Screaming, he turned and hurled Ion across
the room with a deadly speed. The boy went flying in an unbroken
straight line, then crashed through the wreckage at the other side
of the room.
Zardin kicked aside another piece of scrap
lying his way lazily, strolling forward carefreely. Ion, who lay
buried in the debris across the other end of the room, slowly dug
his way out, emerging with a moan of pain.
“You’ve chosen to ignore the truth, Ion.”
said Zardin, walking forth. “You’ve chosen to ignore where you
belong.”
A fresh surge of fury hit Ion: he got to his
feet hastily and then stood there, glaring at Zardin with his
orange eyes flared.
“I do not belong with
you
.” He
growled.
Zardin smiled at him, stopping a few feet
from him. They stood there, feet away, looking at each other, with
the air around them seeming to simmer with menace. Another brief
trembling broke over the place. And a scream sounded from somewhere
far off.
“No,” said Zardin. “I speak of
inner
belonging, dear boy. And you know there’s that side of you which
had controlled you a few years back. That side…” He gave a pleasant
nod, his smile curving longer. “That … is the side of your own self
that you belong with. That is who you really are, and you know
it.”
Ion’s features filled with rage, sweeping
away the fear in an instant. He ignited his sword and came hurtling
towards Zardin, a wild battle cry tearing from him.
__________
Mantra panted for breath as he raced down the
corridor, hot on his rival’s feet. Redgarn cast a fleeting glance
back at Mantra, a demonic grin on his lips. But Mantra was looking
at the object he clutched with both hands in front of him. The
crystal.
In the midst of the fight, Redgarn had,
gaining a sliver of dominance, thrust his hand into Mantra’s pocket
and gotten hold of the crystal. Mantra felt his lungs torn,
airless, as he sprinted behind the world’s scariest nightmare.
Trying to prevent it from coming to life.
They can’t leave with
the crystal!
They flew past another duel between two
cloaked figures with flaming swords clashing at the side of the
corridor. Which one was Xeni and which Nyon, it couldn’t be
told.
Redgarn reached the end of the corridor
ahead, which split into two. He swerved and shot down the left one,
with Mantra bursting forth behind him.
A group of Rash-cons were ganging on one of
the Nyon, who was backing off to the corridor’s wall at the heavy
assault. His blazing sword spun rapidly as he blocked the tirade of
shots fired at him. Redgarn streaked on without bothering, while
Mantra felled two of the robots just on his way, leaving the
others: he knew there was no time to help his comrade any further.
Far more had now been put at stake…
Faster … faster.
The distance between
the two of them was dwindled slowly, as Mantra fuelled his legs
with every bit of energy his eight thousand year old body could
afford. As they tore forth, the two ancient mystics’ speed would
have come close to those of air vehicles. Or even gone beyond it:
the two of them were literally pelting down the corridor, and to
passers by their bodies would appear nothing more than two swift
blurs that zipped by.
Faster!
All other thoughts had
vaporised in Mantra’s mind, and the one thought of catching his
enemy blazed, erasing out all excuses … all bodily pains. He
summoned all the strength resting in his old bones and took an
enormous leap forward. He felt himself land over Redgarn, and the
two of them crashed to the ground, rolling over each other. The
crystal slipped off Redgarn’s grip and went bouncing feet away from
where they lay in a tangle.
Mantra ignited his sword and plunged it
towards the man beneath him.
Redgarn’s eyes blazed, and Mantra was thrown
off by a sudden invisible force. He hit the wall of the corridor
behind him and Redgarn jumped to the side, his hand reaching for
the crystak…
Mantra gave a wave of his hand, and the
crystal went skittering a few feet off the Xeni’s grasp. Redgarn
cast an angry glance at Mantra. Before he could leap for the
crystal again, Mantra ignited his blade and launched over him.
The two of them wrestled amidst the rumbling
and the blasts all over them. Their swords twirled at a wild speed,
clashing violently as the duo snarled and dodged, jabbed and
slashed at each other. Both aiming to kill … sparks burst all
around in the air, as their swords met again and again.
The plague crystal lay on the ground by their
right, waiting for one of them to strike the other down. Once and
for all.
“When we’re done here,” snarled Redgarn, as
the two of them broke from the duel and prowled around the room for
a brief second. “The only thing remaining of you and your senile
brotherhood will be ashes. Our eight thousand year battle has come
to an end. Today it ends.”
“The battle was always over, old friend.”
Laughed Mantra. “You won – eight thousand years back, when you
destroyed what
we
stood for. When you destroyed Sirengard
and its Kingline.”
“And now,” said Redgarn. “I’ll finish the
job. I’ll destroy you. All of you. Our conflict has flown off the
edges, and today – it returns down to earth.”
Mantra laughed as they continued to cross the
room in a circle, locked in a deep glare. “This battle will be
anything but down to earth, Redgarn.”
A long pause fell between them as Redgarn
considered his words. His lips parted in a grim smile. His voice
rumbling in a soft laugh, he said, “You are absolutely right. Let
me prove you so. Let’s take this battle,” He held his hand out
slowly, as though raising something invisible. “to the
skies
…”
A magnum shudder ripped apart the entire
place, as though of an earthquake. Mantra was knocked off his
feet.
__________
As Zardin prepared to send a furious jab at
Ion, it happened.
An untamed quaking seemed to erupt across the
entire temple: the walls, floor and ceiling rumbled angrily, and
the two of them were thrown off balance. Ion felt himself land
sideways on the wall by the right, his sword almost slipping from
his grasp.
What in the world’s happening?!
__________
As though hit by a volcanic quake, the entire
structure seemed to vibrate with menace. The Nyon temple’s very
mild grounding, and the anchors rigging it to the earth were
blasted off by a furious invisible force. The noise of the blast
left a loud roar to resonate across the vast green forest. The
shattered remains of the grounding went soaring around the temple
in a circle. And the temple itself, now quaking harder, slowly rose
off the ground…
The gigantic structure floated off the
ground, rising higher and higher … The structure’s outer covering
rippled in fury, and chunks of the temple’s outer walls were
sheared off, flying off to join the circle of debris soaring around
it.
The ancient structure rose higher and higher,
leaving the ground forever … climbing further and deeper into the
realm of the skies … hundred metres … two hundred metes … three
hundred … four hundred…
The temple’s outer walls were crushed at the
might of the invisible force wrapping around it. Crumpled in giant
chunks of debris, they came soaring off to join the flow of
circular wreckage around them…
Five hundred metres … Six hundred …
__________
Ion kept his hands tightly encased around the
pillar, his eyes streaming at the blast of the wind … which seemed
to come from almost all sides.
What the bloody hell’s happening?
His
feet having left the ground, his entire body was now hovering in
mid air, feet above the ground.
He kept his arms tightly closed around the
pillar in the hallway, the only anchor to keep him from flying off
at the insane blow of the wind. Whether or not his eyes were
deceiving him, he knew not – but when he looked out the window
nearby across the wall, he thought he saw the sky outside flowing
down … as though they were flying up. The temple seemed to be
soaring upwards into the sky. Across the hall, Zardin kept one hand
locked around another pillar, the raging wind having lifted him off
his feet as well. His face was fixed over Ion, the sword in his
free hand still blazing.
Ion felt something unravelling from the logic
of what was happening.
The temple’s rising into the sky!
He
thought, bewildered.
Is this for real?
__________
Vestra felt a heavy daze seize her, as she
looked out the shattered, broken walls beyond the room she was
in.
The temple’s flying?!
She blinked, the
movement making her eyes water in the force of the gushing
wind.
Her entire body lay pressed to the opposite
wall by the surge of the heavy wind, which seemed powerful enough
to rip the outer walls off. Her sword, now doused, lay clutched in
her right hand. Around her, plastered to the wall, were the
shattered remains of the robots she’d been fighting.
The passageway that she had been in was now
half torn apart at the other end, and the sky could be seen, clear
and blue, with the meanest tinge of red with the onsetting
dusk.
This can’t be happening!
Once more,
she felt a part of the panic swerve in direction, and she hoped
everything was all right with Qyro and Ion.
By the look of it, they were now progressing
higher and higher into the heavens… beyond the height of even the
tallest towers in some cities.
__________
Eight hundred metes …nine hundred metres…
The temple had zoomed up to a mile above the
ground, and it continued to soar up. Relentless. Unyielding.
__________
“You madman!” bellowed Mantra, clinging hard
to the side of the wall with one hand clutching the outpost on it.
“You’ve gone senile!”
“But you already knew that,” laughed Redgarn,
the force of the wind pressing him hard against the wall nearby.
His hair, tousled and wild, billowed about him, giving him a scary,
deranged look. “Now, let’s finish what we started … in style, shall
we?”
__________
One arm fastened tightly around the pillar,
Ion fended himself from Zardin’s maddening assault. Leaning from
the pillar next to him, his long black hair spinning wildly, the
Xeni unleashed a rapid torrent of strikes over Ion.
The repeated
clings
of their blades
meeting was drowned by the hysteria raging all over them: the wind
flooded the place, senseless and brutal. The walls and the ceiling
seemed to shake uncannily. The windows all lay smashed, and large
chunks of concrete were sheared off the walls and pillars around
them, leaving concrete and glass debris to fly around inside.
Squinting to shield his eyes from the wreckage soaring around, Ion
fought off the savage fury of the creature nearby him.
Zardin assailed him with a rain of strikes
and blows, his shining blade flying at the speed of light. Ion had
never imagined of facing such a scenario where his skill level was
forced to stretch beyond ordinary borders. Fending death off by
whiskers. Split second gaps. Keeping his mind concrete with focus,
he let his blade spin viciously, fighting off the storm of jabs,
strikes and slashes that Zardin sent at him, half smothering him.
The wreckage bellowing all over them seemed of no importance, for
the seat of all his attention was the sword that came flying at him
rapidly, aiming to tear him senseless.
The temple seemed to have climbed to the top
of the very sky, and the billowing wind was suddenly erased of all
warmth: the gush of the air was cold, frigid, and the rattling of
the walls and ceiling grew loftier. Now giant chunks were torn off
the walls and ceilings, succumbing to the wind’s violent wrath. The
broken debris and wall chunks went flying off out the temple,
joining what looked like a ring of wreckage swirling around the
temple.
__________
Two miles above the earth…
The Nyon temple, half wrecked, with a flood
of debris spinning around it, came to a halt at the very edge
separating sky and space. The chill of the air here bit into the
very building. The wind now sweeping through the structure turned
merciless, leaving large chunks of concrete to come sheared off
from all over.
Inside of it, the titanic clash between good
and evil had smashed past all boundaries … The Nyon and the Xeni
fought through the half demolished structure, half clinging to life
against the walls and ceiling all over them. The army brought by
the Xeni had now won intense domination over their rivals. The Nyon
was now fending off an inevitable doom inside of a half wrecked,
demolished structure.
The scales had now toppled towards the Xeni.
They raged over their long hated enemies, now pushing them to the
teetering edge of collapse…
__________