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C1238 Blazing Dawn. Dauntless Day

Myghell was so fast that Leonel could only react on instinct, quickly crossing his spear over his chest.

It was like those enormous great swords were no heavier than a single feather, or so it seemed with the ease Myghell swung them.

The spear across Leonel's chest immediately found itself bending in protest. Despite the fact Leonel had wanted to use it to protect himself, a strong, surging force bent it to the point it barreled into his sternum, causing his body to bow backward and fly out with a BANG!

A projectile of blood flew from Leonel's mouth, his entire rib cage threatening to shatter. If it wasn't for his Bronze Runes dispersing the force throughout his body, maybe his lungs and heart would have been riddled with bone shards by now.

Leonel could tell that Myghell had instead lost his speed and most importantly, his agility. However, when it came to a straight line bound and leap forward, strength alone could often overwhelm speed. And now that Myghell had taken the initiative, he proved this about as well as you possibly could.

Myghell howled, his hair fluttering about wildly. He looked like a beast that had been released from its chains, his attack and pursuit relentless as though he couldn't feel fatigue.

Every time he landed the ground would collapse, every time he shot forward an abyss would be left in his wake, every time he attacked the air split and sparking flames followed his swing as the atmosphere cried for mercy.

Leonel found his body being beaten and bruised. He managed to find a way to block every time, but he could never escape the pain that came with it. His wrists threatened to shatter, his shoulders were continuously almost ripped from their sockets, and his legs and torso were beginning to show signs of deep internal bleeding, splotches of a grotesque blackish violet spreading beneath their skin.

"BLAZING DAWN. DAUNTLESS DAY."

The gold of Myghell's hair and eyes became like a blazing sun. Even his eyebrows followed suit, the endless flood of it making him look like a deity descended from the skies above. And yet, his coarse laughter and his fiendish grin warped that persona, giving him the image of endless bloodlust, the kind that could only be matched by a God of War.

"HAAA-UUUUU!"

Myghell's howls caused the golden barriers that protected the audience to tremble and vibrate. The crowd could only imagine just how loud it was for Leonel who was trapped in there.

Whether by coincidence or design, everyone seem to have landed on the same conclusion… This arena had become a cage and Leonel happened to be stuck in there with a beast.

The Luxnix had quite frankly never seen this side of Myghell. Not only had he abandoned the light flexible sword that was the symbol of their family, but he didn't even seem to be using Snow Force any longer. They couldn't help but feel that the Myghell that they had all come to know was a façade from the very beginning, nothing more than an image he projected out to them.

This was the true Myghell. And unrelenting, furious, battle maniac who wielded his swords like clubs and bellowed out war cries as though he wouldn't be satisfied until the whole of the Dimensional Verse heard his name.

BANG!

Leonel against the golden barrier, another cough of blood leaving his lips.

By now, his clothes were in tatters. Where his skin was exposed no longer shone as resplendently as they had before, even his Bronze Runes seemed to have dimmed considerably.

Myghell's relentless pursuit didn't pause for even a moment. Blazing like a golden meteor, he shot into the air, falling down toward Leonel with both his great swords raised high above his head.

His hair and eyebrows gave of wisps of white-gold fog. His eyes had begun to glow so bright that the whites had vanished, replaced by orbs of gold that pulsed with light.

Leonel watched this seen, a light breath leaving his lips. Even that alone made him feel like his entire body was on fire.

'Alright, if a brawl is what you want, come and have a brawl.'

Leonel eyes closed for a moment, making it truly seem as though he had given in. But when they opened, his eyes, too, had become nothing more than orbs of light. However, his own blazed like shimmering sapphires, his aura imploding in the form of a pillar that seemed to want to pierce the skies.

"Star Fusion."

Wild plumes of sky blue smoke shot out from Leonel, his body suddenly vanishing from its position and appearing above Myghell.

His white shirt was ripped from himself, revealing a torso no less ripped and defined than Myghell's own. His Bronze Runes were flooded with Vital Star Force, causing them to pulse with the very same blue light as his halo hung above his head.

Myghell continued to fall, unable to change his direction. But, Leonel had already closed in, his feet slamming down on the top of the former's back and driving him into the ground.

BANG!

Myghell twisted in the air, blocking Leonel's foot with the flat of his blade and swinging forward with his other, his gaze lit with thoughts of splitting him in two. But, what he found instead was Leonel's own blade.

Spear and sword met in the skies, the reverberating impact sending Leonel spiraling so far into the air that he crashed into the barrier once again. At the same time, Myghell careened into the ground, falling into such a deep pit that it wasn't immediately obvious what happened to him.

Unfortunately, though… This wasn't the kind of battle that had lulls and pauses.

Two almost mindless roars shook the stadium.

In the ground below, Myghell's aura alone shattered everything in its path, forcing the rocks to crumble and the surrounding walls to fall into the abyss. The elevation where the stages and platforms had been at fell by more than 50 meters, leaving a sinkhole that spread out for hundreds more.

In the skies, Leonel's bellow shattered the ceiling of the golden dome, shards of white-gold glass falling in all directions and precipitating in a beautiful rainfall.

And then, a streak of blinding blue and another of blinding gold tore a path toward one another, meeting in the skies and causing a BOOM that deafened the ears of all those that heard it.

To be continued