May 14, 2020

  The cursed energy coming out of Waldo’s palm fully materializes. It turns into a crude rectangle. Then, the rectangle begins to morph around and form jagged edges on one of the ends. Finally, once Waldo fully grasps the cursed energy, it materializes into a large corseque. The corseque illuminates a faint blue light due to Waldo’s cursed energy. The corseque is almost as tall as Waldo, being 6 feet long. Waldo seems to have called this weapon “Hades.” Waldo stares at Hades after he has materialized it.

  (It’s beautiful. This is the weapon of Sophisticated Ruin: Hades. I can feel the power radiating from it. I feel invigorated just by grasping the weapon. This is one of the many gifts that Rāj has left me. Hm, I can feel the loyalty. Hades speaks to me.)

  Waldo begins to spin Hades around in the air. He twirls the base in his fingers, getting a feel for it. Iravin watches with an intense excitement in his eyes. Not only has Waldo come back with more power, but he even materialized a weapon using his cursed energy. How many people can do that? Not only that, but Waldo feels at least three times more imposing than before. Is Hades just that powerful? What is it capable of doing? Right after Iravin asks this question, Waldo stops spinning Hades around and now focuses his eye on Iravin. He bends his knees as he gets into a sort of stance. He charges up Hades and holds him back in a wind-up motion. Waldo’s cursed energy suddenly spikes for a brief moment. Hades begin to crackle and spark. Then, in a flash, Waldo swings Hades across the air. When he does, a gargantuan, highly compressed shockwave with 25 times the normal impact is fired. The shockwave races towards Iravin at incredibly high speeds, at least Mach 16. Although Iravin is still barely able to see the attack coming, he is not able to dodge or block it normally. Then, the shockwaves crash down on the crater. A secondary crater is formed on top of the first one much deeper than the one before. There is a lot more energy from the shockwave. It scatters across the battlefield, and everything crumbles before the tremor. A giant dust cloud and chunks of dirt and earth scatter in the air. The ground even rumbles a decent amount. It’s possible that the shockwave fired by Hades caused an earthquake. Waldo stares at Hades again after he just released that storm on Iravin.

  “You’re powerful. No wonder you’ve always served at the War Spirit’s side. Now, it’s your turn to stand at mine. I thank you for your loyalty, Hades.”

  Suddenly, Waldo turns back to the craters and peers further. He hears footsteps coming from it. Could Iravin have survived that?

  Waldo plants Hades in the ground and looks for Iravin in the cloud of smoke. The footsteps are undeniably there. At least Waldo was reassured that he hasn’t gone crazy. After a couple of seconds waiting, Waldo does end up seeing a figure arising from within the cloud of smoke and dust. When they eventually emerge from the cloud, they are covered from head to toe in some kind of armor. It reminds Waldo of an exoskeleton but even more advanced and durable. Could that be Iravin inside of that armor? The armor is hardly damaged, only having minor scratches and bruises. Even with Waldo’s new powers and even with the storm of Hades, this armored form of Iravin withstood it all. How did he acquire such power in his lifetime? Where did his manipulation of biomass come from?

  Waldo grabs Hades again and stands firm as he watches Iravin come out of the crater. The armor covering Iravin begins to withdraw and go away. A wide smile is plastered on his face. The two of them begin to walk closer to each other. They don’t have the intention of interrupting either party at the moment. When they’re finally a few feet away from each other, they end up in a stare down. Iravin is the first one to speak.

  “It doesn’t make sense. How did you suddenly get all of this power?”

  “It’s a bit of a long story, but it wasn’t that long for you, I assume. During my current life, I was blind. I was in a dark ocean with no air to breath. I was arrogant, I was obnoxious, and I didn’t even realize what I could do with my power. That was until you appeared. You forced me to open my eyes. You forced me to breathe once again. And now, I have returned better than before. I have recollected everything that has happened to me before. All of the memories, all of the pictures, every piece of information, all of it has now come back to me. I appreciate this, Iravin. As much as I hate to admit it to a human, you have helped me go back to my right path.”

  “You’re definitely different… I was thinking at first that you were lying. But after this, you might just be telling the truth.”

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  Waldo and Iravin continue to stare at each other for another minute or two. Eventually, Waldo withdraws Hades and takes the cursed energy back into his body.

  “If we are to end things, we’ll end things the right way. One of us loses and one of us wins. If you are not going to draw a weapon, then I will not fight you like a coward and withdraw my weapon. You have resolve, and I commend that. This is the least I can do out of respect for your power.”

  And then, as if the two of them seemed to telepathically agree on something, they shift their bodies around and get back into their combat stances. The calm winds caress the ground. Loose sediment falls across the slopes of the craters. It’s silent enough you could feel a pin drop. Suddenly, the two of them disappear from their spots and face each other head on. Both Iravin and Waldo throw their fists at each other at the same time. Their fists collide in perfect form and cause ripples in the air. It’s clear that Waldo has more power in this clash of fists. Although Iravin is able to quickly adapt and evolve his body to suit the battle, it would take a while for him to suddenly gain 10 times his strength. And so, Waldo ends up winning the clash and punches Iravin back into the crater. Iravin instantly creates shields around his body using biomass, trying to predict Waldo’s next move. Sure enough, Waldo throws another punch at Iravin while he’s on the ground. The shields negate most of the impact and allow for Iravin to slip away from another attack. Iravin spins around on the palm of his hand. He turns his other arm into a biomass whip and lashes out at Waldo. However, Waldo grabs the end of the biomass whip and tugs at it with much force. At first, Iravin is pulled easily towards him. But then, he begins to react to the situation and stands his ground, stopping himself by stabbing the ground with spikes on his feet.

  Waldo then lets go of the whip and rushes towards Iravin. His speed is still far ahead of Iravin, allowing him to appear at his side and punch him in the liver. Iravin takes the punch well and tries to counterattack with a strike of his own. Instead, Waldo swiftly does a front kick and knocks Iravin away. Iravin catches his balance again and coughs out just a drop of blood.

  “I think I’m starting to see it. You won’t be able to do the same thing twice.”

  “Let’s see it then.”

  Waldo charges forward towards Iravin. He takes many different sharp turns and twists. In the middle of his little movements, shockwave clones come out from Waldo and also begin to run around sporadically. It’s almost as if several afterimages are appearing around the craters. Iravin tries to keep up with everything that’s happening in front of his eyes. As he watches the clones and Waldo, his reaction timing and speed begin to increase. To compensate for the number of things running around, Iravin begins to grow more pairs of eyes on his body. This is so he can keep track of several different directions and angles at once. Once Waldo comes out from his clones, he takes a small jump, spins around, and attempts to kick Iravin across his face. Iravin sees it coming and turns around. He has now become accustomed to Waldo’s speed. Iravin lets himself get kicked and then grabs Waldo’s leg. He then proceeds to absolutely slam him onto the ground. A smile grows on his face, finally catching up to the War Spirit.

  Waldo lands on the ground with a loud thud. Waldo did not take as much damage as he thought he would, to his surprise. He is certain now that Iravin has started to catch on to his power. But it’s still not enough to deal a decisive blow. Waldo kicks himself out of Iravin’s grasp and takes a couple of jumps back. It would be problematic if he allowed him to fully adapt to his power. It would be even worse if Iravin evolved beyond his power. Waldo has to end this quickly if he wants to win. But would he really do that? If he wins without seeing what Iravin is really capable of doing, would that really be a fulfilling win? He thinks to himself that he would rather have an honorable loss than an empty victory. And so, Waldo comes up with a strategy to bring out everything that Iravin has. He thinks back to his battle with Rāj. Waldo puts his hands together and begins to generate shockwaves in his hands. He continues to pour cursed energy into them, compressing the shockwaves and charging them. Iravin stands there silently, wondering what Waldo will do now.

  Waldo visualizes in his mind the way Rāj would do it. He looks up at the air and suddenly shoots the shockwaves into the air. He quickly flies up and attempts to catch them. Miraculously, he moves fast enough to catch the shockwaves and begins to take them in. He charges up his cursed energy and allows it to boil up. Then, he releases a large blue wave outward at the battlefield. The wave makes contact with the ground and several shockwaves begin to sprout from the ground. 7 shockwave soldiers dig their way up to the surface and stand up, standing strong next to their leader. Waldo smiles in disbelief that he actually managed to do the complete version. He points at Iravin, his shockwave soldiers now focused on him.

  “That’s your target. Now go, seize him.”

  The shockwave soldiers immediately charge towards Iravin without hesitation. Iravin sees the soldiers coming at him and gets ready. Waldo stands in the back and takes this opportunity to watch Iravin’s power.

  “Once you evolve, the tides of this battle will fluctuate. It’s exactly what I’m looking for. Then, I’ll hit you with everything I have.”