9 The Blood King (2)

Once the smoke cleared, Nesko saw that the Blood King was still standing in the same position. Did he not move? If he didn't then why was he still in one piece? Nesko thought. But that was impossible. His Thunder Spear was so powerful that its impact could cause an explosion capable of obliterating a large building. With Nesko's red essence, the Thunder Spear was only a common class soul armos in its primordial state. Yet, its power should not be underestimated.

For another red user, taking such a hit head on even with the protection of their essence could severely injure them and may even kill them. Thus, it was more than a shock to Nesko that the Blood King had taken all that without being harmed. Nesko was not the only one dumbfounded by the turn of events.

"What is that shadow?" Savyrran asked. Since the match started, nothing made sense to her. That explosion was very powerful and it seemed the Blood King was directly hit. Why did he not look hurt? How did he take all that explosion?

"That is the Blood King's soul armos." Fani explained. "For a red he is so fast. I almost did not see how he evaded that attack."

The shadow was the height of a fully grown man. However it did not look like a real person. In fact, it was just a black mist shaped like a person. On its left shadowy palm was blood; Nesko's blood. The shadow floated like a ghost towards its master. Summoning Phantom Lord would have taken too much of his soul energy, thus, the Blood King let the shadow come to him on its own.

"It's about to happen. Nesko better surrender now." Fani said, grinning like a damn fool.

"What is about to happen?"

But Fani was too excited to answer his daughter. Instead, just like everyone else, he was on his feet shouting for Nesko to do something.

It seemed Nesko knew what was going to happen, and would not stand for that to happen. Thus, before the shadow could merge with the Blood King, Nesko sprung into action again, this time, brandishing his spear over his head in a rapid circular motion. A vortex started opening up from the air surrounding the spear. Once the vortex was large enough, Nesko threw it with a massive strength towards the Blood King but the latter swiftly dodged out of the way, his shadow closely following behind. But the vortex spiraled towards the shadow and blew the black apparition away from the Blood King.

"Don't let them merge else you lose." A woman screamed from the crowd. She was not the only one with this opinion. Several of Nesko's supporters were urging him to stop the Blood King from merging with his shadow soul armos.

But the Blood King's supporters were also chanting, "merge… merge… merge…"

Unfortunately, as much as the Blood King wanted to merge back with his soul armos, he was finding it a lot more difficult than he had anticipated. This spear-wielding man kept throwing attacks after attacks towards him and this kept breaking his concentration to merge with Phantom Lord. For the Blood King to merge with Phantom Lord, he had to join his blood with the blood of his opponent. Even though, The Blood King had already cut himself, and was ready for the merge, Nesko's wild attacks were making it impossible.

The Blood King had never fought Nesko, and hence, had no idea of the full capacity of his Thunder Spear. However, after a while of escaping attacks after attacks from him, the Blood King soon discovered that the Thunder Spear took a while to charge up the vortex attack. Using that little time, the Blood King sped towards Phantom Lord and the two joined their bloody red palms. Once they did, the Blood King's red essence suddenly flared out of his body engulfing Phantom Lord. Then Phantom Lord was absorbed by the essence and then disappeared into its master's soul.

Nesko leaped high into the air and lunged towards the Blood King, spear in hand like a javelin. He was hoping to break the merge before it was too late. But before he reached his target, the Blood King lifted his head to look at Nesko right in the eye. Though the Blood King had a mask on, Nesko could still feel the bone chilling aura that spread through his bones from that single look.

Nesko had heard rumors about the Blood King's ability to take hostage of a person's body. However, nothing could have prepared him for the excruciating pain that threatened to tear him apart. In mid air, he felt his momentum come to an abrupt halt. The next thing he knew, his body was crashing back down with terrifying speed.

Even after violently crashing on the ground, the Blood King did not give Nesko the time to recover. Instead, with a simple stretch of his hand, Nesko was lifted off from the ground and then levitated towards the masked opponent.

As much as Nesko tried to fight off the control his opponent had over his body, his action was futile. He felt as though an oppressive soul had taken hostage of his own body and was suppressing him from doing anything. He could not even scream in pain, nor could he move his limbs.

"Shake your head if you want to surrender." The Blood King said in a low voice audible to only Nesko. In as much as he had succeeded in taking control of this man's body, it was still draining his own energy since this kind of ability did not only rely on his essence. It also used his own blood to power it. Thus, using this body-controlling ability would rapidly drain him of his strength. If he did not end this fight quickly, he himself would end up losing consciousness or even die from extreme blood loss.

Nesko felt a sudden pressure lift from his head. His head felt like the lightest thing in the world as compared to the heaviness that weighed in every single part of his body. He soon realised that this lightness was because the Blood King had released control of his head so he could surrender. Nesko quickly shook his head. Had this tournament been a fight to the death, he would have been a corpse by now.

Once the Blood King acknowledged Nesko's surrender, he released his invisible hold on him. Nesko dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes, unable to move. His limbs felt stiff as though he had been paralyzed by a venomous beast.

When Vukka saw that one of the opponents was on the ground, unmoving, she loudly began to count to ten as everyone counted along with her. Once the counting reached ten, a loud horn blared throughout the arena signaling the end of the first match. Two men holding a wooden mat came over to carry Nesko away.

The arena was engulfed in a frenzy of exuberance the moment Vukka announced the winner of the first match. The Blood King would be advancing to the next level while Nesko would be eliminated.

Savyrran looked on in awe at how easily the Blood King had literally taken control of the match. Even red users could be this strong? Didn't that mean that the soul armos of yellow users would be a disaster? Her eyes slowly darted towards Mayor Danjo and Master Bufan. Someday, she would love to see exactly how powerful they were.

Later that day, after a break, two more matches took place. The last match was between two orange users and lasted for more than an hour. Both of them were evenly matched, and within the next hour, the judges ended the match declaring it a draw. By the time it was over, darkness was beginning to fall over Coast Town. As soon as the fights ended, the people started dispersing back home, excitedly discussing the fights they had witnessed. Once again, many people had been impressed by the Blood King. Though they did not totally understand his ability, they did not care. They could not wait for the next fights to take place tomorrow.