"Electric Dragon?" Armaan asked, his eyes widening slightly.
"Yes. The Electric Dragon, Noir, the third strongest in the Army of the Storm Dragon," Raiden replied, his expression remaining perfectly neutral.
"Third? Mine was a king," Armaan said with a smirk, though Raiden didn't seem amused in the slightest.
"So, you have a big mouth as well." Armaan's smirk faltered in guilt as he thought, I'm fucked up. Raiden took a combat stance. "Let me shut that arrogant mouth of yours." He lunged forward and struck, raw thunder trailing his double-edged sword.
Armaan managed to block the attack just in time. His expression hardened. "He's fast."
The next moment, Raiden used his sword to vault over Armaan, swinging lethally from behind. Armaan dodged and countered with a swift strike of his katana. Raiden evaded the blade, but a moment later, he noticed a fresh cut on his outfit. His eyes widened slightly as he processed how fast Armaan had to be to actually land a grazing blow.
Meanwhile, Armaan, already exhausted, murmured to himself, "I'm low on stamina. I need to finish this quickly." He lunged forward, bringing his katana down, and their furious clash began.
Steel met steel, lightning clashed with shadow, and the ground beneath them began to fracture under the sheer weight of their impacts.
Back in the court, everyone was stunned by Armaan's ability to hold his own against Raiden. Samar, Roumit, and Zykarith, watching the live broadcast, were equally surprised.
"Hey, that guy is getting overwhelmed," Samar noted.
But Zykarith shook her head, her earlier concern and shock still etched deeply on her face. "That guy... Raiden hasn't even started using his powers."
Samar and Roumit turned to her, wide-eyed, before snapping their attention back to the screen.
Mid-clash, Raiden landed a heavy punch, throwing Armaan backward. But Armaan instantly recovered, diving low to strike at Raiden's legs. He managed to draw blood, though the cut was shallow due to Raiden's quick reflexes.
"He's adapting," Raiden murmured. "Then I won't let him." Pointing his blade horizontally at Armaan, he called out, "Lightning Stream!" Raiden unleashed a blinding flurry of slashes from multiple directions. A golden stream of lightning followed his sword, delivering intense electric shocks to Armaan, though the attacks failed to injure him gravely.
Raiden's eyes narrowed in surprise, but he remained silent. The observers watching the broadcast held their breath in stunned silence.
Armaan muttered to himself, "I know I shouldn't be doing this, but... 10% prana in legs and arms." The shadow-black aura erupted violently around him. He lunged, and this time, Raiden couldn't dodge. Armaan's blade slashed deeply into Raiden's left arm.
Frustration flashed across Raiden's face. He lunged at Armaan, faster this time, and once more they clashed. But something had changed—Raiden was no longer just matching Armaan's pace; he was overwhelmingly dominating him.
Mid-clash, Raiden inverted his sword, driving the pommel brutally into Armaan's abdomen. Armaan coughed up blood. A swift slash to his shoulder immediately followed, sending Armaan collapsing to the ground. As the dust settled, it became painfully clear just how many cuts Armaan had sustained during the exchange.
"ARMAAN!" Samar yelled, jumping to his feet. "Stand up! You can't lose! Stand up, you idiot!" His eyes blazed with fury until Roumit placed a firm hand on his shoulder.
"He can't hear you, Samar. Just believe in him," Roumit said. His face was unreadable, though his eyes betrayed his deep concern.
"I thought you were strong since you beat Zykarith," Raiden said, a look of disappointment washing over him. He turned his back, sheathing his sword. "But I guess she was just weak." He began to walk away.
"Wait..." The voice was firm, but ragged. It was Armaan.
Raiden stopped, looking over his shoulder. Armaan was on his feet again, despite his bleeding wounds and obvious exhaustion.
"How are you still standing?" Raiden asked, his expression returning to its neutral mask.
"How?" Armaan replied, a faint smirk on his bloodied face. "Do you know what makes a person—specifically a man—stand again and again, even after multiple failures?"
Raiden raised an eyebrow. Armaan gripped his katana firmly with both hands, the shadow-black prana flaring wildly around his body and his blade.
"It's ego," Armaan finally said. "It's ego that defines a man, that makes him feel alive. And if you hurt his ego... you'll suffer." He exhaled quietly, his tone eerily calm. "40% in legs, 30% in arms..."
"What are—" Raiden couldn't even finish his sentence. Armaan threw a devastating punch, sending Raiden flying, crashing through hill after hill. Just as Raiden was about to hit the ground, Armaan materialized beside him, kicking his side, slashing his back, and delivering another brutal kick that buried Raiden deep into a rocky hillside.
Gasps echoed through the Draconic Court. Only Sylus remained impassive.
Mreed smirked. "He's losing." Sylus didn't reply; his eyes remained fixed on the screen, as if waiting for the inevitable.
Back on Mount Draugr' Volen, Armaan felt a sudden, terrifying shift in Raiden's prana. Without wasting a second, he lunged to deliver the finishing blow. But before he could connect, a blade slashed across his chest, and a heavy kick sent him hurtling backward.
Armaan stared in shock. Raiden's eyes had turned a piercing gold. The sky darkened ominously, and fierce lightning danced across the mountain, converging entirely around Raiden. A chill ran down Armaan's spine as Raiden spoke.
"Ryūsei... Tenrai ryū."
Raiden's double-edged longsword had transformed into a jagged, golden blade forged of pure lightning, crackling with raw, untamed thunder.
"What is that?" Roumit asked, turning to a clearly terrified Zykarith.
"It translates to Draconic Awakening: Heavenly Thunder Dragon," she stammered. "It's the ultimate transformation for any Draconic inheritor."
"What?!" Samar yelled.
"I don't know what will happen next. Let's just watch," Zykarith said, desperately trying to steady her nerves.
"What's this?" Armaan asked, narrowing his eyes.
"This is my ultimate form. It grants me access to 40% of Noir's actual power... like this." Raiden stabbed his transformed sword into the ground. "Thunder Threads!"
Instantly, glowing, golden thread-like structures bound Armaan's body. Immense surges of electricity tore through him, drawing a piercing scream of agony from his lungs.
When the attack finally subsided, Armaan collapsed to his knees, panting, on the verge of losing consciousness.
"So that's why my Lightning Stream didn't affect you deeply earlier," Raiden mused, walking slowly toward Armaan. The ground electrified beneath his every step. "Your outfit must have insulated against it. That's why I bypassed it and targeted your body directly. I guess I was right. This fight has ended, Armaan. You can go back now."
Raiden raised his sword and brought it down in a devastating strike, sending Armaan crashing back into a nearby hill, completely enveloped in electric aftershocks.
Raiden turned to leave, but stopped dead in his tracks.
"Not again..."
The voice was quiet but carried immense weight. Raiden whipped around to see Armaan rising once more. The very rocks around him were disintegrating, and the rain evaporated before it could even touch his skin.
"Not again..." Armaan's voice grew louder, laced with pure desperation and fury. "I can't lose again, and again, and again!" he roared. The lightning in the sky was pulled directly into his orbit. "I can't lose this time... I can't... I can't LOSE!"
As Armaan screamed, the hill he had crashed into disintegrated completely. A massive cyclone of shadow-black prana, interwoven with silver lightning, erupted around him. His shirt was torn away, his eyes gleamed a blinding silver, and the chain attached to his sword's hilt swirled violently in the storm. There it was: The Prana Howl.
The Prana Howl exists in two forms. First is the Ignition Form. This was the state Armaan had used while fighting Varkash or Zykarith. In this form, his emotions spiral out of control, but he retains his consciousness, allowing him to strategize and command his body.
Then comes the Actual Howl—a catastrophic state where the user loses total control over their body, unleashes 100% of their Prana, and devolves into a mindless monster.
Armaan had just entered the Actual Howl.
Swinging his sword in a blinding circle by its chain, he launched the blade at Raiden. Before Raiden could even twitch, the blade was back in Armaan's grip, and the boy was already mid-slash, his face completely devoid of human expression.
Relying on his lightning speed, Raiden barely dodged the attack. However, everything the blade had touched in its path simply ceased to exist, evaporating into nothingness.
Raiden stared in horror. "What kind of form is this?!" he yelled, desperately dodging a punch from Armaan. The shockwave of the missed blow shattered a mountain peak behind him, sending violent tremors through the earth.
Back in the court, absolute panic set in. Even the stoic Sylus was visibly shocked by the sheer monstrosity of Armaan's aura.
"This boy is too strong, even for Raiden! He's going to die!" Vera cried out.
"If it comes to it, we will intervene and stop this," Zor'kyrell declared, his own composure severely shaken.
"Dead Lightning!" Raiden roared. He conjured multiple orbs of highly condensed electricity and launched them at Armaan, but the berserker dodged them with terrifying, inhuman grace.
Armaan crouched low. Prana rushed through his legs like raw electricity, intensifying the black aura and silver lightning around him. "Ryū no keisho..." Armaan whispered, exhaling a ragged breath. He lunged forward with such force that the ground beneath his feet utterly shattered.
"Phantom Strike," Armaan murmured. Silver rays trailed his katana as he closed the distance instantly.
Raiden raised his lightning sword to block the strike, but it was too late. Armaan phased right through him. Raiden's sword shattered into fragments, and a deep, clean cut opened across his abdomen.
"Velsh Dragon," Armaan commanded.
Instantly, an ethereal white dragon with glowing cyan eyes emerged, tearing through the very path Armaan's blade had carved into Raiden. Raiden looked down in absolute horror and shock. "How...?" he gasped, before collapsing completely.
Suddenly, Armaan stopped. He turned around, seeing Raiden's motionless body, and a wave of intense dizziness washed over him.
"Huh? Did I defeat him?" Armaan muttered, his voice sounding entirely human again. He stumbled toward Raiden on shaky legs as the devastating Prana Howl rapidly faded away, leaving him drained. "Ah..." he gasped as realization finally struck him.
"I must have gone berserk. Dammit, I overdid it," he groaned, falling heavily to his knees beside the fallen lieutenant. "Sorry... Raiden."
And with that, Armaan collapsed into the dirt, entirely unconscious.