Divine Beast Ascension

560 Struggle Till the End

While Gennor stayed put in the air like a wind-blade turret, Oli’s orbs of dark-death essence continued to drift in the sky overhead. And the moment they managed to cast a shadow on unmoving Sky Wyvern, shadow tendrils reached out from the shadow to latch onto the orbs. All at once, all three masses of dark-death essence were pulled into different parts of Gennor’s body. One into his back, directly on top of his core, and the other two were yanked into his wings.

This didn’t end the fight. But Gennor realized that something was wrong right away.

“Death essence? From a human?!” Gennor shouted in shock.

“Well, I can’t hold back against someone like you!” Oli laughed, getting smirks from Zelsh, Bradok, Vloz, and Ania. Even Eeole was smiling from somewhere nearby.

Oli continued, “Now it’s a race. Will you bring me down first or will my infectious essence weaken you to the point that I can take you out?”

Gennor took a moment to assess his body. There didn’t seem to be any immediate, physical issues. But Gennor could instantly tell why Oli had targeted where he had. The circulation of essence was being affected by the dark-death essence in his wings. And Gennor had no ability to extract essence with such a misty, murky nature. It was hard to contain and expel without the dark-death essence causing more harm in the process.

The worst feeling Gennor had was from his core. It was impossible for Oli to taint or corrode Gennor’s core, so there was no threat to Gennor’s life. But having the disrupting essence gathered around Gennor’s core meant that it slowed the essence circulation around Gennor’s entire body along with the focus on his wings.

That left Gennor with slower essence recovery, slower essence-based attacks, and slower essence manipulation in general.

The fight hadn’t been one just yet, but this turn of events meant Gennor could only launch four wind blades at a time. And Gennor was forced to wait even longer in order to charge his essence between attacks.

.....

Facing far less pressure, Oli sighed and evade the four wind blades, swatting one aside. Oli proved to have renewed confidence. However, there was one problem that only Oli, Zelsh, and Kraz knew.

Oli was bluffing.

Due to the incomplete transition to death essence, Oli’s dark-death essence was nowhere near as infectious as true death essence. It shared most of the same qualities but lacked some of death essence’s strongest points, like how it could only spread through a target’s body at a snail’s pace in its incomplete state.

But even a little essence disturbance and a mask of confidence were enough for Oli to feel better about the match.

“I was just lucky that you weren’t moving around!” Oli shouted. “If you hadn’t been hovering there, I never would’ve been able to hit you!”

Gennor nodded and shrouded his body in wind essence. “This is true. I hadn’t realized that such a strange strategy was viable against me. Well done, and thank you for teaching me something new. However, I consider you strong and will only fight seriously. I hope you still have enough essence to last a while longer and make this interesting.”

Laughing under his breath, Oli had expected Gennor to realize that fact. After all, Oli was constantly spending essence just to avoid or block the limb-severing wind blades.

“Even if your remaining essence matches mine, my body is stronger. If you don’t want a limb removed, I recommend a prompt, honorable surrender,” Gennor commented as his gathered wind essence reached its peak. “I understand if you wish to see me in action first. But then it might be too late to save you from the intense pain of limb loss.”

Flap! Fwoosh!

The huge, flying beast took off like a seeking missile. Gennor incredible speed was nigh untouchable to anyone without wind or lightning essence. And he was right on top of Oli before Oli could exhale his next breath.

Crunch!

The ground broke apart as Gennor crashed down on the spot Oli was standing. Oli had already been ready to leap aside, but he only barely evaded the attack.

Yet Gennor wasn’t done. He didn’t even pause as he changed directions and rocketed toward Oli.

With Gennor’s attack path now obvious, Oli rose a stone wall underneath him mid-dive. The wall rushed out of the ground just as Oli passed by it and dark tendrils emerged from its shadow. They did little to nothing against Gennor’s spear-like charge but it at least slowed the beast if only a little.

At the same time, Oli had no choice but to make a bet.

Crunch. CRACK! Thud, thud!

The wall was run through with ease. All the shadow tentacles were dashed to pieces. Relatively, they didn’t even slow the beast down.

Though, it did make Gennor lose sight of Oli for a split second.

As the Sky Wyvern crashed through the stone wall and shadow tendrils, Gennor failed to find Oli on the other side. Instead, Oli’s mace found Gennor first.

Rather than rolling out of his dive and rushing back to his feet, Oli landed on his back and retrieved his other mace. While filling both maces with earth and dark essence, Oli swung his weaker mace and whiffed hard. He had misjudged Gennor’s speed. But because he overshot it instead of underestimating it, Gennor charged out of the wall just as Oli made his second swing.

Gennor was unable to defend himself from the point-blank strike. He was glad that Oli didn’t have a solid stance behind the swing but the force of Oli’s mace still startled the flying beast.

The Sky Wyvern was forcefully redirected. He felt the weight of Oli’s mace on his inner wing and side before he crashed and skid across the ground.

When Gennor’s wings were hurriedly pulled back in, the tip of Gennor’s wing slashed the side of Oli’s arm. But Oli wasn’t going to lose the one chance he had to end the fight. He summoned diagonal stone walls to cover and restrict Gennor and his wings. The wyvern shook off the damage and broke the walls apart but it bought Oli enough time for a follow-up strike.

Crack. Fwoo–rrriip!

Oli threw his weaker mace in order to make sure Gennor couldn’t take off and evade Oli’s counterattack.

Gennor brushed off the thrown mace with his wing, feeling a tiny fracture in his wing that caught him off guard. To his surprise, Oli had also thrown his most powerful mace. But Gennor flapped his wings anyway and rushed to get more space between himself and Oli.

Yet Oli’s arrival was still barely in time thanks to his delaying efforts.

In a flash of dark essence, Oli closed the gap and revealed that he had a speed-boosting battle art. And he paired it with a long hammer made of earth essence. It slammed down on Gennor’s wing. Not on Gennor’s bones but on the flap of skin and scales.

Stumbling in the air, Gennor groaned in pain as the flap of his right wing incomparably overpowered his left. He briefly touched down on the ground to rebalance himself.

And Oli didn’t let up. Another essence hammer appeared in Oli’s other hand, letting him make one strike after the other on the downed wyvern and his lackluster defenses.

Blood sprayed out and the crack of bones was heard by everyone on the balcony.

Gennor’s gaze was as firm as ever. His resolve to win had never been stronger. But in a matter of seconds, Oli had rendered his left wing incapable of flight.

This time, Oli wasn’t hesitating or stopping to check if Gennor would surrender. Oli just kept hammering away, following Gennor wherever his single wing could take him. Both maces had been disregarded as well. All that mattered to Oli at that moment was breaking and chipping away at Gennor’s body before Oli was completely out of essence.

Gennor was forced into a similar situation. With only one wing functioning, all of his abilities were drastically reduced, not just halved. He could either flap and evade or attack and hope the hit stops his opponent.

There was also the option of using his jaws to attack or a breath-based attack. But Oli was already in close-combat range. That would leave Gennor’s head exposed for the next attacks, and Gennor couldn’t let that happen considering how easily Oli had smashed through the defenses of Hiztor, a defensive specialist. So Gennor wasn’t willing to bet on tanking a single hit to his head or neck.

With Gennor still dragging the fight out, Oli pushed his essence reserves to the limit. Two walls popped up behind the wyvern only a moment after he flapped his wing to back away, forming a “V” with Gennor caught in the middle. Yet the walls were unusually thin.

A rush of shadow tendrils tried to lock Gennor in place. But they were much weaker than before and barely able to exist under the pressure of Gennor’s wind essence.

Feeling pain spread from his chest to the rest of his body, Oli crammed the last of his essence into a single swing of his essence hammer, forced to disperse the second hammer while doing so. With earth essence brimming through the construct weapon and a trail of dark-death essence forming around the hammerhead, Oli’s final attack was unleashed.