[Third Person POV]
Jaipur was lost. Stripped of its historic architecture, of its people, and reduced to craters, despite the fact that aliens had not conquered the city, there was nothing left of it to salvage.
The first clash between Sebas Tian and Battle Beast had instantly vaporized the central district, turning centuries of architecture into a flat crater of ruins. Their second clash leveled the surrounding suburbs, with the ensuing shockwave tearing asphalt from the earth and sending it raining down from the sky like meteorites. By the time they engaged in a prolonged, brutal melee, the very geography of the Indian subcontinent was being forcibly rewritten with every strike.
It was a battle between gods. Anything and everything that unwittingly got near them faced the same fate.
High above the dust clouds, a massive Coalition dropship, foolishly flew too close to the savages fighting below. On the ground, Battle Beast roared, his scarred muscles bulging as he swung his massive battle mace in a wide, horizontal arc.
He missed Sebas by a fraction of an inch, but the ungodly pressure generated by the swing sheared the air itself.
The kinetic wave shot upward and slammed into the Coalition dropship. There was a moment of stillness, thousands of aliens standing in terror, and then they were falling. At least for the ones still intact.
The entire vessel had been cleanly cut in half.
Alien gore, weaponry, burning wreckage from the ship, and the screams of the soldiers still alive, all rained down on the surviving Viltrumite slave soldiers and Coalition infantry. The ground troops didn't even have time to scream. If they weren't crushed by thousands of tons of falling, burning metal, they were instantly turned into red mist by the ambient shockwaves of Sebas and Battle Beast trading blows. To stand within a mile of their duel was an unavoidable death sentence. Bodies ruptured as Internal organs turned to jelly just from the sound of their fists colliding.
Sebas weaved underneath another swing that would have cleanly decimated a mountain. He remembered how easily this monster had bisected him months ago in Chicago. But Sebas was not the same restricted servant anymore.
He had tempered his draconic powers, having deemed it necessary to be fully concious against reckless brawlers, and now possess a superior healing ability to make up for unavoidable blows. There weren't any civilians to worry about and it was this clear consciousness that made all the difference.
Sebas stepped inside the lion's guard before Battle Beast could retract his heavy mace. His thick dragonoid scales glowed with concentrated Ki. Sebas shifted his weight, his heavy reptilian tail acting as a perfect counterbalance, and drove a flawless draconic palm strike directly into Battle Beast's sternum.
The impact sounded like a detonating artillery shell and the air cracked with a deafening,
BOOM.
Thick, alien ribs snapped under the force as Battle Beast's eyes widened in genuine surprise as he was launched backward off his feet. The alien warlord crashed through the husks of six consecutive skyscrapers, his massive body acting as a wrecking ball before he finally ground to a halt in a massive cloud of pulverized concrete and rebar.
Sebas did not relax his stance. He exhaled a long, measured breath of superheated purple smoke, his slitted blue eyes tracking the rubble.
From deep within the crushed concrete, a terrifying, rumbling vibration began to echo.
"Ha-hahahaha!"
It was laughter.
Battle Beast exploded out of the debris, moving exponentially faster than anything his size had any right to. He had left his legendary mace buried in the dirt. He lunged forwardt, using his razor-sharp claws to slash down on Sebas with all his overwhelming power.
Sebas was completely blindsided by such speed. He had no choice but to desperately throw up his guard. He brought his scaled forearms up, shifted his Ki to reinforce his defense, and braced for impact. Beneath him, the earth exploded and suddenly, the butler was buried up to his knees in the earth.
The alien warlord's claws dug deep into Sebas's forearms, tearing through his hardened Level 100 dragonoid scales like wet tissue paper. Thick, rich, and glowing purple blood sprayed wildly across the ruined asphalt. The pain was blinding, a sobering reminder of the untamed power of the universe's greatest predator.
Sebas did not falter. His face remained a mask of stoic determination.
"Restoration."
A brilliant green light erupted from Sebas's core. The magic washed over his torn flesh and shredded scales. In a fraction of a second, the deep, bleeding lacerations knit themselves back together, the new muscle and bone physically pushing Battle Beast's embedded claws out of the wounds.
Battle Beast's golden feline eyes widened like a cat tasting catnip for the first time.
"You can heal this much?!" Battle Beast roared, his voice a deafening cascade of pure bloodlust. "You can undo so much more damage than before?! Glorious! Absolutely glorious! Then I do not have to hold back! I can break you as many times as I want!"
"I am the vanguard of the Supreme Being," Sebas stated, his voice tight but unwavering. "You may try, but you will fail to 'break' me."
"Everything breaks, warrior!" Battle Beast grinned, his fangs bared. "Let us find the bottom of your endurance!"
Sebas had grown over the last six months, refining his technique against Earth's strongest. But Earth had been stagnant. It was a world of relative peace and domestic training. Battle Beast had spent those same six months slaughtering his way across the most hostile sectors of the galaxy, bathing daily in the blood of planetary champions and warlords. The rust of Sebas's domesticity began to show against the unyielding grind of life-or-death warfare.
He could simulate danger all he wanted, but nothing he had done compared to the insanity that Battle Beast considered routine.
Battle Beast lunged forward without a care for his own defense. Sebas pounced on the opportunity with a heavy, Ki-infused roundhouse kick directly to the lion's jaw, a blow that shattered teeth and sprayed blood across the battlefield. But Battle Beast just absorbed it. In a blink, he was through Sebas's guard.
He wrapped his massive, muscular arms around Sebas in a crushing bear hug. The shattered remnants of his spiked gladiator armor dug deeply into the butler's scales. Before Sebas could channel enough Ki into an outward burst to break the grapple, Battle Beast unhinged his jaw.
With a sickening crunch, teeth designed to bite through starship hulls sank directly into the junction of Sebas's neck and draconic shoulder.
Sebas's eyes went wide. He let out a rare, guttural grunt of agonizing pain as the fangs pierced his scales, meat, and bone.
Battle Beast violently ripped his head back. The sound of tearing flesh echoed over the ruined city. The alien warlord tore a massive, bloody chunk of scales, muscle, and sinew right out of Sebas's body, exposing the gleaming white bone beneath.
Sebas ignited his Ki, unleashing a point-blank, explosive draconic shockwave that finally blasted the alien warlord off him.
Battle Beast landed gracefully on his feet twenty yards away. He chewed on the massive chunk of dragon flesh, blood pouring down his chin and matting his white fur, before swallowing it with a manic, bloody grin.
"You have quite delicious blood, dragon!" Battle Beast laughed, his chest heaving with adrenaline. He spat a glob of purple blood onto the dirt. "Have you been playing nursemaid while I bathed in the blood of stars?! Why are you limiting yourself to kicks and punches?! Fight me with everything you have!"
Sebas stood amidst the ruined earth, clutching his ruined shoulder. His breathing was heavy and labored. He immediately triggered Restoration again. The warm green light flared, aggressively bubbling and reforming to regenerate his missing shoulder. Bone reconnected, muscle spun itself back together, and new scales hardened over the exposed wound.
But the mana cost was astronomical. Unfortunately, even if his healing was stronger now, it still pulled from his own energy pool. John could spend billions and the only thing feeling the change would be his wallet but Sebas did not have such luxury. He needed energy to fight, heal and keep his transformation active.
Battle Beast was still too much for him to handle.
The sun began to set behind the thick, choking clouds of atmospheric dust, casting the ruined city in a bloody, orange and violet glow. Shadows stretched long across the devastation.
Sebas dropped to one knee. His immaculate posture, the pride of the Iron Butler, finally broke. His chest heaved as he forced oxygen into his burning lungs. He was bleeding from a dozen different micro-lacerations where the healing couldn't keep up with the sheer volume of damage.
Ten yards away, Battle Beast stood tall in the dying light. His spiked armor was completely shattered, hanging off him in useless metal strips. His massive chest was a grotesque canvas of deep, bleeding wounds, severe burns, bruises, and crushed tissue from Sebas's relentless strikes. He was huffing wildly, his massive lungs working overtime, dripping with his own blood and the glowing purple blood of his enemy.
But as the setting sun illuminated the lion's scarred face, Battle Beast was smiling. It was a terrifying expression. He had found treasure on this burning planet.
Sebas looked up at him, his slitted eyes calculating his remaining energy. He realized with a cold, uncharacteristic dread that the beast wasn't tiring out. The injuries weren't slowing him down, but the pain was just fuel.
For Battle Beast, this was basically a warm-up.
[A/N]:
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