EPIC: Path of Demons and Dragons-Chapter 255: Pride

"Well done, Sui-Feng-taichou...you've bested me fair and square..." conceded Yamato, spreading her arms and falling onto her back with a contented smile despite the dozens of puncture wounds covering her body. She hadn't been eliminated outright, but after exhausting the last vestiges of her Conqueror's Haki, she no longer had the strength to stay upright, much less continue the battle.

'For all the good it does me...' groaned Sui-Feng internally, holding her severely mangled and bleeding left arm after getting caught by just one of Yamato's attacks. She had landed dozens of her own, including several point-blank Hado, but the horned woman's durability was beyond reason. At times, it was like her entire body was comprised of metal...

"I believe this is where I step in..." remarked Kiba, dropping down from where he had been seated atop a partially destroyed wall. Like Sui-Feng, he had been able to overwhelm his opponent due to the difference in their speeds, but since it wouldn't have been very chivalrous to interfere in the two women's clash of wills, he observed from the side.

"You...what happened to that incompetent fool I call a subordinate...?" asked Sui-Feng, forcing herself to stand as tall as her diminutive frame allowed as she glared daggers at Kiba.

"If you're asking if I cut him down, you can rest assured," hummed Kiba, offering his most gentlemanly smile as he materialized a black and white longsword in his right hand and revealed, "He announced his surrender at sword-point and was safely ejected from the battlefield. I swear it on my honor as a Knight."

"It's not as though I was concerned..." countered Sui-Feng, raising her right hand across her body and making a slicing gesture before her form flickered, becoming semitransparent.

Feeling a sensation of static spreading across the right side of his body, Kiba turned just in time to barely deflect Sui-Feng's attack—aimed at his right shoulder.

"I see you were holding back during our previous exchange..." remarked Kiba, straining his senses to their limit as he backstepped, his own body flickering as he stepped back, reappearing several meters from where he had started. ƒreewebɳovel.com

"I'm not in the mood for banter..." asserted Sui-Feng, her eyes narrowing as she produced three, five, and finally nine afterimages known as Speed Clones, sustained using her Reiatsu. She couldn't maintain them for more than a few seconds, but with her near-perfect control over her Reitsu, she could mask her presence to make discerning which of them was the real her nearly impossible.

"Then I should get serious as well..." responded Kiba, his smile becoming marginally more prominent, hinting that he was up to something. Sui-Feng noticed this, but she also knew that a moment's hesitation could spell her end, leading her to fully commit as she and her clones assailed Kiba from all sides in what she perceived as slow motion.

shhhhk shhhhk shhhhk shhhhk

Though she was initially relieved to see Kiba meeting the gaze of one of her clones, Sui-Feng experienced tension spreading through her body as she witnessed the blades of various swords rising from the ground at his feet. Then, like a ripple on the surface of a lake, a dozen swords became hundreds, rising from the ground at all angles.

"You snake...hiding behind a smile..." growled Sui-Feng, reappearing atop a half-collapsed building with cuts along her sides and a puncture wound in her abdomen. She managed to avoid being pierced completely, but the speed at which Kiba's swords rose from the ground had been faster than she could change directions after committing to her attack.

"This is my Sacred Gear, Sword Birth," explained Kiba, taking Sui-Feng's comment in stride as he courteously revealed, "It grants me the ability to create numerous swords, each with their own attributes and properties. In the past, I could only produce demon swords, but Vahn-sama opened my eyes to broader possibilities. For example..."

Holding up his right hand, Kiba caused Sui-Feng's eyes to widen before her expression fixed into a murderous glower. The reason was that he had used his Sword Birth to create a yellow-hilted wakizashi indistinguishable from her Suzumebachi in its unreleased state. Had he stopped there, she would have disregarded it as a cheap trick, but he crossed the line when the sword glowed white, transforming into a black and gold gauntlet with a stinger attachment covering his middle finger...

"Unfortunately..." started Kiba, making a cutting gesture identical to Sui-Feng's before meeting her gaze as he stated, "I'm still working on being able to emulate the spirit within weapons like Zanpakuto. I can, however, emulate their abilities—so long as I have a general understanding of how they work and a strong enough image of the desired outcome. This faux Suzumebachi, for example, increases my Agility and releases a powerful poison that is especially effective against Spirits and spiritual entities like Shinigami..."

"I'm going to kill you now..." muttered Sui-Feng, surprising Kiba quite a bit as she slouched forward slightly, her bangs veiling her eyes in shadow as crimson-hued Reishi rose from her body like steam. Kiba's actions hadn't just offended her. Upon witnessing someone copy her, the spirit residing in her Suzumebachi became outraged, increasing their spiritual resonance and causing Sui-Feng's Reiatsu to skyrocket.

'Did I perhaps tease her a bit too much...?' Kiba asked himself, his smile cramping slightly and blood leaking from the corners of his mouth after Sui-Feng darted past him like a crimson streak of light, leaving a twenty-centimeter-diameter cavity where his right arm, shoulder, and upper rib cage had been. He had thought she would defeat him using Shunko, but he had clearly underestimated her while overestimating himself...

'Well, there's always next time...' thought Kiba, falling face first and briefly becoming acquainted with the ground before a feeling of weightlessness overtook him...

Seeing Kiba collapse and disappear in a flash of golden light, Sui-Feng snorted huffily before shifting her attention to where Yamato had fallen, all while doing her best not to fall over as her surging Reiatsu settled. In the time it had taken her to defeat Kiba, Yamato's body had disappeared. Whether it was because she had been eliminated or escaped, she didn't know. She did, however, know she needed medical attention, causing her to take one final look at her surroundings before disappearing with a high-pitched fwsh...

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fwoom ba-krak fwawa

'So this is a Rating Game...' mused Komamura, his sharp yellow eyes and canine features exposed, fixed in an introspective frown as he meditated on the events transpiring and the Soul Society's future course now that it was known that seemingly infinite worlds existed beyond their own. At the same time, his steely gaze remained fixed on the opposing fortress in the distance, twenty kilometers away. There, periodic explosions and flashes of light denoted that a fierce battle was underway, the sequelae of which periodically reached as far as his position.

"If that's the Captain of the 11th Division, the enemy Knights should be appearing at any moment," remarked a burly, mustachioed man with a strong jawline, short black hair, and dark-brown eyes almost perpetually concealed by angular, white-rimmed sunglasses. Like other Shinigami, he wore the standard-issue Shihakusho, but markedly looser, showing off his pecs and abdominal muscles, the latter bound in bandages—reminiscent of the Captain he was referring to.

"You're talking about those blue and red-haired women, the Herald of the Dragon God, and, what was it, the Flaming Titania? Think they're strong?" asked a comparably slender but still muscular man with sharp features, the number 69 tattooed on his left cheek, spiky black hair, and notably sharp and angular black eyes. Three thin red scars ran from his forehead to his jawline over his right eye, but despite his punkish idiosyncrasies, he was frequently voted as one of the top ten most eligible bachelors by the clandestine Shinigami Womens' Association.

"I mean, they have to be, right? I doubt the Dragon's Pavilion would allow someone weak to call themselves Herald of the Dragon God..." reasoned the muscular man, Lieutenant of the 7th Division beneath Komamura, Iba Tetsuzaemon.

"But what's a Titania?" asked the thinner man, Lieutenant of the recently-under-investigation 9th Division. The weight of his Captain's betrayal and incarceration weighed heavily upon him, similar to Hinamori and Kira, but since his resting expression looked angry and standoffish, most assumed he had taken the incident in stride.

"Maybe it means she can become a giant?" supposed Iba, raising his gaze skyward as he imagined Erza towering over them in her kimono, her naked foot raised and a contemptuous smile adorning her face.

"Hey...are you blushing...?" asked Hisagi, his naturally deep voice hushed and his perpetually narrowed eyes narrowing further.

Waving his hand dismissively in front of his face, Iba contended, "You're imagining things. Though, now that you've pointed it out, does it seem to be getting hotter to you?"

Hearing Iba suggest that it was getting hotter, Komamura's left canine ear perked. Due to his thick fur, he wore special talismans to help regulate his body temperature. Thus, unless the temperature increased drastically in a short period, he wouldn't notice.

"Now that you mention it...it does feel a little muggy..." conceded Hisagi, pulling at the front of his Shihakusho, allowing cooler air to flow between the fabric and his increasingly sweaty body.

psh bubble bubble hiss

Though they didn't notice it initially, Komamura, Iba, and Hisagi falling silent and focusing allowed them to pick up on the sound of something melting due to extreme heat. In response, the two Lieutenants drew and unleashed their Zanpakuto, the former's taking the form of a scimitar with a crescent-wedged tip and a long, spike-like blade along the edge, while the latter's became a pair of double-sided, scythe-like kusarigama, linked together via a long and thin black chain.

"Spread out...!" barked Komamura, making a sweeping gesture with his right hand, prompting Iba and Hisagi to Shunpo to better vantage points while he glared in the direction the sound emanated. A few seconds later, one of the nearby buildings collapsed, followed by the stone wall closest to the courtyard where they were positioned, turning red hot and melting into a pool of molten stone.

Emerging from the nearly perfectly circular hole that was formed was Erza, wearing scaled, dark crimson gauntlets, greaves, and a breastplate with a feathery mantle and gown that resembled a phoenix's plumage, transitioning from dark, nearly black maroon near her hips and shoulders to a shimmering, fiery yellow near the tips of its palm-width feathers. The outfit left parts of her upper thighs and lower abdomen exposed, but the trio of Shinigami was more drawn to the slightly curved swords in her hands, resembling long and elegant flight feathers, and the shimmering spherical aura that surrounded her, superheating and melting everything that came into contact with it.

"Oh? Am I the first to arrive...?" asked Erza, looking around for any sign that Xenovia had arrived before her. Their plan was to assail the enemy team's Rooks together, but something must have gone wrong since her blue-haired, green-tufted counterpart was missing. The use of the Chat function had also been disabled to ensure fairness, so she had no way of confirming Xenovia's status or position.

"Erza Scarlet, also known as the Flaming Titania...an appropriate name..." remarked Komamura, his expression fixed in a resolute glower as he drew his oversized Zanpakuto and added, "I am Komamura Sajin, Captain of the 7th Division. As you are alone, so shall I face you..."

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Komamura-taichou," stated Erza, nodding approvingly before striking a rather daring pose with her left sword held out diagonally and her right held up behind her, perfectly parallel with the former as she affirmed, "And if you are proposing that we duel, it would be my honor to face you in single combat."

"I shall do my best not to disappoint..." responded Komamura, holding his sword in a classic, two-handed kendo stance. It would probably be wiser to assail Erza from afar, especially with her spherical domain, but since he might only get a single opportunity to surprise her with it, he decided not to exhibit his Zanpakuto's ability until an opportune moment...

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