Horizon Flower

The Shadow Lion's instincts kicked in and they knew it could only run or fight, unfortunately, there was no place to run away.

The Lion strengthened its resolve and started to send several Dark slashes toward Adonis, however, Adonis swung his 'Ifrit's Sword' once and a huge slash of fire charged at the Dark slashes and blocked all of them.

The Lion felt fear again but quickly replaced it with anger as it continuously sent Dark slashes and blasts at him, but Adonis would always need to swing his sword one time and all the attacks would be blocked.

Soon, the Lion felt helpless and it was only then that the darkness it emitted covered its entire face, and as if a completely different monster took its place, the Shadow Lion had a surge of power coarse through it and the atmosphere trembled at its power as a shockwave blew through the entire cavern.

Adonis's walk stopped and he was surprised that the Lion had more power left within it.

The Shadow Lion lifted its head completely up and opened its mouth as if it was trying to eat something. Adonis was confused about what it was doing, but then he noticed that the cavern was brighter than before and it was then he got the idea of what it would do.

Adonis looked up at it and saw almost a hundred Dark balls form, he immediately tried to stop it with a slash, only for it to be blocked by a barrier the Lion created, he then tried to use his ki and stab through the barrier, but it was far stronger than anticipated. He thought for a moment about what he should do and knew the most obvious answer.

Adonis flowed Anima into his left hand and stretched up toward where all the Dark balls were forming, he was planning to use 'Collapse' to not only get rid of all the Dark balls but also the barrier.

But when he tried to do it he found it much harder to gather the Anima in the atmosphere. Adonis was shocked by this and wondered why this was so much harder to do now. Only after a few more futile attempts of trying to use 'Collapse' did he realize why.

The process of 'Evolution was centered on the fact that the heavy amounts of Mana circulating throughout your body would make your own Mana purer and more abundant. But for Adonis, he had Anima and it was already at the highest level of purity there is, meaning Evolution is only letting him have more Anima, therefore not only making the process last shorter but also having a different effect than a normal person going through Evolution as they would be able to maintain that strength for the entire time, but Adonis would get weaker as his body slowly gets used to the amount of Anima.

Adonis became frustrated at his ever-weakening state. He knew he didn't have much time before the Evolution wears off, so he decided to focus on evolving his techniques.

By then, the Shadow Lion was finished with the creation of its onslaught as it has created over a hundred dark balls. It sent all of the dark balls at Adonis, who was currently being completely covered in lightning from head to toe. All of the blasts hit and blew up making the entire cavern shake and creating many fissures along its walls and craters in the ground.

The Shadow Lion became tired after going all-out, the darkness it was emitting was slowly vanishing. However, due to its tiredness, it couldn't sense what was above it, Adonis was on the ceiling with lightning crackling around him and ripped skin across his body as some of the onslaughts hit him. He was still able to get away with the evolved version of 'Electric Flicker'.

"Raiju's Leap"

It was a near-instant movement technique where Adonis's entire body was covered in lightning, the lightning would heed Adonis's command of where he would want to go and take him there at the speed of lightning.

Not only that, Adonis was already evolving 'Stun Pulse.' The blue transparent ball was transforming into an opaque blue speartip with blue lightning coming out of Adonis's hand.

"Vajra"

'Vajra' was shot out of Adonis's hand and the streaks of blue lightning followed after it, it broke through the wavering barrier with ease and pierced into the Lion's back. It dematerialized itself into many streaks of lighting and shocked the entire Lion's body. The Lion roared in pain and the darkness was eliminated from its body.

Adonis uses his ki, which the two stars were shining brighter than ever and he kicked off the ceiling toward the Lion, he stabbed into the Lion with 'Ifrit's Sword' and was now going to make it seem like the Lion never existed in the first place.

"Inferno x Ifrit's Sword"

The fire burned so bright everything turned white for a second before the white was devoured by red and orange. The explosion was so strong that the cavern was slowly melting into lava and expanded even further.

The explosion went away and the only two things left that were alive were Adonis and the 'Horizon Flower' which somehow survived with its thin barrier. Adonis was struggling to get up as he set his hazy eyes on the 'Horizon Flower.' He crawled toward the flower, hoping to not only get it but also that his instincts were telling him that it would be his saving grace.

Adonis crawled to the flower, and the remaining amount of Anima he could muster traveled to his hands; he tried to gather Anima in the atmosphere, but he was far too weak to do it, so he decided to use the Anima in his hands to crush the barrier. He dug his fingers into it and broke into it. He ripped it apart and grabbed the flower. The only words he could muster were, "Got...you..." before fainting.

The Horizon Flower sent out a string of energy and gathered a sliver of Anima from Adonis's core. Once the sliver entered into flower, the flower glowed brilliantly and bloomed, the outside petals were white and the petals inside were a myriad of colors, the center of the flower was a beautiful gold. The flower rose out of the ground and carried Adonis with it; it flew quickly through the air and traveled through the cave's pathways. The bronze that was blocking the other end of the pathways was easily obliterated by the 'Horizon's Flower' energy, it easily plowed through the rest of the cave, and when it exited the cave, it flew into the sky and was traveling to the closest place that Adonis could get help.

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With the team,

After a devastating loss against the Sky Mountain Sect, all of them took about an hour to recuperate after it team was traveling to a nearby city as all of them were tired and didn't want to go to the Green Valley Sect yet.

All of them were silent, all of them felt a different kind of frustration. Juniper and Barrett were feeling useless as they couldn't do anything during the ambush, Lena was angry over Adonis's death, and Mila was feeling many emotions due to the losses they suffered during the mission.

Juniper looked up at the night sky and saw what she thought was a shooting star and began making a wish for it.

Barrett looked at Juniper, who had her hands clasped together, with her eyes closed. "Juniper, what are you doing?" Barrett questioned.

"I making a wish."

"For what?"

"That nothing like this will ever happen again, at least to us."

Barrett stayed silent and looked at the strangely slow shooting star, as he continued to stare at it, he realizes that it was getting closer to them.

"Hey girls, is it normal for a shooting star to get closer?"

The girls were confused by what Barrett said and looked up at the shooting star as it kept getting closer. Mila was the first to react as she yelled "GET OUT OF THE WAY!"

The team ran out of the way as the "shooting star" hit the ground. The team was extremely confused by what the hell just landed, but once the dust cleared they saw something completely unexpected.

They saw a beautiful flower floating in the air with someone familiar attached to it.

Lena was the first to say something, "ADONIS!"