Chapter 44: Fire

Maverick stood up, gently placing Kiver down. Tears were streaming down his face as he turned around to look at his friend's killer.

'Shit. Get up, now!'

As Maverick approached him, Van began to panic. He tried to get up, only to cough out blood. He was sure that Maverick's punch had probably damaged if not destroyed some of his internal organs. 

Maverick stopped in front of him, lifting him up by the collar. Van tried to struggle, but didn't have the strength to do so. 

"You shouldn't have killed him."

Maverick spoke, barely a whisper. He moved his arm, suspending Van over the burning pile of wood, the flames tickling his back.

"No-"

Maverick dropped Van into the fire.

"AAAAAAA!"

Van screamed at the top of his lungs as he was burned by the flames. Maverick, having sentenced Van to his fate, returned to Kiver's dead body and sat next to it, his back to the burning Van.

In the midst of the flames that began to cook and melt his flesh, Van found the strength to thrash around, each passing second making the pain excruciatingly worse, a pain that definitely surpassed the limits of Pain Resistance.

'Gotta do something… I can't die here!'

Running out of time, Van wrapped his entire body in mana, not bothering to be careful with the amount. He used everything he knew about mana control to coat himself in it, layering and stretching it as much as he could, even going as far as to infuse it in his flesh.

Van felt the pain decrease, he got a moment to think. He had to find a way to get out of the fire before he burned alive, and then be able to kill Maverick and escape.

Van looked at the flames eating at him, and got an idea. While reinforcing his body, he simultaneously released his mana into the flames, trying to wrap them in mana. Once he connected the flames to his mana, he pulled it into his hands.

He spent a minute or two like this, his senses spread to their limits. When he had around less than half of his mana left, it happened. 

[You have learned a new skill!]

The moment Van saw the notification, his eyes widened, as he also felt something inside of him growing stronger, as well as what felt like a new hole that needed to be filled.

'The 7th Sword!'

Maverick was surprised to feel a surge of mana behind him. He turned around to look at the fire where he dropped Van, only to see the flames disappearing at a rapid pace. He stood up in disbelief as he saw Van emerge from a pile of wood, the fire completely gone.

"...How?" He asked Van in a hoarse voice.

"Shut up." Van glared back at him. "Time for round 2."

Without replying, Maverick disappeared once more, reappearing in front of Van, his fist now covered in brown fur. Right now, he was going all out just to kill the boy in front of him.

Van responded with his own punch, placing layer after layer of mana on it.

Their fists clashed, with Maverick being pushed back slightly, to his shock. A few minutes ago, Van would die pulling this maneuver, but with his breakthrough to the 7th Sword, he was on the verge of becoming a Grand Knight, the very same rank Maverick was currently on.

"I learned a new trick in those flames." Van grinned at him, happy to be turning the tables. "I'm as tough as you now!"

Van headbutted the shocked Maverick, who was horrified to see blood come out of his nose. With Van's new trick, his 7th Sword… his body was strong enough to compete with Maverick's battered and weakened one.

Maverick stepped back and rapidly punched at Van, his body growing more beastly by the second. Van dodged all of them with ease, a smile on his face. In terms of techniques, Van far outclassed Maverick.

Van, spotting an opening in between the attacks, jumped in close and raised his hand in front of Maverick's face, mana brimming in his palm. Maverick jumped away as flames spewed out from Van's palm, burning everything in front of it.

Van chased after Maverick, who was now on the defensive, with flaming fists. The fur that coated Maverick's arms were being burned off fast, along with the rest of his mana reserves. 

As they both felt Maverick's mana fall to a level weaker than Van's current mana, they decided to end things quickly. 

Throwing all technique out the window, the two simply attacked each other. Punching, kicking, clawing, burning, they went at it.

Taking a punch to the nose, Van staggered backwards, having a bruised face and a black eye. He kicked a burnt and beaten Maverick in the stomach, who keeled over.

He quickly recovered and tackled Van to the ground, grabbing an arm and bending it the wrong way. Van yelled out in pain while grabbing a stick off the ground and ramming it into Maverick's side.

"Heh heh…" Maverick chuckled as the stick broke against his body. 

Van gritted his teeth and placed the broken stick on Maverick's chest.

FWOOSH!

Flames traveled through Van's hand and into the stick, flames erupting from Maverick's back as his insides were roasted. It was one of the unique ways Van's skill worked.

<> Skill <>

Hands of Flame [D] [Active]:

The user can conjure and control flames through his hands at the cost of mana. If the user is holding an object, the flames will channel through the object and out the other side, essentially skipping it.

<> End <> 

Van used the stick to channel the flames through it and conjure them inside of Maverick. The fight was over. Maverick screamed in pain as his torso melted and turned gooey. Van pulled out the stick as Maverick's voice grew lower and softer until he lay down, never to get back up.

Van panted heavily, just standing there. He discarded the broken stick before examining his broken arm, then examining his surroundings. Here he was, standing in the middle of hundreds of dead people, fire, and a destroyed estate. Any other survivors had fled by now.

"Fuck me."