"Damn it... did I really have to face this? Screw it!"
Shen Zuo said, clenching his jaw hard, sweat dripping from his forehead despite the distance, watching the fiery battle escalating in front of him. The heat reached him as though flames were licking his skin from dozens of meters away.
His eyes didn't blink as he tracked two beasts the size of a nightmare, one tearing through the air with its feathers, the other scorching the ground with its claws.
"Damn it... damn it..."
He whispered again, his hand gripping the axe's handle tighter, but he didn't move. Not yet.
The blue flame ignited in the hawk's eyes like never before, a blaze so striking it made the air around it tremble with a strange heat, as though time itself had paused for a moment.
The massive lion, despite its ferocity, despite the exploding flame it had been pounding into the earth and sky... froze in place.
Its giant claws dug into the rocky ground, its fangs bared, its chest rising and falling slowly, but it couldn't move.
From a distance, Shen Zuo's eyes widened as he whispered in astonishment:
"This is... completely different..."
The bird advanced, not with its usual frantic movement, but with calm, deliberate steps, a being above all other beings, a king in a battlefield already decided.
And the lion... was helpless, powerless.
In the next instant, the hawk shot forward like lightning, sinking its talons into the lion's neck, its sharp beak driving down with force at the base of its throat. Sparks flew, skin tore, and a ripping sound echoed out.
The lion didn't fall, but it staggered back a step, its legs swaying under its own weight.
Shen Zuo didn't move, fist raised, watching tensely as the bird pulled back quickly, flapping its wings above the ground.
The lion slowly raised its head. The red flame flared even brighter inside its jaws, until even its breath came out as thick smoke. It suddenly opened its jaws... and unleashed a massive wave of flame that swept across the ground in front of it.
The hawk climbed higher, its sharp feathers launching in greater numbers than ever before. One pierced the lion's left shoulder, driving into the flesh, drawing blood.
The lion's body shook, but it didn't stop. The flame began circling around it, as though forming a fiery shield. The ground beneath its feet cracked from the heat.
The hawk answered with a new attack, a compressed fireball combined with even more concentrated feathers, exploding with tremendous force against the lion's body.
But the beast didn't fall.
Its body began changing. The red cracks grew more visible, its heat rising so high that even the air itself warped around it.
Shen Zuo felt the heat despite the distance, sweat streaming down his forehead as he murmured:
"Damn it. This bird can't finish it off fast enough..."
Suddenly, amid the storm of feathers and fireballs, the lion let out a roar powerful enough to shake the entire area.
It struck the ground with its front claws, shattering the stone beneath its legs, then launched its massive body like an arrow toward the hawk, which was flying at a low altitude.
Red flame erupted from the lion's body, its speed doubling for a moment, and it managed to extend its claws forward in a sudden strike.
It caught the hawk's left wing!
A sharp scream erupted from the hawk's beak for the first time.
The lion's claws sank deep into the hawk's flesh, blood scattering, and with that devastating blow, the hawk's body slammed into the ground with such violent force that the dirt shook beneath Shen Zuo himself.
"Damn it!" Shen Zuo muttered, watching the hawk's wing twist unnaturally.
But despite the pain... despite the wounded wing... the hawk slowly raised its head, its eyes still blazing with blue fire, the red flame reflecting off its dark feathers.
But the hawk... slowly raised its injured wing, and in a terrifying instant, the wing snapped back into its normal shape. The bones rearranged themselves, the skin healed at an unbelievable speed, but Shen Zuo noticed it clearly:
The hawk's speed had dropped visibly.
The lion hadn't come out unscathed either.
The side of its body was now riddled with holes from the fiery feathers, its left shoulder bleeding, one of its hind legs moving with difficulty, and the flame surrounding its body had begun weakening gradually.
The hawk lunged again, this time slower, but more precise.
It fired a focused burst of feathers and small fireballs, but the lion had started to understand the attack pattern. It rolled across the ground, taking a few more feathers to its side, but managed to dodge most of them.
Even so... blood now flowed from the lion's neck, a deep wound left by the earlier claw strike.
Its movement had grown heavier.
But the lion wasn't out of tricks.
Bracing itself on its three good legs, it raised its tail, which had begun giving off a strange red glow, then suddenly, a blade of concentrated flame shot out from its tail like a whip, extending at lightning speed toward the hawk's wing.
The hawk didn't fully dodge it.
The lash of flame struck its right wing; the feathers there caught fire and burst like a light spark.
The hawk flew with greater difficulty, but it still held on.
The air around it began igniting with a blue flash with every wingbeat.
From the ground, the lion roared again, a deep roar that made the air itself tremble.
Shen Zuo noticed something strange...
Red lines began slowly appearing on the beast's chest, as though the skin itself was cracking, breaking apart under the pressure of something building inside.
The skin cracked further... and those lines split open to reveal a pulsing red light, as though the flame was beating inside its very body.
"What is that...?"
Shen Zuo muttered, his eyes not blinking.
"It's... tearing itself apart?!"
A faint beam of flame leaked out from between the cracks, and with every exhale, thick smoke rose from the lion's mouth.
It looked as though the beast was burning itself from the inside to birth an even more violent power.
And with every minute that passed...
the violence didn't ease, it only grew more savage.
Both sides were weakening... but neither backed down.
The hawk flew more slowly now, its wingbeats having lost their usual lightness. Clear burns marred its right wing, while its left still ached with old wounds that hadn't fully healed. Every movement it made grew heavier, slower.
And below...
the giant lion, half its body covered in blood, the cracking lines across its hide now stretching down to its ribs.
The red flame surrounding it had grown unstable, flickering and igniting erratically.
Its steps shook... but it didn't fall.
A low rumble came from deep inside it, not a roar like before, but a distorted growl, half pain, half fury.
And with every exhale, the dark smoke grew thicker, like a poisonous fog.
The hawk changed its tactics.
It didn't attack directly.
Instead... it climbed to the highest point it could reach, then dove straight down in a single burst, wings folded, its body like an arrow plunging from the sky.
The lion slowly raised its head.
The flame around its claws flared for a moment, but its speed couldn't save it in time.
The impact was massive. The hawk's beak struck the side of the lion's neck, its talon tearing off part of the shoulder's hide.
The lion rolled two meters from the sheer force, the ground itself cracking beneath it.
But even after that blow... it got back up.
Blood dripped from its eyes.
Its breathing came out in wild, ragged gasps.
And yet... it slowly raised its claws.
The flame hadn't died... not yet.
The hawk pulled back, its body trembling.
Half the feathers on its lower wing had burned away completely.
Its heavy breath came out as a hoarse wheeze.
Shen Zuo, from a distance, stared, his breathing short: "They're... slowly killing each other."
"Even now... stepping in is still extremely difficult..."
Shen Zuo whispered through gritted teeth, his eyes not leaving the destruction unfolding before him, his grip tightening hard on the axe's handle.
The lion's flame roared on, and the hawk's blue feathers kept falling... both beasts were on the verge of collapse.
Shen Zuo clenched his jaw, his breath hot, then growled in a low voice: "But... screw everything... I'm the one who's going to kill that lion!"
His knees bent slightly, his body leaning forward, his eyes igniting with a resolve never seen on him before.
This wasn't some reckless, stupid charge... alright.