Noel's lungs burned like forge bellows. Three straight hours—no breaks, no water, no mercy. Every muscle screamed for rest, but Ragnar looked like he could keep swinging until the sun burned out. That cracked, spike-studded armor of his—Shingu, he'd called it—was a wreck: pauldrons half-ripped off, deep gouges spiderwebbing across the chest plate, yet it still clung to him like a second skin, humming with some unnatural power that fed the giant endless fuel.
"WHY'D YOU STOP ALL OF A SUDDEN, BOYO?!" Ragnar bellowed, voice booming through the fractured visor. "WE STILL AIN'T FINISHED THIS! YOU THINK I'LL LET YOU WUSS OUT?!"
He exploded forward, left fist cocked like a siege ram.
Noel slipped right at the last second and answered with a thunderous right hand that snapped Ragnar's head sideways. Noel chained it instantly—crashing forehead first into the already-buckled helmet with a sickening CRACK, then driving a vicious uppercut under the chin that lifted the giant onto his toes.
Noel loaded the finisher, a massive double-hammerfist meant to end it.
Ragnar twisted at the absolute last heartbeat, the blow whistling past his shoulder. The giant answered with a short right that Noel barely blocked, forearm ringing from the impact.
Noel didn't slow. He whipped a head-kick that Ragnar should have seen coming—but the big man was half a beat late. The heel smashed into the side of the helmet with a metallic screech, spinning Ragnar's entire torso like a top. Before the giant could recover, Noel stepped in and drove a brutal elbow straight into the jaw. Bone and metal rang.
Noel fired a left follow-up—only for Ragnar to counter with a monstrous head-kick of his own. The spiked greave caught Noel clean, sending him skidding backward three full steps before they broke apart.
Ragnar rolled his neck with a wet crack, bloody grin splitting wide behind the shattered visor. "Eh? That all you got, brat? I still got a lot more left in the tank."
Noel's chest heaved. His trump card—the full transformation—would drain him dry in minutes. Against someone with near-limitless stamina, it felt like suicide.
How the hell do you beat a monster who just won't quit?
Then a sharp ding rang inside his skull. The idea clicked.
Noel rushed again, loading a huge haymaker. Ragnar matched it perfectly, both fists rocketing toward each other like colliding comets.
But mid-swing, Noel did something he had never tried before.
He beastified only his arm.
Muscle and bone surged, muscle swelling violently beneath the skin as the limb increased in size, claws lengthening, veins glowing molten red. The clash still happened—fist against fist—but this time the shockwave was apocalyptic. Cobblestone exploded outward in a perfect ring. The air itself screamed.
No longer equal.
Ragnar was launched backward like a cannonball, crashing straight through the stone wall of another building in a roaring avalanche of rubble and dust.
Noel stood in the crater he'd created, beastified arm still smoking with power, the rest of his body normal. A savage smirk cut across his bloodied face.
"How'd you like that, fucker?"
The street fell deathly silent except for the soft crackle of settling stone. Thick dust rolled through the ruined block like battlefield smoke, swallowing the spot where Ragnar had vanished.
Noel stood dead-center in the crater he'd carved, his beastified arm slowly shrinking back to normal size, muscles receding as steam hissed off the overheated muscle.
Then a low chuckle rumbled from inside the cloud.
It built fast—deep, guttural, and completely unhinged—until it erupted into full-blown, maniacal laughter that echoed off the shattered walls.
Ragnar stepped out of the wreckage like a demon crawling from hell. Chunks of masonry slid off his massive shoulders and clattered to the ground.
His armor was in absolute ruins now—entire plates hanging by threads, deep fractures glowing faintly orange from within, blood streaking down the jagged metal from half a dozen new gashes. The spiked visor hung crooked, one glowing orange eye blazing through the crack like molten steel.
He rolled his shoulders with a series of wet, metallic pops, forcing the dented chest plate back into place with a screech of protesting steel.
"You weren't holding back," Ragnar growled, his grin splitting so wide it looked painful. "I see. You just figured something new out… magnificent." His voice dropped into something darker, hungrier. "Then I guess I have to take it up a notch."
He cracked his neck.
"Alright then. No more playing around."
The ruined Shingu armor suddenly hummed louder—low, resonant, like a war drum waking up. The cracked plates began to glow with faint inner fire as whatever power lived inside the ancient suit responded to its master's call.
Noel felt the shift instantly. The air grew heavier, pressing down on his shoulders like an invisible mountain. His smirk faltered for the first time.
Ragnar took one slow step forward. The cobblestone beneath his boot cracked in a perfect starburst.
Another step. The ground trembled.
"Now…" he rumbled, orange eye burning through the broken visor, "let's see if that new trick of yours is enough."
Both fighters exploded forward again, knees slamming together in the center with a bone-jarring CRACK. Noel's leg beastified mid-clash—muscles bulging, power surging—while Ragnar answered with nothing but raw, armor-fueled muscle. The impact was perfectly equal, shockwave ripping outward and shattering more cobblestone beneath them.
Ragnar's bloody grin widened behind the crooked visor. He telegraphed the right hand on purpose, letting Noel see it coming just to prove he didn't care.
The gauntlet clocked Noel square across the jaw with a metallic THUD that snapped his head sideways.
The giant didn't stop. As Noel staggered downward, Ragnar spun into a vicious backward elbow with the left, trying to punish him even harder.
Noel barely slipped it, the spiked edge grazing his cheek. Every single blow would've hurt ten times worse if he hadn't been flooding every muscle with micro-bursts of partial beastification.
Ragnar pressed the chase instantly, closing the gap in a single bound.
An axe-hand strike hammered down—BOOM—sending Noel cartwheeling through the air and crashing into a half-collapsed wall. Stone and dust swallowed him.
Noel rolled out of the rubble a heartbeat later, battered, bleeding from the mouth, but using the thick cloud as camouflage. He surged low and silent, planting a sneaky right hook that detonated clean on Ragnar's chin with a sharp CRACK. The giant's head rocked back.
Ragnar answered before the echo even died—snapping a lightning-fast body shot so deep it lifted Noel onto his toes and folded him forward with a wet grunt.
Noel refused to fold. He answered with a monstrous uppercut straight to the ribs, catching Ragnar slipping. The impact echoed like a war drum.
Then ego took over completely.
They planted their feet and stood toe-to-toe in the wreckage, trading body punches like two blacksmiths hammering the same anvil—left, right, left, right—each shot heavier than the last, neither backing up an inch, both daring the other to drop first.
Noel finally broke the brutal rhythm with a savage side kick to the face. Ragnar ate the heel, staggered, then fired his own kick on the way down, catching Noel in the ribs and sending both men stumbling apart, vision swimming, lungs screaming.
They recomposed in the same heartbeat, chests heaving, blood and dust coating them both.
Ragnar launched a sidekick at Noel's head that whistled through empty air as Noel slipped it by a hair. Both men reset for half a second—then fired the same right hand at the exact same instant.
Noel's knuckles smashed into Ragnar's jaw with bone-crushing force at the precise instant Ragnar's gauntleted fist buried itself deep into Noel's face. Their arms locked out straight, muscles and metal straining as both heads snapped violently sideways from the simultaneous impact.
For a frozen heartbeat, the entire ruined street held its breath.
Then—
BOOM.
The collision detonated like a bomb between them. A savage shockwave exploded outward, ripping through the cobblestone and blasting both warriors backward through the air. Noel and Ragnar were hurled apart, boots carving deep trenches in the shattered street as they skidded to a grinding halt ten paces away—still glaring, still grinning through blood and dust, chests heaving like war drums.
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AN
Lmk how you found this chapter and if the fight was good between the 3 chapters whats your fav?