(Intermission) Destined Lovers or Enemies - Chapter 5: Colliding Soul Powers

Chapter 5: Colliding Soul Powers

Zeth and Sasha face each other while using Soul Power. Sasha smiles with sadistic desire.

“Ready?” Sasha asks with anticipation.

“Ready as I will ever be!” Zeth shouts, ready to put Sasha down once and for all.

Zeth starts dashing toward Sasha, his fists clenched. He tries to punch Sasha, but she blocks it with her arm. Zeth then quickly strikes her in the face with his elbow. He follows up with another punch, but Sasha grabs his arms and starts repeatedly punching him in the face.

Zeth stops her attacks by kicking her in the gut to knock her back into the area with a lot of trees, where she regains her footing.

Zeth forms a handful of Soul Shards and throws them in Sasha’s direction. They don’t go directly toward Sasha, but rather to the trees right by her and slice through them. The trees start to fall over onto Sasha. She jumps away from them but is then hit by a Soul Shine Blast that explodes on contact. She is further damaged with more wounds.

Zeth launches toward her and slams her down onto the ground, holding her down with his right arm. He raises his left arm up and starts condensing his aura in it, focusing his gaze down on Sasha.

“I’ll finish this!” Zeth shouts with determination. “Your head is coming off!! Soul Raging Star Zothena!!”

Before Zeth can use his razor-sharp aura to cut off Sasha’s head, he is punched in the face by a Hell Ape, knocking him off of Sasha and into a tree. The tree falls over upon him colliding into it.

Sasha stands up and smirks mockingly. “Tsk, tsk. You really should be more aware of my creatures.”

Sasha holds out her right arm and charges magic into it. “This will hurt… a lot. Demon Soul Beam!”

A beam in the shape of a monstrous demon head is released from Sasha’s hand toward Zeth. Zeth opens his eyes wide, seeing the powerful beam head straight for him. He scrambles out of the way just barely as the beam travels along and blasts through a lot of trees.

The Hell Ape dashes furiously after Zeth. The aura on Zeth’s right arm spins and forms a galaxy.

Zeth focuses on the Hell Ape with a sharp glare. “It’s time you took a nap! Galaxy Blast!”

Zeth raises his arm upward, leading to a short beam of orange energy releasing from the ground beneath the Hell Ape. The beam tears into its body and kills it, the remains of its body falling lifelessly to the ground.

Zeth looks over to where Sasha was standing and doesn’t see her there anymore.

Zeth thinks to himself. “Where did she go!?”

Sasha drops down from the top of a tree and begins thrusting her foot downward in a kick, pounding into Zeth’s back on her way down. She now has Zeth pinned to the ground.

Sasha licks her lips as she starts pulling on Zeth’s arms.

She smiles sadistically with a hint of pleasure. “I’m going to rip off your arms!”

Zeth’s brows lower as his eyes blaze with fury.

“No!!” Zeth yells with anger.

Zeth releases a wave of his soul energy, and it blows into Sasha, knocking her off him.

Zeth quickly gets up and starts his furious rush. He closes in on her and tries to punch her, but she thrusts her own fist forward so they end up punching each other in the face. Their punches force each other to back up slightly, both rubbing their faces due to the pain.

Sasha, oddly, starts running backwards while still facing Zeth, who immediately gives chase. They both start repeatedly throwing punches, with most of their punches landing blows.

However, Sasha eventually jumps over Zeth and kicks him in the back. The kick causes Zeth’s body to roll across the ground until he stops at a tree. He sits up and rubs his back for just a moment until he looks over at Sasha. He opens his eyes wide, seeing that Sasha is shaded dark as a large glowing yellow summon ring forms behind her. Emerging from the summon ring is a darkened 15-foot-tall monster that looks like a 4-legged creature. Its body figure is dragon-like but is mostly beast-like. Its thick hair, made of purple flames, starts at the top of its head and goes throughout its back. The beast’s eyes glow with a yellow color that can only be described as radiant.

“Behold!!” Sasha proudly announces with a thunderous voice, “My strongest creature!! Ultensmite!!”

Zeth stands up, his eyes seemingly shivering, and his breaths heavy and deep.

“Ooooh shit…” Zeth slowly says in fear.

Sasha holds her arms out wide as she shouts, “Burn him to ash!!

Ultensmite releases a wide blast of purple flames from its mouth. With nowhere to run, Zeth is caught directly in the purple flames. The flames incinerate all of the surrounding trees and plant life.

The attack ends, and there is nothing left of the trees but the darkest ashes. Emerging from the dissipating flames is Zeth. He has activated his Soul Light Shield to decrease damage taken from the attack. Still, he looks more hurt than before.

Zeth thinks to himself. “That thing is a major threat. Still, I can take it down.”

Zeth starts running toward Sasha and Ultensmite, seemingly fearless.

“What a fool,” Sasha says before commanding, “Fire off some quick shots!”

Rather than one continuous burst of purple flames, Ultensmite begins shooting out continuous purple fireballs. Zeth sidesteps and jumps to dodge them while still heading toward Sasha and Ultensmite. Once he finishes dodging them all, he ends his Soul Light Shield and starts forming something in his right hand. Sasha roll-jumps in front of Ultensmite, who then adds purple flames to her body to make her a purple flame ball.

Ultensmite grabs her as the purple flame ball and throws her at blazing speed toward Zeth.

In the meantime, Zeth has formed a red star, covered in soul energy, in his hand.

Zeth urgently thinks to himself. “She’s coming!! Improvise!!”

*Sasha, as the purple flame ball, slams into Zeth. At the same time, Zeth pushes the star into the purple flame ball.

Zeth is blown back and yells, “I hope you like my gift!”

At the same time, Sasha is pushed back in the opposite direction toward Ultensmite due to the star pushing against her.

Sasha screams in shock, “What!!?”

When she reaches Ultensmite, the star explodes, an explosion so large that it engulfs the area. The vast majority of trees and wildlife have been thoroughly destroyed.

After the explosion clears, Zeth is lying on his back in bad shape. He coughs up a lot of blood. But, in spite of all, he sits up. He takes a moment to refocus himself.

“That was incredibly painful. But I hope they enjoyed that Soul Super Nova,” Zeth says in pain.

Zeth now fully stands up and heads back to where they were fighting, hoping to see that he has emerged victorious in the battle.

There are purple and orange flames throughout the area as a result of their attacks, burning what little remains of the surrounding area. Zeth sees Sasha, still alive.

Sasha stands up, and like Zeth, she is also heavily injured. Ultensmite appears to be down for the count. Sasha looks at Zeth with exhaustion.

Sasha breathes heavily as she tries to speak, blood dripping from her lips. “It looks like we both took a beating…” She pants.

Sasha then looks at Ultensmite, who can no longer stand.

“It’s okay…” Sasha weakly says. “I will unsummon you now.”

The summoning ring appears around Ultensmite, and the beast’s body sinks into it.

Zeth and Sasha face each other, both battered and bloody, while they both still have Soul Power active. They both lean forward a bit as if they struggle to even stay standing.

Breathing heavily, Zeth mutters, “It doesn’t look like either of us can take much more of this. Let’s finish this.”

Narrator: Zeth and Sasha will continue to fight… until one of them drops dead.

Chapter 5 END

To be Continued in DLoE – Chapter 6: Running on Empty