Return of the Fallen Volume 8 Chapter 107
The cage of lightning had run out of energy and vanished. The moment it disappeared, the Miasma that was barely being kept at bay, as if it were a starving pack of hyenas, the dark purplish-black mist surrounded him in an instant and immediately began to feast on his body from every angle.
His armor started to deteriorate and fall apart, melting like butter on a hot day. This only took seconds. Even as Kazuki used his devouring technique to consume as much Miasma as possible, there was simply far too much. His body was enhancing at a fairly decent rate. Along with his ki and the small amount of gordonia element healing him, Kazuki was still falling behind, faster and faster.
(NO! THIS CAN’T BE MY END!)
These were Kazuki’s thoughts but what more could he do. He was not ready to give up, to give in but he had exhausted every option he could come up with.
Following his armor, his clothes then went in a flash. After the clothes was of course the flesh. All over his body, he felt his skin melting and sliding off like some sort of slimy rotten peel. He was completely exposed. Floating in this darkness all alone and on death’s door, there were only three things that still remained at his side. His storage ring, the mysterious box he had taken from Dreunz and hanging around his neck was his golden compass.
Inside his compass, there used to be a small amount of Zetrazz fragment inside but even it was gone after everything. Kazuki was barely a torso, head, and arms at this moment. As the miasma melted and destroyed his body, stealing the energy from him, his body unnaturally contorted and started to curl into a ball as he shriveled.
His eyes were reduced to pustules as they popped and ran down his face like an egg. Even at this time, even when death was imminent, Kazuki’s mind was still operating as fast as possible. He would not give up, he would not stop trying to think of a way out of this hell.
(There must be a way, something, anything.)
Kazuki still inhaled the Miasma and absorbed it into his gate. Every ounce of power he absorbed, he analyzed as best he could. He had just learned that the Miasma had three familiar energy signatures within. The element of space, the element of darkness, and pieces of a soul.
(If these energies are truly inside of this thing, then why can I not feel them on their own. Each trace of magic and the piece of soul, it feels like there is a mixing of sorts. The element of space is entwined with darkness and the pieces of soul fragments are intertwined with both. Is this…fused energy?)
This thought struck Kazuki deeply. In his mind, the creator of fused energy was Glacious and Glacious alone. He had never heard of anyone else ever using it nor being able to use it. This thought though was stupid and he recognized it right away because Zetrazz himself had come up with his own method of fusing energies with the aura breath technique.
(Both Glacious and Zetrazz have come up with methods to fuse energies so it isn’t actually strange. This Miasma, this thing, it has its own fusion of energies. Just like Glacious, just like Zetrazz, and just like me.)
Kazuki left hand melted away and following that, several holes began to open up on his chest and back as the Miasma ate away at him. One could now look at Kazuki and see directly into his body. While these holes formed, Kazuki gave up on the rest of his body and focused all of his ki and remaining magic to his brain. Protecting it, he wrapped it in a cocoon of energy and focused on keeping it from harm.
(If the Miasma is simply a fusion of three energies mixed together, then its base should therefore be made of three energies. It is somehow combining them into one and using it. So if it’s three different energies, does that not mean they can be separated from one back into three. If I can separate the element of space from this fusion then with all of this Miasma I’ll have more than enough space element to actually teleport away from this nightmare!)
As soon as this thought occurred, Kazuki jumped into action. Even as his left hand and arm were completely melted and all of the flesh was removed from his back, he didn’t give up hope.
(To separate the energy, I must focus. I’ve done something similar in the past with my ki. Using it, I should be able to do this.)
Kazuki withdrew some of his ki from protecting his brain and focused it inside of his soul world. As the Miasma appeared inside of his soul world, he at first tried to form a sphere of ki around the Miasma, but the Miasma simply devoured his ki before being sucked into his gate.
(No, it’s not that simple. I have to filter the Miasam without touching it with my ki. Otherwise, my ki will just be absorbed by it.)
More than half of Kazuki’s torso was now gone, and his lungs and other organs spilled out of him and were quickly eaten as well. The pain was like someone had dropped a boulder repeatedly on his exposed insides, crushing and grinding away at them until there was nothing left.
Kazuki wanted to vomit, but there was nothing left in his stomach to puke; rather, there was no longer a stomach in the first place.
(Is there even a need for me to touch the Miasma in the first place?)
Kazuki tore a branch from his soul tree and slashed at the world around him.
(Severing Tempest.)
Blades of energy came flying out at this moment. Instead of simply crashing into the Miasma and cutting it entirely apart, Kazuki willed the severing tempest around the Miasma. Similar to the Storm Tempest, Kazuki surrounded some of the Miasma in a cage, not of lightning this time but one of ki. He used his ki to use the 3rd sword form. This was no longer a Severing Tempest, nor was it a Storm Tempest, but something new.
Now that Kazuki could manipulate energy to a high degree, using a sword form with ki instead of wind or lightning was easy for him.
With a cage of ki filled with the 3rd sword form surrounding the Miasma, trapping it in a cage, Kazuki was getting more and more creative. As the Miasma inside this cage of ki ran into the cage, Kazuki modified it once more. Instead of simply using the 3rd sword form in the ki to destroy all energy, he specifically targeted the dark element that seemingly made up the most destructive nature of the Miasma.
Right as this happened, Kazuki was both excited and thrilled beyond imagination when it actually worked. The element of darkness was destroyed and what remained was the soul fragments and element of space. Kazuki would have separated the soul fragments from the element of space but he found it unnecessary. The soul fragments weren’t destructive and therefore could be ignored. Plus when he goes to use the element of space, he would use the ancient hand signs, but this time instead of using his actual hands, he would use his ki as if they were hands.
Since both f his hands were now gone, he would simply manipulate his ki by drawing out the ancient hand signs in his soul world with his ki. This would naturally pull the element of space away from the soul fragments. Kazuki couldn’t do this before because the element of dark was fused with the element of space. So if he tried to gather one he would naturally attract both but after he separated the dark from space, the soul fragment became less entangled and seemed as if it would fall away with no effort all on its own.
Kazuki didn’t know why this was but right now he hadn’t the time nor care to question it.
Now his heart and spine were dissolved and eaten and the only organs he had left were his brain and mouth. Only his skull and part of his neck remained. He was running out of time.
Kazuki rushed as quickly as he could and separated more and more of the Miasma. He had gathered a good deal of space element but there was no way it would teleport him thousands of miles. At best it could maybe get him several hundred. Right at this moment though, there was not a second to lose. If he didn’t leave in the next few seconds, then nothing else would matter.
Kazuki’s willed his ki and rapidly drew the ancient symbols in his soul world. All at once, the element of space heeded his command and rushed toward him. It gathered around his head and glowed with a brilliant purple light.
(Please let this work! Take me far from this place!)
Just as he thought this, the element of space rushed away from Kazuki’s head and instead flowed to something a few inches away from him. To his absolute shock and horror, all of the precious space element, his final lifeline, all of it rushed into the mysterious box he had taken from Dreunz’s corpse.
Kazuki roared and cursed inside of his head as he felt death loom over him with its accursed scythe.
The mysterious box stole every last bit of the element of space from Kazuki and began to move. Pieces unfolded and turned, rotated and flipped, opening up the box and reorganized it until it was shaped like a pyramid. The moment the last piece of it fell into place, the world around Kazuki and the Miasma began to tremble. A beam of light gathered at the very tip of this tiny pyramid, and without warning, the beam divided itself into two before flying off.
One beam of light shot directly into Kazuki’s forehead, and the other disappeared into the Miasma. The instant this light entered the two hosts, the entire world…stood still.
———————————————End of Volume Eight————————————————
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