Chapter 100
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The purple feather crashed into Zan Fu's claw arm with a great amount of force. The time limit on Zan Fu's current transformation shortened even further as the effects of the purple energy took its toll on him. Luckily the speed up of time was not so drastic as to turn him into an old man directly, but even so it was very troubling not knowing if or when that speed up would happen.
Phoen was also very troubled with the current battle. While he was obviously on the winning side, the fact that the battle was not over yet was really getting to him. He thought that his current strength would be more than enough to finish his fight by now, but his incomplete control of the aura of time was really giving him some trouble. Because of this his attacks became increasingly aggressive since he wanted to leave and practice his abilities more.
The force and speed exerted by the feather increased as Phoen's annoyance grew. Usually this would be a disadvantage for Zan Fu, but the attacks started to become more sloppy and easy to read. After dodging three swings in a row, Zan Fu was able to get right up to Phoen and launch his claw-fist into his guts. Phoen coughed out some spittle as a vein bulged out of his head. He brought the feather up over his head and stabbed down with it. Zan Fu reacted as quickly as he could and tried to step back away from the strike.
Unfortunately he was too slow and while the feather didn't stab into his chest, it did scratch a long hash across Zan Fu's chest. Blood shot out of the newly formed wound after the feather had passed through. Clutching at his chest, Zan Fu hopped back a far distance away and felt the last of his berserk state leave his body. He kneeled down onto the ground, in pain, as he didn't have enough energy to lessen the injury on his chest. Unfortunately, that was the least of his problem as a roaring scream escaped from Zan Fu's mouth while the pain in his chest flared in agony. The skin surrounding the wound began to darken and flake away as the worst scenario happened, purple energy sped up Zan Fu's flesh to the point of becoming dust.
A sigh of satisfaction escaped from Phoen's mouth as he watched the body of Zan Fu began to drift off into the wind. In order to save himself some time, Phoen decided to go ahead and finish Zan Fu off swiftly. He charged toward Zan Fu and prepared himself to slice off his adversary's head with his weapon.
In the perspective of Zan Fu, the feather approached slowly toward his neck without without stop. He was in too much pain to stop it with the claw, but he sent every last bit of energy he had in his body into his neck. Just before the feather reached though, a hand reached over behind Zan Fu and stopped the feather's path with only its fingers. Braedon's hand was covered in a deep blue energy that was different from both his and Zan Fu's usual aquamarine color. It was a deep shade of blue, almost navy, that pulsates with waves of power. Somehow it was also perfectly stopping the purple energy from Braedon in every way possible. No matter how much energy Phoen poured into his weapon, it was never enough to speed up Braedon's time.
Braedon brought his middle finger up and stabbed it into Zan Fu's chest, who shouted out in pain and stared daggers at him at first, before color began to return to his gray flesh and the wound began to partially heal itself. The energy coming from Braedon did not heal him up completely, but it did somehow stop the degradation of his body.
"What took you so long?" Zan Fu gave off a jokingly annoyed personality as he trying to regain whatever energy he could. Braedon smiled and said, "I just needed to eat a quick meal." He didn't elaborate on this but Zan Fu figured that it had something to do with his newfound power-up, which everyone was getting apparently. "What about Kai Jun? Is he okay?" Zan Fu noticed that something flashed inside of Braedon's eyes as he silently shook his head.
Even when his answer was not truly answered, Zan Fu was able to easily figure out what Braedon meant. He wanted to give a moment to mourn he loss of their comrade but knew that at the moment they had more pressing matters to handle.
Phoen pulled the feather out of Braedon's grasp and gave him a passive stare. "So the original returns. It seems your little monkey friend isn't here to help you anymore."
"So the asshole is still here. Looks like your purple...whatever that is... won't be doing much gassing me." Braedon retorted in a sarcastic tone as he summoned out his own feather. After he helped Zan Fu stand up from his kneeling position. The two of them prepared themselves for the upcoming battle.
Braedon, "I'll be the vanguard, prepare yourself with follow up attacks. Every time you get injured, fall back and prepare for me to pass over some of my energy. I will act as a human meat shield since his attacks won't harm me much, and your claw is more suited to single powerful strikes. Don't rush in there and try to throw out several attack, aim for one strike that will obliterate the enemy."
Zan Fu slowly turned to Braedon in surprise. The strategy he came up with was very basic, but it still seemed very effect. This made him wonder to himself, "When did Braedon become a strategic fighter?"
They both got into position and charged toward Phoen. Braedon released a flurry of stabs and kicks, which were all blocked by Phoen. His attacks were wild and were much different than the way he usually fought. His movements were all unexpected and could not be read. Although Phoen was able to block all of Braedon's attacks, they caused him to be distracted as Zan Fu came up from behind and scratched down onto Phoen's back.
"Argh!" Phoen screamed out while quickly turning around and swinging his feather toward Zan Fu, but in his rage he completely forgot that the person that caused him to forget about Zan Fu was still behind him. Braedon slid around to Phoen's side and punched him under the armpit. This stopped the momentum of Phoen's attack dead in its tracks and gave Zan Fu all the time he needed to escape. Phoen looked down at Braedon with a pissed off expression on his face, "{Hell's Flames}!" A stream of red fire shot out of his palm and struck Braedon directly on his chest. Although Braedon was able to somehow nullify the purple energy, the red energy appeared to still do a decent amount of damage on him, although not as much as it did to Kai Jun.
Braedon hopped back a good distance and ripped off his burning shirt from his body, revealing an impeccable body with gigantic pectoral muscles as well as abs that looked like they could grate cheese. His flesh was partially blackened from the searing hot heat of the flame, but this didn't hold him back too much as Braedon released a beam of power from his feather.
The attack was intercepted by another {Hell's Flame} as Phoen turned around to check and see if Zan Fu was behind him again. Fortunately, Zan Fu had a few tricks up his sleeves. He wasn't aiming for another attack on Phoen's back, he was aiming one for his head as was evident by Zan Fu falling out of nowhere and slamming his fist into Phoen skull. This caused him to crash into the ground with Zan Fu still on top of him, but their close proximity to each other allowed the effects of the purple energy to damage him a bit.
Zan Fu quickly escaped and landed near Braedon, who showered him in energy. Zan Fu was almost completely spent. No matter how much energy Braedon gave him, it was mostly used to heal his wounds instead of filling up his reserves, "I-I don't know how much longer I can keep this up." Zan Fu said while panting heavily.
Braedon was in a much better state than Zan Fu was but the amount of power he used was still limited and was mostly used to heal wound. It didn't have a real attacking method and would be great only in battles of stamina, but this was not one of those type of fights. They needed to do something quick before it was too late.
Braedon, "I have a plan."
"Do tell."
After explaining his idea to Zan Fu, the man looked at his friend like he was retarded. "Sometimes I wonder what goes through that head of your."
"So you accept my proposition?"
"I don't really have a choice here. Let's go!"
Zan Fu used whatever energy he had left in his body for one true last strike. Braedon took half of the power in his body and used it to wrap Zan Fu up in a sort of protective cocoon.
With a loud shout, Zan Fu ran at Phoen with reckless abandon. He didn't try to attack or dodge any of Phoen's attacks due to his trust in the cocoon that was currently wrapped around him. And with that Zan Fu tackled Phoen, who did not see that coming, and lifted him up while holding him in a tight hug. Because his arms were wrapped around by Zan Fu's hug, he couldn't use the feather to stab Zan Fu, "Let go of me!"
Zan Fu ignored Phoen's shouts as he screamed at Braedon, "You're up!"
With that Braedon did a somersault and landed onto Zan Fu's shoulders. There he took out his two fingers and shoved them into Phoen's ears.
When Braedon absorbed Kai Jun, a good bit of the information that he contained entered into his Braedon's mind. Within his reservoir of knowledge, were several ideas of way to defeat Phoen. The idea that Braedon chose to use was the riskiest of the bunch, but it was the one that assured that even if Braedon failed, Phoen would be defeated and his friends would come out unscathed. The cost would be Braedon's death, but he decided to leave this tiny bit of information out of his explanation when talking to Zan Fu.
With a shout, all of Braedon's life force began to shoot into Phoen's mind. Life force was a sign of how long someone had to live, it reflected their soul and when it would disappear. But that was a bit different for Braedon since he himself was already just a soul. His life force was just that, his very being and existence.
What Braedon was trying to do right at this moment was simple, take back what was rightfully his.
Darkness enveloped his vision as Braedon walked down a familiar looking path of darkness. The difference was that this time, there was a single spot of light at the end of this tunnel.
Braedon walked over to it and there sitting on the floor was a single boy with blazing red hair, pale white skin, and clear blue eyes.
"Phoen?"
"Hi Braedon, it's good to see you. It's been a while since we've last met."
"What are you talking about? We were literally just fighting each other just a few seconds ago."
Phoen, "What you were fighting was my ego. My pride, desire, and fear of death creating a whole new personality inside of me that took over. What you are fighting is everything that I am ashamed to be, but what am I to do? I'm just a shell of what I once was."
Braedon didn't know how to respond to this, so he just walked up and sat down next to him. They looked into the endless void of darkness together without saying much until Phoen finally broke the silence, "Are you here to take back control?"
"Yes I am. Are you going to stop me?"
Phoen shook his head, "I have no strength here. But if you wish to take back this body from my ego, you'll have a difficult time."
"Why?"
Phoen waved his arm out into the darkness and said, "All of this IS my ego. If you want to take back control, you'll need to defeat this first."
Braedon looked around at the area in surprise. He turned to the boy beside him and asked, "Do you have any advice?"
"..."
Braedon sighed and just stayed there seated for a bit. Luckily, thanks to knowledge from Kai Jun, he knew that time in this area was one million times faster than it was outisde so he had time to think.
They sat there in silence for a few hours before Phoen spoke up, "Did you know I wasn't always like this? I wasn't always evil."
Braedon's ears perked up in interest as he listened to the story about to be told.
"In the beginning, I was tasked with protecting humans. I never met my father, but I knew that he was some sort of powerful being that was involved in the creation of this world. Back then a wisp of his will lived inside of me and I knew that I had the responsibility of protecting the people of this world. But after thousands of years passed, I began to realize that death was approaching me."
Braedon turned to him with his brows scrunched together, "You had an existential crisis?"
"Basically yes, but instead of getting over it I was obsessed with obtaining immortality. I thought that if I could achieve a level of power surpassing that of my father, I would live forever. But after obtaining a bit of the timelord's strength, I took a peek into the future and saw that no matter what I did, I would never surpass my father. I did so many terrible things all for nothing. In the end I would die and only my dishonorable deeds would remain."
"But you can still change that!" Braedon turned to Phoen suddenly and said, "All of the people you've killed in order to absorbed their souls wont be returning, but you can at least avenge them by helping me defeat your ego!"
"Will that erase the sins I've committed?"
"No, but it's a start. Look, if your ego keeps doing whatever he wants to do, many more people will die from his actions. We can stop it if we worked together. Help me defeat him and you'll at least stop the death of many others."
Phoen looked from his seated position and said, "*Sigh* you've barely convinced me. Fine, what do we do then?"
"That's what I'm asking you!"
Phoen chuckled while saying, "There is only one true way. Kill me and my ego will disappear as well."
"Oh well that's easy!"
"Not for me you asshole! Just... before you do that do me one favor.""
Braedon looked at Phoen in a questioning manner, "What is it?"
"If-when you achieve the rank of a deity, please unseal the "heaven's force". It was partially due to my neglect of ignoring the people who caused the seal to appear, that the world's "heaven's force" was locked away. As another atonement, help me help the cultivators of the world just one last time. Watch over the human race in my place, will you do that?"
"I'll do what I can, no promises but I'll at least try to break the seal."
Phoen nodded in gratitude and held out his hand. A sword made of darkness appeared inside of it and he handed it over to Braedon, "Its up to you now."
And with that, Braedon stabbed the sword into Phoen's chest. The darkness surrounding him began to drift away as Braedon felt himself disappearing, "AHHHHHHHHHHHH! Why does integrating with my body hurt so much!"
In the real world, Zan Fu felt Phoen stop struggling.
"Braedon?"
The body of Braedon turned around to face him and opened his mouth, "I love you so much Zan Li!"
After punching Braedon's neck, Zan Fu dragged him into an embrace while laughing out, "You've got it back!"
Braedon laughed out as well as Shu Rong and Yi Ling, who just woke up, saw that Zan Fu was no longer fighting and came over to see what was happening.
"There is no longer any doubt about this body any longer, it's mine and only mine!"
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The purple feather crashed into Zan Fu's claw arm with a great amount of force. The time limit on Zan Fu's current transformation shortened even further as the effects of the purple energy took its toll on him. Luckily the speed up of time was not so drastic as to turn him into an old man directly, but even so it was very troubling not knowing if or when that speed up would happen.
Phoen was also very troubled with the current battle. While he was obviously on the winning side, the fact that the battle was not over yet was really getting to him. He thought that his current strength would be more than enough to finish his fight by now, but his incomplete control of the aura of time was really giving him some trouble. Because of this his attacks became increasingly aggressive since he wanted to leave and practice his abilities more.
The force and speed exerted by the feather increased as Phoen's annoyance grew. Usually this would be a disadvantage for Zan Fu, but the attacks started to become more sloppy and easy to read. After dodging three swings in a row, Zan Fu was able to get right up to Phoen and launch his claw-fist into his guts. Phoen coughed out some spittle as a vein bulged out of his head. He brought the feather up over his head and stabbed down with it. Zan Fu reacted as quickly as he could and tried to step back away from the strike.
Unfortunately he was too slow and while the feather didn't stab into his chest, it did scratch a long hash across Zan Fu's chest. Blood shot out of the newly formed wound after the feather had passed through. Clutching at his chest, Zan Fu hopped back a far distance away and felt the last of his berserk state leave his body. He kneeled down onto the ground, in pain, as he didn't have enough energy to lessen the injury on his chest. Unfortunately, that was the least of his problem as a roaring scream escaped from Zan Fu's mouth while the pain in his chest flared in agony. The skin surrounding the wound began to darken and flake away as the worst scenario happened, purple energy sped up Zan Fu's flesh to the point of becoming dust.
A sigh of satisfaction escaped from Phoen's mouth as he watched the body of Zan Fu began to drift off into the wind. In order to save himself some time, Phoen decided to go ahead and finish Zan Fu off swiftly. He charged toward Zan Fu and prepared himself to slice off his adversary's head with his weapon.
In the perspective of Zan Fu, the feather approached slowly toward his neck without without stop. He was in too much pain to stop it with the claw, but he sent every last bit of energy he had in his body into his neck. Just before the feather reached though, a hand reached over behind Zan Fu and stopped the feather's path with only its fingers. Braedon's hand was covered in a deep blue energy that was different from both his and Zan Fu's usual aquamarine color. It was a deep shade of blue, almost navy, that pulsates with waves of power. Somehow it was also perfectly stopping the purple energy from Braedon in every way possible. No matter how much energy Phoen poured into his weapon, it was never enough to speed up Braedon's time.
Braedon brought his middle finger up and stabbed it into Zan Fu's chest, who shouted out in pain and stared daggers at him at first, before color began to return to his gray flesh and the wound began to partially heal itself. The energy coming from Braedon did not heal him up completely, but it did somehow stop the degradation of his body.
"What took you so long?" Zan Fu gave off a jokingly annoyed personality as he trying to regain whatever energy he could. Braedon smiled and said, "I just needed to eat a quick meal." He didn't elaborate on this but Zan Fu figured that it had something to do with his newfound power-up, which everyone was getting apparently. "What about Kai Jun? Is he okay?" Zan Fu noticed that something flashed inside of Braedon's eyes as he silently shook his head.
Even when his answer was not truly answered, Zan Fu was able to easily figure out what Braedon meant. He wanted to give a moment to mourn he loss of their comrade but knew that at the moment they had more pressing matters to handle.
Phoen pulled the feather out of Braedon's grasp and gave him a passive stare. "So the original returns. It seems your little monkey friend isn't here to help you anymore."
"So the asshole is still here. Looks like your purple...whatever that is... won't be doing much gassing me." Braedon retorted in a sarcastic tone as he summoned out his own feather. After he helped Zan Fu stand up from his kneeling position. The two of them prepared themselves for the upcoming battle.
Braedon, "I'll be the vanguard, prepare yourself with follow up attacks. Every time you get injured, fall back and prepare for me to pass over some of my energy. I will act as a human meat shield since his attacks won't harm me much, and your claw is more suited to single powerful strikes. Don't rush in there and try to throw out several attack, aim for one strike that will obliterate the enemy."
Zan Fu slowly turned to Braedon in surprise. The strategy he came up with was very basic, but it still seemed very effect. This made him wonder to himself, "When did Braedon become a strategic fighter?"
They both got into position and charged toward Phoen. Braedon released a flurry of stabs and kicks, which were all blocked by Phoen. His attacks were wild and were much different than the way he usually fought. His movements were all unexpected and could not be read. Although Phoen was able to block all of Braedon's attacks, they caused him to be distracted as Zan Fu came up from behind and scratched down onto Phoen's back.
"Argh!" Phoen screamed out while quickly turning around and swinging his feather toward Zan Fu, but in his rage he completely forgot that the person that caused him to forget about Zan Fu was still behind him. Braedon slid around to Phoen's side and punched him under the armpit. This stopped the momentum of Phoen's attack dead in its tracks and gave Zan Fu all the time he needed to escape. Phoen looked down at Braedon with a pissed off expression on his face, "{Hell's Flames}!" A stream of red fire shot out of his palm and struck Braedon directly on his chest. Although Braedon was able to somehow nullify the purple energy, the red energy appeared to still do a decent amount of damage on him, although not as much as it did to Kai Jun.
Braedon hopped back a good distance and ripped off his burning shirt from his body, revealing an impeccable body with gigantic pectoral muscles as well as abs that looked like they could grate cheese. His flesh was partially blackened from the searing hot heat of the flame, but this didn't hold him back too much as Braedon released a beam of power from his feather.
The attack was intercepted by another {Hell's Flame} as Phoen turned around to check and see if Zan Fu was behind him again. Fortunately, Zan Fu had a few tricks up his sleeves. He wasn't aiming for another attack on Phoen's back, he was aiming one for his head as was evident by Zan Fu falling out of nowhere and slamming his fist into Phoen skull. This caused him to crash into the ground with Zan Fu still on top of him, but their close proximity to each other allowed the effects of the purple energy to damage him a bit.
Zan Fu quickly escaped and landed near Braedon, who showered him in energy. Zan Fu was almost completely spent. No matter how much energy Braedon gave him, it was mostly used to heal his wounds instead of filling up his reserves, "I-I don't know how much longer I can keep this up." Zan Fu said while panting heavily.
Braedon was in a much better state than Zan Fu was but the amount of power he used was still limited and was mostly used to heal wound. It didn't have a real attacking method and would be great only in battles of stamina, but this was not one of those type of fights. They needed to do something quick before it was too late.
Braedon, "I have a plan."
"Do tell."
After explaining his idea to Zan Fu, the man looked at his friend like he was retarded. "Sometimes I wonder what goes through that head of your."
"So you accept my proposition?"
"I don't really have a choice here. Let's go!"
Zan Fu used whatever energy he had left in his body for one true last strike. Braedon took half of the power in his body and used it to wrap Zan Fu up in a sort of protective cocoon.
With a loud shout, Zan Fu ran at Phoen with reckless abandon. He didn't try to attack or dodge any of Phoen's attacks due to his trust in the cocoon that was currently wrapped around him. And with that Zan Fu tackled Phoen, who did not see that coming, and lifted him up while holding him in a tight hug. Because his arms were wrapped around by Zan Fu's hug, he couldn't use the feather to stab Zan Fu, "Let go of me!"
Zan Fu ignored Phoen's shouts as he screamed at Braedon, "You're up!"
With that Braedon did a somersault and landed onto Zan Fu's shoulders. There he took out his two fingers and shoved them into Phoen's ears.
When Braedon absorbed Kai Jun, a good bit of the information that he contained entered into his Braedon's mind. Within his reservoir of knowledge, were several ideas of way to defeat Phoen. The idea that Braedon chose to use was the riskiest of the bunch, but it was the one that assured that even if Braedon failed, Phoen would be defeated and his friends would come out unscathed. The cost would be Braedon's death, but he decided to leave this tiny bit of information out of his explanation when talking to Zan Fu.
With a shout, all of Braedon's life force began to shoot into Phoen's mind. Life force was a sign of how long someone had to live, it reflected their soul and when it would disappear. But that was a bit different for Braedon since he himself was already just a soul. His life force was just that, his very being and existence.
What Braedon was trying to do right at this moment was simple, take back what was rightfully his.
Darkness enveloped his vision as Braedon walked down a familiar looking path of darkness. The difference was that this time, there was a single spot of light at the end of this tunnel.
Braedon walked over to it and there sitting on the floor was a single boy with blazing red hair, pale white skin, and clear blue eyes.
"Phoen?"
"Hi Braedon, it's good to see you. It's been a while since we've last met."
"What are you talking about? We were literally just fighting each other just a few seconds ago."
Phoen, "What you were fighting was my ego. My pride, desire, and fear of death creating a whole new personality inside of me that took over. What you are fighting is everything that I am ashamed to be, but what am I to do? I'm just a shell of what I once was."
Braedon didn't know how to respond to this, so he just walked up and sat down next to him. They looked into the endless void of darkness together without saying much until Phoen finally broke the silence, "Are you here to take back control?"
"Yes I am. Are you going to stop me?"
Phoen shook his head, "I have no strength here. But if you wish to take back this body from my ego, you'll have a difficult time."
"Why?"
Phoen waved his arm out into the darkness and said, "All of this IS my ego. If you want to take back control, you'll need to defeat this first."
Braedon looked around at the area in surprise. He turned to the boy beside him and asked, "Do you have any advice?"
"..."
Braedon sighed and just stayed there seated for a bit. Luckily, thanks to knowledge from Kai Jun, he knew that time in this area was one million times faster than it was outisde so he had time to think.
They sat there in silence for a few hours before Phoen spoke up, "Did you know I wasn't always like this? I wasn't always evil."
Braedon's ears perked up in interest as he listened to the story about to be told.
"In the beginning, I was tasked with protecting humans. I never met my father, but I knew that he was some sort of powerful being that was involved in the creation of this world. Back then a wisp of his will lived inside of me and I knew that I had the responsibility of protecting the people of this world. But after thousands of years passed, I began to realize that death was approaching me."
Braedon turned to him with his brows scrunched together, "You had an existential crisis?"
"Basically yes, but instead of getting over it I was obsessed with obtaining immortality. I thought that if I could achieve a level of power surpassing that of my father, I would live forever. But after obtaining a bit of the timelord's strength, I took a peek into the future and saw that no matter what I did, I would never surpass my father. I did so many terrible things all for nothing. In the end I would die and only my dishonorable deeds would remain."
"But you can still change that!" Braedon turned to Phoen suddenly and said, "All of the people you've killed in order to absorbed their souls wont be returning, but you can at least avenge them by helping me defeat your ego!"
"Will that erase the sins I've committed?"
"No, but it's a start. Look, if your ego keeps doing whatever he wants to do, many more people will die from his actions. We can stop it if we worked together. Help me defeat him and you'll at least stop the death of many others."
Phoen looked from his seated position and said, "*Sigh* you've barely convinced me. Fine, what do we do then?"
"That's what I'm asking you!"
Phoen chuckled while saying, "There is only one true way. Kill me and my ego will disappear as well."
"Oh well that's easy!"
"Not for me you asshole! Just... before you do that do me one favor.""
Braedon looked at Phoen in a questioning manner, "What is it?"
"If-when you achieve the rank of a deity, please unseal the "heaven's force". It was partially due to my neglect of ignoring the people who caused the seal to appear, that the world's "heaven's force" was locked away. As another atonement, help me help the cultivators of the world just one last time. Watch over the human race in my place, will you do that?"
"I'll do what I can, no promises but I'll at least try to break the seal."
Phoen nodded in gratitude and held out his hand. A sword made of darkness appeared inside of it and he handed it over to Braedon, "Its up to you now."
And with that, Braedon stabbed the sword into Phoen's chest. The darkness surrounding him began to drift away as Braedon felt himself disappearing, "AHHHHHHHHHHHH! Why does integrating with my body hurt so much!"
In the real world, Zan Fu felt Phoen stop struggling.
"Braedon?"
The body of Braedon turned around to face him and opened his mouth, "I love you so much Zan Li!"
After punching Braedon's neck, Zan Fu dragged him into an embrace while laughing out, "You've got it back!"
Braedon laughed out as well as Shu Rong and Yi Ling, who just woke up, saw that Zan Fu was no longer fighting and came over to see what was happening.
"There is no longer any doubt about this body any longer, it's mine and only mine!"
The purple feather crashed into Zan Fu's claw arm with a great amount of force. The time limit on Zan Fu's current transformation shortened even further as the effects of the purple energy took its toll on him. Luckily the speed up of time was not so drastic as to turn him into an old man directly, but even so it was very troubling not knowing if or when that speed up would happen. Phoen was also very troubled with the current battle. While he was obviously on the winning side, the fact that the battle was not over yet was really getting to him. He thought that his current strength would be more than enough to finish his fight by now, but his incomplete control of the aura of time was really giving him some trouble. Because of this his attacks became increasingly aggressive since he wanted to leave and practice his abilities more. The force and speed exerted by the feather increased as Phoen's annoyance grew. Usually this would be a disadvantage for Zan Fu, but the attacks started to become more sloppy and easy to read. After dodging three swings in a row, Zan Fu was able to get right up to Phoen and launch his claw-fist into his guts. Phoen coughed out some spittle as a vein bulged out of his head. He brought the feather up over his head and stabbed down with it. Zan Fu reacted as quickly as he could and tried to step back away from the strike. Unfortunately he was too slow and while the feather didn't stab into his chest, it did scratch a long hash across Zan Fu's chest. Blood shot out of the newly formed wound after the feather had passed through. Clutching at his chest, Zan Fu hopped back a far distance away and felt the last of his berserk state leave his body. He kneeled down onto the ground, in pain, as he didn't have enough energy to lessen the injury on his chest. Unfortunately, that was the least of his problem as a roaring scream escaped from Zan Fu's mouth while the pain in his chest flared in agony. The skin surrounding the wound began to darken and flake away as the worst scenario happened, purple energy sped up Zan Fu's flesh to the point of becoming dust. A sigh of satisfaction escaped from Phoen's mouth as he watched the body of Zan Fu began to drift off into the wind. In order to save himself some time, Phoen decided to go ahead and finish Zan Fu off swiftly. He charged toward Zan Fu and prepared himself to slice off his adversary's head with his weapon. In the perspective of Zan Fu, the feather approached slowly toward his neck without without stop. He was in too much pain to stop it with the claw, but he sent every last bit of energy he had in his body into his neck. Just before the feather reached though, a hand reached over behind Zan Fu and stopped the feather's path with only its fingers. Braedon's hand was covered in a deep blue energy that was different from both his and Zan Fu's usual aquamarine color. It was a deep shade of blue, almost navy, that pulsates with waves of power. Somehow it was also perfectly stopping the purple energy from Braedon in every way possible. No matter how much energy Phoen poured into his weapon, it was never enough to speed up Braedon's time. Braedon brought his middle finger up and stabbed it into Zan Fu's chest, who shouted out in pain and stared daggers at him at first, before color began to return to his gray flesh and the wound began to partially heal itself. The energy coming from Braedon did not heal him up completely, but it did somehow stop the degradation of his body. "What took you so long?" Zan Fu gave off a jokingly annoyed personality as he trying to regain whatever energy he could. Braedon smiled and said, "I just needed to eat a quick meal." He didn't elaborate on this but Zan Fu figured that it had something to do with his newfound power-up, which everyone was getting apparently. "What about Kai Jun? Is he okay?" Zan Fu noticed that something flashed inside of Braedon's eyes as he silently shook his head. Even when his answer was not truly answered, Zan Fu was able to easily figure out what Braedon meant. He wanted to give a moment to mourn he loss of their comrade but knew that at the moment they had more pressing matters to handle. Phoen pulled the feather out of Braedon's grasp and gave him a passive stare. "So the original returns. It seems your little monkey friend isn't here to help you anymore." "So the asshole is still here. Looks like your purple...whatever that is... won't be doing much gassing me." Braedon retorted in a sarcastic tone as he summoned out his own feather. After he helped Zan Fu stand up from his kneeling position. The two of them prepared themselves for the upcoming battle. Braedon, "I'll be the vanguard, prepare yourself with follow up attacks. Every time you get injured, fall back and prepare for me to pass over some of my energy. I will act as a human meat shield since his attacks won't harm me much, and your claw is more suited to single powerful strikes. Don't rush in there and try to throw out several attack, aim for one strike that will obliterate the enemy." Zan Fu slowly turned to Braedon in surprise. The strategy he came up with was very basic, but it still seemed very effect. This made him wonder to himself, "When did Braedon become a strategic fighter?" They both got into position and charged toward Phoen. Braedon released a flurry of stabs and kicks, which were all blocked by Phoen. His attacks were wild and were much different than the way he usually fought. His movements were all unexpected and could not be read. Although Phoen was able to block all of Braedon's attacks, they caused him to be distracted as Zan Fu came up from behind and scratched down onto Phoen's back. "Argh!" Phoen screamed out while quickly turning around and swinging his feather toward Zan Fu, but in his rage he completely forgot that the person that caused him to forget about Zan Fu was still behind him. Braedon slid around to Phoen's side and punched him under the armpit. This stopped the momentum of Phoen's attack dead in its tracks and gave Zan Fu all the time he needed to escape. Phoen looked down at Braedon with a pissed off expression on his face, "{Hell's Flames}!" A stream of red fire shot out of his palm and struck Braedon directly on his chest. Although Braedon was able to somehow nullify the purple energy, the red energy appeared to still do a decent amount of damage on him, although not as much as it did to Kai Jun. Braedon hopped back a good distance and ripped off his burning shirt from his body, revealing an impeccable body with gigantic pectoral muscles as well as abs that looked like they could grate cheese. His flesh was partially blackened from the searing hot heat of the flame, but this didn't hold him back too much as Braedon released a beam of power from his feather. The attack was intercepted by another {Hell's Flame} as Phoen turned around to check and see if Zan Fu was behind him again. Fortunately, Zan Fu had a few tricks up his sleeves. He wasn't aiming for another attack on Phoen's back, he was aiming one for his head as was evident by Zan Fu falling out of nowhere and slamming his fist into Phoen skull. This caused him to crash into the ground with Zan Fu still on top of him, but their close proximity to each other allowed the effects of the purple energy to damage him a bit. Zan Fu quickly escaped and landed near Braedon, who showered him in energy. Zan Fu was almost completely spent. No matter how much energy Braedon gave him, it was mostly used to heal his wounds instead of filling up his reserves, "I-I don't know how much longer I can keep this up." Zan Fu said while panting heavily. Braedon was in a much better state than Zan Fu was but the amount of power he used was still limited and was mostly used to heal wound. It didn't have a real attacking method and would be great only in battles of stamina, but this was not one of those type of fights. They needed to do something quick before it was too late. Braedon, "I have a plan." "Do tell." After explaining his idea to Zan Fu, the man looked at his friend like he was retarded. "Sometimes I wonder what goes through that head of your." "So you accept my proposition?" "I don't really have a choice here. Let's go!" Zan Fu used whatever energy he had left in his body for one true last strike. Braedon took half of the power in his body and used it to wrap Zan Fu up in a sort of protective cocoon. With a loud shout, Zan Fu ran at Phoen with reckless abandon. He didn't try to attack or dodge any of Phoen's attacks due to his trust in the cocoon that was currently wrapped around him. And with that Zan Fu tackled Phoen, who did not see that coming, and lifted him up while holding him in a tight hug. Because his arms were wrapped around by Zan Fu's hug, he couldn't use the feather to stab Zan Fu, "Let go of me!" Zan Fu ignored Phoen's shouts as he screamed at Braedon, "You're up!" With that Braedon did a somersault and landed onto Zan Fu's shoulders. There he took out his two fingers and shoved them into Phoen's ears. When Braedon absorbed Kai Jun, a good bit of the information that he contained entered into his Braedon's mind. Within his reservoir of knowledge, were several ideas of way to defeat Phoen. The idea that Braedon chose to use was the riskiest of the bunch, but it was the one that assured that even if Braedon failed, Phoen would be defeated and his friends would come out unscathed. The cost would be Braedon's death, but he decided to leave this tiny bit of information out of his explanation when talking to Zan Fu. With a shout, all of Braedon's life force began to shoot into Phoen's mind. Life force was a sign of how long someone had to live, it reflected their soul and when it would disappear. But that was a bit different for Braedon since he himself was already just a soul. His life force was just that, his very being and existence. What Braedon was trying to do right at this moment was simple, take back what was rightfully his. Darkness enveloped his vision as Braedon walked down a familiar looking path of darkness. The difference was that this time, there was a single spot of light at the end of this tunnel. Braedon walked over to it and there sitting on the floor was a single boy with blazing red hair, pale white skin, and clear blue eyes. "Phoen?" "Hi Braedon, it's good to see you. It's been a while since we've last met." "What are you talking about? We were literally just fighting each other just a few seconds ago." Phoen, "What you were fighting was my ego. My pride, desire, and fear of death creating a whole new personality inside of me that took over. What you are fighting is everything that I am ashamed to be, but what am I to do? I'm just a shell of what I once was." Braedon didn't know how to respond to this, so he just walked up and sat down next to him. They looked into the endless void of darkness together without saying much until Phoen finally broke the silence, "Are you here to take back control?" "Yes I am. Are you going to stop me?" Phoen shook his head, "I have no strength here. But if you wish to take back this body from my ego, you'll have a difficult time." "Why?" Phoen waved his arm out into the darkness and said, "All of this IS my ego. If you want to take back control, you'll need to defeat this first." Braedon looked around at the area in surprise. He turned to the boy beside him and asked, "Do you have any advice?" "..." Braedon sighed and just stayed there seated for a bit. Luckily, thanks to knowledge from Kai Jun, he knew that time in this area was one million times faster than it was outisde so he had time to think. They sat there in silence for a few hours before Phoen spoke up, "Did you know I wasn't always like this? I wasn't always evil." Braedon's ears perked up in interest as he listened to the story about to be told. "In the beginning, I was tasked with protecting humans. I never met my father, but I knew that he was some sort of powerful being that was involved in the creation of this world. Back then a wisp of his will lived inside of me and I knew that I had the responsibility of protecting the people of this world. But after thousands of years passed, I began to realize that death was approaching me." Braedon turned to him with his brows scrunched together, "You had an existential crisis?" "Basically yes, but instead of getting over it I was obsessed with obtaining immortality. I thought that if I could achieve a level of power surpassing that of my father, I would live forever. But after obtaining a bit of the timelord's strength, I took a peek into the future and saw that no matter what I did, I would never surpass my father. I did so many terrible things all for nothing. In the end I would die and only my dishonorable deeds would remain." "But you can still change that!" Braedon turned to Phoen suddenly and said, "All of the people you've killed in order to absorbed their souls wont be returning, but you can at least avenge them by helping me defeat your ego!" "Will that erase the sins I've committed?" "No, but it's a start. Look, if your ego keeps doing whatever he wants to do, many more people will die from his actions. We can stop it if we worked together. Help me defeat him and you'll at least stop the death of many others." Phoen looked from his seated position and said, "*Sigh* you've barely convinced me. Fine, what do we do then?" "That's what I'm asking you!" Phoen chuckled while saying, "There is only one true way. Kill me and my ego will disappear as well." "Oh well that's easy!" "Not for me you asshole! Just... before you do that do me one favor."" Braedon looked at Phoen in a questioning manner, "What is it?" "If-when you achieve the rank of a deity, please unseal the "heaven's force". It was partially due to my neglect of ignoring the people who caused the seal to appear, that the world's "heaven's force" was locked away. As another atonement, help me help the cultivators of the world just one last time. Watch over the human race in my place, will you do that?" "I'll do what I can, no promises but I'll at least try to break the seal." Phoen nodded in gratitude and held out his hand. A sword made of darkness appeared inside of it and he handed it over to Braedon, "Its up to you now." And with that, Braedon stabbed the sword into Phoen's chest. The darkness surrounding him began to drift away as Braedon felt himself disappearing, "AHHHHHHHHHHHH! Why does integrating with my body hurt so much!" In the real world, Zan Fu felt Phoen stop struggling. "Braedon?" The body of Braedon turned around to face him and opened his mouth, "I love you so much Zan Li!" After punching Braedon's neck, Zan Fu dragged him into an embrace while laughing out, "You've got it back!" Braedon laughed out as well as Shu Rong and Yi Ling, who just woke up, saw that Zan Fu was no longer fighting and came over to see what was happening. "There is no longer any doubt about this body any longer, it's mine and only mine!"
