Lex Aitsuko still had something to live for. He had too much to live for. Maybe it was the case that his destiny was to build a freedom he'd never enjoy. That didn't mean he'd just roll over and die in a place like this. The mission hadn't even begun yet.
So he gave it everything he had.
He remembered playing in the sand when he was a child. The face of his parents, their vibrant smiling faces and white teeth that shimmered with the rays of the two suns above. He remembered watching the worms in the distance, dancing up and down over the dunes and promptly disappearing from sight. He remembered his father getting shot through the head directly in front of him. These were a few of the memories he hadn't sacrificed to his ability.
His father was a rebel of some renown, and the jurisdiction of the Realmguard knew no bounds. Lex and his mother moved to the Void, where Lex took on a new name at just eight years of age and vowed to destroy the Realmguard. His mother was heartbroken when she heard his declaration. Maybe it was because she knew he'd condemned himself to die just like his father before him.
But it was different now. The Void had granted him the power to fight. To survive. When William had shot him, he was powerless. He'd been delivered a second chance to fight and to win by Eternity.
I won't lose, he thought.
William's blood dripped onto the floor as he recited an incantation. Lex recognized this as the source of the man's power. It was a Void Demon contract, which allowed a person to gain sinister powers usually in exchange for something noteworthy. In this case, William sacrificed some of his blood to create a weapon that seemed to construct itself from the blood and black energy that manifested from the air. He flourished a spear that was as tall as he was and as black as the night. As he did this, the blackness around his eyes expanded to encompass more of his face like a masquerade mask. Third stage enhancement.
The man before Lex wasn't a Voidhunter, instead using external means to manipulate the Void. Sinister means.
[Lex Aitsuko is activating an attribute: Book of life, stage two.]
Lex summoned his book into one hand and his sword into the other. It was his father's sword inlaid with designs of golden glyphs along the length. It was the language of his homeworld, words reading hope, future, and freedom. These were also his father's last words, the motto of the rebellion.
"Come!" Lex bellowed.
A barely visible smile could be seen on William's lips as he ran forward, spinning his spear around wildly to obscure his movements and make his attack unpredictable. Once he was close enough to Lex he lashed out, striking with one hand that slid all the way to the end of the spear to maximise range. The black spearhead came straight at Lex's head with considerable force. In response, he threw his sword.
William snapped his head upwards in confusion. The blade spun in the air with enough speed to completely conceal its form, relegating itself to nothing more than a circular blur. William knew that this had to have some sort of purpose, but followed through on his spear strike nonetheless since he'd already put most of his weight into the forward momentum of it.
But his target was gone. He struck out three and four times in quick succession before noticing that Lex had vanished.
[Lex Aitsuko is activating an attribute: Contact swap.]
Lex flew in the air above William, effortlessly snatching his sword out of the air with a level-headed expression. This was an unnatural albeit clever application of contact swap. The attribute in question allowed the individual to swap places with anything that their energy was in contact with. By coating an item with Void energy and throwing it, a window of about five seconds was created where the swap could still be initiated.
He fell towards William and used the inertia to level a mighty strike with his sword. Before that, he stabbed the book with it and struck out a line. This was the ability of the book, Lex's main attribute. The first stage allowed him to read the history of anything he touched, while the second stage allowed him to read the present and a little bit into the future and remove lines if needed. It goes without saying that he could not change reality to a significant degree without an investment of Void energy impossible to make with his body alone. As for small revisions…
William raised his spear above his head and used the haft to block the attack.
William found himself unable to raise his weapon in time, and dodged backwards while taking a massive slash across his face diagonally. His boots skidded across the ground as he came to a stop. He raised a hand to his face in disbelief. "Hmmpf," he grunted. A question arose in his head. Had he truly hesitated and failed to raise his weapon in time, or was there something at play that he didn't yet understand?
"Cat got your tongue?" Lex asked him. His loafers clacked across the uneven ground of the training area, his sword dripping blood as his confidence grew. There was certainly too much still on the table to say for sure who would win, but Lex felt that he'd already turned the tables in his favour at least a little bit. Unfortunately for him, he had no idea about what else William might have in his bag.
Illusions, enhancement, infernal hounds, weapon summoning, swapping places with fireflies. Lex listed off the abilities he'd witnessed in his head and silently took note of the fireflies that still swirled around him. They blinked on and off aggressively like they were trying to match the tempo of the battle. A Voidhunter's main attribute usually followed a predictable theme. With someone like this, their next move was always in the air.
Lex only knew one thing for sure. Based on William Fletcher's reputation, there was no way he'd gone all out just yet. Lex on the other hand had already overplayed his hand, even if it was an incredibly powerful one.
In the next instant, William vanished.
Fireflies! Lex thought. He spun around and took a spear straight through the face narrowly deflected the incoming attack. Just as he moved to riposte, William was gone again. Attacks started coming in from every angle. The fireflies winked out one by one as their lifeforce was exhausted. Sometimes he would attack twice from one angle to remain unpredictable, but Lex pushed his reaction-time to the limit and swatted each and every one of them away. It was almost like fighting a group of men that attacked at different times from all different directions.
At last only two fireflies remained. Lex blocked the attack from the first angle and immediately spun around to counter the attack from behind. Foolish! He thought. A shadow darkened his view from above, and he looked upward to see William spearing downwards in the exact way he had earlier. By the time he noticed the attack, the spear was practically touching the tip of his nose and an instant away from being driven through his face.
Lex's enhanced senses came to a few terrifying conclusions. One, William Fletcher could use contact swap, since Lex could still feel the Void residue coating his weapon. The feeling of a contact swap was unmistakable for someone who used it frequently. Second, since contact swap was an attribute of the Void Attribute Network, there was no way for William to attain it. Lex knew that most people only contracted with a singular Void demon in lieu of the high cost. He hadn't stopped to consider the implication of William making use of this myriad of abilities. The conclusion was terrifying.
William Fletcher was only contracted with a single demon, and that seemed to be one that allowed him to copy abilities. The copy Demon, Backarat. The price demanded for this contract according to a compendium Lex had once read was to forfeit everything you owned and acquire a severe thirst for money as well as kleptomania. If a certain quota wasn't met, the contracted individual forfeits their soul and their life by extension. It was a life of riches and of theft.
As you would imagine, most of the people that contract with Backarat were homeless or other lowlives. They never made it very far. In front of Lex was the only exception to this in the entire Void. A man that accumulated so many abilities and so much power that he couldn't possibly lose any more. A monster.
Lex's body lost feeling as the spear pierced his throat. Lex barely dodged, the spear slicing open the side of his head and embedding itself in the ground. A shockwave exploded from the force and created a tiny crater in the ground with the impact, the ground cracking and rippling. Lex put his foot firmly on the side of the spear and flipped off of it as William's fist came down next.
If there was one silver lining, it was that Backarat couldn't copy main attributes. Still, this motherfucker is going to give me a run for my money, Lex thought.
"Still going?" Lex asked breathily.
William just pulled his spear from the ground and spoke with a completely deadpan tone. "Just getting started."