Chapter 20

Author here, sorry for not posting yesterday as I was busy, also guys if you like my ff and want me to consistently upload please consider using your power stones to show this ff to more readers who can also enjoy it. Thank U!

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Ali continued beating Akaza to a pulp until his knuckles broke and healed repeatedly, while Akaza's face was almost completely gone, leaving only the bone and one eye intact-a shocking sight for a demon of his strength, an Upper Moon of the third rank.

"Enough," Ali halted as he barely heard Akaza's weak voice. Then, everything went dark blue. Ali couldn't react in time as Akaza erupted in a burst of dark blue energy; his injuries vanished, and his markings glowed menacingly.

Ali was sent flying by the explosion of power from Akaza. He didn't come out of it unscathed; he stood twenty meters opposite Akaza with his entire right side burned from his hip to his cheek, his right arm missing from the shoulder.

Akaza saw this and flared his demon art, blue energy bursting from his fists in excess. He truly looked like an omen of destruction, his wicked, wide smile only adding to his ferocity as he looked at Ali, now injured.

"Where is that arrogance now? Tell me, where is it? What's wrong, are you missing your hand? Are you scared, human? Tell me, are you? Well, you SHOULD BE, BECAUSE I AM GOING TO RIP YOU APART PIECE BY PIECE!" Akaza shouted at Ali, venting all his frustrations from the earlier beating.

"You sure talk big for someone who just lost a fight, huh?" Ali said, smiling without a hint of pain despite his horrific injury. From the start of their fight, neither had used a breathing style or demon art; it was a true test of strength, speed, and martial prowess, which Akaza admitted defeat in by unleashing his demon art.

"Let me show you what true power looks like, weakling."

Ali's burns quickly healed from his hip up his stomach to his shoulder, and then a brand new bone burst from his stump, followed by flesh and skin regenerating an entirely new arm.

"WHAT!!! HOW? THIS CAN'T BE!" Akaza exclaimed, eyes wide and his smile gone as he witnessed something impossible for a human. 'He can't be one of us. I saw him walking in the sun. What is he?' Akaza thought frantically.

'I really don't miss this part,' Ali thought as something even more horrifying to Akaza happened right before his eyes. Ali's dark pupil in his left eye suddenly expanded, turning his entire left eye black and erasing the white, transforming it into something truly disturbing.

This was an ability only possible for humans with the healing gene from Ali's Earth. Typically, a person with the healing gene would undergo a massive emotional stimulus that would cause their eyes to change colour, resulting in even faster regeneration, a stronger and faster body. But the eyes would cause tremendous pain, and when it resolve, the healing gene would go dormant to hibernate and recover from the damage caused by such an ability.

Of course, Ali, as the human with the greatest compatibility and connection with his healing gene, could use the eyes with ease, and the after-effects were virtually non-existent. If he used it in both eyes, it would get harder to control for him.

Ali took a deep breath, and the black marking traveled all around him before hovering on his hands. Ali looked at Akaza before they both disappeared from their positions, leaving behind deep craters.

BOOOOOOOOOM

A dark blue fist met a black fist, creating a deafening shockwave. The sonic boom from the impact created multiple fissures in the ground, and the surrounding trees were uprooted, creating a new clearing in the forest.

Akaza and Ali pulled back before starting a barrage of rapid punches. Ali blocked every punch with ease, able to predict Akaza's moves before they even got close.

Ali was done playing around; he was truly showcasing his combat intelligence and technique at the highest level, combined with the strength and speed of his breathing style. This was only going one way.

Ali continued to block Akaza's punches, then evaded a heavy strike and countered with his hand flat, fingers straight. The black smoke swirled extremely fast around Ali's hand as it drove straight through Akaza's defences, piercing his stomach.

Akaza quickly chopped off Ali's hand, severing it, but unfortunately for him, Ali had anticipated that, leaving Akaza's head wide open. Ali, without his left hand, performed a spinning left kick that landed straight on Akaza's face, sending him flying. Akaza could barely recover from the kick when he felt a hand grab his leg.

Ali had zipped across the forest to reach Akaza before he could even land. Ali firmly gripped Akaza's ankle, lifting him into the air before slamming him into the ground.

BOOM

The slam left a small crater in the ground, but that wasn't all. Ali didn't let go and slammed Akaza again into the same spot.

BOOM

The crater deepened after the second hit. Ali tried for a third slam but realised he was only holding Akaza's foot. Akaza had severed his own leg to escape Ali's grip and now struggled to stand upright, the wound in his stomach from Ali's previous attack wasn't healing, which frightened Akaza.

But Ali didn't relent, charging at Akaza, who looked frustrated and used his demon art to stomp heavily on the ground, creating a small earthquake around him that split the earth and sent stones flying into the air from the impact alone.

Ali leaped high in the air in response. Akaza looked up to see Ali coming down fast with his foot raised high.

"DAMN IT," Akaza cursed as he pumped his demon art into his arms at full power, making them glow with dark blue energy. Akaza raised both arms above his head to block Ali's axe kick.

B000000000000000000000M

The full-power axe kick, covered in thick, rotating black smoke, met Akaza's defence, and the forest shook from the impact. The previous stomp from Akaza was nothing compared to the destruction caused by this clash. The surrounding fifty meters of ground were utterly destroyed, with deep fissures altering the terrain, and the clearing they created earlier expanded even further.

The collision continued, Ali pressing down with even more force, forcing Akaza down onto one knee.

"UGH!" Akaza coughed as the wound in his stomach worsened; Ali's breathing style was truly devastating to a demon's body.

Akaza couldn't hold out any longer and let his arms drop, though Ali didn't continue with the axe kick. He was more ruthless than that. Ali flipped mid-air and put more strength into a spinning kick, which slammed straight through the back of Akaza's head, sending him face-first into the ground.

Akaza groaned in pain as he tried to lift his head, but suddenly felt a hand grab hold of it.

Ali gripped Akaza's head with his right hand. Akaza was about to speak when Ali smashed his face into the ground, then lifted it, then smashed it again, over and over and over.

Then Ali raised Akaza so he could see him. "You were never even close. YOU ARE WEAK," Ali said, raising his hand with his fingers straight and the black smoke swirling rapidly around it. He was going to gore Akaza's head with his hand, KILLING HIM.

When Akaza heard this, 'NO, not like this, I can't!' Akaza thought as he suddenly had flashbacks of a time when he was in a dojo, a time he couldn't remember.

The memories came flooding back as he saw Ali's hand getting closer and closer to his face.

V0000000

Akaza widened his eyes as Ali's hand halted an inch from his eye. The power from Ali's hand created a shockwave that blew the dirt from Akaza's face as he was lifted into the air by Ali.

THUD

Ali threw him onto the ground.

"Run, boy. Tell Muzan I need to speak to him," Ali said, closing his left eye, which had transformed earlier.

Akaza was there one second and gone the next, disappearing from the area. He was running with every fibre of his being.

'I'm alive, l'm alive, I'm alive,' Akaza repeated in his head as he kept running.

Ali shook his head, crouching down to pick up a small rock. Then he looked up to the sky and whistled. Up in the air, he could see the silver eagle circling around, unsure of what to do. It had just seen Ali let Akaza go; what Ali did was treason. But...

Ali watched the eagle while tossing the rock up and down in his hand. 'Live or die, birdie, it's your choice', Ali thought menacingly as he observed the eagle.

Then the eagle folded its wings and descended rapidly toward Ali, who smirked at the eagle's decision and raised his arm. The eagle landed on Ali's arm but didn't speak a word, waiting for him to talk.

Ali looked into the eagle's predatory eye with his cold right eye, his left one still closed.

"You saw nothing today. You will continue with the mission as usual. If you decide to be brave at any moment, I will kill you and every messenger bird I ever come across, UNDERSTOOD?" Ali said, his last word punctuated by a trail of blood dripping from his closed eye, which only added to the eagle's fear. It nodded and took flight again.

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It was really fun writing the Akaza fight, how did you guys like it, should I have made it longer?

Five extra chapters on patreon.com/Rondo312