"AFRO! AFRO! AFRO! Get up!" shouted the master, lashing the boy's back with a whip.
"One equivalence, two equivalences, three equivalences... up to nine equivalences. I explained to you and everyone else in the previous weeks how to perform an equivalence!" Another lash hit Afro's back.
Henshin continued as he beat him:
"They expelled me. They said my techniques were forbidden because they kill those who practice them. But I replied: it is in exchange for absolute strength. Equivalence gathers a specific amount of vitality and Dao in a single point and releases it all at once. This could save your life one day!"
The master delivered repeated lashes.
"Two weeks have passed and you, Afro, have still done nothing!"
Tears began to stream down Afro's face. But in that dojo, crying was synonymous with wasting time and a sign for the master to hit even harder. Finally, the lunch bell rang. Master Henshin turned his back and walked away. Afro remained crouched on the floor, his back covered in wounds, wiping away his tears and nose.
A female disciple approached him.
"Afro, you have to eat," she said.
Afro did not respond. He just got up with difficulty. She approached him and whispered in his ear:
"Come with me... we can escape from here, go outside."
Afro shook her off forcefully.
"Let go of me!" he shouted. "I hate being weak. If that man is the only one who can make me strong, I'll do whatever he says. I'm not running away."
The open wounds on his back began to close slowly, the result of his biological regeneration. Afro stayed there, alone, practicing his punch all afternoon. He continued without rest, stopping only to drink water. He hated feeling different and inferior, so he repeated the movement over and over again.
Night fell. Driven by anger and awareness of his own weakness, he adjusted his posture, prepared his punch, and attacked.
"An equivalence!"
The blow landed against the dojo wall. A solid shockwave hit the stone and cracked the structure. Afro fell down, exhausted. His fist released steam. That was his first Daoist technique forced by his demon side. He smiled, satisfied.
"One equivalence is done... how many can I reach?"
"AFRO! AFRO! AFRO!"
He opened his eyes under the water that crushed him and pulled him into the abyss.
"I've always made the equivalence using my demonic vitality," he thought, as the external pressure tried to collapse his lungs. He began to concentrate all his Dao in his fist, mixing it with the essence of his demonic side.
He realized his mistake: when he had used the Dao before, he had not fully integrated the demonic vitality into the calculation of the technique. Now, at the bottom of the ocean, he would merge the two natures, because there was no noise to distract him there, there at the oppressive bottom, it was only him and himself.
A Soul detached itself from his back. He thought. "The two times I manipulated the Dao to create the sphere, I felt something subtle: there was no pressure. The Dao weighs nothing."
He remembered Ganken's words: "This resonance was designed to nullify demonic physics. Your power depends on mass and biological density. In the Event Crater, I control the mass variable. The stronger your body, the more gravity punishes you."
Ganken was right, but his mastery had a critical flaw. Gravity only grabbed what was physical, organic, and dense. The manifestation of something pure like the Dao was immaterial.
Afro's Soul positioned itself and stepped on the back of his physical body, propelling itself upward. Afro was right: the Soul did not feel the weight of the Event Crater. It moved as if water were air.
Meanwhile, Afro's physical body hit the ocean floor, rolling until it stopped. He raised his hand with Herculean effort. His bones cracked, protesting against the absolute compression, but his demonic biology struggled to keep the structure intact.
He remembered his training with Henshin. Afro had always performed Equivalences using only vitality, an extremely costly process. To evolve from one to two Equivalences, he had to exert twice the effort of a human; to reach the fourth, the effort was multiplied exponentially, 16 times the normal effort. That was why he wore himself out so much: his demonic side compensated for the lack of auxiliary energy with forced regeneration.
But now he possessed the Dao. And he had never fused the two properly, with concentration, there in the depths without any noise was the perfect place for proper concentration. If he applied 16 times his demonic effort multiplied by the power of his current Dao...
"4 EQUIVALENCES!" he shouted mentally.
He punched the "wall" of the Event Crater.
Above, Afro's Soul broke the surface: splash! In the next instant, the ocean and all resonance were shaken by a violent vibration. The tectonic plates cracked, separating the three Captains. Yue jumped back, abandoning Tara's body on the crumbling ground. The resonance failed. Free from the crushing pressure, Tara managed to get up and support Kael's body, which broke free from the central sphere and fell, unconscious, into her arms.
Ganken doubled over and spat out a mouthful of blood. Attacking the domain from the inside out was like striking the summoner's nervous system directly. If Afro's 3rd Equivalence was capable of pulverizing a third of a mountain, the 4th Equivalence's punch, charged with twice the effort and fused with the Dao, struck Ganken with the force of a cataclysm. He felt as if half a mountain range had collapsed on his chest.
Afro's Soul took advantage of the moment of disorientation. He propelled himself through the air and landed violently on Ganken's back. In one continuous motion, Afro partially materialized, grabbed the Captain's arm, and bent it backward with brute force, breaking the bone and tendons before pulling it until it was completely torn from his shoulder.
"AAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!"
Afro didn't stop. He dug his free hand into Ganken's back and began to drain his Dantian, recovering the lost Dao. A sudden gust of wind, sent by Yue, threw Afro away before he could finish off the Captain.
Afro jumped among the wreckage of the plates until he reached the spot where Tara and Kael were, ate part of the Ganken arm to compensate for his lost vitality, and left the rest for his companions.
"Hehehahahahaha..." Afro's laughter was dark, echoing as he watched the damage he had caused.
Kimyo moved quickly, rescuing Ganken and taking him to the other captains. The state of the East captain (Ganken) was deplorable, but the fight was not over.
Afro gave them no time to breathe. He shot across the surface of the water, racing toward the captains. Ganken, even without an arm and bleeding profusely, clenched his surviving hand with blind hatred. The ocean stopped vibrating instantly. The central sphere of gravity generated an absolute force of attraction that sucked Afro's body in, holding him fast and immobile against the black core.
Kimyo and Draezen did not hesitate. They advanced toward the immobilized Afro like two blurs. Afro, however, smiled. The instant the captains were about to strike him, he released a soul that passed through the blurs, flying directly toward the wounded Ganken.
Draezen swung his axe, mutilating the head of Afro's physical body that was attached to the sphere. The skull split open, but the body was now just an empty shell. Afro had already incarnated into the soul he had fired.
In a mere two seconds of pure instinct, Afro in his spectral form released a second soul. It pierced Ganken's guard, embedding itself in him. Afro grabbed Ganken's face with one hand and slammed it against the stone floor with all his might: BAM!
Yue, still weakened by the effort of the previous resonance, had no time to react. With the impact of Ganken's head on the ground, his concentration was completely broken. The Event Crater collapsed. The heavy gravity disappeared.
Afro let go of the defeated captain and shot toward the holes of freedom that were opening in the falling domain, freeing another soul to gain momentum and get out of there as quickly as possible.
But the air did not remain calm. "RESONANCE!" Kael shouted.