The battle became white-hot in intensity as Cindral swung his sword up with the aim to server Enkidu's hands that gripped tightly onto his spear. Enkidu willed the prana around to gather wind in a single point in space, exploding with vigor and sending the two flying.
Cindral quickly recouped and in a rapid dash, Cindral's slender sword was on a course trajectory with Enkidu's skull.
Enkidu channeled prana from his lower body all the way up to his back and to his hands and fingers, twirling his spear above his head with fervor, gathering prana from the atmosphere, converting it into lightning.
A torrent of lightning flew off his spear, crashing into Cindral, flowing into his body causing internal damage. The sound of two light objects falling on the ground brought Cindral's attention downwards. It was two of his severed fingers.
In Cindral's eyes, Enkidu wasn't a slightly interesting person, but a predator looking down at its prey. His molten lava-like prana had already cauterized his wound.
The battle resumed even fiercer than before, each one of their moves at least two and a half measure faster than before. They were coming close to reaching a realm where most ascenders would be unable to follow the action anymore. Their auras grew as sharp as the looks in their eyes.
At some point they turned into blurs, Enkidu's feints growing more complicated with each and every single attempt while Cindral kept losing steam. Enkidu knew that Cindral was not build for such fast combat at those kinds of intervals. He gathered scratches from Enkidu's spear all over his body, growing deeper and closer and closer to reaching his neck.
The prana Cindral gave off quickly dipped in temperature, signifying that he was close to bottoming out on his reserves, just as Enkidu.
Enkidu threw his spear into the air, retracting into the ring, and assumed a relaxed stance.
All of them including Cindral were visibly confused to the point where Cindral didn't know what to do. His grip on his katana grew loose then tense back again in an effort to figure out what's the best move for him.
Orbs half as large as a human's body manifested in a close radius behind Enkidu, devouring all of the atmospheric prana they could. They were all a deep shade of blue but sometimes, they would shine. When they shone, they shot a blast of pure prana at Cindral.
His eyes raced within his sockets in an effort to track the multitude of blasts firing off in quick succession. His sword grew hotter while inside it's sheath, growing red hot. As his pulled his sword out of its sheath it bathed the world around in its red light.
He had slowed down considerably, but paradoxically that made his strikes even more powerful. Using the thick coat of prana on his blade, he could slice through the blasts of pure prana as if he was cutting into butter.
The orbs started to move in a circle, faster and faster until it reached one hundred rotations per minute. Blasts of pure prana burst out of each and every single orb at a blistering rate of speed. It was simple for Cindral to intercept such attacks because of his wide-reaching slow fighting style.
It was a mistake that could have costed Cindral the fight. It didn't take long for waves of red energy to slide off his blade with each and every single swing, destroying the environment around, melting the rocky desert into one hot blow of stew.
This might have been a mistake...
Enkidu thought...
It didn't take long for those wide arches of energy to wipe out all of the incoming blasts. Enkidu went back on his strategy and instead gathered prana within and around his body.
Atmospheric prana gathered on and inside Cindral's blade and through a series of slashes, not too dissimilar to a sword dance, he shot off a wave of energy that could have vaporized anything within sight.
Enkidu extended his hand and calmed his mind. The world around him and his opponent disappeared and the only thing he could register was the energy hurling towards him and his opponent. Through his acute prana sense, he understood the flow of prana within that lethal wave attack.
Enkidu grabbed it like a dirty rug, pulling it apart with both hands, the prana inside that attack scattering around the arena.
All of the heirs got up off of their chairs upon witnessing Enkidu's feat, wearing shocked looks on their faces.
"What in the hell was that?" Kiyana said, no longer bothering to hold her calm anymore.
"Is that something Emissaries can do?" The black-haired heir mouthed, his words almost inaudible in volume.
Alright. I know what I need to do now.
And that is?
Enkidu gathered as much prana as he worn down body could hold, molding it inside him into the shape that he found most comfortable. All of his focus shifted to the ring, transferring all of the atmospheric prana and the prana he took in all towards his ring.
The ring glowed so brightly it had blinded him and everyone else. When the form of his ring reached its ideal form, Enkidu found that his right hand was clothed in the same material the ring was made of, all the way up to his shoulder.
It was almost identical to the transformation he accessed through tapping into the power of the being inside his soul. It was sleek, like it was a piece of cloth but it covered his entire arm into a layer of blue and gold armor. Every single flex and vein was visible through the gauntlet, as it was unbelievably thin. So thin it didn't look like it could defend against a knife much less incredibly condensed prana.
Enkidu gestured for Cindral to come at him, but he remained steadfast in his resolve. Cindral wasn't so unexperienced that he would fall for such a taunt...
"I'll come to you then!" Enkidu shouted
He had teleported right behind Cindral, using up the last of the prana he could divert to any other place than his arm. His punch was slow, unbearably so, even still it was slow enough that it almost seemed unreal to Cindral that Enkidu had finally ran out of prana, allowing for a short moment in which his guard was down.
Enkidu's fist actually bent space around it, that space being outline by a faint blue glimmer. The bubble of compressed space grew smaller and smaller as all of them, Cindral included were left baffled by what was actually happening right before their eyes.
When that bubble of space reached the size of a tennis ball, Enkidu swung his arm, making full contact with Cindral's sword as he hurriedly spun around in a weak attempt at protecting himself. As soon as his blade touched the compressed space, the sheer influx of energy and the expansion of space shattered his blade into pieces effortlessly.
If that hits me I'm fucked!!
Cindral thought as time slowed down around them, his body growing more sluggish by the second.
The sight of a naked arm brought Cindral out of his panic as all of the power that he had brought him to such a state disappeared suddenly. He looked up to see that Enkidu's eyes were rolled into their respective sockets as his stiff body hit the ground.
"That's... pretty disappointing..." Cindral blurted out, quickly putting both hands on his mouth as he gave the heirs a quick glance.
Their disciples chose to stay silent but Julius stepped forward. "It's alright for you to say that." Julius said with an un-characteristic sympathetic look. "To be honest with you... I also wanted to see how it would turn out."
"That was incredible." Kiyana said as she gently poked Enkidu's shoulder with her nail. "I don't trust him yet... but I like him." She said with a warm look on her face.
Julius gave her a long look before agreeing with her. "He would have won. He is not cleared of suspicion, just yet... but that face... I can't help but want to trust him."
"I can see why, his face looks so joyous and so tense, he is a maniac, just like you both." The purple haired heiress said.
❖═══════⛰ Heir of the Heights ⛰═══════❖
It had been the second time Enkidu regained consciousness in one day for battle-related reasons and to him, it didn't seem all that bad. It even brought a smile to his face.
It felt like he had been doing it for a long time, which brought him a weird sense of peace. As if he's found what he wanted to do in life.
"Are you ready?" Cindral said from outside the door.
"I'm coming!" Enkidu shouted.
"Just so you know, my team is full of maniacs, maybe even crazier than you. There is one guy though..."
"One guy?"
"Yeah... he doesn't like me very much for reasons that you'll probably find out really quickly after we meet up with the rest of the team... but deep down he is a great guy and even though he doesn't want to say it... he's as much of a crazy bastard as we are." Enkidu said with a gentle smile on his face.
"Looks like you like them." Cindral said.
"I do. I want to climb all the way to the top with them! Maybe there I will find some answers to some of the questions I've been having." Enkidu said as he put his hand up, looking at the ceiling through the gaps between his fingers. "I'll warn you though... things are going to get... strange."