Nameless King



Gael smirked with a slight smile on his face nodding. He couldn't force Ereg to increase his power since only Ereg could make that decision, so he only had one option - to keep fighting.

"Fine, I'll do as you wish, but don't forget you're not an Alucard." Gael uttered, taking a step forward while particles of ash headed toward his long sword.

"Unlike my friend, you don't have such insane regeneration, so... If you're careless you could die. You might not even have time to use the boost." Gael muttered before disappearing.

In a heartbeat, he found himself in front of Ereg, who was ready to attack. However, that was not enough.

A fighter could know his opponent's every move or even have the ability to see the future, but it was of no use if the opponent was too fast.

Ereg could know everything ahead of time, but it wouldn't help him at all, since Gael was moving faster than he could react.

Whoooooooooooosh.

Gael found himself behind Ereg as drops of blood dripped from his sword again, dark and lonely but slowly bringing Ereg closer to defeat.

"Argh!!!" Ereg spat out a mouthful of blood as a wide cut appeared on his chest from which a scarlet stream gushed out.

"Come on. I understand your desire, but this is no longer pride or arrogance but stupidity." Gael said calmly, swinging his sword.

At the same moment, Gael was in a completely different place, and a deep, perfectly even cut opened on Ereg's shoulder.

Ereg tried to fight back, but it was hardly possible. To him, Gael looked like a flash, appearing here and there, with no chance of being caught. From the outside, it looked like a battle between someone in the Fourth Chronicle and the Fifth one.

The difference in strength between them was too great.

However, despite the difficult situation, Ereg was smiling, he seemed to be enjoying the fact that every second Gael was attacking him, not even allowing him to take a break.

"Does he have some kind of plan or is he just enjoying what's going on?" Liang tilted his head in a puzzled manner.

Alucard shrugged, "I don't know. Probably neither option or maybe both at once. Either way, we'll soon find out what's going on here since at this rate, Ereg will just die of hemorrhaging."

The Beastfolks watched their leader with worry. They felt no hatred or anger towards Gael as they realized that this was all Ereg's decision, but they wanted their leader to win.

'Damn... This is bad...' Ereg internally muttered as Gael swept by him again at breakneck speed.

Gael continued to attack, not going to stop, he was willing to do so until Ereg would admit defeat if it was his opponent's will.

Crackle.

A long sword, with particles of ash stabbed into Ereg's stomach, this time Gael decided to linger for a moment in front of Ereg, staring intently into his eyes. 

"Is that still not enough? In a few attacks, there won't be a living spot left on you. You're completely covered in cuts, and blood is flowing nonstop from multiple gaps." Gael asked with sincere intent.

Ereg answered nothing, instead, he smirked and was taking a step forward, swinging his claws in an attempt to reach Gael.

Gael shrugged nonchalantly and took a few steps back, in complete control of the situation. The dark claws swept right in front of him, slicing through the air, but unable to reach their target that was so close and so far away at the same time.

A crack.

Gael jumped back, then rushed forward, making his most powerful attack in their long confrontation.

"Argh!!!" Ereg cried out in pain, this time unable to hold back as Gael's sword practically cut him in two.

Ereg's tough hide and dense muscles could protect him from almost anything, but it didn't work against an opponent of such outstanding skill.

Gael swung his sword, knocking the blood away while Ereg approached the ground, falling on it with a slight clatter and raising a cloud of dust.

In those few minutes, much of the arena had become covered in the blood of the Beastfolks Progenitor, dark and powerful but singular.

Gael's blood that came out of his body earlier had long since burned away, leaving no trace of itself.

"No way..." Nila muttered in disbelief, covering her mouth with the palm of her hand while her eyes trembled with fear.

She, like many other Beastfolks, was sure that Ereg had reached his limit because of the cocky decisions made earlier. 

His blood spread on the ground in many streams, spreading all around him. Ereg seemed to be struggling to breathe, very slowly and intermittently, as if his life was coming to an end.

Gael frowned, looking at his opponent in such a difficult situation.

He expected that Ereg had some kind of trump card or that Ereg was just waiting for the right moment to attack, but in the end, neither of those things happened.

Wain, Sven, Marlis and Osvald were also wary. To some extent, they were worried about Ereg, because now and in the past he had been partially on their side.

The Beastfolks were not their direct allies, but they were definitely not on the Arkans' side.

Even though they were memories, the intrigue was still there, since victories and defeats could be quite different as well as their effect on the fighters.

"Agh... It was painful, but at the same time pleasant and sad at the same time..." 

Ereg's faint voice spread through the colosseum, reaching the ears and minds of everyone who was there. All eyes were directed only at him, hardly anyone was looking at Gael.

Tremble. Tremble. Tremble.

A light pressure came from Ereg, who began to slowly rise from the ground. The pressure was gentle and slow, but with every second it grew stronger, as if Ereg's strength could grow an infinite number of times.

The blood continued to flow with hundreds of crimson droplets falling to the ground, with streams of steam passing near Ereg.

Gael was wary, he didn't understand what his opponent was doing: was he attacking, or was he trying to continue getting wounded?

"Thank you. You could have finished me off many times before, but you didn't do it because you hoped I would show you something worthy of your medium-sized scars in return." Ereg uttered as a sincere smile formed on his face.

Gael gave him a questioning look. It wasn't that he didn't understand what Ereg had said, he just wanted to understand why Ereg had gotten so many wounds.

"I see... You're puzzled. Well, before I show you the middle of my power as you did already, I wanted to feel what I felt a long time ago." Ereg shrugged as his gaze became slightly sad.

"I wanted to feel weak like I was the last time I fought you. Our fight was long, but in the end, you won and took my eye - my main scar and the only one I still don't want to heal.

It was painful to admit at the time, but I've changed a lot since that day, in some ways I've even grown up, though what I am to you is hundreds of years old. I wanted to feel it again since I won't have that opportunity again." Ereg uttered with a happy smile running all over his face.

Then, his blood began to shake as out of it came streams of darkness, thick and powerful, like a flame wanting to burn the whole world.

However, this time the darkness was different from what it had been before, or from any other darkness Gael or anyone else had seen.

"What is this...?" Liang muttered in confusion.

He had fought thousands of opponents in his lifetime and had seen them use a variety of attributes, from the most common such as fire and water, to the more complex such as gravity, magnetism, or mixed ones.

Except for Humans, all races could only have one basic attribute, however, the stronger a creature was, the more freedom it had to use its powers. Especially if it was someone on the Transcendence Stage.

This is why Ereg's attacks could create dark flames, even though fire was not an attribute of his. One would assume that he had a mixed attribute such as darkness and fire. 

In fact, Ereg's attribute was actually a mixed one, but it was a mixture of three attributes at once - one common, one rare, and one specific.

Tremble. Tremble. Tremble.

The darkness, now more like crimson blood, quite dark but not completely black, slowly rose up, enveloping the entire arena space around Gael.

"Blood and darkness... but there's something else here..." Gael muttered in disbelief, since a few hundred years ago Ereg couldn't use blood to enhance his attacks.

Ereg nodded, "Yeah, this darkness is as alive as phantoms, in a some way my bloody darkness is a summoned being."

Whooooooooooosh.

Ereg swung his hand, and some of the darkness traveled toward his wounds, healing him quickly. The remaining darkness, most of it, split into many clots that gradually turned into dozens of silhouettes.