Match 7: General Blaze vs. Eri – The Test
The clash was a storm of fire and hellish energy. Eri moved with fluid, alchemical grace, her strikes precise and powerful. General Blaze met her blow for blow, his movements economical, his expression one of calm assessment rather than battle fury.
"You have a slight instability in your pivot on the third strike," he noted calmly, deflecting a kick that could shatter mountains. "A minor flaw, but one a sharper opponent could exploit."
Eri disengaged, breathing heavily. "You seem remarkably relaxed for a fight like this."
"I am merely testing the capabilities of the new generation," Blaze replied, his fists erupting in solar flames as they collided with her forearms. "It is a rare opportunity."
The battle escalated, a terrifying dance of incinerating heat and corrosive dark energy. Eri pushed her alchemical body to its absolute limit, but a cold dread settled in her gut. Damn it! I can't win like this. He's not even trying.
She remembered Nero's words after his last enhancements to her body: "It can now channel 70% of the Hell Gate's true power. But at maximum output... it will only last for three minutes."
It was a gamble. But she had no other choice.
"Enough!" Eri roared. "Hell Gate: Unchained!"
The world bent. An aura of pure, annihilating darkness exploded from her, so potent it seemed to suck the light from the very fabric of the Astral Plain. To her perception, time slowed to a crawl.
She moved.
Blaze, for the first time, looked surprised. Eri was a blur of absolute power. She struck him from a dozen angles at once, blows landing with the force of dying stars. He was utterly overwhelmed, a leaf in her hurricane. With a final, cataclysmic punch that tore a screaming rift in reality itself, she sent him hurtling through the dimensional tear.
Eri didn't hesitate. She plunged after him.
Interlude: The World Watches – Again
On modern Earth, the skies had just calmed from the last shocking display. News channels were still broadcasting panicked reports. Then, the sky tore open again.
A man wreathed in fading embers of solar fire crashed into the center of downtown Tokyo, carving a crater through skyscrapers. A heartbeat later, a woman radiating terrifying, god-like darkness landed before him.
Panic erupted. "THEY'RE COMING THROUGH!" someone screamed on a live broadcast.
Two minutes, fifty seconds, Eri thought, her enhanced mind calculating. I have to finish this NOW.
She never saw him move.
In a display of speed that defied her time-dilated perception, Blaze was simply... behind her. His hands became blurs, striking twenty-one specific points along her spine with pinpoint, surgical precision.
FZZZT!
The immense power flooding Eri's body vanished like a popped balloon. The terrifying aura of the Hell Gate snuffed out. Her transformation shattered, leaving her feeling hollow and vulnerable. She stumbled forward, shock freezing her in place.
"He just... undid my transformation... How?!"
Blaze stood calmly, retracting his hands. "The power of a Gate flows through twenty-one specific chakra conduits in the body," he explained, his voice low and urgent. "Believe me, it is not easy to forcibly close them. But if one is fast enough to strike all points with near-zero time lapse... it is possible."
He stepped closer, his demeanor shifting from combatant to conspirator. "Now, Eri, thank you. Thank you for sending me here."
Eri could only stare, bewildered. "What?"
"Listen carefully. I don't have much time," Blaze whispered, his eyes scanning the skies of this new world. "In our dimension, I am constantly watched. But not here. Their gaze cannot easily pierce this reality."
"Watched by who?" Eri demanded.
"No time for names. They are after the Eternal Fragments. One of those fragments is located here, on this Earth. These artifacts are scattered across the multiverse..."
Miles away, in the heart of his own battle on the Plain of Infinity, Nero froze mid-strike. Eri's senses were his senses; her hearing, his hearing. Blaze's words echoed in his soul.
**"...They cannot be sensed by conventional means, not even by a Gate User's perception. They shine with immense power, but if buried, if hidden... they are invisible. That is why 'they' will not search. They will simply destroy this entire planet to ashes to be sure. The fragment itself is indestructible."
A new voice, cold and laced with murderous intent, cut through the air. "You share quite a lot of information... traitor."
An S-Rank Hunter from this world, drawn by the colossal energy signatures, launched a devastating beam of concentrated mana. Eri instinctively dodged, the movement carrying her back through the still-open rift to her own dimension. The Hunter's attack continued unabated, aimed directly at Blaze.
"Eri, GO!" Blaze roared, turning to face the new threat, solar flames reigniting around him. "I will handle this! Hurry! We are out of time!"
The rift snapped shut. The match was over, leaving no clear victor, only a dire warning hanging in the air.
Match 6: Whity vs. The Chaos Temptress – The Root of Greed
Back on the Astral Plain, Whity's battle was reaching its climax. He was a golden storm in his Resurrection State: "Leaves of Falling Autumn," but for every tendril of the Temptress he disintegrated, two more grew from the swirling miasma of desire.
"No matter how many times I destroy her, she just reforms," Whity muttered, his brilliant mind racing for a solution. This was power fueled by infinite want; a direct assault was futile.
He focused, pushing past the corrupting energy. "Ilena!" he called out, his voice laced with power meant to pierce illusions. "Can you hear me?!"
The Temptress laughed, a sound like shattering glass and whispered promises. "Nonsense! She is gone! There is only desire now!"
But Whity's power wasn't for the Temptress; it was a lifeline thrown into the depths of Ilena's soul. And it found a purchase.
We now understand why this curse has such strong roots, Whity realized, his Soul Library allowing him a glimpse into the tragedy. Unlike curses that torture, this one seduces. It uses the host's body and gives them what they crave most: pleasant memories.
A vision unfolded within the psychic space of the battle:
A young Ilena, face smudged with dirt, clutching a few coins. Her eyes weren't greedy for herself, but for the hungry faces of her younger siblings watching from the doorway of a rundown shack. Her greed was for money, yes, but only to give them a comfortable life, to hear them laugh without worry.
Then, the fateful day. A fire? Sickness? The memory was blurred, protected by trauma. The result was clear: she was alone. The loss hollowed her out, a wound that never healed.
The Chaos Temptress had slithered into that emptiness. It didn't show her nightmares; it gave her dreams. It crafted a perfect illusion where her brothers and sisters were alive, happy, calling for their "Big Sister" to come play. It made her greedy for this feeling, this false peace, binding her soul to its will with chains of perfect, beautiful lies.
The curse wasn't a prison of pain; it was a gilded cage of memory, and Ilena had thrown away the key herself. Whity's task was no longer to destroy a monster, but to break a heart-wrenching illusion and offer a reality far more painful, yet true. The battle had just become infinitely more complicated.