Captain Draezen swung his axe down hard. A burst of thick smoke cut through the ground, opening a furrow in the earth toward Afro. Afro reacted with a sideways dash, the captain threw more, and Afro dodged the series of blows the captain fired. In an instant, he was close to the captain, landing a punch to Draezen's face without any reaction. The captain tried to counterattack with his left, but Afro was faster: he landed three straight punches to Draezen's nose in a single second.
Draezen staggered. "He's faster... he's evolved as I predicted," thought the captain.
Without giving him time, Afro jumped for a final blow to his opponent's face, but Draezen's body dissolved into smoke at the moment of impact. As soon as Afro landed, the captain reappeared behind him, delivering an axe blow from top to bottom. Afro spun his body in the air and Draezen's blade only hit the ground, sticking into the rock. Afro seized the opportunity: he stepped on the base of the stuck blade, used it as a platform to jump, and spun again, delivering a precise kick to the captain's head. But once again, Draezen turned to smoke and the blow passed through nothingness.
Afro landed in a fighting stance, his body rigid and his senses alert.
Suddenly, a rain of ethereal blades fell from the sky. Afro executed a backward pirouette, spinning and sliding across the ground to avoid the projectiles that pierced where he had been a millisecond before. In the next step, the earth beneath his feet rose sharply, closing in on him like a stone trap to immobilize him.
A muscular man appeared at high speed. He wielded two large swords enveloped in a brown aura. With an "X" motion, he struck the stone cocoon where Afro was trapped.
BAM!
The explosion of debris threw Afro away. He rolled several times on the ground before digging his claws into the rock to stop his movement. When he raised his head, Afro saw that he was no longer facing just one man.
In front of him, in combat formation, were the four captains of the village.
Kimyo calmly removed his glasses.
"So you really thought you could fight this magnificent being alone?"
He put on his Oni mask. His skin turned purple, a curved horn sprouted from his forehead, and he drew a sword bathed in a vibrant blue aura. At his side, Yue floated, his skin bluish and covered in tattoos, his hands glowing brightly after putting on his mask. Ganken, the third, transformed into a sturdy giant with tough, cracked skin, his heavy swords glinting.
"Fuck," Draezen growled.
He put on his mask, revealing two curved horns and a third broken one. His skin darkened and a cloak of smoke enveloped him. Draezen threw his axe in a quick horizontal motion. At the same moment, the other three captains fired in a coordinated dash.
Kael suddenly appeared in front of Afro. With an "X" movement of his blades, he deflected Draezen's axe upward. Ganken, seeing the block, changed his route and advanced against Kael, delivering consecutive vertical attacks with his swords. Kael crouched, defending the blows with difficulty under the giant's pressure.
Yue, noticing the interference, reached out toward Afro to cast a spell. Before she could fire, Tara appeared, her grimoire open, and raised an invisible barrier that reflected Yue's attack back to its source, forcing the captain to stop running so as not to be hit by her own power.
In the air, Kimyo jumped and grabbed the axe that Kael had deflected. He spun in the sky and threw the weapon again at Afro, this time imbued with an intense blue aura and twice the force.
Afro reacted with an uppercut.
"One Equivalence!" Afro's fist collided with the metal of the axe spinning violently. The impact caused the ground to crack beneath Afro's feet. Kimyo, still in the air, kept his hands extended toward the weapon, forcing pressure against Afro's fist.
At that moment, Draezen appeared behind Afro. His palms were charged with lightning, ready to maim the demon. In the final millisecond, one of Afro's souls detached itself from his body and grabbed Draezen's arm, initiating a mutual release of power that made the air vibrate.
Without hesitation, Afro canceled his Equivalence. The pressure suddenly disappeared, causing Kimyo's axe to fall in free fall. In one fluid motion, Afro spun his body and retrieved the soul that was holding Draezen back. Due to the sudden interruption of resistance, Captain Draezen staggered forward, directly into the path of the falling axe.
"Shit!" thought Kimyo, trying to nullify the force of his own weapon so as not to hit his ally.
In that second of hesitation, Afro sprouted a soul, which used his chest as a platform, stepping on it hard to gain momentum and throwing himself at Kimyo, who was still in the air. The axe struck Draezen, but the captain dissolved into smoke at the last moment. Meanwhile, Afro's soul leaped and dug its claws directly into Kimyo's navel, the center point of his Dao core, beginning to drain him violently.
"Ahhhhh!" Kimyo screamed.
Even while being drained, Kimyo reacted: he created a sphere of golden energy and smashed it into the face of Afro's soul. The impact forced the soul to release him. However, as it fell, Afro's soul mimicked the gesture. In a spinning motion, it shaped a tiny but dense sphere of pure energy and threw it at Kimyo.
BAM!
The explosion hit Kimyo squarely. The soul retreated to Afro's body, while Kael and Tara positioned themselves at his side, ready for the next wave.
The battlefield froze. The four captains, now recomposed in front of them, were perplexed. What they had just witnessed defied the logic of that world: a demon had just manipulated the Dao. A demon had created a sphere of energy.
Afro looked at his own hands. At that moment, the memory of his past in the dojo emerged, the endless hours of solitary training, the frustration of trying to shape energy when his demon body told him it was impossible. The effort that had never paid off before finally blossomed in chaos.
He smiled.
[concupiscence: 25%]
"Now do you understand what I'm talking about?" asked Captain Draezen, activating his eyes.