Even Ace himself was slightly stunned.
"This card... is pretty useful," he muttered to himself, looking at the slowly fading image of the BlackWarGreymon card in his hand.
The power of a Mega was huge, but it also seemed to put a strain on WereGarurumon, so he couldn't use it too much.
At the edge of the battlefield, the other two vice-leaders (Bal's brothers) and the small remaining group of members stared at the terrifying crater and their vanished leader.
Their faces were pale, their legs weak, and they could barely stand.
"B-Big Brother... is dead?"
"One move... and he's gone?"
"A monster! That wolfman is a monster!"
"Run!"
The two remaining vice-leaders looked at each other, seeing the same fear and madness in each other's eyes.
Run? Where could they run? Their opponent clearly wouldn't let them go.
"Let's fight him! Avenge Big Brother!" the vice-leader with the battle-ax roared.
Violent magic erupted from his body, causing his muscles to swell.
With bloodshot eyes, he charged at Ace.
The other vice-leader with the skull staff began to chant rapidly, and a sickly green undead magic gathered at the tip of his staff, preparing to cast a curse.
"Perfect, two more decent ones." Ace's eyes narrowed.
WereGarurumon had used a lot of energy in that last attack and needed to recover.
Besides, he wanted to try his other new power.
Then, he closed his eyes, his mind sinking into the new, burning power core within him—the Warrior Spirit of Flame.
"Answer me—Spirit of Flame!"
With a low shout, Ace's body erupted in towering crimson flames.
The flames didn't burn randomly but swiftly shaped themselves around his body.
A scorching heatwave spread out, instantly burning the grass and trees on the ground.
When the flames cleared, the one standing there was no longer Ace, but a humanoid warrior covered in red and gold armor.
He had long, burning red energy hair, his face was covered by a half-mask revealing sharp golden eyes, and his body was encased in sleek red armor.
Two flame-like energy ribbons extended from his back.
He held no weapon, but his fists, covered in red gauntlets, radiated heat and power.
"Agunimon!"
Ace had successfully used the Human Spirit for the first time, turning into a Digimon.
A burning, surging sense of power filled his entire body, completely different from the feeling of commanding Digimon.
This was a direct feeling of becoming power itself.
He could clearly feel the flame energy flowing within him, feel the explosive power in his limbs, and could even faintly "hear" the cheers of the fire elements.
"So this is... the power of Agunimon." Ace (as Agunimon) clenched his fist, feeling the immense strength, his power soaring.
At that moment, the berserk ax-wielding vice-leader had already charged up close, his huge ax swinging down with enough force to split stone.
On the other side, the skull-staff vice-leader had finished his chant.
With a wave of his staff, a cloud of green poison mist mixed with wailing ghosts enveloped Ace.
Ace's eyes turned cold.
He didn't dodge.
He once again took out a similar dark enhancement card from his system space.
But this time, he wasn't going to use it on himself.
"Card Slash—Dark Boost! Target, GrapLeomon!"
A stream of dark red light shot out from the card and into GrapLeomon, who had quietly appeared in front and to the side of Ace.
GrapLeomon's body trembled slightly, and his golden fighting aura was stained with an ominous dark red.
But his eyes remained steady; only his aura became more dangerous.
"WereGarurumon, fall back with me!" Ace shouted, leaping backward while signaling the exhausted WereGarurumon to pull back too.
Facing the cleaving ax and the approaching poison mist, the dark-boosted GrapLeomon made a move that no one expected.
It slowly raised its arms, now wrapped in dark red energy, and brought them together in front of its chest.
It wasn't a punch, but a posture of compression.
A terrifying suction force was generated between its palms.
The energy, mana, and even light in the air seemed to be drawn in, madly gathering at that single point.
But this time, the scale of the gathering far exceeded any time before.
As energy poured in, a tiny but rapidly expanding dark red point of light appeared between GrapLeomon's palms and grew at an astonishing rate.
One meter, three meters, ten meters... Finally, it formed a huge energy sphere over twenty meters wide, slowly rotating, with dark red and black energy churning inside.
The surface of the sphere emitted a soul-shattering wave of destruction.
The surrounding air distorted, light was swallowed, and even space itself seemed to groan under the strain.
'This scale, this power... Although the purity might not match BlackWarGreymon's, the sheer size of this destructive energy had reached a terrifying level.' Ace thought.
"ROAR!" GrapLeomon let out a roar full of power, yet tinged with pain, as it thrust its palms forward.
"Dark Gaia Force!"
A beam of destructive energy over twenty meters wide pushed forward with crushing momentum.
Wherever it passed, space distorted violently.
The ground was torn apart and melted, plowing a scorched trench dozens of meters wide and bottomlessly deep.
The terrifying energy caused rubble to fall from the distant cliffs.
Before the ax-wielding vice-leader's blade could fall, before the poison mist could reach him, the dark red cannon of destructive energy had already slammed head-on into them, the dozen remaining dark guild members, and even part of the fortress wall further back.
BOOM!!!
At the core of the explosion, everything was completely devoured and vaporized.
The axe, the poison mist, the ghosts, the flesh and blood, the stone walls... everything melted away in an instant like ice under the sun.
The energy cannon's bombardment lasted for a full few seconds before slowly fading.
In its place, a huge scorched crater over fifty meters wide appeared, its edges melted into glass.
The crater was empty, without even a speck of ash left behind.
The walls of the crater were smooth as a mirror.
Further away, the area affected by the blast wave was a complete wreck.
Bal's two vice-leader brothers, along with the last remnants and the fortress wall, had been completely erased from the world by this massive Dark Gaia Force.
Ace slowly dispelled the Warrior Spirit, returning to his human form.
GrapLeomon had clearly taken a huge strain from unleashing an attack of that scale and was now weakened.
Ace promptly recalled it to rest.
He looked at the shocking, massive scorched crater before him, and the deep pit full of torn marks further away, and fell silent for a moment.
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