Memories: Zephra's First Move, Ryuga Wields The Resemblance

[The Netherworld - Zephra 's Throne Room]

Zephra 's cocoon is still on her throne. Black magic emanates from it. It expands and contracts in a rhythm of a heartbeat.

The horseman of death and horseman of War are standing on each side of the throne, guarding it.

The emanating magic becomes stronger and the sound of a heartbeat resonates even louder. Cracks appear on the cocoon and multiply with every heartbeat.

The heartbeat stops and the magic around the room is forcibly drawn to the cracks on the cocoon. The resulting magic overload causes the cocoon to blow up with a powerful force, filling the room with blinding smoke. The smoke slowly dissipates and Zephra is sitting on the throne. Her power has been restored.

This was an expected result. The time in Netherworld flows nearly twenty times faster than the normal time flow of the universe. So she recovered twenty times faster than she would have in normal time.

"Finally, my reward for being patient. I've been awaiting this moment. Now, my horsemen. Bow to me." Zephra slowly walked down her throne to the horsemen. In response, they fall to their knees.

Shelia, her right hand woman came rushing in. Seeing her queen, her face brimmed with happiness. She walked towards her with a smile. Her expression was befitting of a dark lieutenant.

"My queen, As I said, I have located it. The book of a Thousand Paths- The Gatebreaker. But the gate has been sealed with elemental manipulating energy. Nothing has been able to leave Netherworld for some days."

"Good, very good. Now my Horseman of Death, you shall go get me the book of Thousand Paths. Horsemen of war, guard the gates of Netherworld." She walks to Shelia. "Send him right above it. Open another gate if needed. Starting today, the entire world will shake whenever I move."

"Yes, my queen." The horseman of death walks out along with Shelia.

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[Imperial Castle Astron]

A black cloud builts up above Astron. Black mist gathers on the ground and natural energy rises to the clouds. The soldiers and residents of the castle look up to the sky, feeling the unease in the air.

A large circle opens up in the sky and a powerful bolt of lightning strikes the ground, sending a wave of fear to those around. The cloud above the castle vanishes as the gate closes up

A large headless figure rises from a cloud of dust. He raises his hand and a horse of dark magic materializes right by his side. He gets on the horse and with a stomp to the ground. The cloud of dust clears.

A soldier attacks, charging with rage but the horseman swings his sword and slashes off his head. The onlooking allies shake in the knees at the sight. "Fear not men! He ever enemy will fall to our swords as long as we work together, now chaaaarge!!" One of them encourages, and they all move in unison to try and overpower him.

The horseman raises his sword and his horse responds by rising on two feet with a loud neigh. He drops his hand and a wave of gravity forces everyone to the ground. Crushing their bones the more it forces them down.

"Aaaaaaaaaahhhh…..!!" The soldiers scream in agony whilst being pinned to the ground.

The horseman turns his horse and rides to the direction of the hidden library.

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[Underground Chamber]

Ryuga and Irla are getting ready to combat. Irla's energy rises above her. A three dimensional magic circle is drawn with it. "From the destruction of the deep space star, I call upon the power of your core. Come Forth <Destruction Blade.< em>" A jet-black longsword with a white line along the middle from the tip to the guard descendants and she grips it by the handle.

"Scotch it all to ashes without leaving a trace <Dragon Fang>". A flame the length of a sword descends from the magic circle which slowly fades away.

Irla grits her teeth and charges with her best speed. She appeared besides Ryuga and thrusts the destruction blade from below. Ryuga avoids it by an inch and grabs her wrist. She swings the dragon fang upwards but Ryuga knocks away her wrist with his knee causing her sword to miss. Ryuga looks at her face from above and like a reflex, he swings his hand down and slaps her down.

His hand landed on her cheek and forced her to down. The force of the slap smashed her head to into the ground with minor cracks etching. Irla pukes blood.

But he blinks a few times and jumps back with his hand over his mouth.

"Oh, sorry about that. I meant to uh.. uh… just push you… back?" he builds up his ohra and draws a three dimensional magic circle.

Irla glares at him and gets up. She spits the blood in her mouth and turns her gaze to Ryuga. "Igneus." She fires a blue flame at him.

"She's wastes no time at all,,,,,, Chant- Nazurack." Ryuga responds with a blue spear that fires from his left as he dodges the flames.

Irla fails to see the spears in time. She tries to dodge but gets cut on her right shoulder. "How come he's so fast with spell casting?"

Xicor from a distance, raise his left hand while releasing some energy to the atmosphere. "Infernal Blaaaaaze…!!" he shoots a net of blue flames.

" That's some impressive output but, Space Snap." With the snap of her fingers the flames go in a different direction and explodes. "I guess with you anything goes."

Xicor makes four clones of himself of which Irla kills three with the destruction blade.

"Thanks for helping me to scatter my energy. Please accept my gift. Infernal Blaze." Due to his immense energy in the air he's able to manipulate the flames easier even though he filled the area with uncontrollable hot fire.

"Activate Axis -Star"

"I thought I would make her use that fire sword. I guess seeing her cards is out of the question." Ryuga makes some distance and raises a defensive field around himself.

"I think you've become too slow" Irla appears above Xicor and cuts him from left shoulder to his waist.

"What the? that incredible speed. I couldn't even react." Ryuga crashes onto the ground and closes his eyes. He Hears a voice

'Xicor,

"I'm impressed that you forced to go all out, with only spells, I guess Necromarcs aren't too bad. But I've already won."

Xicor gets up, grunts and coughs up blood. "If I keep this up I'll loose, and I'd hate to loose."

"Still wanna continue?" She couldn't get his motivation.

Xicor Raises his right hand, and slowly breaths in and out "Now Transcend Resemblance." he turns his gaze to Irla.

"Such Power, it's incredibly off the charts." For the first time in a while, she was closest to feeling fear.

"Infinite Cut." Ryuga slashes with his sword and tears the space behind Irla. She used the destruction blade to minimise the damage, but gets cut in the shoulder but the power was too much to handle.

No. The attack was impossible to block. Irla can manipulate space, so she should have been able to sense any rip in space before it appeared. But zero became Infinite. A rip that was never there appeared like it has always been there.

"Damn it ..."

In the fraction of a second, Xicor was infront of Irla. Looking serious. Irla realised then and there that she was outclassed.

Xicor unleashed a barrage of multiple attacks without breaking eye contact. Irla keeps blocking but looking overwhelmed. " Traverse the cosmos - Black Hole Vacuum—" Irla tries to suck Ryuga into a mini black hole. But Ryuga fires his own spell into the heart of hers before it fully activates.

"Not gonna be enough, Hollow Meteor Stream."

Irla subconsciously teleportats further from Xicor. Ryuga grips the resemblance and charges up his ohra for a massive attack. Irla responds with the same action. They both kick off with force and attack.

A hole blows up in the ceiling of the chamber and a black headless figure on a horse appears holding a sword.

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