The monk raised an eyebrow, observing Zephyr's frustration.
"All right," said the old man.
The golden rings stopped spinning and floated behind him, suspended in the air. The monk opened his arms, unprotected.
"You won't even attack an old man? Are you afraid?"
"Son of a bitch!" roared Zephyr.
He exploded with rage, closing the distance with a dash. He launched a violent knee strike, but the monk tilted his head, letting the blow pass by millimeters. Still in the air, Zephyr delivered a roundhouse kick that the old man blocked with his forearm. Taking advantage of the momentum, Zephyr spun his body and tried to stomp on the monk's face with all his might.
The old man simply extended his index finger. Zephyr's foot hit the tip of his finger.
Zin.
A sharp sound and a golden glow flashed at the point of contact. The pressure was so intense that Zephyr's foot exploded into flesh and bone in the air, and his body was thrown back violently.
Without giving him time to fall, the monk began a choreography of arms. With martial arts movements, he threw the golden discs one after another. Zephyr, whose tissues were already regenerating in mid-flight, spun his body, dodging the first disc.
In midair, he grabbed the second disc with his bare hand and threw it at the third, which in turn ricocheted off the fourth. Upon touching the ground, Zephyr raised an instant wall of earth to block the fifth arc. He began running in circles around the monk at high speed. The hand he had used to touch the disc was smoking; the pain was excruciating.
"Son of a bitch... you have to die no matter what. This time I didn't come to be a slave," thought Zephyr.
The sixth disc came low. Zephyr slid on his knees through the mud; the metal passed inches away, tearing off his hood and revealing his gray face. He jumped, spinning in the air, as a mud snake emerged from the ground to protect him from the seventh disc.
At the top of his jump, Zephyr pointed at the building behind the monk. The mud snake stretched out like a giant whip, ignoring the monk and firing directly at the monastery structure.
"Playing dirty," thought the monk. He didn't hesitate and threw three of his discs at the mud snake, disintegrating it before it hit the monastery. However, the diversion created the opening Zephyr had been waiting for. The hybrid appeared behind the old man, delivering a lethal thrust with a staff.
The monk reacted purely on reflex: he ducked, applying a swift sweep that knocked Zephyr's feet off the ground. While his enemy was still in the air, the old man stretched out his arms and shot three fingers toward Zephyr's exposed stomach.
Zin. Zin. Zin.
"Shit!" hissed Zephyr.
In a desperate effort, Zephyr extended his own finger, colliding with the monk's at the last millisecond. Instead of being pierced, he tried to absorb the shock. The force was repelled and Zephyr was thrown away, wiping the blood that dripped from his lips as he got up.
"Hahaha... I already know," Zephyr smiled, a maniacal gleam in his eyes.
The monk frowned, sensing the change in the air. He gave no time for explanations; the ten golden arcs spun around him again and he launched into an explosive dash toward Zephyr, carrying an ethereal golden sphere that glowed like a small sun.
Zephyr also dashed forward. He didn't dodge. He let the golden sphere hit him squarely in the chest, absorbing the impact to try to punch the old man in the face. The monk was faster, attacking with his staff vertically, striking Zephyr from top to bottom.
"He's slower... because he absorbed my Dao," the monk noted.
But Zephyr didn't stop. Like a hungry animal, he lunged forward to embrace the monk, trying to press his body against his. The rotating rings wouldn't allow it, cutting and burning Zephyr's flesh repeatedly as he collided with the barrier.
"Aaaaahhhhh!" Zephyr screamed, but it wasn't pure pain. He was sucking.
The monk jumped back in horror. Zephyr's body, which had been covered in golden veins pulsing with absorbed energy, suddenly returned to normal, digesting the power of the Order.
"Do you understand, old man?" Zephyr taunted. "Do you think you can hold out until dawn?"
The monk gripped the handle of his staff. "His Negative Dao is impressive," he thought, realizing the trap: "He accepts being beaten, accepts the pain and destruction of his own body, just to act as a sponge. As long as the Festival continues, he will have an infinite reserve of energy to regenerate and continue drinking my Dao until I am dry."
Zephyr stretched out his hand again, pointing to the monastery.
"Can you hold out, old man?!" he challenged, preparing for the next surge.
Afro paused for a second, holding a man's mutilated head. His mouth was stained with blood and his eyes were fixed on the horizon. "Himari."
In Afro's mind, her safety was a background process that never stopped. He didn't hesitate; every blow, every step, and every drop of blood spilled was calculated so as not to endanger Himari. He felt no fear for what lay ahead, only the constant need to monitor his anchor in the monastery.
[Concupiscence: 12%]
A man appeared behind him, wielding a sword to cut Afro in half. Before the blade reached its target, one of Afro's souls detached itself from his body and stopped the metal with its bare hands. Immediately, a second soul sprouted from the first and plunged into the attacker's chest, scrambling his nervous system. The man dropped his weapon, paralyzed. Afro spun on his heels, locked onto the sword, and mutilated him with a perfect oblique cut.
The body fell. Where the man had stood, his soul remained static, holding a Dao core that broke away, now charged, and returned to his body.
Afro sighed.
"That's not enough for me."
"Ne no Tachi." Hot steam began to pour out of the cracks in his bone mask.
"First Movement." With a single step, Afro glided across the battlefield. He did not seek honorable duels; he hunted the distracted ones who fought each other, making the harvest easier. He jumped into the air.
"Third Move." Afro spun his body, creating a helical air current, and fell on an enemy, severing his head with the force of the rotation. A woman tried to attack him from behind, but Afro, maintaining the flow of movement, spun and mutilated her arm, which instantly crumbled to dust. Without losing his balance, he crouched down and cut off the woman's legs.
[Concupiscence: 12.78%]
She fell, screaming. Afro prepared to stab her, but his sword disintegrated in his hands. Normal swords could not withstand the friction of the Ne no Tachi.
"You Dao demons disgus..."
Before she could finish, Afro crushed her skull with his heel.
"Bitch," he muttered.
He wiped some blood from his foot with his finger and licked it, tasting the dissipated energy, and soon after, Afro's arm suddenly fell. A swordsman had passed him like lightning, sliding to a stop in front of him. The tattoos on Afro's body glowed with scarlet fury, and a new arm appeared. The swordsman charged again, but Afro dodged by millimeters and delivered a sharp punch that sent him reeling.
His opponent was no ordinary foe; he spun around, delivering a slashing blow that seemed to tear Afro's skin. Or at least, that's what he thought. Afro's eyes flashed through his bone mask. He ignored the wound, landed a brutal uppercut on the man's chin, and in one continuous motion, stepped on the swordsman's knee, breaking the bone as if it were dry wood.
Afro bent his fist, concentrating the accumulated Dao mass.
"Three Equivalences!"
The punch hit the man's chest. His body didn't fly; it exploded. The shockwave continued its trail, tearing a gash in the mountainside. Silence fell for a second. Both the Daoists and the demons stopped fighting, staring at Afro. He was breaking the fundamental rule of that ground: everything was allowed except breaking the structure of Tyr's world.
[Concupiscence: 19%]
Afro let out a maniacal laugh.
"Hahahahaha!"
He released all the Dao he had harvested from the last souls. He punched the ground.
"One Equivalence!"
Bam! The earth shook.
"Two Equivalences!" Bang! The ground cracked in rays hundreds of meters wide.
"Three Equivalences!" BOOM!
The explosion was geological. Rocks the size of houses were thrown into the air, and the earth rose as if the world were being turned upside down. This was the blow that had destroyed half of the Temple Mountain in the past. The weakest within the radius of impact were simply crushed by the pressure. Afro took advantage of the sudden disorder to free their souls and hunt down the cores floating in the dust. It was a chaotic feast.
Suddenly, a figure cut through the chaos and at impossible speed, a massive punch struck Afro in the face, throwing him backwards. Afro rolled and rolled across the broken ground, but stopped his fall by digging his claws into the rock.
He wiped the blood from his face and smiled, staring at his new opponent.
"It's about time, Captain!"
Standing imposingly before him was Captain Draezen. He raised his smoke axe high.
[Concupiscence: 21%]