Power Exam

The old man crossed his arms fully seated into his curiosity now. He wanted to know what Yumi had in store for their fight. If it meant a better fight he was willing to give her the time that she needed. “What do you have to show me?”

Her fingers pressed to her skin around her neck revealing a soft blue glowing band that wrapped around her. If it had been any other situation it might have seemed like she tried to make a fashion statement with a high-tech looking choker. Yumi thought back to the conversation with Saki reliving the moment.

“Do you think this will work?” she asked Saki, it being her idea even if she was the one doing it. Their powers were still very new and the limits of what they could do seemed unknown and sometimes limitless.

Saki nodded to her, encouraging to continue. “It’ll be like having training weights on. You’ll see better results from it than just sparring alone.” She had far more confidence about what they were doing than Yumi. It was something that Eudokia inspired from them, as bad of an idea as it was to mine her for plans. But she created something similar for herself to limit her. In theory, it could work like this as well. A bit of shaky ground for Yumi, but she trusted Saki with the plan. “Just make sure you remove it before the fight. Don’t go in giving yourself a handicap out of pride.”

“Right!”

‘I didn’t really listen to her on that. I just wanted to see how far I had come.’ Though having fought Hokuren, she could see now why Saki told her. It was like she said, ending a fight quickly and cleanly is the only right way. Yumi failed to do that with him.

The band of light around her neck increased in intensity blocking out part of her face. “While I was preparing for our fight today, we came up with a training method for me. Something that would help to increase my power quickly since I didn’t have a lot of time. Even I don’t know how much of a difference this is going to make.”

“Then let’s hope your bold claim has merit.”

‘It had better or else this is as far as I go…Saki…’ Deactivating the self imposed seal, the light completely engulfed her body. Rumbling in the earth began as small rocks started to fall over the crater’s edge. Cracks slowly spread out from where Yumi stood.

Hokuren lowered his arms, actually feeling the pressure coming off of her power. Her boasting of a power increase hadn’t been merely bravado. ‘She’s got potential. She might work after all…’ It was enough to get an instinctual response from his body. A mixture of excitement and wonder fell over him as she unlocked her power for him. Just feeling the power that she bled out into the air stirred up old memories.

Days of sparring and battles to the death. A long missed, yet never forgotten homeland. Towering mountains and aetherial streams of life flowing. The thick rich smell of blood and sweat drowning in war cries. Hokuren didn’t know how long it had been since he relived those fond memories. It threatened to stir up his yearning for home that he accepted as lost to him forever. Tears almost arose. “It’s been quite some time since I’ve looked forward to battle.”

Yumi finally revealed herself from the light with no visible change to her, but the air around her trembled. She tested and flexed her hands having not felt free of the restraints of the seal for several days. It tied her down in more than just power, but her physical abilities as well. This was far more than she anticipated in a difference. It felt like she had been born anew, barely recognizing it. ‘I feel different, like this isn’t my body anymore…’

Chapter 459 – Power Exam

Witnessing the release of her power left a small chill at the back of his neck. The pressure her power exerted on the air without even doing anything wasn’t something he ever felt from a human before. A bit of a small grin surfaced on his lips for a brief moment. It broke his constant casual poker face that he wore for the fight.

She saw the flicker of emotion that slipped into his face. It acted like a signal to her. In an instant, she nearly seemed to teleport, having completely disappeared from his sights. Earth behind her exploded only after she finished with her punch to his face. In the between moments of time, Hokuren’s body launched into the air far away from the Capital. As time ticked slowly away the force she used shot back through the Earth finally detonating. Chunks of earth carved out and then nearly atomized in the next moment as the shockwave ripped through, completely destroying her side of the crater.

It genuinely took him by surprise the speed of Yumi and strength. He needed more than a few seconds to be able to recover himself in the air. Grabbing at the air, he stabilized himself. The Capital was long out of sight of them. ‘She sent me this far…’ He felt a bit of a drip of blood realizing that she actually wounded him. Even as he slid over the air in recovery she appeared in front of them. ‘She’s completely changed…’

The Demon Lord crashed into the earth in a massive crater that altered the landscape. A pillar of smoke rose up out of the destruction completely blanketing the area. Yumi arrived at the location staring down looking for where he might be. She couldn’t even see the edge of the crater.

She didn’t have to wait long for him as the pressure of the air rapidly increased to match her. A glow of demonic energy filled the gray clouds tainting them green. The feeling immediately came back to her recalling her last encounter with a Demon Lord. ‘It doesn’t feel as overpowering as before…’ Hokuren was likely stronger than that one, so she wasn’t sure why the intensity wasn’t the same. A moment later the force of his released energy ripped the clouds away.

Yumi finally saw Hokuren again, but he looked far more serious about the fight than before, even though his expression hadn’t changed. Maybe it was the pressure of his energy that gave her that feeling. She just knew that he was finally looking at her.

In an instant, Yumi disappeared for a moment, popping up in front of him, but this time he caught her fist. All of the excess energy bleeding off her erupted and flared shooting broken shockwaves into the crater. Rock and earth cracked, unable to hold together being tossed back in a blast of smoke that covered everything. ‘He blocked me this time…figured he would close the gap.’

It wasn’t something that surprised her. Given the pressure that she felt coming off him, she would have been disappointed if he didn’t match her. But it remained a question in her mind at how much further he would go. She had no one to scale her power against as she never used this much energy before. Even the previous Demon Lord that she faced couldn’t really feel like she knew how it compared. Hokuren was powerful, likely the most powerful of any demon that she would ever face. That was all she could guess at right now, but she couldn’t figure out how that sat with the rest and how close to his limit that he truly was.

All that remained for her was to keep pushing him with her power until he reached his plateau. Even with her unlocked power, she had no idea where her’s sat either. Their sparring matches and training never allowed her to go all out against Saki. ‘My body feels so strange like this, as though it isn’t even me…’

Yumi leapt back, finding some footing for herself on the uneven ground. She stopped worrying about controlling her power leaving it to be far more destructive than she had practiced. It wasn’t something that she could think about facing down the demon. Everything that she had to go into the fight.

“You’re a remarkable human.”

“I’m not finished!”

“Keep showing me more then.”

Resuming their fight, Yumi charged in focusing still on her martial abilities trained to her by Saki. The matching reaction times of Hokuren meant that they were mostly just parrying and blocking each other. But the impact they made each time continued to alter the landscape. The crater crumbled from the force of their hits, starting to become a rolling basin that looked more like hills if it weren’t for the scattered rocks that piled up.

Yumi caught his arm allowing her to throw him into the ground, but as he landed on his back he grappled with her and tossed her into the rocks. He kicked off the ground flying at her, embedding his arm into the pile as he missed. Grabbing his arm, she struggled with him trying to reverse their position. Breaking his balance on his legs, she pulled him into the pile slamming his back against the rocks. He pulled with her keeping their countering going, casting her face first into the rocks. Yumi used a leg pin maneuver that she picked up from Saki to throw him down.

Her still fresh familiarity with the move didn’t make it a perfect execution making it easy for him to escape. The Demon Lord countered her to chuck her to the other side of the basin. He sprinted after her, but she landed on the rocks with ease flipping up as he crashed into the side. Yumi grabbed him with her feet as she flipped back down to throw him into the ground. His strength pulled her free of his neck and flung her into the ground with him.

Their wrestling through the changing crater started to make the earth unstable. Previously unknown caverns below them finally folded upon themselves, the ceiling no longer able to support their titanic powers. Rapidly crumbling around them like a sinkhole, the two were swallowed up by the rocks as everything fell in upon itself.

Yumi fell on her back a few meters away from Hokuren. Sunlight bled through the new opening in the cave in shafts of light that danced through the dust in the air. The cave system appeared to be vast with the room that they dropped into fell into darkness before walls could be seen. Rocks continued to tumble down crashing into the uneven floor.

She quickly got up on her feet as the Demon Lord stared down at her. They immediately clashed, knocking away all of the rumble around them with a single blocked fist. He then turned hitting her with his elbow sending her flying back through a stone pillar. Yumi pulled herself to a stop as Hokuren appeared in front of her, knocking her back again. Her body crashed through the wall and earth popping out into another room of the cave.

Unlike previously, despite the powerful hits, it only dazed her a little bit. She turned her head up seeing him fly through the hole that he made with her. Disappearing with a sudden burst of speed, she grabbed his legs spinning him around before releasing him into the wall. She kicked up a large chunk of rock directing her telekinetic powers into it with her punch creating a projectile rather than crushing it under the intensity of her power.

Creating shockwaves from the mach speeds of the projectile, it ripped through the cave room and widened the hole before it smashed into the Lord. The ground quaked from the impact with stalactites cracking and falling.

Only appearing a little scuffed up by the attack, Hokuren stepped out of the hole with only their auras of energy lighting the darkened room. “Your strength continues to increase. I’m glad to have met a warrior like you.”

“If I didn’t know better I’d say that you were smiling.” He almost seemed happy to be able to fight her, not even thinking about the fact that she was trying to kill him. It might have even been possible that he didn’t even remember that he wanted to kill her as well. Yumi found it a little puzzling that he was enjoying it more than the lethal blows that they tried to make.

“I wouldn’t be the only one.”

Yumi ground her teeth together and jumped back to resume their battle. “I’m not like you demons that love to fight for only that sake!” She grappled with him as they battled with their feet trying to break their balance. Their energies flared up with the intensity mounting in their clash.

Breaking her hold as he caught a moment of weakness, he delivered a direct hit to her sending her flying through several cave rooms. He covered the ground quickly to catch up to her. “An honest warrior is stronger than a deceitful one.”