Chapter 84: Battle Face
Purple and silver fire marked Darkscale's path while he darted with silent rage against the figure in the sky. The first dozen of feet he traversed had been already razed to a totally plane area by his previous accumulation and discharge of energy, making so that he didn't find anything to impede his path.
He was out of that zone in a couple of seconds, but he continued to spring without any hesitation in the same direction. The snake didn't seem to have any evident care about the numerous debris that littered the path he had chosen.
Rocks, broken pillars, statues, and even corpses were amassed in the area, pushed there by his previous use of Energy. A hurdle that blocked the way, making it impossible for anyone to pass them without first having to work hard on removing them in some way.
If someone wanted to be fast about it, they could try to climb the convulse mass of wreckage and remains. Naturally, it was incredibly more dangerous than the first option: people who took this approach could slip and be impaled on some sharp piece of bone or rock formation.
Running slip between the various rocks, giant carcasses, and skeletons? Well, that wouldn't be possible for most living creatures. Maybe someone in the size of a small mouse could do it. Darkscale though? No, he couldn't make it. Not even in his common form, where he was as small as a twig, he could manage to pass through that barrier. Let alone now that he had assumed the size of a large bull.
Yet, as if he didn't even consider the question, the snake continued his fast movements in direction of the white flame in the sky. He didn't even try to slow down a bit.
In a single instant he was already crashing against the first obstacle: a green mushroom with a broken cap, glowing with feeble light-green light. The plant was still attached to a large mass of hard soil at its base. The entire chunk of the earth where he had put its roots had been separated from the ground and now lied between the other random debris.
Darkscale didn't decrease his speed, nor did he stop. Yet, there was no crash. The mushroom, like anything that was behind it, became a soft mass of grey ashes an instant before coming in contact with the reptile's black and lucent scales.
How? It was the energy that spiraled around him. Ghost and Bloodline Power. His massive body was clothed in a flame-like armor of pure energy that not only disintegrated any obstacle that he crashed into, but also seemed able to propel him faster towards his objective.
He was like a burning arrow, devouring the few hundred feet of distance between him and the enemy that he was assaulting with silent ferocity.
Carelia. The MAID, someone that should have been just a simple Artificial Intelligence. She wasn't an AI, obviously. Now he knew it. She had a cultivation base, she didn't obey orders and even planned to harm him. Even a complete moron would have realized that she wasn't what she was supposed to be by now.
Darkscale didn't quite understand how and why someone like her had been pretending for so much time of being a simple servant without any free will. Normally he would be incredibly curious about the matter. However, now he was thinking only about how to get rid of her in the fastest way possible.
She was too dangerous to be left around simply to satisfy his curiosity. No matter how much he wanted to know why she had done all those things.
He needed to take her out now that he had an opening. There was a chance of winning! She was visibly in pain and distress from his massive surprise attack.
There she was in the sky, wearing Star Leaf's skin and still vomiting large amounts of dark dense black liquid. That black thing smelled like blood and at the same time it wasn't blood. Darkscale could sense that peculiar scent. It was something between death and blood without being any of them.
What he did know was that whatever that black liquid was, it wasn't something that she seemed to enjoy. She trembled in pain every time she vomited a new mouthful, her eyes reddening, even more, each time she did so.
The Ghost Energy around her wavered dangerously, a symptom that she was losing control of it. In fact, after a while, a large chunk of silver power started to separate from the main mass and dissipate in the air around her.
A familiar silver fog began to form around the white flame. White shadows danced in the mist, enacting different scenes. Yet, her Ghost Power seemed very much more devious than the one that Darkscale had accumulated.
When he released his own silver energy in the air, a similar mist appeared, but the figures in the said mist were doing all sort of activities. Some were in pain and dying, but there were also many of them in completely normal situations: talking with other figures, fighting, simply sitting and watching the sky, etc.
The MAID's white mist was undoubtedly more devious: in every scene composed by the silhouettes, there was the same tall and masked figure that was torturing some other human. It was disturbing and horrifying.
Carelia, however, didn't seem to notice any of the things that were happening around her at all. She looked in pain and absolutely shocked by what had happened to her.
It looked like the surprise attack that Darkscale was planning before would have surely worked if he had found in himself the patience to wait until she was near enough. Considering her inability to even keep a large portion of her own force from collapsing in the air around her, the serpent would have been surely able to kill the traitor in a single move if he waited.
'Too bad'
The serpent regretted a little his decision of breaking character and attacking Carelia so directly, but he simply wasn't able to control himself when he saw Star Leaf in such a state. She was living a fate that was clearly worse than death itself, worn like a piece of clothing and reduced to a horrifying state in a few hours.
'For all my plans and plots, I'm starting to act like those silly humans that lost their lives protecting her'
Darkscale remembered them. Humans of her tribe, dying to save her from the Fire-Earth raiders. At the same, he had thought them to be utter fools.
'No, they are still fools... they motives and mines are completely different. I need her to enter to the Heavenly Reptile Sect. That's all!'
The justification sounded unconvincing even inside Darkscale's mind. However, he just cleaned his thoughts and focused on what he was doing. He had already made his move, spending his time trying to figure out if it was the correct one would only make him get killed.
No matter why he did it, he had already done it. The only chance for survival now was to kill Carelia! The fake MAID had been affected even more than what he had thought by his attack. Now he needed to capitalize on it.
A line of silver energy began to draw a complex set of marks on his face. White lines shined on his dark body, transforming his already scary expression into what looked like a mask of war.
It was more than some silly way to look more imposing: runes, an array made to control better his signature move!
Normally he would draw it on the ground, taking way more space. But now he needed to attack, so he had to put it on his own body.
Darkscale chose his face because it was the place he would defend with more ferocity. If he was hit there, probably he would die. Especially against someone like the foe he was now facing.
So it was truly the safest place where to store his array for the Heavenly Battleground Technique.
Darkscale's fangs snapped open when he arrived right under the flying white fire. The marks on his face started humming, releasing a power that the reptile waved with other two to form a small black vortex with silver lighting tendrils running on its surface between his jaws.
A terrifying suction power started to affect all ghost power in the area, even that under the control of the haunted woman in the air.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone