The veil of wind that originally covered the entire hamlet had finally fallen. What it hid however might of warranted those with a weaker heart to jump in fright.
What was apparent was the quickly inflating spiraling blue azure sphere that would put most mystics below the fourth realm to shame. Even more so if they looked down at the creator of this technique.
A young man wearing only a tattered tribal trouser that had a small pouch and a two faced hyena head hanging off it. His body was covered in wounds that refused to stop bleeding. His young face carried in it's depths the deepest longing for understanding, but also acceptance.
Acceptance for the fact that he was going to die, and people would be better off after his death. Acceptance that no matter what, he could never prove to anyone that he was anything more then the image people built around his mere skin color.
"Only one more minute... then it will all be over. I swear." He muttered with a quiet determination and crazed eyes that could've started spewing fire with how intense they became.
Several meters ahead Banji was doing all he could to delay the pathieite child but he was slowly being torn apart from within. This was due to the immense backlash from effectively jumping up nearly 3 whole realms, only stopping at the third realm half step.
Compounding with this inner strife was also the pathieite itself starting to adapt to the situation.
Banji threw three of his giant fists forward at the small child, intent on crushing the boy into pulp. The child sidestepped the first punch by an inch and swiftly deflected the second one while leaping up to avoid the third. He positioned his feet forward and then he bent his leg back slightly midair, not neglecting to add spiritual energy into his foot.
Crack!
With a devastating drop kick, Banji's chest was caved in instantly with several ribs broken along with his lungs at once.
Banji howled in pain and agony with a hint of excitement as he was flown backward like a cannon ball. His body crashed into a large boulder, embedding his large monstrous body in all it's measure. The impact alone created a small cloud of dust.
On Safari's side of the battlefield he was currently using the king cobra manifestation he created to block the charges of the man.
The man was also quickly developing in intelligence and strategy. But in it's attempts to circumvent Safari's defense it only suffered lost after lost.
"Stop trying to brute force your way through like an idiot!" The child's voice yelled angrily in his mind.
The man blocked a tail swipe from the large king cobra as it listened to the child.
"You feel the aura of that king cobra right? It's not a manifestation of the boy before you, it must of been imprinted in his spiritual core by his benefactors if I had to guess."
The boy advised with a hint of uncertainty in it's tone.
The man meanwhile locked eyes with Safari and came up with a quick plan to beat this opponent. It knew launching wind blasts would be useless since Safari could just absorb them. But It thought of the solution and wasted no time in attempting to execute this idea.
Safari stood tall on top of the king cobra with a domineering and eerie presence. The wind he had absorbed was quickly being refined with the help of the king cobra's aura.
Their were invisible tethers of spiritual energy that linked the manifestation to Safari's spiritual core. This helped in the coordination that Safari had been able to pull off so far.
However one thing that was becoming apparent to Safari, was that he could not sustain this manifestation for too long.
"Dammit! I can't afford to waste effort in multi-tasking like this. I should just focus on stalling this accursed thing." The moment Safari finished that thought the man had stopped moving altogether and stood at it's spot.
The eye contact had never been broken between the two enemies. It was as if they were the only creatures in the world, all else null and void before one another.
The man leaned down while putting both hands on top of his knees. It's feet were embedded into the ground hard enough to create cracks. The veins on it's legs were visibly pulsating.
Safari sensing something was amiss, wasted no time in taking the initiative to charge forward on top of the king cobra. Unfortunately that brief moment of delay was all the man needed to charge it's attack.
Inside the man, there was the body of the pathieite which swirled in and around the spiritual core. The energy was pure white in color and had the property of wind as the main element.
However the pathieite began to do something highly improbable, by human standards at least. The pathieite swirled around the core faster and faster until the core was also spinning along with the pathieite.
A bright red energy started to be emitted from the pathieite that quickly converted the wind energy of the core into a blood red aura that contained an almost limitless strength. The wind energy had been converted into raw strength in only a moment. Strength that even put Banji's transformation to shame.
The man's eyes shifted into a predatory gaze as it stared down Safari from the beginning till the end.
It showed a slight smile on its face. But this smile was wrong, it was the sort of smile that only imitated the shape and left out any human substance.
Safari only blinked before suddenly the man who was still a slight distance away on the ground was right in front of him in an instant. He couldn't even hear the approach, the winds themselves didn't have it in them to keep up with this creature.
[Mystic Art: Calabar Scales]
The entirety of Safari's body quickly became covered in brown and yellow scales while he held out his sword and spear to form an X in front of him.
"Here goes nothing!"
[Mystic Art: Serpentine's breath]
Using the wind energy he just finished refining, Safari opened his snake mouth, and several large blasts of wind energy shot out in the shape of blades that could cut steel. However these attacks only seemed to slow the man's charge by a marginal sliver, doing nothing the pierce his hardened flesh.
"Better then nothing," was the last thought Safari could think before all thoughts were replaced by a world of pain.
Bam! Crack!
The man leapt upward and crashed headfirst into Safari for a devastating charge. Scales and bones alike were broken as Safari flew high into the sky far enough that the tethers that connected him to the king cobra snapped. This caused the manifestation to dispel instantly.
The energy within the man was changed back into wind energy in an instant. After that The man stopped his momentum midair and stood up levitating as it watched Safari.
After a few moments Safari fell down to the ground unconscious and terribly mangled but alive.
Everything that happened with Banji and Safari had only taken up nearly thirty seconds.
"Damn! I need to give little black the time he needs and also-" Mashallah looked at all of the survivors and young clan nobles who were slowing coming to their senses since the battlefield collapsed.
She made her decision and casted an art.
[Mystic Art: The Spectrum Of Self]
A multicolored aura surrounded Mashallah as these colors slowly separated and formed life like clones of a younger looking Mashallah. The features were indistinct but the colors were varied.
"I really wish little black didn't commit to this art he's making. At this point he's the most dangerous one here besides the pathieites." She shook her head in slight agitation
"On top of this, little Yara is running into said danger, I can't leave her alone so these clones are gonna have to hold off the enemy and get everyone to safety."
Mashallah for the first time was beginning to truly feel her age catch up to her as the situation quickly approached it's climax.
The brown clone along with an yellow clone ran to fight the child while the purple and green pair looped around to begin evacuating everyone who wasn't fighting. A orange and pink duo rushed to stall the man.
Mashallah not forgetting about Banji and Safari sent a red and blue clone in order to retrieve the fallen heirs.
Mashallah called back the black clone to pair up with a summoned white one to cover their flanks in case of any sudden surprises.
This was all performed while keeping up with Yara as they both reached Malcolm's position.
"Not as bad as the battlefield art but this is still alot of ground to cover. I guess I might as well use this to." Mashallah poured some spiritual energy into the bead bracelet she wore and materialized a small collection of herbs and incense sticks. She quickly assembled the herbs and incense sticks in a ritual formation with the incense sticks surrounding the herbs that were gathered in the center of the formation.
She flicked her wrist and produced small gusts of wind that gathered at the top of every incense stick. She then raised her left hand up to face the sky while her right hand formed handsigns.
[Formation Art: Calamity Beckons Reckoning]
The incense sticks all lit up simultaneously and started to emit a subtle but palpable fragrance that surrounded all three of them. However the herbs that were gathered in the center became the fuel for this fragrance, soon enough they started to burn away at an alarming speed.
Mashallah sighed sadly at the lost of fortune that the herbs were worth but persevered no matter what. Now the rest was truly up to Malcolm.
The fragrance created by the formation would not only protect the three from enemy attacks but also reduce the backlash from any arts created by anyone of them.
Mashallah took a deep breath of the fragrance and felt her mind clear away most of the accumulated stress that weighed heavy on her heart.
"At least little black's art can't absorb the formation's fragrance." Mashallah thought while beginning to direct her clones to fight and evacuate.
Yara even in her rush to Malcolm didn't miss any detail of Mashallah's preparation and quietly praised her inwardly as she reached Malcolm.
The azure sphere Malcolm held up had already reached the size of a two story building, and it promised to deliver a terrible end to any living being in its path.
Yara seeing this mentally transmitted to Mashallah to link her and Malcolm's minds together. Mashallah did as she asked without the need to speak and soon Yara felt a thread of energy that connected her mind to Malcolm. Zola being cautious decided to hide her presence as much as possible once the minds linked.
"This child... Just who is he?" Zola pondered as she disappeared for now.
"Malcolm. Malcolm! Are you truly committed to completing this art? You know by now that you'll only die once you expend all of your life energy!" Yara started to plead with Malcolm as he remained silent for a long moment.
"You think I don't know that? Shit it hasn't even been a damn week since I got here, but already everything's gone to shit." Malcolm spoke crudely.
Yara narrowed her eyes sharply at Malcolm's back. The corners of her eyes started watering.
"So that's it? You're just gonna come and go from life as you please? You think this is all about you, don't you?" Yara spoke in a plain almost eerie tone of voice.
"All about me? The hell you talking about?" Malcolm replied with a harsh edge to his tone.
Yara's lips rose to form a small sad smile as she continued speaking.
"You must've been alone most of your life Malcolm, so it makes sense you wouldn't realize that there is a deeper scheme at play."
"Yara... what the fuck are you talking about right now?"
"I'm talking about who's really at fault Malcolm, and it's not you in any measure. Trust me, I know how easy it is to blame yourself."
The fuck you do! What would you know about me? You've hardly been around me a whole day and yet you talkin bout knowing a goddamn thing about me!" Malcolm yelled harshly.
"Even now at the edge of death you're still putting up a wall around your heart. Don't you have anyone who would miss you if you died?"
"Hell naw, I left that place behind me when I came here. Born alone, die alone. That's my life for ya." Malcolm calmed himself as he finished speaking.
Yara to also grew quiet. They may have been separated by social status and gender but something seemed to quietly click for the both of them. A sort of tacit understanding had been building between the two this entire time. Now it was apparent what had truly drawn Yara towards Malcolm in the first place.
She closed her gentle eyes and flashed back to a few hours earlier. She arrived to the spot where most of the clans heirs were gathered around in a circle. She saw that in the center sat a young man with a still and rigid look in his eye. He wore basic animal hides that covered his privates but left all else exposed under the sun.
Yara narrowed her eyes at the scene and quickly realized what the situation was about.
'Banji and Safari are playing their games again it seems. But why involve him?' She ponders as she observed the scene quietly as to not draw attention.
Then it happened. Malcolm started to laugh, but there was no joy emitting from that laughter. Only a crushing feeling of helplessness as the world only saw him as either a pawn or a nobody to be disregarded with apathy.
The people around him grew nervous and some even scared enough to start backing away from Malcolm. Yara then walked forward towards Banji and whispered is his ear.
"Go away Banji, and take your lap dogs with you." As she said this she sent a death glare towards Safari who had already picked up the hint and walked off along with everyone else.
"Oh...ok. you'll have no problems from m-" Banji couldn't even finish his sentence as Yara gripped him by the collar and tossed him away into a thorny bush. After a moment of slight irritation and confusion Banji got the hint and left without another word.
"You know he'll cause you problems later." Zola idly commented.
"Let him spin his story. It doesn't matter." Yara spoke with confidence befitting of someone with her status. She looked around and found that everyone genuinely left her alone with Malcolm, leaving no methods to spy on her.
She then turned around and took small steps towards Malcolm. She studied his face as she got closer. In his eyes, Yara could see a reflection of herself looking lonely and afraid.
His mouth formed the shape of a smile but didn't carry any substance of positivity. It looked like a sick macabre face mask that could only project insanity to hide the pain underneath.
His hands were raised up to form a tight grip on his head, as if trying to crush his own skull to kill the shame he must've felt.
As she approached Malcolm the world around her began to shift and flow along in all directions like the wind. The space she entered carried in it a sort of habitual malaise. The kind of feeling that once it gripped the inner heart, the soul could only suffer a long and drawn out demise.
And Yara was seeing someone on the edge of that demise, someone who could no longer find the inner strength to persevere.
Yara saw this to be the truth, all from his face alone that told the story of a lifetime of isolation.
The death that awaited Malcolm would've left him a dead man walking, had he'd been left in that solitude.
His laughter started to die down slightly as she got closer. All the while Yara looked even deeper into his eyes and started to cry. But even with the shedding tears she moved forward silently until she stood only a few inches from his face.
At once, Malcolm had stopped laughing all together and started to cry as well. Yara lifted both of her hands up to cup his face gently. Her thumbs idly wiped some of the tears that only poured out even harder now. Malcolm let out a loud snivel has he tried to maintain some modicum of dignity and strength in front of the strange girl.
However after seeing that she to was crying as well, he relented on holding back. He lifted both arms up to hug Yara tightly and leaned his head down to cry into her chest, and Yara pressed her face against his hair to cry even harder.
It was a beautiful moment in all of the tragedy. If only they knew that the tragedy was only beginning from here on.
Yara in the present let out a deep sigh of weariness.
"So tell me one thing than Malcolm. Where are you really from?" Yara transmitted as she opened her watery eyes.
Malcolm stayed silent for a moment before responding. "Earth... planet earth specifically."
Yara's eyes widened at the answer Malcolm gave. "You... you mean? Your from ano-"
"Don't worry about the details. Instead I'll show you."
"Sh-show me what?" Yara stuttered out.
Malcolm smiled mischievously." I'll show you my inheritance, as a disciple of the earth. No more tears from this nigga here, because now I know I can do anything." Malcolm said boisterously for the first time with full confidence in himself.
Yara before she knew was crying harder now then any day of her entire life so far. She ran up to Malcolm and hugged him tightly from the back.
"You, you damn bastard. How can you smile like that when you're going to kill yourself?"
"How would you know I'm smiling?"
"Because I can hear it in your VOICE, that's why!" Yara screamed out loud.
"Well yeah, I guess it's not so bad really. I met at least one beautiful person in my life. And I barely knew her for even a day. But that person helped drag me out of my own prison."
Malcolm finished speaking as he turned around to look at Yara who buried her face into his back, refusing to look him in the eye. Malcolm sighed casually at this and found it a little amusing.
"Hey, Grandma! You mind giving me a little lift up?" Malcolm yelled almost jovially to Mashallah who turned to give him a long look.
After a few moments she sighed deeply and pointed two fingers at him. Wind gathered beneath Malcolm's feet that started to lift him into the air. Yara reluctantly let go of him as she watched Malcolm ascend into the sky.
The pathieites were cornered in the center between Mashallah's clones as they engaged in a brief but violent battle of attrition.
The brown clone burrowed its hands in the dirt and uprooted an entire wheat field, and the yellow one lit it on fire and created a large scale firestorm out of it that forced the child to use its force field to defend against the attack. The fire also produced a thick smokescreen that the brown clone used to perform an art directed at the child as soon as it let its force field down.
[Mystic Art: Haboob distortion]
Immediately a storm of dust was created from the swift manipulation of both wind and earth energies. The child was forced back sliding across the ground for nearly a whole mile before it was able to withstand the duststorm. It was forced to use even more wind energy to stay on its feet, but the attack was not over yet since there were two clones present.
[Killer art: Wealth I spy, here I die]
The child soon noticed that among the myriad dust particles, there were particles that shined with an attractive golden light. The child snapped to attention and propelled itself away as quickly as possible. Good decision since a millisecond later those golden particles soon exploded with enough force individually to match a C4, and there were hundreds of them.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The scene looked like a picture taken straight out of hell, as the child flew just above the ground with half of its face caught on fire as the area behind it was blown into desolation. Large chunks of soil and stone flew everywhere in all directions. Black smoke rose high into the air, strong enough to suffocate a normal human in a few moments. The force generated was strong enough to cause a mini earthquake.
The brown clone stood still and felt the tremors and vibrations beneath it. It simply raised one foot and stomped on the ground, quieting the Ala soil instantly.
The man was having a hard time dealing with its enemies as well. The man ran at the orange clone and connected with a straight left. Only the expected impact wasn't felt, instead the orange clone was replaced with autumn leaves. The man was shocked and confused before the child yelled out.
"You fool! They trapped you in an illusion! Wake up!" The man soon came back to reality and barely dodged an orange colored pressurized wind blast that would've blown its head to pieces.
"Don't look into the pink one's eyes, it's using some kind of illusion based art that only activates when you look at it." The man nodded as it chose to close its eyes and use other senses to perceive its surroundings.
The orange and pink clones gave each other one look and then split off in two separate directions. The pink clone went right, the orange clone to the left.
They both stopped and casted separate arts.
[Mystic art: Shimmering Autumn Haze]
[Mystic art: River Of Love]
The arts were casted by the orange and pink clones one after the other.
The orange clone manipulated both wind and light from the sun to create an intense heat haze that brought the temperature to a boiling point. This forced the man to use its strength energy to defend its body from the brutal mirage.
Right after that the pink clone spat out of its mouth a massive pink river that rampaged towards the man who tried its best to dodge by flying but it was too late.
Bam!
The pink water crashed into him like a freight train, and broke several bones, ruptured internal organs and tore open flesh. Even worse was that the heat haze only intensified. From this it seemed like the man would soon melt into paste in the boiling pink water.
"Hold on damn you, I'm coming!" The child yelled out as it arrived right above the pink water. It lifted both of its little hands high and brought them down. This produced an invisible wave of formless power that shelved aside the pink tide long enough for an opening to appear.
The child flew into the opening and dragged out the mangled man as it flew them high into the sky. With the short reprieve it reached into a leather pouch on its hip and threw out some of its kin towards some straggling villagers to serve as a slight distraction.
This ended up being almost entirely useless as Mashallah had both her green and purple clones ready for such a maneuver. They easily destroyed the pathieites that came flying close.
After that the villagers and clan heirs were all lifted up by a wind art the clones used, and were quickly carried out of the remains of the devastated hamlet as the fight raged on.
The blue and red clones were able to retrieve both Safari and Banji without worry since the pathieites were preoccupied. They soon scattered in their own separate directions to rendezvous with the other survivors.
The child saw an opening towards Malcolm and tried to launch a wind attack that was reflected back at it instead of killing Malcolm.
"Wh-what!?" It shouted as it quickly evaded its own attack. However it gazed to its right and caught the sight of the pink clone and was immediately put under an illusion. Then the rest of the clones caught up and casted multiple arts.
[Killer art: Final Noise]
The brown clone stopped mid air and spread its arms wide open. In each hand there was wind and earth energy being gathered, and then it brought both hands together for a hard clap. However for a moment no noise was produced but then the child was assaulted with a visible soundwave that pushed it back from Malcolm. Only after it was impacted did it hear the sound.
It came like a storm that attacked only its ears, bursting the eardrums instantly.
"Oh, I see, so that can go through my force field." The child realized as it broke out of the illusion. However the clones were only just beginning their attack.
[Transformation Art: Daylight Descends]
The yellow clone shapeshifted into the form of a mini sun as it gathered wind and rays of light from the actual sun.
[Mystic Art: Warming Marigold]
The orange clone shot itself into the mini sun and combined its aura and body with the yellow clone in order to produce a combination art.
[Killer Art: Last Radiance]
This combination created an actual amber colored constellation that hovered high above in the sky like an ancient deity.
The pathieite duo had been launched back for a few miles in the sky. Unfortunately, the distance couldn't give them any time to react when a radiant amber star appeared before them in an instant, much like a teleportation.
The child put the man's still healing body in front of it to tank some of the attack while it used a thick layer of spiritual energy over its skin to block the force of the explosion. But this wasn't the end, within the celestial blast there were golden dust particles that shot towards the duo from all directions.
Left with no other options, the duo could only brace tightly as the dust exploded sent them blasting back towards the ground in the hamlet.
People looked up to see a massive orange-yellow explosion that split apart the heavens themselves for that moment. Then the wind came blowing down hard enough to uproot trees and homes that were still standing. The heat wave that came down was hot enough to set nearly everything below on fire.
The pathieite duo fell down in balls of fire that burned with a white hue.
They impacted the ground hard enough to create a dust storm and made huge cracks on the dirt they crashed into.
The two quickly got up despite the grievous state of their bodies and assumed a fighting position but no clones came to engage them. For a moment they were left alone in that desolate place, full of death and destruction that they caused.
The child took this moment to look up at the sky and saw two suns. One yellow and distant while the other was blue and all too close for comfort. The pathieite looked at the azure sphere, then looked at its creator with an unreadable gaze that almost seemed to see through him.
Malcolm looked down with a determined look on his bloody face. He took a deep breath of the fragrance around him and felt for the first time at ease since the battle began. His mind was tranquil, his heart was clear like a still pond.
He closed his eyes for one last inner reflection. His mind drifted down towards his abdomen to check on his spiritual core.
What was once a solid swirling azure sphere much like the one Malcolm was making right now, was wisping away, like an old memory. Once gone it could never be recovered no matter what one could do.
Despite Mashallah's formation ability to counter the backlash of most arts made from within the formation, it couldn't stop Malcolm from feeling his body grinding away from the inside out. Bones could be felt breaking one after the other. Skin was peeling off on its own accord, almost like it had a mind of its own to run from the calamity that is Malcolm Brooks. Blood seeped out endlessly from every bite, cut or punch that broke off the weak flesh of the young man.
On the contrary to most reactions to if one were in such a predicament, Malcolm was feeling rather unbothered by the collapse of his body. His mind was purely focused on the completion this technique.
'Now that I think about it, I haven't givin this thing a name yet. Let's see, maybe this can be called.'
["Mystic Art: Weight Of The Human Heart"]
As he said this the sphere finally stopped absorbing spiritual energy, reaching its limit.
The survivors of the hamlet and nobles were quickly carried for over 15 miles across the savanna before the clones thought the distance was far enough to drop everyone back to the ground.
Even from a distance of over 20 miles any living being with two eyes could look up and see a cataclysmically large sphere of spiritual energy that could destroy cities.
Everyone who could see it was in awe of the technique including Akeem's group who were over ten miles away from the battle. Akeem himself for the first time was standing at full attention with a contemplative look on his face with a dose of seriousness.
"Hmph. No wonder you told us to retreat. That attack would send most clan leaders and elders running for the hills." Akeem gave the leopard a cool gaze before looking at one of his men.
"Hey Zari. How large is that mini sun in the sky by your estimates?" A small young looking boy who wore a ragged oversized buffalo skin stood up from the ground and stared up at the azure sphere before responding.
"I would say about the size of a mountain sir. And it's got enough spiritual energy to match up with a fifth realm expert." Zari stated formally.
"Man... it looks so pretty." Another boy who was sitting next to Zari said wistfully with stars shining from his eyes.
"That it is young man. You ain't lied yet." Dakari said while patting the kid's head with a small smile showing on his normally hardened face. All of the men stood and looked up high in the sky, even if it would damage their eyes. But no one cared at that moment.
Malcolm after a long moment of stillness opened his eyes, looked at the enemies down below and threw down the azure sphere. And he soon begin to fall right behind it.
Mashallah's main body personally picked up Yara and casted an art.
[Transformation Art: Jet Run]
Mashallah along with Yara became the wind itself as they both disappeared in a flash.
"Auntie what are you doing? We still have to save Black!" Yara shouted desperately.
"Child I wish we could, but trying to save him now would only endanger the both of us even more. Besides it seems little black has chosen this place as his end. Mashallah answered grimly.
From the ground looking up, it looked like a biblical judgement had been passed down upon the land and all else that dared to get in its way. This judgement promised to end all life if it had to, for the sake of relieving its creator of the burden that chained down his soul for too long, like a shackle that one may place on their own neck.
The descent was a little slow but not slow enough for the pathieites to dodge the attack. They were already back to back with one another to defend themselves against Mashallah's clones. And now they were truly cornered with no way out except one.
The child was still calmly looking at Malcolm even while the man beside it was clearly panicking in fear of the falling catastrophe. The fall alone already eclipsed the scale of the previous engagements.
Mashallah's clones quickly retreated in all directions as fast as they could from the falling sun. For a moment the world around everyone nearby darkened as the technique came down. The real sun far away was obscured by the azure one's domineering presence, and then the light came back. However this time it emerged with an incredible bluish white hue that would make the star Rigel seem small and dim in its presence.
Two people were on the ground, a man and a child. Under the radiance of the heavenly light, their skin shined with the color blue, with all other colors shoved aside. The child looked up at the man with a slight smile that seemed to signal something. The man's eyes widened at what was implied by that expression, and reluctantly stepped forward in front of the
The child walked up to the man and reached a hand out towards the man's back.
It soon sped up its motion to pierce through flesh and organs to grab at the spiritual core within. Soon enough the remaining spiritual energy was drained out until the core collapsed on its own, disappearing into mist. The pathieite within was also absorbed as well.
The child casually hoisted up the man's corpse in front of it as it channeled wind energy into its feet and strength energy into its legs. The two energies briefly clashed inside the boy's body but were quickly brought underneath control by the pathieite within. The boy quickly dug into its pouch to pull some of its kin.
Unfortunately most of them were already dead from the deprivation of spiritual energy. The child sighed before quickly consuming whomever was still alive for their remaining energy.
"Now it's time to play my ace." It muttered out before bending down and facing the sky head on. One last deep breath was inhaled before it pounced into the sky with the man as its shield.
The child looked as small as an ant before the monolithic constellation falling towards it.
The child transferred strength energy back into the man's body after its launch.
"You better not fail me now!" The child screamed in excitement as the man's body collided with the azure sphere. At the same time Malcolm fell down from heaven into the mini star.
The spiritual energy itself had no weight, instead what made it feel so cataclysmic to go up against was its grinding pressure. Due to the condensed form it encompassed, living beings that could not match the sheer mass of energy would be erased by the pressure before long.
The child having this in mind, used both the man's body and its strength energy as the two first lines of defense.
The body exuded a blood red aura that quickly fell apart from the insane pressure of the spiritual energy. Then after that, the body of the man was very quickly coming undone.
First the eyes popped like plump grapes, splattering its remains across the man's lifeless face. Second were the ears, once the spiritual energy flooded inside them, the ear drums were destroyed instantly, spilling out still warm blood like a fountain at a park. Third was the nose which was simply crushed into nonexistence by the terrifying pressure.
In another moment the man's head exploded gratuitously, like a watermelon. The child could only grip the body tight enough to crush bones as it persevered for now.
"Come on! Is that all you got, child?!" It yelled out madly and then laughed crazily as it stared at Malcolm's figure through the azure sphere.
The higher it rose the more desecrated the corpse became. Soon enough the entire front part of the body caved into the pressure and exploded.
At this point the body couldn't protect a foam plate, much less a body snatching parasite. The body was tossed aside as the child finally used its last bit of spiritual energy to generate a force field.
On Malcolm's end, he fell into the azure sphere but strangely enough he didn't instantly die from the pressure. Instead he felt a soothing warmth envelope him in a firm but gentle embrace. Malcolm was confused by this and looked around himself slowly. It was then he realized.
"Well damn, maybe I ought to thank that old nigga after all." He chuckled as he found that the energy giving him that soothing feeling wasn't the energy he gathered. Instead it was the wisp of cosmic energy that helped in gathering it in the first place.
'Strange, I wonder why you didn't come out earlier.' Malcolm thought as he continued falling deeper into the mass of energy.
On the other end, the child only soared higher and higher, disregarding life or death in the pursuit of its target.
"There you are!" The child yelled crazily as it laid eyes on Malcolm who also saw it in return. Both the young man and the child knew that the other had to die regardless if they themselves would survive.
The child flew up with a half melted face and a wide monstrous smile while Malcolm fell down in a calm almost relaxed manner. It was almost as if he forgot that he was dying when he and the child came close enough to start fighting.
Malcolm lifted a foot up and came down for an axe kick that the child blocked with both arms. Malcolm quickly used the platform to twist his ankle slightly and performed a one footed backflip that turned into a series of backflips. Then Malcolm came down for a dropkick that connected with its chest.
But this was on purpose since the child proceeded to grab Malcolm's legs in order to drag him close. Malcolm only managed to pull one leg away in time before his other leg was held onto tightly by the child. The grip was quickly tightening to a point where a bone was broken.
Malcolm retaliated by grabbing the child by the back of its head and smashing it against his knee repeatedly. The child in desperation took one of its fists and punched Malcolm in the balls.
"Ahh, damn you a dirty bitch ain't you?!" Malcolm cursed.
"Not as much as you little boy." The child responded, clearly amused by Malcolm's reaction.
The child finally realized that since it came into contact with Malcolm the spiritual pressure disappeared entirely.
'This will be a good host.' It thought to itself while engaging Malcolm in brutal close quarter combat.
"Nigga you a damn boy!" Malcolm yelled as he brought his legs together in a criss-cross posture. The child's head was caught in between. He then raised up both hands and formed a hammerfist. He smashed down at the child's skull, trying to crush it. He smashed down again and again.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The sounds of flesh smashing bone were all that filled Malcolm's ears. He didn't stop, he couldn't stop, he could only fight to the end.
Outside, Mashallah and her clones all reconvened with the surviving villagers and young nobles. Everyone around had the look of death and exhaustion on their old and young faces. Only Mashallah and Yara were still standing strong as everyone's eyes were focused on the falling star.
"Auntie, can you see them?" Yara looked at Mashallah with worry on her face.
Mashallah shook her head." I wish sweetie but ever since little black and the pathieite entered that art, I lost visibility and any sign of life in that attack. I'm... I'm afraid that they may be already-
"NO! Auntie, he's not dead." Yara interrupted harshly.
Mashallah gave Yara a long look before turning her attention back to the azure sphere.' I would like to believe that.' She thought inwardly.
'My creator! Just what is this child made of? How has he not died yet?' The child thought as it caught Malcolm's hands and held them back with every ounce of energy it had left. Malcolm slipped out of the grip and came down for a hammerfist that crushed through the child's hands, but broke his own in return.
"Damn my life! Why won't you just fucking die already!?" Malcolm shouted out loud as he tightened his legs around the childs head and tried to crush its neck.
The child proceeded to spin its head all the way around until it was facing Malcolm. Then it smiled mischievously, and bit down on his penis. It had expected Malcolm to scream in horror and terror but what it got instead was a mocking laugh. After that it felt a stabbing pain in its mouth.
"Stupid little bitch, you ain't think I would be looking after my dick huh?" Malcolm mocked as he pulled out the spearhead he had tucked in his trousers that the child bit into. He then thrust forward but the child twisted its neck and moved its head fast enough for the spearhead to only graze its cheek. It then twisted its head again to bite down on Malcolm's hand that was holding the spearhead. This only added on to the burning of his hand being broken.
But this could no longer faze Malcolm like it may have before. Malcolm spread open his legs and slammed the child against his chest. With his other broken hand while ignoring the burning pain he dug two fingers into the eyes of the child.
"Hahaha! You think that's gonna work on me?! I don't need these weak eyes to see you anyway!" The child mocked scornfully but inwardly, the worry was starting to pile up like an old wound.
"Just how is he still fighting? His body is broken beyond repair, and on top of that his core has been absorbed by this damned art of his." The child thought frantically as Malcolm's finger dug into its brain, but this did nothing to stop the child from fighting back.
The azure sphere itself was only 50 meters from the ground, and the pressure it exuded already collapsed the soil and crushed any solid structures within the range of a mile. Stone was reduced to dust, the air became heavy with a suffocating pressure, light itself became an oppressive force that demanded submission from all living beings.
The azure blue light buzzed with a quickening rhythm that seemed to countdown until the time was right to mark its might in the pages of history.
But to the two beings in the center of this event, the past and future no longer held any significance. Only the present where one of them died before the other was worthy of remembrance.
The child while still having Malcolm's hand in its mouth, bit down hard enough to chew his hand to pieces. Skin, blood, and flesh were chewed and swallowed in a frenzied rage. Yet Malcolm only seemed to become calmer than before, as though this was expected.
He silently tore his two broken fingers through the child's entire skull. Then with his other mangled hand he raised it up and stabbed into the child's abdomen, spilling its intestines and nearly hitting the pathieite hiding there.
"Why don't you come on out?" Malcolm spoke calmly with a withered edge to his voice.
"Come on out so I can kill you little boy. I wanna kill you at least before I die," he said as he stabbed repeatedly into the child's body. The color red filled his vision along with the taste of iron flooding his mouth. The thick aroma of blood silently fueled his rampage.
After a time Malcolm stopped to take a breath, the child grew silent and still, no longer did it show signs of life. Malcolm grew cautious as he turned the body around to look at it carefully.
The body was disfigured beyond recognition, half of its face was burned horrifically. Most who would've saw it may be hard pressed to believe that face once belonged to a young boy with hopes for a better life. Its chest was caved in so bad that the ribs could be seen. The forearms were broken and mangled until bones were sticking out openly. Down at the abdomen, long and fleshy bodily tubes were waving around as if greeting the wind. The child now looked closer to some kind of fleshy abstraction then a born and bred human being.
Malcolm after coming down from his frenzy, took a moment to look down at himself. His body wasn't much better off the child in front of him. His hands and arms were disfigured and mangled even more than the child's. His left hand specifically was completely removed, leaving only a blood red bone in its place. There were large chunks of skin and flesh that were missing from his chest down to his feet. His cornrows were nearly burnt off leaving parts of his scalp exposed. Malcolm could reasonably guess that his current face was more akin to a wild beast than any resembling a modern human.
In a way, perhaps this was always who he was on the inside, only now did his appearance match the deep shadows in his inner heart.
Malcolm remembered that he was still falling to the ground and looked down to see the azure sphere was moments away from crashing onto the land. However now he felt tired, and was ready to take a long nap. His eyes felt heavy like two large boulders that could no longer be carried.
"Cmon already... I'm right here." He whispered out to no one but his solo audience, or so it seemed.
Another long moment went by before suddenly.
Crack!
His abdomen was penetrated by the pathieite who chose this as the moment to act. Malcolm could feel his body being invaded and some of his senses abandoning him.
His vision grew dark as he felt his conscious mind was submerging into the depths Malcolm found to feel endless. At a lightning speed he came into an empty white space.
In front of him was the shape of the child with a fully recovered body. It was naked and Malcolm looked down to see he to was fully recovered and naked to boot.
The child looked around in confusion and slight awe before giving Malcolm a look of gratitude.
"What the hells got you so happy?" Malcolm said with irritation etched in his tone.
"Haha! I knew I was right, you're going to be the best host yet, haha!" The child laughed in a celebratory manner as it started clapping and jumping in joy.
"Hey, lil nigga! If you haven't noticed I'm still alive over here!" Malcolm waved in exaggeration to emphasized his point.
"You really don't know do you? Haha, brother I'll tell you this much. You put up a good fight, but in the end you were still only human." The child spoke with a wicked air around its figure.
"But don't worry, I'll be in charge, so you may now rest in peace." Malcolm stood silent and cool for a minute before he responded.
"Nah. You forgetting something little man. Forgetting something that'll be yo last mistake." The child tilted his head slightly as it crossed its arms in a thinking posture.
"Oh, are you talking about that mysterious force that allowed you to not only create this art, but prevented you from dying the moment you fell into it? If that's the case then you're maybe still out of luck."
"Why's that?" Malcolm said while getting into a boxing stance.
"Because now we're in your mind. And the mind compared to real time is lightning fast. So a few moments out there could be minutes you'd have to survive against me. But also I'm betting on you not having control over that energy, so in any sense you're done." The child smiled monstrously at its perceived guaranteed victory in this brutal battle.
Malcolm only stood silently in his fighting stance while the child kept its arms crossed. It may have spoke confidently and smiled arrogantly but Malcolm could tell by its cold eyes that it was extremely cautious for the inevitable fight.
Malcolm wasted no more time, and rushed forward with his arms held up to guard him. The child only stood still, waiting for the attack. Malcolm threw a left straight that stopped only inches from its face. Then he threw a low kick that the child merely blocked with its own leg. Malcolm then swung down with his right hand which the child proceeded to grab with an open palm. Malcolm tried to pull back but it was to no avail, the grip was simply too tight.
A knee was thrown that Malcolm managed to block with his own knee.
Crack!
"Fuck!" Malcolm swore at the pain he felt shoot up through his knee. The child saw the moment of weakness and threw a right straight. Malcolm sensing an opening launched a left straight of his own.
Bam!
The fists collided with their intended targets but one suffered more than the other.
"Fuck!" The child swore as it reflexively let go of its grip on Malcolm's hand to check its jaw to see if it was broken.
Malcolm used his free hand to point forward two fingers in an attempt to pluck out the child's eyes. However the child recovered quickly and went to bite down Malcolm's finger.
At the same moment it extended its neck, Malcolm threw up a knee that connected with its chin.
Crack!
A bone crushing noise was heard as the child was knocked up into the air. Malcolm quickly grabbed one of its legs and then, bam! Slammed its face first into the ground soaking that spot in bright red blood.
The child quickly tried to kick back with its other foot but it was easily dodged and hooked under Malcolm's armpit. He then started to spin in place, fast enough to become a slight blur and he tossed the child a little over 50 meters away.
The child performed a series of backflips until it stomped into place and stood still, staring down Malcolm. Malcolm only stared it down in return until he spoke.
"You know something? I think you full of shit," Malcolm said mockingly with a wide smile on his face.
"Elaborate," the child said curiously.
"You ain't as strong as when you dropkicked that nigga Banji a while ago. Hell, I'd go as far as to say that you ain't as strong compared to when you and me was going at it outside." Malcolm said while pointing a finger at the child.
"I don't know much but I know when someone's getting weak on my watch, and you're getting pretty weak from the look of things." Malcolm after finishing that declaration sped forward at a blinding speed.
The child shocked by the sudden increase in speed could only manage to put its arms out in front of it to form an X.
Bam!
Malcolm delivered a dropkick of hell as his foot tore through flesh, sending the child skidding back by a few meters.
The child without delay rushed forward and Malcolm met it head on for a clash.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
The sounds of colliding fists were creating small shockwaves across the mindscape. Kicks were also thrown in the mix from both combatants. Blood was being swapped between the two but this did nothing to slow either man or parasite.
The child got on all fours and started to run around Malcolm with an unnatural swiftness to its step. It circled around to take a small bite out of Malcolm's thigh who responded in kind with a back kick that missed by a hair.
"Bark! Bark! Bark!" The child barked at him while it ran from side to side, never standing still for even a breath of time.
Malcolm was put at a disadvantage while trying to understand this change in fighting style. Bites and scratches started to accumulate around the lower half of his body. There were many close calls particularly with his butt and penis.
That was when something clicked in Malcolm's mind, there was something familiar about this wild feral way of fighting.
"Those damn hyenas." His mind flashed back to that tragic fight. But he quickly shook away the negative feelings and thought quickly as to how he countered them before.
"Damn, I need my spearhead!" He growled in irritation as he jumped back to dodge a bite from his left.
"No... there is another way." He remembered how he felt when he saw that dead baby in the second two faced hyena's mouth. A boiling anger that stuck itself deeply into the inner heart, never to be forgotten.
"You little bitch," he muttered out quietly as he let that anger seep into every corner of his mind, and control his every action.
Now... he was no longer human.
He threw an open hand out that grasped the open mouth of the child who wasted no time in biting down on it. Then in his rage he lifted the bestial child and took a massive bite into its neck.
Malcolm could taste blood, skin, and flesh and much more. But it still did nothing to alleviate his maddening fury. He stretched his other hand back into a claw and struck forward to pierce the child's abdomen. This time he spilled its intestines, just like in the outside world.
The child while this was all happening had been scratching at Malcolm's body nonstop but to no avail.
After a horrific minute of biting, scratching, punching, and kicking, the child managed to slip out of Malcolm's grasp due to the sheer amount of blood there was on the both of them. It fell down on Malcolm's feet and curled into a fetal position.
The child for the first time had a look of fear on its face as it spoke.
"You. You can't be human. This... this is insanity! Just who the hell are you child!" It slammed its fists down as it continued raging.
"You fight like you don't have your life to lose! Which in turn, only causes me the biggest lost because you couldn't seem to care less! Wh-why?! Just why are you making my life so, fucking hard?!" The child finished as it started to cry.
Malcolm paused at this scene. Of all of the things that have happened during this fight, he never would've thought that he would be capable of making a parasitic body snatcher cry in helplessness. In fact something about this helplessness reminded him of himself.
All alone in that dark place he was stuck in for a long time. With nothing to his name besides his own weakness and fragility.
"What the fuck you crying for? You been killing people all this time haven't you? So why be so mad when it's your time to die?" Malcolm spoke with a dry and crude tone that carried deep exhaustion.
The child in response only crawled up and groveld beneath Malcolm's feet.
"Well I'll be damned, you really are a worthless bitch," Malcolm kicked the child across the head and cracked open its skull. The child now laid flat on the ground with blood pouring out of its broken skull
Malcolm picked up the child with a tight grip on its neck.
There he stood covered in blood from top to bottom, as if he bathed in it. Cuts, scratches and deep bite marks were visible on his young body.
From the moment the pathieites first emerged to the inside of Malcolm's mind, less then half an hour had passed and Malcolm felt as though he lived through multiple lifetimes. So much has happened here that could never be explained back on planet earth.
But the time for explanation has passed, only action counted in this savage land.
Malcolm just looked at the child for a long moment before asking a question.
"How bout we make a blood pact, between each other?"
The pathieite shot him a shocked and bewildered expression.
"You... you're not serious right? Haha, blood pact between a human and a pathieite! I must've hit your head too hard one of those times because you're talking crazy."
"Nigga please, what's crazier then eating the soul of a child to take over his body? Then you damn near killing an entire hamlet full of people for more food. Shit, I don't care if that's how you gotta eat but don't go tryna call anyone crazy here." Malcolm spoke while letting the child go.
It got up and held a hand to its throat while giving Malcolm a strange look of recognition.
"Even if we do this I don't know how we'll survive the explosion with us in the middle of it." Malcolm smiled mischievously and responded.
"You already forgot about my mysterious energy little man? Maybe I'm the one that hit you upside the head too hard." Malcolm laughed while pointing a mocking finger at the child who only half-heartedly tried to bite it off in response.
The azure sphere was now seconds away from exploding as it buzzed loud enough to burst eardrums, and shined brightly enough to blind those who looked for too long.
"Alright I'll give you that, but are you sure that this 'cosmic energy' of yours will protect us?"
"Shit, only time will tell. Now how we do this blood pact thing?" The child closed its eyes to ponder for a moment before answering.
"Well seeing the situation for what it is, how about this?" The child proceeded to tell Malcolm its conditions that he quickly accepted, given the circumstances.
Outside, the azure sphere let off a blinding flash that could've lit a blackhole in its bluish-white radiance and then, it landed.
Boom!
The energy formed a dome shaped sphere on the ground floor as it sent out visible shockwaves that uprooted the entire land around it for 10 miles across the savanna. All of the uprooted soil along with a myriad of rocks, grass, trees, and hills, formed an earth tide that seemed to have a directive to destroy, everything.
The energy let out a booming roar as it ingrained itself deep into the land, like a grass seed in the field, or a scar laying its wicked claim in the inner heart.
Just like this, the battle was over.