below him, his left arm wrapped in a vortex of water. The molten rock began dripping down the column, mixing with Grayson's blood.

"Modifying my arm normally would not be harmful... But transmuting it into something else…" As the doubts assailed his mind, his body hurled the mass of water at Grayson.

"WE WILL WORRY ABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES LATER!" An extremely thin needle of water crossed his skin, drilling all the way to his heart. Throughout the long confrontation, Grayson's inexperience had led him to rely solely on his immeasurable compatibility.

"That thing... That cursed armor! Had to show up now!!" A bluish light blinded them both as the water began to float around them. A jet of blood and dark liquid sprayed from the scientist's lips as he writhed in pain. His screams echoed distorted and hoarse through the air.

"Is gravity defending him?" Lance launched himself at Grayson, leaping onto one of the few mirrors not yet shattered by the eruption of energy. His jump carried him directly above him, ready to bring his full weight crashing down onto his face, when suddenly an emotion crossed his synapses.

"Fear". Lance immediately brought his arms up before his face. Grayson opened his eyes, overflowing with blood, as everything around them was once again engulfed in a black dome, this time extremely dense.

"He has already reconstructed his domain?!" Maliard lunged, but neither of them was capable of matching the speed at which his words escaped his lips." Gravity Violation…" Everything inside the dome was hurled away, lifted and crushed in a pandemonium of forces and energies. From the ground rose the remains of the galleries and the seabed, creating a distorted cage shaped like a shell, a true beast of anthropocentric ruins.

"Had he evolved to this point before Aufprall, we would be dead." In the darkness, Lance coughed blood before tearing away the metal cables imprisoning him. With effort, he took his first step across the enormous tangle of concrete, mud, and damp rock. His clothes were completely torn, exposing the countless scars across his body, joined by the pulsing veins.

"You really do not look well, Grayson…" He smiled, gasping, concentrating all his strength to look the man before him directly in the eye. His arm had been torn off by one of the fragments of debris, his chest expanding rapidly to draw in air. On his chest, just below the collarbone, a bluish mass continued to glow and pulse.

"I had not imagined I would reach this point." He answered, fixing his gaze on his own severed arm. He shook his head, letting the grime slide from his hair. The ground beneath their feet was slippery, and every movement produced an unpleasant, sucking sound.

"Neither had I, honestly." Lance murmured, raising his scorched and lacerated arm. Lachesi, for its part, had cracked and grown steadily smaller. A gust of wind caressed his now-glacial skin.

"We are high up here. Even if your friend survived, he will not arrive in time…" He seized a beam with the single hand remaining to him, tearing it free with force. All the iron began to vibrate and melt, until it transformed into a mass of clear light.

"His core is regenerating, and his Frequency shows no sign of diminishing…" Lance let out a sigh, raising his hands into a guard and planting one foot forward.

"Let us finish this here!" He launched himself at him, and immediately Grayson's blade fell over him. Lachesi and the light collided, sending up sparks and pushing both of them apart. In that second of distraction, Lance's first blow reached Grayson's face.

"Lachesi is still functional, but using it further is out of the question for me." The blade and Lance's face grazed one another as the scientist swung his arm in fury. Caught up in those graceless, exhausted movements, Lance managed to land a kick directly on his leg. Grayson dropped to his knees with a groan, losing his grip on the light. The boy launched himself at him, forcing every muscle in his body to contract for that blow." Switch!"

Grayson sprang upright sharply, pulling the off-balance and stunned Lance toward himself. His fist drove directly into his throat. He slid along the line when he felt his body dragged again. Grayson's knee struck directly against his chest.

"He stopped regenerating just to hit me?!" Grayson seized him by the wrist, pressing him against one of the columns piercing the debris under the distorted gravity. With increasing force, he pushed his hand into his abdomen.

"It ends here, for you…" A golden mass began concentrating in the gaps between his fingers, drawing ever closer to the boy's skin. In those few seconds, Lance saw something at their feet." You really do…" With force, he crushed the ground, causing both of them to lose their footing. He dropped to his knees, seizing the remains of the beam Grayson had left behind. A second kick threw him off, leaving him staggering.

"... Leave so much mess lying around!" Lance swung the piece of iron at him with force. The impact sent a spray of blood across the tangle of debris. The scientist coughed, pressing a hand to his face, leaving a gap between his fingers to stay alert to Lance's movements. The boy's figure took a step and vanished.

"You are right, this ends here!" Lance's uppercut charged with all the Frequency stolen in that brief exchange, hurling him into the air. His body drifted steadily further from the cage, beginning to fall slowly." Schafft: Speer." The sky lit up red for a brief instant, opening to permit the passage of a thin lance of incandescent fire and metal born from the clouds. Grayson's body had only a second to react before being engulfed by the explosion of flames and lightning.

The shockwave swept away part of the cage of vines and debris, sending it collapsing to the ground. The sea was hurled away, as the shock traveled to the outermost limits of the singularity.

"With that, I have nearly exhausted all my reserves. At best I could fire Stornieren one more time." Maliard gasped, brushing the rubble from himself, paying no attention to the deep cut on his shoulder.

"Maliard, what was that?!" Lance asked, emerging from the remains of the cage covered in blood and dust. Maliard fixed the hole in the sky as it closed again, blocking the moon.

"I modified the code of a piece of scrap to make it a suitable munition, then used the air to accelerate it like a projectile. The friction liquefied the metal, and the electrical charges I had soaked it with caused the detonation…" He stopped to study Lance, completely absorbed in his explanation as though he were a schoolboy.

"In any case, it was not enough…" Maliard sighed, dropping his shoulders and heading toward the site of the impact. Lance nodded, narrowing his eyes at the sight of Lachesi, now on the verge of breaking." Before impact, the explosion was dampened and diverted." A white flash rose from the rubble, followed immediately by an arm covered in burns. Grayson emerged from the wreckage under Maliard's stunned gaze. His body was covered in burns and gashes, but he had already reclaimed both of his hands.

"Lance… this is the final pull. Whoever lets go first loses." He smiled, drawing a breath and preparing to launch himself. No one on the island could have known it, but the moon was already beginning to give way to the flames of morning. Unseen by anyone, the curtain began to fall on the night, while the arrival of dawn quietly readied itself.