Raijin assumed a deep fighting stance, his feet pressed deep into the pulverized marble. His senses, honed to the smallest electrical shifts in the atmosphere, picked up the exact point of intersection. Precisely at the moment when the trajectories of Beat and Blitz passed each other in a deadly crossing motion, Raijin launched himself forward. Like a burning comet of pure, destructive electricity, he shot toward the intersection, his four fists ready to pulverize them in a single clash.
“I HAVE YOU!” Raijin roared.
But the titan’s calculation went wrong.
“Think again!” Beat’s voice echoed from everywhere at once.
At the exact moment of impact, Beat flashed with an impossible burst of speed directly above Raijin’s head. Simultaneously, Blitz flashed straight toward Beat’s open palm. Beat grabbed the cobalt-blue cloud in mid-flight, balled every muscle until they cracked, and shot Blitz downward with a brutal, whipping motion like a living, electrical missile.
“FRIEEEEEND!!” Blitz shrieked, transforming into a razor-sharp drill of pure blue plasma.
The charged projectile form of Blitz drilled with terrifying precision straight into Raijin’s stomach.
The impact was catastrophic. A blinding, spherical explosion of blue plasma opened in the center of the hall, blowing away the remaining pillars as if they were matchsticks. The immense forward momentum carried Raijin’s massive body; he was launched and flew backward at a breakneck speed, straight through the gigantic throne carved out of lightning. The structure shattered into thousands of sharp shards as Raijin slammed hard against the back wall, remaining still beneath the heavy rubble with a loud thunderclap.
It remained dead silent for a fraction of a second, save for the settling dust.
Then, the pile of debris began to glow intensely. The energy around the titan shifted; the atmosphere grew heavier, darker, and so suffocating that breathing felt like inhaling liquid lead. With a brutal jerk, Raijin rammed the heavy stones off himself as he rose to his feet. His form changed drastically. On either side of his temples, two massive, curved Oni horns broke through his skin with a loud SNAP, leaving blood and sparks in their wake. With a terrifying crunch of shifting bones and muscles, his shoulders split to make room for two additional, intensely muscular arms. Four massive fists clenched simultaneously, each surrounded by surging currents of black and blue lightning.
“NOT ENOUGH YET!!” Raijin bellowed, his voice now double-layered and terrifyingly cruel. “NOW IT TRULY BEGINS!”
With a ferocious roar, the transformed Raijin launched the attack, ready to smash the reality before him to pieces with his four arms.
Blitz reacted immediately. “I’ve got your back, Beat! He’s going crazy!” The corrupted cloud began firing heavy power surges and thick bolts of lightning all across the space like a madman, creating an impenetrable, chaotic network of blue energy pathways that partitioned the hall into compartments.
Right through these chaotic streamlines, Beat began to materialize, his Oni form glowing brighter than ever. Raijin spotted him, bringing his four fists forward with an all-destroying force to finally crush the intruder and seal the clash.
“DIE!!” the titan dendered.
The four fists slammed together with the force of a severe earthquake, creating a shockwave that tore the temple hall open to the bare sky. But the strike hit only thin, crackling air. At the exact moment of impact, there was... absolutely no one there.
“What?!” Raijin yelled, his four eyes wide open in rage.
Before he could regain his balance, Blitz appeared in successive micro-flashes everywhere and nowhere around his head, leaving a trail of bright, blinding static sparks in his field of vision to blind him.
“Over here! And here! And there!” Blitz teased.
Out of the very last glint in the air directly above Raijin’s unguarded flank, a rapidly spinning figure suddenly materialized.
It was Beat. He held his rotation perfectly, completely hidden within the bright lightning of Blitz’s distraction, and initiated an insane acceleration at the very last moment that caused the air to burst. With the built-up centrifugal force, he flashed narrowly past the titan’s four defensive arms.
“Too slow, Raijin!” Beat shouted.
With a raw exertion of power, he drove his heel straight into the titan’s face with a heavy, downward kick, the impact triggering a blue explosion of pure light that shook the entire mountain peak.
The gigantic boom of Beat’s kick still echoed through the gaping opening of the destroyed temple roof. The smoke slowly cleared, revealing Raijin. The titan stood there, his four arms resting alongside his massive body. Where the kick had hit him, his skin still glowed bright blue, but instead of anger, a wide, toothy grin appeared on his face. He rubbed his jaw with one of his gigantic hands, laughed deeply from his chest, and stood unwavering and proud.
“HAHAHA! Damn impressive!” Raijin dendered, spreading his four arms. “That’s the spirit! You surprised me, both of you!”
Beat landed on the marble debris with a heavy thud, his breathing heavy and rasping while his Oni form flickered wildly. Blitz hovered tiredly toward his shoulder, his bright blue glow already starting to dim slowly back to the familiar gold-white. “We... we hit him, friend...” the little cloud puffed.
“Yeah, we did,” Beat said with a tired but proud grin. “So, big guy? Was it enough?”
Raijin looked at them, his eyes gleaming with deep respect. “More than enough for today. You’ve proven that you are worthy of the connection. And therefore...”
Before Beat or Blitz could react, Raijin shot forward with impossible speed. His massive fists moved like flashes of lightning. In a fraction of a second, his left hand grabbed Beat tightly by his collar while his right hand enclosed the spiritual substance of Blitz.
“What are you doing?!” Beat yelled, trying to break free, but Raijin’s grip was like a vise of pure titanium.
“Let me go, big drum man!” Blitz struggled, his vaporous body darting wildly back and forth between the gigantic fingers.
Raijin merely laughed, and suddenly an immense, high-frequency current began to flow through his arms. A blinding, crackling discharge of cobalt-blue electricity poured directly into their bodies. The current activated every cell in Beat’s body and filled Blitz’s spiritual core to the absolute boiling point. It didn’t hurt, but the pure overload of energy was overwhelming.
“Beat, think further!” Raijin called out over the shrieking sound of the current, his voice suddenly dead serious and demanding. “You possess all of my power! Everything is already inside you! And remember well: drums are not just for music! Remember the rhythm of matter!”
“What... what do you mean by—” Beat tried to utter, but his voice was drowned out by the vibration of the energy.
“Time to head back to where you belong!” Raijin bellowed.
With a brutal, fluid motion, the titan threw his four arms up and hurled them out of the destroyed roof with terrifying force. The launch was so powerful that Beat and Blitz shot straight through the pitch-black sky like two razor-sharp lightning bolts, splitting the clouds in their slipstream. The world around them blurred into a haze of pure speed and sonic booms.
Right through the insane overload and the flashes, Beat’s instinct kicked in. His brain ran on pure survival mode, but deep within his memory, Juro’s technique flashed into mind. The trick with the smoke to track and hear people, which Beat had copied and converted into a minimal, constant electrical frequency on Silarias and Aurelius, now became his lifeline. That subtle electrical charge on his mates acted like a gigantic magnet in the far distance. His own overloaded energy locked onto the beacon and pulled the lightning bolt with an impossible course correction straight toward that specific point.
FLASH!
In a fraction of a second, they breached the barriers of space. Drawn by the beacon, they shot straight into the room where Aurelius and Silarias were sleeping with a final, silent flash of light.
Beat slammed hard onto the empty mattress of the bed, the kinetic energy instantly draining from his body and leaving him with a heavy feeling of absolute exhaustion. The Oni form retreated completely back into his body. Blitz spun a few more times through the air and then collapsed at the foot of the bed like a limp, exhausted pile of vapor.
The intense energy drain from the encounter with Raijin struck mercilessly. Beat felt his eyelids weigh a ton. He barely managed to open one eye a tiny fraction to look at the foot of the bed where the little cloud lay smoldering, now knowing they had been safely dropped off with the rest.
“Phew... what a... greeting can do... haha... and to think that old smoke-head’s tricks would still come in handy haha... zzzz,” Beat murmured with a weak smile, after which his head rolled to the side and he instantly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Blitz lifted his little head a millimeter, his eyes half-open and cloudy with sleep. The gold-white glow had almost completely died down to a soft, warm shine.
“Friend...?” Blitz whispered in a raspy little voice, looking at the snoring Beat.
Without waiting for an answer, the little cloud collapsed for good. He went completely KO, surrendering to the much-needed rest after the insane battle on the mountain peak.
The night progressed slowly, and a serene, deep silence settled over the vast tournament complex. The storm that had raged in the spiritual world left no trace in the physical reality.
In one of the beds, Silarias lay sleeping peacefully, his breathing calm and steady, with the minimal, invisible electrical frequency of Beat’s tracker still softly pulsing on his skin. A door down, Jeshua sat in his own room in the dead of night. He sat in a perfect, motionless lotus position, deeply immersed in an intense meditative trance to balance his own powers, completely KO to the outside world. And in the room where Beat had just crashed, Aurelius now lay fast asleep side by side with his mate, recovering from everything the day had brought them.
On the other side of the territory, far beyond the walls of the complex, an icy wind cut through the pitch-black night. The moon stood high, casting a haunting, silver light over the deserted paths. The horses moved at a walking pace, their hooves striking the frozen earth with a slow, monotonous rhythm, while their deep breaths hung in the cold air like thick, white clouds of steam.
But within the group, the exhaustion had now visibly escalated into a deep, collective coma. The grueling journey had squeezed every last ounce of energy from their bodies. The monotonous swaying of the wagons and the heavy cadence of the saddles had turned into an irresistible, hypnotic force.
Nyx sat slumped deep in her saddle, her body completely limp and moving along with the slow steps of her horse. Her chin rested deep on her chest and her eyes were tightly shut, fully sunken into a heavy sleep. Pressed against her body lay Miki, who had curled up like a small, lifeless bundle in the folds of her cloak, deep in the land of dreams.
In the wagons behind her, the situation was no different. Jane lay fallen back against the wooden wall, her head tilted uncomfortably to the side. Nicola, Clla, and Lyn were slumped against each other like dominoes, their limbs heavy and limp, surrendered to the cold night breeze that brushed across their pale, sleeping faces. No one moved. No one was alert anymore. The entire group of girls was exhausted to the bone and had gone completely KO during the ride.
As the night slowly slipped away and the first subtle purple hues of early morning began to color the horizon, the faithfully trotting horses pushed forward on autopilot. The girls slept on undisturbed, while the shadow of the immense tournament complex now fell meters thick over them. They had arrived.