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"Take that! Take that! Take that!" Ganken, still a child, punched some boy. His opponent was already unconscious, as were five others who were there. Behind him, Kimyo cried with his broken glasses and begged them to stop.
"Stop, Gan, he's already unconscious!"
Ganken grabbed Kimyo by the neck.
"You can't be weak too, you're the one who called me. After all, you paid me to take care of these idiots, huh!?"
"You already did, it's not necessary," replied Kimyo.
"Oh, then why did you call me? ... Punch one of them too!" said Ganken. "You want to screw me over, brat?! Hit him too, so they'll say we were together, you little shit."
Draezen was on the roof with something in his mouth and interrupted.
"You shouldn't bully the person who paid you to do it. That's shitty."
"And what do you have to do with this? Why don't you come down from that roof and see?" said Ganken, throwing Kimyo aside.
"I have nothing to do with it. Well, I didn't. But you guys are fighting behind my house," they were in the alleys. "And I just want to sleep, you know? But anyway..."
Draezen grabbed some dirt with his hand and threw it at Ganken's face, hitting him squarely. Kimyo was startled and wanted to run away, but Ganken shouted that if he ran away, he was finished.
"Come down here, brat! Just because you know how to use Dao doesn't mean that..."
Ganken noticed that Draezen was no longer on the roof. Draezen appeared behind him with a piece of Kimyo's glasses.
"A little more and you would have been dead. Now, get out of here."
And so it went, day after day. Due to his wounded pride, Ganken always went to that alley to challenge that stranger and always got beaten up. He always took Kimyo with him against his will; Kimyo didn't understand why he was dragged there.
After 112 defeats and no victories, Ganken sat down. The rain began to fall.
"Damn it, I give up!"
"You gave up easily... you finally understood," said Draezen.
Kimyo, even though he was afraid, interrupted:
"If it's not bothering you, I don't think you should give up. Imagine if your victory was only 30 defeats away?"
Kimyo, strange as it seemed, felt attached to Ganken and Draezen. They were the only people who interacted with him, even if indirectly. Ganken looked at Kimyo, who had finally said something useful.
"Then I'll want to lose faster to get to those 30 losses and beat this smoker!"
"Eh!" exclaimed Draezen. "Smoker?!"
He took the stick out of his mouth; it was a lollipop.
"Oh!" said Kimyo and Ganken at the same time.
"By the way, my name is Tetsu Nokigen (Origin of Iron [Japanese])."
"Tetsu!" they both exclaimed.
"Nokigen? What a crappy name..." said Kimyo, but he fell silent when Draezen glared at him.
"But call me Draezen D'Kroz. Anyway, I have to go," said Draezen, as he climbed the wall.
Kimyo stood watching.
"Tetsu... That's why he's strong. He's as hard as iron. I'll be even harder, then. And I'll surpass him," thought Ganken.
"Come on, skinny!" shouted Ganken...
...
"Tetsu no kigen no kigen?!" exclaimed Draezen.
Kimyo smiled behind him. Yue watched, not understanding the reason for the laughter or the humor of the situation.
Since Draezen's real name is Tetsu Nokigen, which means Origin of Iron, Ganken promised to be stronger than iron. He developed his resonance naturally. To name the technique and allow the induction to work, he called it Tetsu Nokigen Nokigen (Origin of the Origin of Iron): Event Crater.
"You've outdone yourself, Ganken," said Draezen.
Ganken nodded and turned to Afro's group.
"Now, let's kill some demons!"
Yue stepped forward and left her shield. Her Dao materialized ether in the form of a blade in her hand; her entire hand was a blade. She ran across the water and lunged quickly toward Tara, who could barely stand up. Yue reached Tara, kneed her, and began slashing at Tara's entire body. Tara could barely defend herself; if it weren't for her armor, which was being shattered, she would have already died.
Ganken lunged downward, spun her body, and charged at Kael. Kael defended the blow, but was dragged backward toward the water. The closer he got to the water, the heavier he felt. The liquid worked in the opposite way to normal water: instead of making him float, it pulled him down.
"Shit," said Kael, using all his strength to stop himself from sliding.
His scales released fire to propel him forward. Kael tilted his sword to redirect Ganken's impact and turned. Ganken passed within millimeters of him and stopped over the water. Kael crouched suddenly; that maneuver had broken his femur. He removed a core and broke it, even though he knew the danger of doing so without rest.
On the other hand, Afro tried to keep up with Kimyo's sword technique and Draezen's unpredictable attacks. It was not a balanced fight. Afro received an axe blow to his side that almost cut him in half, but the weapon got stuck in the middle of his torso and threw him away. He fell rolling to the ground and tried to get up under the weight of gravity before being hit by the swords floating with Kimyo. He was pierced.
Draezen quickly approached with the axe to decapitate him. Afro's only reaction was to raise his hands to his neck and create a sphere of energy that exploded. The impact deflected the axe and pushed Afro away from the captain, who began to slide across the board.
The explosion cost him his hands, which were now slowly beginning to regenerate. Afro avoided creating new souls, aware of the energy expenditure that this required. He stood up and steadied himself, while his tattoos began to glow intensely. That pressure was like training with his master's weights, but taken to an unbearable level.
Around him, the tectonic plates moved over the water. Tara and Kael were at their limit; if the fight continued like this, they would soon be exorcised. Afro decided he would use his tattoos to block the cutting attacks, spending the rest of his Dao, saving the souls only as a last resort.
Kimyo and the Captain attacked together. The confrontation became a blur of rapid movements. Afro was thrown away, but he ran back at them, entering the line of attack. The Captain and Kimyo surrounded him, coming at him from either side like beams. Afro used one hand for each: he blocked the axe with his bare hands, concentrating the tattoos there, while letting Kimyo's sword penetrate his other hand slightly.
"Ahhhh!"
His body felt heavier and heavier, and his Dao was coming to an end.
Kael, who was fighting Ganken, realized that Afro was cornered. He used the fire from his scales to propel himself upward, fighting against absolute gravity. He aimed at Kimyo, preparing to throw his sword and relieve the pressure on Afro.
Ganken just clenched his fist and smiled. Kael threw the weapon, which flew quickly toward Kimyo's neck, but the blade didn't even reach its target. An overwhelming force pulled everything back toward the black sphere floating in the center of the resonance. Kael's body was sucked in and slammed violently against the core. His own sword, attracted by the same force, spun around and stuck into his skull. Kael remained there, stuck to the sphere, feeling his vitality quickly drain away.
Tara was pierced in the navel. When Yue moved to cut her throat, Tara's grimoire intervened, protecting her, but ended up torn in half. Taking advantage of Yue's distraction, Tara tried to react, but Yue tripped her. Tara fell with such force that she couldn't even lift her hands off the ground due to the pressure.
Yue stared at Tara's body, and what he saw was not just a defeated enemy, but an offering. Tara's armor, shattered in strategic places, no longer hid the flawless skin of her thighs, nor the smooth curve of her slim belly that rose and fell in a panting rhythm. The broken metal revealed the tops of her breasts, tracing a desirable outline that the pressure of gravity only made firmer.
Yue moved with predatory slowness, positioning himself over her, pinning Tara's curvy body to the ground. With a firm hand, Yue grabbed Tara's chin, forcing her to show that face with striking features, full lips, and eyes that overflowed with exciting terror.
There was no rush. A long, hot, and strangely forked tongue slid out of Yue's mouth. She didn't use it to bite, but to taste. The tongue slowly moved up from Tara's chin, lips to cheek, collecting the sweat and heat from her skin.
"Hot!" hissed Yue.
On the other side, Ganken appeared behind Afro to finish him off. In a last effort, Afro released a soul he drew from an ethereal sphere and slammed it against the sword coming toward him. The resulting explosion sent Afro's body rolling across the deck until it fell into the water.
Tara then realized that Yue's mask was possessing her. The captains were reaching their limit; if they didn't remove their masks, they would be overwhelmed by the demon inside. In demons, the process was the reverse: they lost their strength and became human. Yue continued to lick Tara's face incessantly, overcome by the mask's desire and madness.
"Today we will do everything here..."
Down below, in the cyan ocean, Afro's body began to sink rapidly, crushed by the pressure of the depths.