17 Loss and Resolution

Fuck.

Kai knew he could not dodge this second blast of fire. The time it took to completely regenerate the first round of burning was going to lag him down too much.

"Boss!"

Kai felt himself shoved to the side as Ryo pushed him. He blinked once before he saw crimson red light fill his vision, blinding him. When the light died down a second later, he saw a patch of fire roaring as it caught on the grass, the unnatural, glowing red flames roaring and in the middle of them –

Ryo's burnt corpse lay, his flesh melted down to the bone.

Red flashed in Kai's eyes, and this was not light from the fire. It was pure, blinding anger, and it was a feeling he was familiar with.

He did not say anything. He just gave shape and direction to his anger.

He immediately re-manifested the Nue's face and arms. White covered his face, his eyes grew yellow, arcing with electricity, and his arms became bulkier and stronger, furred in orange and black.

He did not waste time. He slammed his hands together and let lightning loose towards David.

An explosion of crackling power burst from between his hands before focusing into twin streams of golden yellow lightning that slammed into David's chest before the man could conjure up another burst of flame.

>>>

Biomass manifested.

Biomass level: 55>35/100

>>>

David screamed as the lightning flowed through him, burning his flesh and causing his companions to scatter away from him, away from the lightning he could potentially conduct.

Kai kept going regardless of the screams, regardless of how tired his arms began to feel, how they started to tremble and grow heavy, from generating so much electricity – he wanted David to burn, to do nothing but scream and to feel nothing but pain until he was just a pile of ashes just like Ryo.

This time, the morality of killing never even once popped into his head. He just did what his gut told him to do.

Tez saw David screaming under the wave of lightning and took action. He took the obsidian lined club from his back and started running at Kai with a heavy and surprisingly quick sprint which, combined with his bulk, made him look like a charging mini tank.

"Protect boss! Fight bad humans! Don't be scared! For Ryo!" shouted the kappa to rile themselves up.

They came out of the rock in a horde of screaming bodies, intercepting Tez to try and slow him down from reaching Kai.

"No, no, all of you, run!" shouted Kai as he faltered, his arms growing weak - the cost of generating lightning continuously like this.

Though the Nue's lightning might not have cost mana, it did severely drain his physical stamina, weakening his muscles and causing his internal body temperature to rise dangerously high, his whole body feeling like it was burning from within.

But that burning feeling only helped him channel his anger, motivating him to push through the weak feeling in his arms.

The kappa ignored Kai's plea and leaped up towards Tez, snarling.

Each individual kappa, though young, was easily capable of taking a regular human's arm and snapping it in half.

But Tez was no regular human. He weaved away from the clumsy attacks and butchered the kappa with utter ease. Each swing of his club crushed a kappa, shell and all, hurtling them many feet away from the impact force and leaving them broken and battered corpses.

Kai bellowed as he saw the kappa die, steaming hot breath curling up from his throat. He let up on throwing lightning down on David, seeing that the man was thoroughly burned to the point that not a single patch of skin remained unburnt on him.

Instead, fueled by another burst of energy at seeing more kappa die, Kai aimed his hands at Tez, wanting to use the remainder of his stamina to take the bigger, stronger man down and give the remaining kappa a chance to escape.

"Hess! Help!" A woman's voice shrieked from far back. It was the hooded and robed woman of the four. She dropped to her knees, hugging them as she rocked back and forth in fear and panic like a lost child.

A red pentagram started to draw itself from red energy in front of her, and from it, an enormous black dog with flaming red eyes and spiked horns emerged.

It did not waste any time, its fire lit eyes settling onto Kai. With a growl, it leaped in the air, slamming Kai into the ground to stop him from blasting Tez.

Kai felt himself crushed under the sheer weight of the beast.

It was easily the size of a lion, far larger and far heavier than him, and far stronger too. He stuck an arm into the hound's throat as it bit down to stop it from snapping his head off, and he screamed both in pain and anger as he generated a mass amount of lightning right into the hound's gullet.

Thunderous crackling and bright yellow light surged from the hound, flashing in violent, surging arcs that made its large bones visible with every flash, but though the lightning stunned the beast, stopping it from further attacking, it did not seem to be taking any damage.

Kai knew that the moment he stopped generating lightning, the hound would just regain movement and kill him.

The woman herself might not have been strong, but this beast under her beckon was the most dangerous thing in this fight, and as he was right now, he could never beat it.

He did not hesitate. He willed his system to use its Collective Charge ability.

With a final scream, he put his left hand to the side of the hound's head and used Assimilation.

The hound's fiery eyes grew wide for just a second before its head completely dissolved into flakes of ash.

Within the next second, the rest of the enormous dog's body was gone, turned into dust.

>>>

Collective charge consumed. Assimilation successful. Biomass and mana restored to full.

>>>

"Hess!" The woman screamed as she crawled forwards on her knees, tears in her eyes as she reached out to where the dog had been. "Hess, Hess, my dear, where-,"

Kai cut her off, blasting her with lightning, making sure she was out of the fight, that she did not manage to summon anything else.

He did not hold back, and now that he was completely refreshed from absorbing the hound, he loosed a powerful bolt of lightning that immediately silenced the woman, turning her limp.

He healed his wounds and heard Tez roar. The man took one look at the woman slumping into the floor in a smoking crumple and pushed aside the remainder of the kappa, charging through them and running towards Kai.

Kai did not cower. He took a step forwards with his expression twisted in rage. Tez had by this point killed three kappa. Three lives that had trusted and relied on Kai.

With a roar of exertion, Kai slammed his hands together and fired a concentrated blast of lightning at Tez.

Tez held his hand out to intercept it, and, remarkably, unlike David, he withstood the destructive energy coursing through his body.

Only his hand began to smoke and blacken – the rest of his body was fine, covered in a thin aura of protective blue. The electricity did stymie his muscles, making it hard for him to move.

Still, Tez grunted as he willed himself forwards. He moved slowly, taking tiny little steps forward as his face screwed into an expression of exertion.

He pushed against the wall of lightning roaring against him little by little.

"I'm using my Arcana!" growled Tez as he faltered, the lightning finally getting to him and dropping him down to a knee.

Erik, who throughout the fight spent his time looking around in sheer panic, watching as the situation escalated far, far beyond his control, deepened his expression of concern. "Tez, no, no, you won't come back from that."

"No, I won't. Take David and Laura. Get back to camp," said Tez. He took another step forward, and Kai strained himself even further, his arms shaking wildly as they conducted lightning even more explosively than before.

"Good luck, Tez" said Erik with a shaky nod as he slung David and Lara over his shoulders, turning back to the forest.

Tez knelt down at the sudden increase of lightning, but something was changing about him. The jaguar pelt he wore started to fuse into him, melding into his skin, and soon enough, he was bigger, more muscular, more savage.

By the time the pelt fused into his face, he was no longer recognizable as a full man. He was more like a beefed up, anthropomorphic jaguar that growled and roared instead of speaking.

"All of you, go downstream," said Kai to the kappa through labored breaths as he held back Tez with a stream of lightning, though every passing moment became harder and harder as the jaguar man became stronger and stronger, more and more feral. "Run."

"But boss," said Aya. "We-we want to fight with you."

"Just fucking listen to me. Go!" Kai tapped into his newly restored mana to compete with Tez's transformation. He used (Passage of Stormy Clouds), causing inky black clouds to manifest around him.

Now, when the lightning coursed from his hands, they arced first through each cloud in a game of electric pinball, building up stronger and stronger charges until they fired off into a continuous beam of concentrated power.

Tez growled as once more he fell to his knees, the sudden increase of voltage, heat, and impact halting him. By now, the hand he used as a shield against the lightning beam was little more than a charred stump, and yet he did not falter.

Instead, he actually grew stronger. Within a few seconds, he rose slowly and surely back to his feet until once more, he took slow but resolute steps towards Kai.

Kai met Tez's eyes. It felt like looking into a mirror. Two sets of eyes fueled by hatred, fueled by vengeance, clashed and melded together, leaving the victor unclear.