"You're trying to hit me, Almeida. That's not very polite of you," Sand King chuckled lightly, dodging a combo of punches and kicks as he took a few steps back.
"See?" he spread his arms as if explaining something. "It's useless, Almeida. Why don't we just continue on our way?" he smiled brightly.
The boy's eyes locked onto him; his cloak and hair fluttered wildly in the same cold wind, his right hand clenched into a fist, while his right foot planted firmly in the ash.
Yet, his gaze zeroed in on the man's clothes—now completely stained with so many colors it would be impossible to count them. Both his pants and his shirt were thoroughly dyed, but his attention didn't stop there.
Instead, he observed the colors with an almost incoherent hope; the man seemed to fade and blur before snapping back to normal. The boy stumbled and fell to his knees.
Almeida's arms and legs twitched. "M... m... m..." Gibberish spilled from his mouth as his eyes traced a strangely familiar face in Sand King's clothes, formed by bizarre patterns within those colors.
The man tilted his head down with curiosity. "You're staring at me a lot, Almeida. Please, stop, or I'm going to start thinking you have some weird feelings for me, hahaha!!!" He burst into roaring laughter.
The boy's vision blurred. His cheeks ran hot, his body shook, and his trembling gave way to faint murmurs escaping his parched lips.
"You fear him but not me. That is unfair, young Almeida," a voice echoed inside his mind. "In certain scenarios, it is easier to defeat him than me."
Almeida barely paid the voice any attention. He lowered his head, crouching down as drops fell from his cheeks and chin. Sand King approached him with slow, deliberate steps.
"If you think about it a little, young Almeida, you don't need to strike to win." After saying this, Scrap's voice—which traveled from the cloak directly into Almeida's mind—faded away.
The boy began shaking his head repeatedly, gently tapping the ash on the ground.
"It's funny how you kneel before me, Almeida," Sand King said once he was a single step away from stepping on the boy's head. "I used to think people like you were the hardest to deal with."
He crouched down. His hand, as soft and white as milk, rested on the boy's head and began to stroke it slowly. "Why don't you give up now? You, Almeida, cannot defeat me."
He closed his eyes and smiled; his smile could have melted ice. Trembling, the boy lifted his head to look at that smile.
"I giv..." Almeida stopped. The words wouldn't leave his throat, his tongue wouldn't move, and his body paralyzed in that very moment. He opened his mouth wider, trying to squeeze out the next words, but he couldn't.
Then, not a thought, nor something imaginary, but a feeling implanted itself in his heart, slipping in as easily as butter: he could not utter those words. He would never be able to do it, no matter how much his body begged him to.
Almeida slowly closed his mouth. His eyes gleamed with a white tint as they locked onto the man's smile.
And, almost as effortlessly as moving an arm, his body channeled a new energy inside him—something that appeared suddenly, arriving and fusing with his soul.
He shifted this energy to his cloak, and his body vanished, leaving behind a trail of black smoke where he once stood.
"My, my!!" Sand King's eyes widened, but his smile never wavered. "Is that you, Scrap? It's been a while since I've seen you. I never thought we'd meet again. Has it been a thousand years, perhaps?" His voice carried its usual tone.
Almeida materialized, condensing from a wisp of white smoke a few meters behind Sand King. His eyes had been replaced by signature white flames, while the cloak on his back vented thick black smoke.
"I remember the last time we saw each other, my dear Scrap. Although you lost and my infinite winning streak remained unbroken, do you think you can beat me now by helping this poor lost boy?" Sand King asked, his hands clasped behind his back.
Almeida didn't answer. The fire in his eyes intensified. He pivoted his body with a newfound power, moved his feet with explosive energy, and focused his glare directly on the man.
He left a black streak in his wake, moving at blistering speeds. The air roared behind him as ash scattered violently in all directions.
He appeared right in front of Sand King, one of his fists cocked back, his teeth gritted, and veins bulging on his forehead.
His fist launched forward, breaking the sound barrier, ripping through the air, and cracking the ground behind him, aiming straight for the man's face.
However, Almeida's fist passed straight through Sand King's face. The boy's pupils dilated as his mouth fell slightly open; unable to withstand his own momentum, he slammed heavily into the ground.
Crash. His fist sank effortlessly into the earth, pulling his body along like a needle piercing through layers upon layers of soil, splitting the crust like a meteor strike, and kicking up a massive cloud of black ash.
Sand King, on the other hand, appeared a few dozen meters away, the skin all over his body and his hair completely spotless, his colorful clothes pristine.
"Hmph." He shook his head a couple of times, still keeping his hands behind his back. "Scrap and Almeida. A good combo, but not nearly strong enough."
A black streak shot out of the crater formed by the boy's punch. It hurtled rapidly toward the man, who merely tilted his head to admire the sun on the horizon.
Almeida appeared before Sand King once again, this time delivering a hyper-charged flying kick. Once more, the air roared, echoing the sound across the battlefield.
"Useless." Sand King raised a hand and, with zero effort, stopped Almeida's kick dead in its tracks. He then casually tossed the boy a couple of meters to the side while yawning. "Aah... Do you guys want to get something to eat? Looks like we missed dinnertime..." The man began stretching his arms and legs.
Still, Almeida attacked again. The black streak he transformed into when moving faster than sound, his strikes so powerful they could warp the terrain around them, his precise movements—his combat prowess was undeniable.
Punch, kick, attempts to choke Sand King out, surprise attacks, headbutts, bites, scratches—Almeida assaulted relentlessly, his body functioning as a highly tuned weapon of war.
The flames in his eyes grew with every strike, each charge stronger than the last, moving faster and faster, yet proving more and more useless.
Sand King didn't just dodge; he blocked effortlessly, sidestepped with ease, or let the blows phase straight through him. His smile never faltered as he threw out sarcastic remarks.
Amidst that entire battle, which stretched on for an indefinite amount of time, Scrap's voice rang out in Almeida's mind once again. "Is this all the 'strongest' can do, young Almeida?"
The boy jerked his head sharply, something aching deeply in his brain, and kept on attacking. "I don't see the pride or the stubbornness of someone who named himself the strongest anywhere."
He gritted his teeth, clenched his fists, tightened his muscles, and stomped down hard, feeling an ache in his mind and heart. "You aren't listening to me. Well, that's normal; never mind. Young Almeida, if you keep this up, we'll probably be fighting Sand King for a very long time... perhaps far too long."