Blackout Ascension: Return of Primordial Heir-Chapter 29: Refusal

The glittering dust rose from the shattered arena vigorously, forming grey clouds of suffocating dust. The five Dracortis warriors stood again barely.

Their armor was gone, skin was torn and bones were fractured. Their breath was unsteady, their check heaving abruptly in exhaustion.

Yet they all stared at Algreth with the same grin. The look of a Dragon with sheer will. We will not kneel!!

Algreth stood in the center, calm and unharmed. He raised the blade Chronvolr. The surface of the sword rippled, distorting the air around it, looking like the blade didn’t fully exist in this timeline. "Chrono Severe"

"You possess spirit," Algreth said, his voice filled with a boring groan, "but spirit is just a chemical reaction. It ends when the heart stops."

He teleported instantly, then the next moment he was in front of Pyrix. There was no sound of movement or speed. It was as if time stopped and re-started when Algreth was flickered into existence, in front of Pyrix.

Pyrix swung Drakfang out of pure warrior’s danger instinct. The massive magma blade cut through the air where Algreth’s neck should have been a second ago.

But it passed through thin air. Algreth vanished again.

"Too late," Algreth whispered, "you are fighting in the present. I am already in the future."

Algreth had stepped one second forward in time, appearing inside the Pyrix’s guard, and he ignited a punch.

The impact landed a second later, delayed by the time warp.

CRACK!!

The punch landed on Pyrix’s chest heavily. The impact rigorously dented the Dragon’s obsidian scales and sent the giant sliding backward across the arena, leaving molten deep trenches carved across the arena.

"Pyrix!" Aeryth stormed forward, to catch him. The Wind Dragon didn’t care about safety. The air moved around him, his eyes shimmering in cobalt blue. "Storm Incarnate: Zephyr Guillotine!"

He slashed his arms, the vortex of hurricanes thrusting forward from his strikes. Lightning rode the wind, turning the attack into a combination of electricity and pressure. The entire Colosseum, which was a void of sound, rumbled with a shattering symphony.

Algreth simply swirled his Chronvolr sideways in a slow circle. "Rewind."

The hurricanes stopped, petrifying. Then... they reversed.

The wind just blew backward in time. The attack turned on its master, the gale wrapping around Aeryth, seizing his limbs.

SLAMMMM!!

The wind slammed Aeryth into the ground with the force unleashed by him. The crystal floor shattered under his back.

Luxara screamed. She spread her wings of judgment, her voice trembling in pain but filled with divine fury. "Return... to light!"

Beams of white radiance aggressively, piercing the battlefield at a speed of light which are undeniably precise.

But before they could reach Algreth... Time slowed, along with the time beams slowed inch by inch. Algreth walked gracefully through the frozen snail light.

He reached Luxara, who was stuck in the slowed time, unable to react. He brushed her wing with one finger. "Fall."

Time resumed.

CRASH!!

In real-time, Luxara fell from the sky as if gravity had increased a thousand times, crashing spontaneously onto the ground.

Stark roared, thrusting his fists into the strongest punch, gathering the gravity into fists looking like a falling meteor.

"DRAGON’S GRAVITY HAMMER!". He hit Algreth from upward.

BOOM!!

Gravity itself multiplied. Hundreds of tons of pressure collapsed on Algreth. The Crystal Colosseum cracked down the middle, forming a spiderwebbing structure of cracks across the vast floor. The barrier spells which are shattered, reinforced by audience mana now flickered with impact again.

For a breath, it seemed to be working. Algreth was pinned down, immobilized. But then Algreth spoke from the thin dust. "Gravity is a child’s game. It takes time for gravity to travel."

He clanked his Chronvolr on the ground. "Invert." The entire pressure was reversed. Instead of crushing down, it crushed, rushing upward slantly.

BANG!!!

Stark was thrown across the entire arena like a cannonball, smashing through a stone pillar, then the arena wall, burying himself in the mountain of debris.

Veldra roared, water spiraling around him like a whirlpool, attacked the space around him.

"Ocean’s Tomb." A massive sphere of water formed around Algreth, it was a drowning prison.

For a heartbeat, Algreth disappeared inside the sphere.

The audience gasped for air. Did he get him?

Then, cracks appeared on the water surface like Time Fractures and space itself cracked. The water aged a million years in a second, losing its strength of unity.

SHATTER!!

Veldra was swallowed by his own tidal wave as the spell broke, immensely aging up. He was coughing up water and blood abruptly and catapulted a few inches back.

Algreth stood untouched in the center.

"Is this your maximum?" Algreth asked. "I expected... more."

Silence reigned for ten seconds. Then... a scrape of boots on crystal. Pyrix stood back to his feet. One of his eyes was swollen and his arm was bruised, but he stood.

"Not yet..." Pyrix howled, his voice was low, strained.

Around the arena, movement stirred. Every Dracortis stood again gasping for air, struggling to stand, their legs trembling with sheer agony

Aeryth grinned with a wheezing sound. "It has been... too long since we fought like this, huh?" Aeryth struggled in pain.

Stark spat a tooth onto the ground.

"I missed it... brother." Stark groaned in pain.

Veldra laughed. "We always do stupid things together, like fighting a Demon God."

Luxara spoke, smearing blood from her chin, her voice gentle. "And we always stand again. That is our curse."

Pyrix looked at them. He saw their injuries and bruised bodies. He saw their exhaustion, but he also saw the raging will of fire shimmering in their eyes. The same fire burnt in his eyes.

"Together!" Pyrix commanded.

They moved and they took formation around Algreth. A perfect circle. Five Dragons. Five Elements. Five Wills. One Heartbeat.

Algreth looked around at them, sighed.

"Very well then," the Demon God said, raising his sword. "Die together."

Time twisted around him and the stadium shook.

"NOW!" Pyrix screamed.

All five Dragons attacked at once. They poured their every ounce of life force into a single point.

Flames are hotter than the sun.

Storms that could tear the sky.

Sea pressure that could crush diamonds.

Earth weight that could sink islands.

Light that judges the soul.

"DRACONIC CATACLYSM!"

The attack turned the arena into an apocalypse battlefield.

ROAAAAAR!!

Smoke clouds weaving through the impact, obscuring the view of the arena. The ground rumbled itself, and the air trembled so violently that the Nexus Crystal above cracked slightly.

No one could see inside. Everyone waited with their hearts racing. The explosion was a cacophonous sound by a chaotic mix of colors - Red, Blue, Green, Gold, White.

It lasted for ten seconds. Ten seconds of pure destruction. Then, silence took over and the mana faded. The smoke finally began to clear.

A silhouette stood in the center. The crowd leaned forward, praying for the Dracortis’ win. Please let it be the Dragons. Please.

The wind blew the last of the dust away.

Someone stood. But it wasn’t the Dragons.

Algreth stood there, and surrounding him, lying in a circle like broken dolls, were the five strongest warriors of Drakhalmere.

Pyrix was unconscious, face down.

Aeryth lay on his back, staring at nothing.

Stark was buried halfway in the ground.

Veldra and Luxara fell abruptly against each other, their mana core extinguished.

Algreth looked above and he smiled.

"Undefeated!" Algreth whispered.