Dragon's Fire- War for Academies arc

His arms turned into swords, and his fingers fell from his hand as they turned into knives. Knives that he held suspended in the air, ready to fire. My enemy was a living weapon.

A weapon that Dragon's Fire should kill.

My vocal cords... he knew to strike them! How?!

[It appears as though some of these inbreds have developed. Even if it's ever so slightly.]

I gritted my teeth in an attempt to will myself to speak. To will my body back together.

To no avail.

His knives zipped through the air, knives sharp enough to cut any armor.

I deflected 6 of them. The other 4 lodged themselves into my chest.

Crying out in pain, I fell to the ground as my vision turned blood red.

My enemy's footsteps echoed across the vacant landscape, somehow filling up the nothingness. Each step mocked me. Get up. Get up. A ravenous laughter began filling the air. The laughter of a predator who has cornered his prey.

"You know, Vakash told me you were going to be a challenge."

One of his knives lodged itself in my arm, pulling me towards him. Raising my head to look into his face, I saw... sadness.

"How disappointing you turned out to be, huh?"

His hand shot out to my arm, holding it in a firm grasp. All I could do was gasp as he broke it.

"Such a shame. You were supposed to be a worthy warrior. One who would erase my shame."

He broke my other arm. The world became a black haze, unbefitting of description.

[Speak, kid!]

Even through the haze, I could see the sadness on my assailant's face. A pure, genuine depression. As if my weakness scoffed at his very being.

Fuck you.

[Speak!]

You stupid piece of shit.

[Speak!]

ARUNA NEEDS ME!

"DRAGON'S FIRE!!!"

I heard a visceral scream fill the air as I was dropped to the ground with a thud. Unable to move my body, I had to pray for his death.

Once again my mouth wasn't working. It had taken everything for me to invoke that single spell.

Healing Touch!

Trying to force my mouth open felt like lifting a tree from its roots. An impossible task.

No matter how much I thought of the words, no matter how much I felt them become one with me, they wouldn't bring themselves into existence.

"You bastard!!!"

How- how did he survive?

[You didn't do much damage to him, kid. His pain is being caused solely due to the injuries he sustained due to his powers.]

I see.

His powers essentially turned him into a living weapon. By sacrificing a body part, he would create a weapon out of it. Usually, he would be able to regenerate that body part in due time. If he lost an arm to create a sword, eventually his arm would grow back. However, my fire stopped that growth, as it stopped any healing aspects.

A simple but brutal power, that apparently did not care about resistance.

Passive attempt failed.

He was still one of those who was overwhelmingly powerful compared to me. That's why my fire dealt no damage.

Mp- 20/40

[Hmm. Nice, kid. Your mana regeneration is growing better by the day.]

A small comfort. Now, if only I could speak.

I should take inspiration from the idiot howling his head off as he approached me.

"Heh."

My eyes grew wide as I laughed. Sound.

Sound!

As my voice croaked, I tried to replicate that same feeling.

Healing touch!

A certain vicious dread filled my body as his boots crunched on the smoldering darkness.

The sound of dozens of knives being created filled the air.

Even after his regeneration was negated, he's going to use his powers?

"You did leave me... intrigued. For a second. As you die, find some comfort in that."

As I heard the zing of the knives flying through the air, time finally stopped.

I heard about this once. I forget who told me about this.

I think it was one of the old men who watched over the city from their porch.

When you are close to death, when it's your final moments, you're entire life plays before your eyes. Everything becomes still, serene, perfect, as you take one last venture through the highs and lows of life. Then, you die.

If that's true... why was the only thing I saw darkness? Was that all my life amounted to?

What about all the times I spent with my mother, gazing at stars or watching TV? What about all the times I spent with Kile, talking about girls we'd never have the courage to talk to?! What about the little time I spent with Aruna, watching the fireworks on the night of the festival?!

Did they mean nothing now? Now that they were taken from me, their void filled with darkness. Is that what I'm being told?

That's bullshit!

I- I NEED TO FIND ARUNA!!!

As the darkness evaporated around me, I realized the truth. I hadn't died. Some part of me... had instinctively used darkness.

[Kid, how the hell did you do that?]

There was clear fear in the system's voice. For the first time.

[Kid! How- how did you control the darkness?]

I don't know. I don't even know if it was me.

I just knew that my body had repaired itself. I knew that I had to get up and fight, as the enemy was preparing to break it again.

His flying knives were met with the demon sword, the second most terrifying weapon in existence. That's what the system felt right now. Somehow, I felt it in my being.

The most terrifying weapon in existence would be me. The master of darkness and light. The true heir of the original system.

Then why am I wasting my time with-

A mace he had constructed from one of his teeth bashed against my head, forcing me to the ground with a groan.

[Don't be overconfident because of your potential, kid.]

Yeah.

The darkness was already beginning to disobey me, fading back into nothingness. The fleeting sense of power was gone.

I was the only thing I could trust to kill this demon.

Mp- 8/40

What? How!

[Using the darkness requires mana kid. That's a pretty basic fact.]

Do you have to be so condescending?

[Focus. The inbred strikes again.]

A mace. A sword. Dozens of knives. All of those weapons were hurled at me in one instant.

"The Lord's Grasp."

Attempt successful.

Interesting. It would appear that the weapons were an extension of the demon and not a part of him. That meant that even if he was overwhelmingly stronger and thus would inherently make any of my abilities unable to affect him, I would still be able to use my abilities in other ways.

First with the Dragon's Fire, making him unable to heal any damage he dealt to himself when creating weapons.

And now with The Lord's Grasp, where I was able to control the weapons he attempted to kill me with.

Whether it was his incompetence or my wit, the bottom line was I had created multiple advantages out of nothing.

I was going to win the fight.

The demon, now merely legs, a spine, and a head, began laughing.

Just as before. His eyes turned red as his mouth enveloped the lower half of his face. I watched as his face contorted, turning into a pitch-black emptiness of malice.

A new pressure began erupting from where he stood, a pressure that exuded pure evil. A pressure that owed its origins to the darkness I foolishly thought I had just conquered.

The truth was, I had little knowledge of the depths of hell I'd come into contact with. And I had no idea how far the bottomless pit would go.

How many infinities, how many eternities?

His scream encapsulated nothingness, shaking the foundations of the subspace itself. As his scream escalated into a maniacal cry I took notice of tears falling from his colorless red eyes. Tears of blood.

Darkness began manifesting itself inside the demon's body, sprouting its new arms as it stamped out my dragon fire. The truth settled itself upon my feeble eyes.

What stood before me couldn't even be called a minion of darkness. It wasn't even a drop in the ocean.

These were the depths I was entering.

Where something that seemed to beckon existence's end was nothing. Not nothingness, nothing.

A fly. An ant.

Nothing.

It would pose no challenge to Vakash.

Vakash... would pose no challenge to whatever lay beyond.

That's what I knew in that instant.

The demon lord...

If everything I've faced so far was just a single drop of water in an ocean, that same ocean would be a single PART of a single drop of water in the ocean that is the demon lord's power.

That transcendental force was what I was tasked with defeating. And if I failed, everyone and everything both in existence and beyond would fall, would die, would crumble to darkness.

Aruna, Farv, Kile, and Roan would die.

So as the demon in front of me screeched, I paid it no mind. I would not fall here.

Raising my sword, I prepared to fight this speck of darkness.