The force of Argen's blow had been immense. The guard was sent hurtling through the air until his back collided violently with a thick tree trunk, the impact rattling the branches above.
Argen stood in the center of the clearing, his breath coming in ragged gasps. His legs were trembling violently, threatening to give out at any moment, but he forced them to hold.
"I won't die..." he whispered to the shadows, his voice shaking but certain. "I can't die."
Across the clearing, the guard slowly hauled himself to his feet. He wiped a smear of blood from the corner of his mouth, his composure completely shattered. His eyes were wide, darting over Argen as if looking at a ghost.
"How!..." the guard shouted, his voice rising in pitch. "How! How! How!... How are you still standing?!"
Suddenly, a faint, ethereal glow began to emanate from Argen's wrist. The simple bracelet Mahito had given him—the token of their memory—started shining with a steady, pulsing light.
Argen looked down at his arm, his eyes reflecting the soft radiance. "What the!"
He didn't have a second more to wonder. In a blur of desperate speed, the guard launched himself into the air, appearing directly above Argen like a bird of prey. The guard dived down, putting his entire weight into a devastating kick aimed at Argen's skull.
Argen's instincts screamed. He threw himself backward, the wind of the strike whistling past his nose. The guard's foot slammed into the earth where Argen had been standing a millisecond prior. The impact was thunderous; the ground buckled and cracked, leaving a small crater in the dirt and sending a cloud of dust into the air.
Argen scrambled back, but the guard was relentless. Before Argen could find his footing, the guard closed the gap like a lightning strike, burying a heavy fist deep into Argen's stomach. The air left Argen's lungs in a sharp wheeze as he was launched backward, slamming into the stone wall with a bone-jarring thud. A thick cloud of dust and debris billowed up, obscuring his broken form.
The guard straightened up, cracking his neck with a slow, sadistic rhythm. "Even if you stood again..." he sneered, looking toward the curtain of dust. "...you're still a weakling."
Inside the haze, Argen's vision flickered. That word—weakling—hit harder than the punch. It echoed through his mind, amplified by the memory of the campfire.
Mahito's Voice: "You really are a weakling."
The guard began to walk forward with confident, measured steps, certain that the wall had finished what his sword could not. He expected to find a corpse or a man broken beyond repair.
But as the smoke began to swirl and clear, a silhouette shifted. To the guard's utter disbelief, Argen pushed himself off the cold stone. He stood up once more, his frame battered but his spirit refusing to break.
"Still..." the guard muttered, his voice dropping in genuine surprise.
Argen took a step. Then another. His legs were trembling so violently he looked like he might collapse at any moment, but he kept moving forward.
"I... I..." Argen rasped, his voice rising from the depths of his chest.
The guard's patience snapped. He blurred across the distance, his fist a streak of lethal intent aimed directly at Argen's face. "What 'I'—!"
But the blow never landed.
With a fluid grace that defied his battered condition, Argen raised his arm and effortlessly blocked the punch. Before the guard could recoil, Argen's fingers clamped like iron around the man's wrist. He jerked the guard forward, closing the distance in a heartbeat, and drove a savage punch into the guard's stomach—precisely where the invisible warrior's knife had left its mark earlier.
The guard's eyes bulged. A wet, metallic cough escaped his lips as blood sprayed the dirt.
Snarling through the pain, the guard wrenched his wrist free and lunged, his fingers digging into Argen's neck. He used his superior weight to slam Argen onto the hard ground, intending to crush his throat. But Argen didn't panic. In a lightning-fast counter, he snapped a punch directly into the guard's nose and followed it with a powerful, two-footed kick from beneath.
The guard was tossed backward into the air, forced to break his grip. Argen didn't waste a second; he rolled and sprang to his feet, putting distance between them as he regained his fighting stance.
"I'm not a weakling!!" Argen roared, his voice echoing with the strength of his promise.
The guard twisted in mid-air, barely managing to find his balance before landing heavily on his feet. He stared at Argen, the frustration on his face now turning into genuine fear.
The guard's breathing was heavy and shallow, his mind racing as he assessed his broken body.
"Damn it... he thought, his vision blurring. My left hand is gone and this stomach wound... I've lost too much blood. That's the only reason he's matching my strength. But even so... how is he still standing?"
Argen didn't give him time to recover. He rushed forward in a desperate charge, but despite his injuries, the guard's reflexes remained lethal. In a flash of movement, the guard vanished and reappeared behind Argen, driving a brutal elbow into the center of his back. Argen was slammed face-first into the dirt, the impact forcing a spray of blood from his lungs.
Argen scrambled away, putting distance between them, but his body was finally reaching its absolute limit. He stayed on his knees, his entire frame trembling, blood dripping from his chin as tears finally began to track through the dirt on his face.
"Sorry... Mahito," Argen whispered, his voice breaking. "I think I won't be able to carry my promise."
The guard watched him, his own expression hardening into one of grim finality. "I won't survive after this much blood loss, he realized. Using Stage-2 now won't save me... I'll die either way. But still let's make this death prideful."
The guard stood tall, ignoring the agony in his gut and the lose of his arm. He closed his eyes, and a violent, flickering green aura began to surge around him, illuminating the dark forest like a sickly sun.
The guard's voice dropped to a guttural, demonic growl as he tapped into his final, forbidden reserve.
"Stage-2!!... TRANSFORM!!"
A violent explosion of emerald light erupted from his body, the shockwave flattening the grass for meters around. Within the swirling green aura, his silhouette began to warp and swell. His muscles bulged, his size doubling until he loomed like a titan. Long, jagged green hair cascaded down his back, and his fingernails sharpened into obsidian claws.
The most terrifying part wasn't the size, but the vitality. The deep wound in his stomach closed in seconds, and his shattered arm knit back together, regenerating as if it had never been touched. He stood now as a towering, jade-colored beast—a monster of pure instinct.
Argen looked up at the nightmare before him. Instead of screaming, a calm, weary smile touched his lips. "I won't fear..." he whispered, his voice steady. "I'll die anyway."
As he spoke, the bracelet on his wrist flared with a blinding, desperate light. Argen forced his legs to move, stepping toward the beast.
He blinked.
In that single millisecond, the world fractured. The guard wasn't in front of him anymore. A flash of green steel-like claws passed through the air, and before Argen could even feel the pain, both of his hands were severed from shoulders, spraying crimson onto the dirt.
A heavy fist followed immediately, crashing into Argen's jaw and sending him hurtling backward. But the beast wasn't finished. As Argen was still skidding through the air from the punch, the guard appeared directly above his trajectory. With a massive, clawed hand, the beast gripped Argen's face mid-flight and slammed his momentum upward, throwing him high into the dark sky like a broken ragdoll.
Argen's body was a mess of agony, his consciousness flickering like a candle in a gale. As he tumbled through the cold air, his mind could barely process the nightmare unfolding.
"Too fast... I can't handle..." he gasped, the words lost to the wind.
He looked up through blurred vision and saw the impossible: the massive, green-maned beast was already above him, defying gravity.
"What the... how is he this big now?" Argen's eyes widened in sheer terror. The beast didn't answer; it only peeled back its lips in a jagged, monstrous grin. It brought down a fist the size of a boulder, driving it straight into Argen's gut.
The impact was cataclysmic. Argen was hammered toward the earth like a meteor. He hit the ground with a sickening thud, the soil cratering beneath him. A sharp, loud CRACK echoed through the clearing as his spine fractured against the hard-packed dirt.
He lay there, eyes staring vacantly at the sky, a thick stream of blood bubbling from his lips. He was alive—somehow—but his body was a useless shell. He couldn't feel his legs; he couldn't move a finger.
As he stared up at the moon, he saw the silhouette of the monster hovering in the air above him, bathed in that sickly green light. "How is he flying?" Argen thought, his mind drifting toward the abyss.
But then, the monster's transformation seemed to falter. Suddenly, dark, thick blood began to leak from the guard's nose and pour from his eyes, staining his jade-colored face.
The guard's massive, beast-like frame shuddered as the internal pressure of Stage-2 began to liquefy his organs. Blood streamed down his chin, but his expression remained frozen in a mask of cold, murderous intent.
"I see... the side effects of stage-2..." he rasped, his voice vibrating with a metallic distortion.
He didn't hesitate. He extended his massive palm downward, hovering directly over Argen's shattered body. A concentrated, swirling vortex of emerald energy gathered in the center of his hand, glowing with a brightness that turned the night into a sickly neon day.
"Allright... let's finish it..." the guard commanded coldly. "BEAM OF DEATH!"
A blinding pillar of green laser energy erupted from his palm, shrieking through the air as it raced toward Argen's defenseless head. Argen closed his eyes, waiting for the heat to erase him—but the impact never came.
A low, resonant hum filled the air. Suddenly, a shimmering black shield manifested out of thin air just inches above Argen's face. The green beam slammed into it, but instead of shattering, the shield simply rippled like dark water, absorbing the lethal energy until the light flickered out into nothingness.
A casual, mocking voice drifted into the guard's ears from directly behind him.
"Hey there!"
Before the beast could turn, a thunderous punch collided with the center of his back. The shockwave sent the massive guard screaming toward the earth.
The guard hit the ground, his massive claws digging into the dirt to stabilize his momentum. He hissed, his beast-like instincts screaming as he whipped his head toward the sky.
"What was that!" he barked, his eyes darting through the darkness.
"Still stuck up there, huh!?" The voice came again, closer this time—right at his ear.
Before the guard could react, a hand clamped onto his long green hair, jerking his head back. A fist collided with his skull, but the impact felt different; it lacked the crushing weight of the first strike, almost as if it were a distraction. Snarling, the guard spun around, his obsidian nails flashing through the air in a wide, lethal arc. His claws tore through the attacker, but there was no resistance—only a cold, wispy mist.
The figure dissolved into nothingness.
"I see..." The guard's jagged grin returned, blood still leaking from his eyes. "An Umbral Shadow user... that'll be fun."
He turned his gaze back toward his original prey, expecting to see Argen's broken body alone in the crater. Instead, his eyes narrowed. Three distinct figures now stood in a protective semi-circle in front of Argen, their silhouettes cutting through the green haze of the guard's aura.
A flicker of relief crossed Argen's bloody face as he looked at the central figure. "Nice timing... Commander Kael Noctis," he whispered, his voice barely a thread.
Kael glanced over his shoulder, the coldness of the battlefield softening for just a moment as he returned the smile. "Rest now, Argen. We've got you."
Kael's hand clamped onto the hilt of his blade, his presence expanding until an immense black aura billowed around him like a cloak of shadows. His voice turned sharp and commanding. "Haruto, heal Argen. Tatsuya, protect yourself and both of them. I'll take care of this guy."
Haruto immediately knelt by Argen's side, his hands glowing with a soft, restorative light, while Tatsuya stepped forward, his eyes alert and ready to intercept any stray attacks.
Kael turned his back on his squad and began to walk. Every step he took toward the beast was heavy with killing intent. The guard, sensing a predator that matched his own ferocity, didn't flinch. He locked eyes with Kael and began his own steady march forward, his massive green claws twitching with anticipation.
The two met in the center of the clearing and came to a dead halt, mere feet apart. The air between them crackled with the clashing of their auras—sickly green versus abyssal black.
Kael unsheathed his sword in one fluid motion, the steel humming with dark energy. The guard hissed, spreading his claws wide, his muscles coiled like a spring.
"Let's begin... shall we!" Kael shouted, his voice a roar that shook the trees.
In an instant, the ground beneath them shattered as both vanished into a blur of motion, rushing toward one another for the final clash.
To Be Continued...