CHAPTER 581: PRIDE, VIOLENCE AND ANGER

The six fists formed twelve as they collided against each other, scattering crackling bolts of chaos in all directions. The two remained at a stalemate, their mutual elements clashing.

Liam’s chaos hissed against Ravaak’s.

His was purer than the Ashura’s!

But Ravaak’s physical strength was off the charts. Liam was getting pushed back, his feet sliding over the stones. He was being towered over.

And that was when Ravaak gave a roar a few inches away from Liam’s face. Even having anticipated it and disabling his hearing, Liam couldn’t stop the vibrations from wreaking havoc to his insides.

He coughed up a mouthful of white blood, but he didn’t budge.

He took a soft step back, pivoted and let Ravaak stagger forward, taken aback by the sudden lack of resistance. Then, clasping six arms into one, he hammered the back of Ravaak’s head.

His head jolted downward with a mighty force, and Liam could swear he heard a crack amidst the riot.

But he’d be a fool if he thought the battle would be decided that quickly.

Liam stepped to safety and Ravaak slowly raised his head, fixing his eyes with Liam.

The Ashura smiled.

It looked odd, since its face was the manifestation of an oni.

With slow, rhythmic steps, Ravaak moved forward.

Liam could sense a change in the Ashura’s gait and form. His bottom two arms had been lowered. His middle arms had been leveled. And his upper arms had been raised.

It formed a hypnotic hexagon. An impregnable defense and unrelenting offense.

Liam had no time to admire it. Instead, he imitated his technique, making minute adjustments to it on the fly. They weren’t the same size, after all.

Ravaak’s slow walk had shifted in a blink. He launched off his right foot and appeared beside Liam, his lower arms reaching at him to wrap around anything it could find.

Liam slipped away like fish in water. He suffered a nasty blow to his side in the process, forming a deep dent in his brass armor.

Immediately after receiving the hit, Ravaak unleashed a relentless assault. One after the other, fists rained on Liam’s body.

He defended as many attacks as he could, but Ravaak’s speed matched his strength. He was faster, stronger and evidently a greater hand-to-hand fighter.

Liam’s features twisted. Parts of his armor were started to dent more and more. It was a testament to the armor’s power that it hadn’t begun to break... but any more physical trauma, cracks would form soon enough.

If Liam’s physique was this durable, what did that say about Ravaak’s? A pure blooded Ashura with no tampering to its biological code.

Liam bided his time. He tanked, deflected and blocked, while Ravaak hadn’t stopped mauling him from all directions.

Then, Liam reached into his Path. His Spider Lily.

All six petals dried up in an instant.

Liam’s fists glowed with a dark red energy.

From the glimmer in his eye, Ravaak must have realized the threat. However, he made no mention of running away or retreating. Instead, his fists surged with even greater amounts of Chaos, the red veins weaving across his body brightening up.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Liam tried to take advantage of an opening, but he’d failed.

Ravaak managed to grab a hold of Liam’s leg, fling him upwards and kick him like a football to the far side of the colosseum.

Liam managed to soften the landing, but there was no time to catch his breath.

Ravaak was ruthless.

In a flash, he was downward swinging his hexa arms at Liam’s head.

Just then, Liam surprised the Ashura with a burst of abrupt strength. Using the same exact technique the Ashura did when attempting to blow the wall apart, Liam imitated it to near perfection.

It landed square in Ravaka’s solar plexus and made a satisfying crack as it did so. The crack wasn’t from Ravaak’s armor, though, it came from Liam. All of his fists had cracked in half.

But what happened to Ravaak was worse.

When Liam awakened his Path — his Spider Lily — he realized it came with three different abilities. It had 3 qualities after all: Chaos, Blood and Death.

He’d yet to figure Blood and Death out.

But for Chaos, it was Resonance. He didn’t even need to land Resonance physically. It could be done from a close but separate distance.

However, hitting the target and applying Resonance definitely produced a superior result.

What Liam didn’t know, was how well Resonance synergized with Liam’s Ashura Form.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOOM!

From within Ravaak came six resounding booms, as if he’d been struck from every direction at once. He staggered back, thrown off balance, and collapsed, coughing up a mouthful of milky blood.

His armor had worked against him in this case. It further compressed the explosions, damaging his insides in focused spots rather than spreading out the blast.

One blast hit Ravaak’s shoulder. Another his solar plexus, thigh and abdomen. But by chance, two of the explosions hit the Ashura’s head at the same time, stunning him and breaking the skin on his forehead.

It was Liam’s turn to grin like a demon. If there was any time to strike, it was now.

With half his Chaos reserves left, he condensed a third into an orb and hurled it at Ravaak’s face, immediately running right behind it.

BOOM!

The orb burst apart, extending Ravaak’s reverie and discombobulating him.

That was when Liam latched onto him like a feral monkey, two of his hands wrapping around the monster’s neck.

KRSH! KSH! KSH! KRSH!

Liam hammered Ravaak’s head with wild, relentless blows, over and over and over again, driving him to his back.

Once his skull hit the ground, each strike landed with greater force and precision, no longer needing two arms to pin his neck.

Liam paid back Ravaak’s hits in full plus interest. He punched and punched until his fists broke and his throat ran dry from roaring.

There was no thought in his head.

Only pride, violence and anger.