Lucirius coughed up mouthfuls of blood that were sparked to ash by his lightning. His footing stumbled as the world spun around him. Even now, his brain was still rattling around in his skull and showing not the slightest sign of stopping.
A fist drove into his gut and his tongue almost went flying out of his mouth. It didn't feel like a man had hit him at all. Instead, it felt like a raging beast had suddenly rammed right through his torso, the power so great that he could feel his spine almost give out.
He thought he would be sent flying into a building, but instead he was met by three powerful forces to his back, strong pulses of invisible power that rammed into him again and again.
Sylas' telekinesis jetted out like powerful waves of compressed air, keeping him in place as a second and third strike landed on his body.
In a single barrage, Lucirius felt all his inner organs shred to pieces. Sylas' control was so fine and perfect that his bones weren't interfered with in the slightest, and yet damage was maximized.
The situation turned around so fast that Lucirius didn't even know what to think. He didn't know that he could think at all right now.
There was a might pressing down on his psyche that burdened his Will, making him feel small, inferior, insignificant...
Like the outsider he was.
He had stepped into the territory of Earth, not as a predator, but as prey.
And he had pissed off the wrong person.
Sylas felt the Will of Earth wrap around him as his Mixed Martial Arts Comprehension flared with life and vitality. It seemed even stronger now that it was facing an outsider, triggered by the grievances of Earth's people.
And with his Will suppressed, Lucirius didn't have the strength left to use his Will to counter Sylas' own...
The Level o he had once looked down upon had grown too powerful, too strong. Sylas' Will was no longer something that could be so easily dismissed with a pulse of Aether or surge of intent... not with his Mixed Martial Arts Comprehension active.
A heavy foot stomped down on Lucirius from above, cutting through his lightning until it met skin. What was left of the armor he had used to protect himself outside of his Aether had long been torn to pieces by Sylas' blows.
Aside from his spear, he didn't seem to have any other Treasures to rely upon.
Time slowed for Lucirius and he whiffed the scent of death. A scythe hung to his neck, slowly piercing into his skin and flooding him with a sense of loss.
Sylas wasn't one to speak, nor did he care to. The moment he got Lucirius in this position, he stomped down, his quads flexing as he pushed through.
The position of his foot was perfect. With this blow, and if he applied his strength just right, Lucirius' heart would be skewered at least a half dozen ways by his own ribcage.
But it was then that a slight change took place.
The skies rumbled just as the sickening crunch of Lucirius' bones echoed.
A wheezing, pained laughter came from Lucirius.
"... Fi... na...lly..."
A bolt as thick as a small hill descended from the skies, crashing down and tearing the slum community into two. It enveloped the two men and all one could see from the outside was a pulsing pillar of gold.
And then it vanished as soon as it appeared.
Sylas stumbled back, his armor filled with cracks. A pressure weighed down on his mind, but it didn't come from the lightning. Rather, as his armor tried to quickly mend itself, it seemed to be trying to rely on him to supply the Will of the Scorpion it needed.
Sylas had never experienced this before and he wondered if it was because he had reached Flesh Mastery.
He was just trying to figure it out when a spear pierced through the cracked shards in his chest, sending him flying back.
His Scorpion Warlord Armor broke into shards. As the world spun around him, he barely saw a giant wreathed in lightning, standing at over three meters tall.
Lucirius had disappeared, or maybe this was Lucirius himself.
"I cannot believe that that didn't kill you... Maybe Plinli was right, underestimating you was a mistake. But that all ends-."
Sylas stood, looking down at his chest that was now coated in black scales. There was a barely perceptible white mark where Lucirius' spear had landed, and he couldn't help but shake his head.
'About five seconds... it's enough.'
Lucirius snapped his head from side to side, trying to pinpoint where the blurring images started and ended, and which of them was Sylas' real body, but in the end, none of it mattered.
A powerful force struck his wrist, knocking his spear out of his grasp. The gap in Strength was so high that Lucirius didn't even have the right to fight back, almost like an adult had ripped his blade out from his child-like hands.
The spear pierced into the ground with such strength that the streets were overturned, a crack as thick as a man's waist racing to the left and right, before veering and crashing into the foundation of a building that sent it crumbling to the ground.
It was then that Lucirius finally spotted Sylas. At some unknown time, he had appeared, standing on the butt of his spear and staring at him at eye level.
Lucirius' body shook from head to toe when he saw those golden slit eyes. He felt so small, so insignificant.
What he had experienced before wasn't the reaper's scythe at all. It was something more arrogant, more primal. It wasn't a supernatural force, but was rather just Sylas' Will alone.
He wanted him to die.
So today... the Sylph would die.
Sylas' tail, as black as night, and pulsing with faint Runes of gold, casually whipped out.
Another blow hit the side of Lucirius' head in the very same spot Sylas' earlier kick had. But
this time, his spine snapped.
Like a deformed ball, his head caved into the side of Sylas' tail, the G-forces on it so great that it couldn't escape.
Lines of pressure distorted his features as his eyes dimmed in the last moments.
Sylas' tail came to a stop, snapping back as Lucirius' head fell into a rain of flesh, blood, and