Solflare: The Painter's Secret

Chapter 272: Testing the Weak Arm

Heat plummeted on Vaelith as his gaze slowly lifted upward. His hardened wings folded around him when a gold beam pierced through the stones above the skies of Tartarus. "Oh no!"

The wave carried by the Solflare hurled Vaelith away like he was just a piece of trash.

The ground beneath Leon vaporized and transformed into a sea of plopping lava when the gold beam slammed on him.

His darkened and fractured silver-black war suit began to peel off his body in ashes. The Hi-no-Kami glowed and began reshaping its broken blades when it moved upward as if called by the beam.

The red-gold cloth flapped around Leon’s neck untouched, while the mountains hundreds of kilometers away began to dribble into dust.

Just as the Hi-no-Kami took in a fresh and glistening form, a golden armor weaved itself on Leon, starting from the tip of his fingers. They moved on Leon’s skin like a bobble of insects and covered his entire body, leaving his head and neck untouched.

His body slowly turned from the horizontal axis and stopped at a vertical axis, while the beam began to thin into him.

The moment the beam vanished completely, the plopping lava began to calm as Leon’s body lowered. When the base of his boot reached two inches off the lava, Leon’s eyes cracked open.

A gold beam blasted out of his eye socket when he saw Vaelith through the golden hazy vision. Metal and bone crackling sounds echoed from him when he wrapped his fingers around the hilts of the Hi-no-Kami.

The plopping waves of lava danced for three seconds then stopped. Within those three seconds, Leon’s body dashed forward like lightning and flew through the frozen dust.

Vaelith also froze, but a blue glow of his Wither power blazed in his eyes when he caught sight of Leon passing through time. His folded wings began to open piece by piece but Leon didn’t stop.

Leon turned into a single wave line as the blades of the Hi-no-Kami swished in the air. Countless lines from all directions appeared on Vaelith when Leon dashed back.

Just as the plopping lava began dancing again, blood gushed out of Vaelith’s wings. The unbreakable feathered wings peeled off him as if he had been carrying a dead weight. But Vaelith lifted his gaze to Leon, then smiled.

A magnificent soul sword began materializing and stretching from Vaelith’s right palm as his body moved two feet forward. "Do you know how it feels to be set free after over fifteen years?"

He dashed forward when the sword fully formed.

Sharp air escaped Leon’s nose and mouth when he increased his grip on the Hi-no-Kamis and also dashed forward.

The moment the three swords clashed, a concussive wave blasted the last pieces of mountains from the center of Tartarus and made every high ground on the North, South, East, and West of Tartarus lose their shells.

A mixture of blue-gold light waved through the blades and pushed each other aside. Leon moved hundreds of feet back, but Vaelith only moved two feet back.

He dashed forward again before Leon could even catch his stand. "I thought you were your father’s son, Leon Storm!"

Leon blocked the head-view strike but ended up crashing on the ground and creating a manual earthquake when his golden boots scraped through the earth.

’Interesting.’ Vaelith smiled, then tossed the soul sword to his left arm. ’Let’s see if he can withstand my weak arm first.’

Sparks flew about like rain when they began crashing the swords at each other like gods.

Leon’s chest heaved with every strike he blocked, but Vaelith’s body remained in its normal state.

When Leon sliced the blade of the katana in his left arm toward Vaelith’s head and the right toward his waist, Leon’s face slackened. "I will kill you for killing my teammate and making me watch, VAELITH!"

Vaelith blocked Leon’s right sword with a pinky finger, and caught the left with his teeth. Leon’s eyes widened when Vaelith slammed his knees into Leon’s chest.

The impact forced Leon’s grip on the Hi-no-Kamis to loosen and sent him skittering hundreds of meters back, until his back hit the walls of the Heart of Tartarus cave.

Vaelith crashed the blade of the Hi-no-Kami in his mouth with his teeth and tossed the one locked in his fingers away as if they were just toys. "Find something stronger next time!"

The cave of sealing the Varkhara’s domain crumpled inward like a piece of paper when Leon slammed his glowing fist on its walls and lunged back toward the center of Tartarus.

"Well, I underestimated him once." Vaelith smiled when he saw a beam of gold light shot toward him.

Before he could shift his gaze, Leon slammed him on the ground and screeched Vaelith’s back through the rocky ground, carving a tunnel through the earth.

"Is that all you got?" A scream tore out of Vaelith when Leon pushed him out of the earth with dust and stones flying around them.

Vaelith kept his hands at his side while Leon used his face as a punching bag. Even when he saw an opening to lay a single punch on Leon, Vaelith smiled and shook his head.

"Where is your power Vaelith!" A loud scream tore out of Leon when he screeched Vaelith across the very foundation of Tartarus, until everything turned into glowing lava.

Vaelith’s eyes saddened for a second then sharpened. "I wanted you to give me your all and make me bleed."

He punched Leon on the face and sent him into an instant blackout. "But see what you did."

Vaelith pointed at the river of lava flowing from the East of Tartarus to the center and frowned at Leon. "Now is my time to show you the outcome of wielding power."

The red-gold cloth flapped in the air when Vaelith wrapped his fingers around Leon’s neck and hurled both himself and him through the river of lava.

Just as he pushed himself and Leon back up, he laughed when he saw Leon’s neck dangle as if broken. "Are you dead?"

Leon’s eyes opened once and blasted Vaelith from his front.

Vaelith crashed into the river of lava but jumped back in the air and blew the burning feathers from his chest. "I would have been very disappointed in you, if you had died."

A smile tore on his face when he saw the shattered Hi-no-Kami flying toward Leon and assembling themselves. "Interesting."

...

Countless glassy buildings in Thule began to tremble, while the ground beneath them splattered open.

Screams tore in the air as owners of prestigious vehicles abandoned them and set out running on foot.

Sharp rusted roofing plates flew in the air like insects when a mixture of gold and blue hurricane struck Dusthollow.