273 Use It All
“Ghhh–!”
Emilio vomited up blood that left his lips already steaming from his inner temperature, though he bounced back, flexing his weakened body as he exuded the white flames from his body to repel the entity.
“–!” The Dread wasted no time jumping back.
After releasing the expulsion of flames, Emilio coughed out as blood dripped from his chin, breathing heavily as he could feel his internal organs aching from the blow. It felt as though a hammer had reached inside his body, bludgeoning his guts without any mercy; a feeling that was difficult to fight at full capacity with, but he prepared himself nonetheless.
As he looked down, he saw a circle form beneath him of black-and-violet mana, perplexed for a moment but quickly flipping back just as a pillar of eradication burst upward.
What–? He questioned.
It came from the Dread’s call, he clenched his fist to summon the ranged summoning of darkness.
The monstrous entity which had shed its skin, losing any semblance of its human form it had, launched forward with a twisted grin before bulking up momentarily, slamming its fist down upon the Dragonheart.
Only a thousandth of a fraction of a second was given for Emilio to react before he propelled himself away with his flames just before the hammer of darkness struck, driving into the ground harshly.
Seeing the destructive aggression still held by the Dread, he realized that at the rate the battle was heading, he’d be at a disadvantage–this thought stirred the reckless abandon thriving in the Dragonheart’s body.
I need…more! Emilio thought.
There was nothing left of his muscles, leaving only a thin, frail frame, though even as he returned to the unsightly physique he was once all too familiar with in his past life, he pushed it further. Even the calories left in his body, even the strands of flesh beneath his skin, perhaps even his skeleton itself–he chose to use it all as fuel.
An ungodly ignition came as the wind cracked and a shock wave howled out from his position with the birth of splendid, heavenly fire from his body.
Just as this further advancement was witnessed by the demonic fiend, the Dragonheart had already launched forward with speed that scorched the wind, swiping his hand forward to unleash a wall of pure-white blaze.
“—Rrah!”
The Dread barely moved out of the way, though its shoulder was still touched by the unrivaled flames, resulting in its flesh being erased just from momentary contact.
As the fiend experienced its shoulder being charred away, it was given no time to react as Emilio continued his dash in before jumping up, propelling himself with a knee to the chest that surpassed the speed of physical matter.
The ground around them cracked and was forcibly shoveled up by the impact as the Dread had its chest caved in by the vicious flying knee.
“Rrrgh-!” The Dread gritted its teeth.
Emilio held a look of rage that burned with vibrance in his amethyst eyes, sending the entity sliding back.
Mercy was a far gone concept as the Dragonheart poured out a sea of white flames, casting them forth in a sweeping tide that intended to erase the Dread, though the murderous figure was still able to fling himself upward to avoid them.
Fortunately, in their clash, they had moved away from the others, allowing the destructive force of the white flames to take effect without risk of burning away his comrades.
There was already little left of the field left in the swept away forest, lined only by fallen trees and crumbled hills, left desecrated by the war against the singular entity.
pan-d a-n0vel.com “Die! Die! Die!”
The Dread unleashed a spectacle of the void as a volley of matter-annihilating spheres were shot in every direction in a maddened attempt to take the white-haired young man out.
As Emilio dodged the blasts, he set his eyes on the hovering Dread, driving the intent burning in his veins as once more it manifested into an elemental shift–an ability exclusive only to masters among masters, allowing him to turn his physical form into the snow-white flames for a split-second.
In that moment that stood between frozen seconds, the Dragonheart launched up as a humanoid wrath of flames, bypassing the array of spheres before blasting the Dread directly in the chest.
BOOM
The direct-hit was something even the Dread didn’t foresee in its violence-fueled stupor, able to do nothing to defend against the all-burning flames. Snow-white embers danced in the smoky sky, raining down beside particles of darkness over the tumbled valley.
What was below hardly resembled a region that held sectioned-off forests and jungles as they were split and left decaying to the Dread’s spreading darkness like a poison infecting the land itself.
“You…!” The Dread gritted its teeth.
As the two figures hovered in the air, the impact of the last attack was clear as the Dread stood on the air with a steaming hole through its chest, still etched with the lingering flames of the draconic recruit.
“…Not bad,” the Dread said, leaving surprising words.
Emilio was taken aback by those utterances, but didn’t have any desire to conversate with the malignant being.
By this point, the Dread hardly resembled anything human, devoid of skin and covered in pitch-black flesh, scaled in nightmarish aura.
“I have no ill will towards you, Dragonheart. I simply seek violence. Violence is my meaning,” the Dread told him with a twisted smirk, present without lips, “–So, your display of violence is something I savor.”
“Just shut up and rot in Hell already,” Emilio quietly said.
A laugh escaped the Dread’s lips, cackling like a clown with a scratchy throat, “Hah! Hell would welcome me with open arms! I’d be a king there–no, it’s too soon for me to grace them with my presence! First, I’ll send you and everybody else in this world there before I arrive!”
The spiels coming from the entity weren’t anything from a human; Emilio knew that. It was the mad dribbel of something beyond depravity–something akin to the nightmare he once faced.
As he hovered in the sky beside the Dread with the warmth of the flames born of his own sacrifice beneath him, he could see down in the distance, laying on the sullied land, the fallen Devilheart.
“…Asher…” He quietly said.
Death was something he was forcibly having to become used to. Yet, even as it kept happening, as those he valued slipped through his fingers, the pain inside his heart didn’t dull.
Joel, Vandread, and now you…Asher, he thought, you were like me…Somebody that escaped here because, for better or worse, our lives weren’t kind to us. You’re braver than I am. That’s why–I can’t stand that something as disgusting as this guy is what took you away…!
As tears left the Dragonheart’s eyes, they instantly evaporated, joining the steam that exuded from his body as his limbs trembled and his lip quivered, feeling himself break down from within as the snow-white flames ate away.
The Dread bolstered itself with the ancient darkness housed within itself, bulking out as its tangible vessel could hardly contain the ludicrous quantity of mana.
“I’ve had my fill with you lot, though. I’ll destroy this valley and be done with it–I have greater wars ahead of me,” the Dread spoke, spreading its arms as it conjured a nasty summoning of darkness around itself, “…This is my declaration of war, on the world!”
Such a grandiose claim met on deaf ears as the Dragonheart stood there, looking at his own hands as they had become bony and thin, callused by the battle.
I thought it’d hurt to see myself like this again–like “Ethan”, he thought, but…right now, I see strength. It’s because of the state I’m in now that I could fight. Right now, I’ll finish this and put an end to this destruction.
The final blaze was lit as the Dragonheart held nothing back, igniting his own veins as the blood pumping through his body rose to an immaculate heat, engulfing himself in a shining aura.
“Come, Dragonheart! Show me your highest violence!” The Dread requested as its moral vessel shed away even faster with the build up of mana around itself.
It was a request that was indulged as Emilio raised his hands, pointing them towards his enemy as the pale-white inferno roared out, spreading out in each direction to either side of himself like wings.
Right here, right now–I’ll take it all back. All of the hope you’ve ripped from us, all the despair you drowned us in, Emilio thought, right now–I’ll burn it away and give way for triumph!
As he stood there, seeing and feeling firsthand the amount those around him have sacrificed, not just in this battle, but throughout his journey, he questioned if he was truly giving it his all at this moment.
It was the climax of his adventure; the tail end of it, now at the finish line, only with one hurdle left–with that in mind, standing only because of the sacrifices made, he held nothing back.