Chapter 12 - The Original Ironkong Blood Art

The perpetual night pressed down on the test grounds. Draveth, the first moon, had already slipped beyond the treetops, leaving only the pale, needle-thin star Al'Dhor to gleam coldly above the canopy. The air churned with the metallic sting of drying ichor and the sulfurous bite of shattered stone.The once-luminous forest floor had become a battlefield. What had been soft beds of glowing moss and ancient, root-woven paths were now victims of Barek's rampage. Trees thicker than watchtowers lay broken at their middles, their insides spilling like snapped bone. Craters pocked the landscape, each a violent memory of where he'd struck the ground too hard or redirected an assault. Remnants of the Flesh-borns and their obsidian cores, steaming green and black gel, were smeared across everything like obscene decorations.Up on the ridge, the Ironkong knights watched with growing awe."Bruh… he been runnin' this show for quite a while now dontcha think?" Skarrin muttered, the metal coils on his head rattling. "I bet all the nobles prolly done by now."Bronx squinted, arms folded. "He runnin' low. The energy he done started with ain't the same no mo'.""Feels like bro just wanted an excuse to go wild. And now he just ain't had enough yet," Tag pointed out, smiling.A low vibration rippled through the ground—deep, dark, predatory. The projection inside shimmered as the air itself seemed to tremble a bit.Tag leaned in, dreadlocks sliding over his shoulder. "About time some Night-Marrows showed up, shih was starting to get boring."Barek felt it too. His hands dripped green-black gore. But the shift in the forest froze him mid-step, catching his attention. "Oh, now we talkin'," he said, cracking his knuckles and neck, and stretching his arms and legs in anticipation.Then—they emerged.The Night-Marrows howled. These moved in a pack. They walked out of the darkness of the forest, lean and long. They looked like wolves, but their tails were split in two. Muscles bulked beneath their skin and were almost the same size as Barek. Their claws carved trenches as they stepped. Their eyes—tilted—glowed with a red tint.All of them circled Barek as their prey."Damn! Four all at once, kid's really got it in for him now," Skarrin said, looking at the beasts surrounding Barek slowly.Barek's grin widened instantly. "Aight then. May I have this dance?"He crouched and then he lunged at them—fast, but the Night-Marrows were prepared. One twisted its torso unnaturally and rolled sideways mid-air, its tail slicing where Barek's throat had been a breath earlier. Another darted beneath him, tail cutting upward like a scythe.Barek dodged, but not cleanly. One of the split tails of a Night-Marrow scraped his ribs, tearing a jagged gash across his side. Pain flared white-hot.He counterpunched instantly, fist smashing into a beast's jaw with a crack. The Night-Marrow stumbled—then snapped back with a snarl, its core still intact. Barek hooked his foot behind it, yanked its neck downward, and drove an elbow into its spine.The other three pounced in a perfect triangle assault—one going for his hamstrings, one for his throat, one aiming to impale his chest with its hard foreclaws. Barek twisted, ducked, slipped between their strikes with fast, agile movements one wouldn't think possible for someone his size.But every kill drained him. Every dodge cost more than he had left. Sweat burned down his face; his lungs scraped against his ribs.At last, the final Night-Marrow fell, its complex, dark core rolling free like a dying star.Barek sagged against a fractured trunk, chest heaving, a smile plastered across his face. "Wow, that was intense and almost too close."Ten seconds. Barely ten seconds of quiet.Then the earth convulsed.BOOOOOOOM!Four points in the ground erupted at once—explosive geysers of dirt, stone, and ancient roots launching skyward. From beneath the forest floor rose monsters of impossible scale.Centipede-shaped titans, each segment plated in jagged obsidian armor. Their mandibles dripped molten resin. Their bodies pulsed with subterranean heat. Their emergence warped the air with pressure.The Landmaulers had arrived.Bronx choked on his breath. "N-Nah… nah, that's a whole different tier. THEY ain't supposed to show up together. What is this!?"Skarrin's voice cracked. "Four of them? And after barely taking down four Night-Marrows too!? Boy's trial just turned suicidal."The beasts moved with horrifying unity. Each segment on their monstrous bodies locked into attack formations as they encircled Barek."Well, well, well, I don't know if this some reward or punishment, but whatever, BRING IT ON!!" Barek's eyes glowed, but not so bright now; everything about him showed how exhausted he really was.Their weight alone made the ground tremble.Barek barely managed to dodge the first strike—a sweeping body-slam that took down an entire tree. But the second Landmauler hit him in the stomach.The impact sounded like a gunshot ringing through the forest.Barek was thrown across the forest with no resistance at all. He seemed knocked out as he flew through the air. He tore through trees, rock, and cliffside—until he smashed into the base of an ancient stone monolith.The monolith shattered outright. Dust swallowed his position.The knights stared in his direction in horrified silence."That's it…" Tag whispered, already preparing to move. "Ain't no noble alive walkin' away from that. Call the trial off."But Barek's fingers twitched, then his legs could be seen moving. He was trying to stand in agonizing pain.Blood soaked his torso, legs, even his scalp. His eyes were wide and vacant, pupils lost in white. His steps were crooked, drunken.Bronx shook. "Bro… how is he even conscious?"Barek fumbled at his shirt, pulled out a stoppered flask, ripped it open with his teeth, and downed the blood within. Some of his wounds knitted closed with crackling speed, though his limbs remained heavy, trembling.Then—he laughed.The laugh started as a ragged wheeze… then turned manic. Wild. Triumphant. Echoing across the shattered plain like a hymn for monsters.When it finally died, the red glow in his eyes flared to full brilliance."This what I BEEN waitin' on!" Barek roared.His aura detonated outward—thick, ancient, impossibly dense. The ground cratered beneath his feet. The very air warped around him.He crouched low, muscles braided tight, veins glowing crimson."Oh.. now you done did it… Pardon me but now, I Am Demandin' This Dance."He vanished.A sonic boom cracked the air. Two miles disappeared beneath his leap. He re-appeared right in front of one of the Landmaulers.His right arm drew back. His eyes shone bright. A halo of crimson energy wrapped his fist—dense enough to affect the air around it.In the throne room, Gondor shot to his feet, beads clanking all around his neck and arms."That's, That's Impossible! —That Aura! He ain't supposed to have an ability and yet — The first, The first Ironkong blood art. What is he — "Barek's punch landed lightning fast.The Landmauler's obsidian-hard armor detonated like brittle glass. Then green blood shot out of it all over Barek and his surroundings. The punch kept going through the beast, then half its body blew apart, shot away in the distance in a geyser of chitin, dark matter, and thrown out core.Tag screamed, "WHAT!!"Bronx froze at the sight.Skarrin clutched his arm. "No noble should be able to do something like that to a BloodWrought even with an awakened ability."Gondor's voice crackled through their communicators, frantic. "Get him out NOW! His body can't survive the backlash of that art!"Barek hit the ground, fist smoking like a cooling meteor. He tried to turn toward the remaining Landmaulers… but his legs folded beneath him.The backlash consumed him.He collapsed face-first into the blood-soaked earth. His glowing eyes dulled. His breath shuddered."Damn…" he whispered, barely conscious. "I was hoping to get the others too, oh well."Then he went still.The remaining Landmaulers, seeing Barek fall, charged at him to finish him."Not on our watch you don't!" Skarrin dropped in from above, stomping on one's head, cracking it. Following that was a hammer punch."Ironkong Reverse Blood Arts: Falling Hammer Head!"He dropped a hammer punch exactly where the crack formed, shattering all its hard exoskeleton with green blood shooting out all over its body, and it fell dead on the ground.When he looked around, the others were done as well. Now all the Landmaulers lay dead on the ground."Thought so," Skarrin said, looking at Barek lying unconscious on the ground. "Not even us knights could do what kid just pulled off as we are now."