'Impossible.'
'The Strength of a Paladin...'
Chase's eyes widened as if in a trance, meanwhile Justin had caught his falling body in the nick of time.
'I- I don't understand...'
'Chase? What the hell is happening? Tell me where you are!?' Luna's panicked voice screamed inside of his head, not helping the already heavily damaged perception that he was currently working with, only just barely hanging onto his consciousness by screaming from Justin far outside of his current hearing range.
'Chase... Please... I can't sense your breathing again...' Suddenly, a terrible shock ran through his body... His entire soul was raging at him to move his body, or speak, or anything.
'I think I can help... Just hang on, I have a little bit of Lunar Energy left...' She frantically spoke into his mind, summoning her energy from the safehouse.
"NO!" Chase screamed, his eyes snapping open as a blurred view stained by his own blood shocked his entire body back too life.
Heavy breaths escaped his lips as he shoved away Justin and forced himself into a standing position, draining his energy in order to summon Apocalypse once again.
On the other side of the room, Jackal launched a devastating onslaught upon Oren who sidestepped and spun between and under consecutive attacks.
Oren shook his head just before a colossal hand made entirely of shadows shot up from the ground, gripping Jackal by the Torso and squeezing him into temporary submission.
Meanwhile the Prince of Darkness's Crimson gaze was fixated on the young man on the other side of the room.
"Impressive... The ability to bring ones self back from absolute demise is not one I had on my bingo card... You fascinate me Son of Lilith... Especially with that little sickness eating you alive..." Oren smiled, launching Jackal across the room with a simple wave of his onyx gauntlet.
BOOM!
Chase winced, his shoulders rising up and down with imbalance as the blade of Apocalypse clawed across the shadowy floor, following its master who sat on the brink of death...
Oren nodded slowly, taking several steps towards Chase's direction.
The two began to circle, just as his previous duel had gone.
Suddenly something changed...
It was almost as if it was both irreversible and inevitable at the very same time.
'Ah-'
His vision had begun to shift... Revealing a new layer of reality before him...
Neon green highlights covered the entire area like some sort of holographic third dimensional graph...
'I get it now...'
Blood dripped from Chase's several wounds, forming entire puddles scarlet on the battlefield.
This left Oren in complete amazement, slowly walking with a curious smirk resting upon his face.
"So... You figured out a neat trick..." Oren's smirk grew bigger, and even Justin who had been completely vacant from the fight at this point could only watch in completely stunned silence.
'It's just like you said Barron... The only way to get stronger in this world... Is to steal from the strong...'
Jackal pulled himself from his crater, shaking his head unable to comprehend what he was seeing.
"Wait... The heir is only around eighteen... If he has truly just awakened the ability to use Concept Sight... Then that puts him among a very select few Paladins to do so at that age... All six of which stand at the top of Zen's own army..." He coughed up blood, shaking his head before darting towards the battle.
"Aid the prince!" He barked, launching into the air above the duel and reeling back his claws.
"So be it..." Oren muttered, twitching at a terrifying speed towards Chase.
Although the attack had been faster than he could read... Chase had somehow predicted: Based on the energy outputted by Oren: that it was going to happen, so when Apocalypse met the shadowy blade in a deadly clash... Oren's expression could only be described as... Astonished.
"That's incredible..." He whispered, swiping his off hand up...
Spla- Splat- Spl-Splat
Dozens of spikes made of physical shadows had risen from the ground, piercing through Chase's body in about four different areas.
He screamed out in pain, as he could feel the corruption slowly take root in that very pain.
"Shit..." Justin muttered, slashing his hand down as an after slash of potent blood followed.
Oren dodged, sending a wave of shadows out in return.
Justin formed a wall of blood, avoiding the slash... A grin hidden behind that wall.
Oren tilted his head.
Slash!
"Jackass..." Justin laughed- enhancing his body with elemental energy that Chase had Oh-so kindly donated too him.
His veins began to glow a bright red along with his eyes, which glimmered under the darkness of the shadows.
Oren; however, had vanished into those shadows once more.
"You're kidding-"
A clawed hand of shadows gripped his throat with rage.
"Not on my watch!" Jackal leaped onto Oren's back from behind, clawing and scratching with haymaker after haymaker.
"Get off of me, Slave!" He growled, using two arms of shadows to grab the Beast kin- throwing him aside like some sort of toy.
Meanwhile, Justin had used that time to free himself and aid Chase in somehow getting back into the fight.
"Just stitch whatever's important with your affinity..." Chase's distant voice mumbled.
"While your fighting?" Justin asked, unsure of the insanity required to ask that sort of question.
"Do it..." He growled, pushing his punctured body to a stand once more.
"It's gonna hurt a lot!" Justin laughed in pure amazement at the fact that he was going through with this.
Chase suddenly grit his teeth and tensed every muscle in his body.
'Here we go...'
He focused, his instinct screaming to unleash everything that this body can give...
'Just... Like... I imagined...'
Suddenly...
Violet roots began to grow from Chase's wounds... That corruption had fortunately began stitching the flesh back together and enhancing his Axis Energy...
However, his face had grown pale...
Terrible nausea over-running his body...
'That's it!' A grin shot onto Chase's bloodied face as neon green flames shot from his pores...
A new battle had sprouted from nothingness in that room...
Chase's natural flames... Had challenged the corruption that had slowly been eating him alive all this time...
His eyes began to glow even brighter.
Oren scowled, preparing to attack once again.
Then...
They met in the middle...
Chase's axe soaring overtop of Oren's head, just as the sword bathed shadows narrowly missed the former's left leg.
He turned on a pivot, switching hands with Apocalypse and launching a terrible amount of Axis into his right foot.
Chase launched himself into a front flip, spinning with Apocalypse at his heed, raining down on The Prince of Shadows from above with dangerous intent.
"Too much intent..." Oren disagreed.
A jab with the blade shot forward with an obvious after shot of shadowy energy, this of which Chase could only attempt to block with whatever surface area Apocalypse could cover.
CLANG!
Chase didn't waste a second, using the recoil as momentum to spin and slash at Oren's torso, sending a flurry of green flames with it.
Oren vanished into the shadows appearing behind Chase, his hand already forming some sort of spell.
Chase frowned.
"Yeah right..." His flames flashed even brighter.
The spikes pulled upward, but ceased in before the might of Chase's fire.
Oren grimaced, readying his blade and sending out a slash with his blade.
Chase laughed, parrying the attack and shattering Oren's boot with a downward slam.
"No!" He screamed, his eyes widening in horror...
Then the shadows behind him tried to pull him back in at incredible speeds, but Chase could only growl while grabbing Oren by the collar and entering a clash with the shadows themselves for Oren's own life.
"NOOOO!" Oren screamed in tantrum, causing Chase to inherently hesitate and because of that: Lose control of Oren.
He slipped back into the shadows with one last scream, and that's when the room suddenly began to grow darker...
Chase took a step back, prepping Apocalypse for a parry.
But nothing came...
Instead... The scenery became different, and some a light gray mist had begun to infest the battlefield...
Oren sat on the other side of the room, completely alone under all of the darkness...
He was in prayer...
Chase walked forward slowly... His breaths heavy.
"I've got you..." He growled, slashing at Chase's face and straight through the illusion.
Apocalypse missed the sword, leaving him only left with a fruitless last-second-
'DODGE!'
Slash!
The edge of the blade ripped a tear straight down the right side of Chase's face, but thanks to the last second micro-twitch of Axis... It had only grazed him...
Apocalypse spun with reverence, meeting Oren's blade.
CLANG!
Chase pushed off of the counter, launching himself back up into the air and using his off-hand to launch a blast of fire behind him in order to shift his momentum.
They met again.
CLANG!
CLANG!
CLA-CLANG!
Chase leaned back, hitting the ground while both dropping Apocalypse and avoiding a fatal strike to the throat.
Just barely catching himself with his palms behind, he reeled back and launched his legs forward, kicking Oren in the chest and launching him back a meter or so.
Chase picked up Apocalypse and side-stepped another slash of shadowy energy.
"I've had enough of this..." Oren mumbled, putting a finger inches away from his face.
Chase stopped.
"So, you see... We both come from realities beyond this one..." Oren spoke as if in a trance, even licking his lips as black spots began to appear upon his face.
"What the hell are you?" Chase asked with heavy breaths.
"I... AM... GoINg tO KIllLL yOuuUUUU!!!!!" Suddenly the shadows began to devour Oren... Eating him alive where he stood...
Chase took a step back, feeling the instant that the immense danger was terribly close.
The shadows crawled and morphed over Oren's screaming face, slowly forming the vicious head of a wolf...
His body followed suite, growing twice as big as before...
Then... The shadows began to glow, turning into some sort of negative color that Chase could not even comprehend.
He hesitated.
Oren boomed with laughter as the darkness above him formed a sphere of what Chase could feel was a vast amount of Elemental Energy, such as which that he had never experienced before...
In that instant...
Chase thought it was over...
The radius of the incoming onslaught was far too large for him to dodge.
And there was no way in hell that he was going to tank something like that.
'Damnit all...'
"I'm actually so pissed off right now..." The voice of Poppy brought Chase to absolute delusion as he felt his body become ethereal, with her holding his ethereal body over what Chase could feel was a true abyss...
The explosion completely eviscerated the entire room... Leaving Chase only with the hope of Justin and Jackal surviving...
Poppy forced what looked like anything but a smile.
"How the hell are you conscious right now?" She asked with confused eyes, meanwhile Chase was looking at her with confusion of his own.
"How did you get here so fast?" He asked, leaning on her shoulder after becoming physical again, while letting his breath catch up.
"Who do you think let the Gorillas out...?" She frowned, shoving Chase off of her shoulder and readying her spear.
"I wanna kill this guy." She said with a pouty face as Justin and Jackal limped beside them from both halves of the room...
Chase took a deep breath.
'One more time...'